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React Testing Interview Questions & Answers 2026

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React Interview Questions & Answers

📖 Introduction

This comprehensive guide focuses on React Testing interview questions covering testing strategies and tools. Whether you're preparing for your first React.js interview or looking to refresh your knowledge, this resource provides detailed answers with code examples to help you succeed.

What you'll learn:

  • Jest: Testing framework setup and configuration
  • React Testing Library: Testing components from user perspective
  • Unit Testing: Testing individual components in isolation
  • Integration Testing: Testing component interactions
  • Mocking: Mocking dependencies and API calls
  • Best Practices: Writing maintainable and effective tests

Perfect for:

  • Developers preparing for React.js interviews focusing on testing
  • Frontend engineers looking to master React testing
  • Teams conducting React technical assessments
  • Anyone learning React testing and seeking comprehensive interview preparation

Keywords: React Testing interview questions, React JS interview questions, React.js interview questions, interview questions on react js Key Features:

  • 15+ React Testing interview questions with detailed explanations
  • Code examples for every concept
  • Updated for 2026 with latest React features
  • Covers all difficulty levels from beginner to advanced
  • Practical answers you can use in real interviews

React Testing

  1. How do you test React applications?

    Testing React applications can be done using Jest and React Testing Library. Jest serves as the testing framework while React Testing Library provides utilities for testing components similarly to user interactions.

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  2. What is React Testing Library and how is it used for testing React components?

    React Testing Library is a testing utility for React that helps test components in a way that resembles how users interact with the application. It provides functions to render components, interact with them, and assert on the rendered output.

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  3. How do you test React components using React Testing Library?

    To test React components using React Testing Library, you can:

    1. Render the component using render.
    2. Interact with the component (e.g., clicking buttons, entering text).
    3. Assert on the rendered output using queries like getByText, queryByRole, etc.
    import { render, screen, fireEvent } from "@testing-library/react"
    import MyComponent from "./MyComponent"
    
    test("renders component", () => {
      render(<MyComponent />)
      const button = screen.getByRole("button")
      fireEvent.click(button)
      expect(screen.getByText("Clicked!")).toBeInTheDocument()
    })
    

    In this example, the test renders MyComponent, clicks a button, and asserts that the text 'Clicked!' is present.

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  4. How do you test asynchronous code in React components?

    To test asynchronous code in React components, you can use async/await with waitFor from React Testing Library to handle asynchronous operations like data fetching or API calls.

    import { render, screen, waitFor } from "@testing-library/react"
    import MyComponent from "./MyComponent"
    
    test("fetches data and renders it", async () => {
      render(<MyComponent />)
      await waitFor(() => {
        expect(screen.getByText("Data loaded")).toBeInTheDocument()
      })
    })
    

    In this example, the test waits for the data to be loaded before asserting that the text 'Data loaded' is present.

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  5. How do you mock API calls in React component tests?

    To mock API calls in React component tests, you can use Jest's jest.mock to mock the API module and return mock data. This allows you to simulate API responses without making actual network requests.

    import { render, screen } from "@testing-library/react"
    
    jest.mock("./api", () => ({
      fetchData: jest.fn(() => Promise.resolve("mocked data")),
    }))
    
    import MyComponent from "./MyComponent"
    
    test("fetches data and renders it", async () => {
      render(<MyComponent />)
      expect(screen.getByText("Loading...")).toBeInTheDocument()
      expect(await screen.findByText("mocked data")).toBeInTheDocument()
    })
    

    In this example, the fetchData function from the api module is mocked to return 'mocked data' for testing purposes.

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  6. How do you test React hooks and custom hooks?

    To test React hooks (both built-in and custom), you can use the renderHook function from @testing-library/react to render the hook and test its behavior. The renderHook API was moved from @testing-library/react-hooks to the main @testing-library/react package in recent versions.

    import { renderHook, act } from "@testing-library/react"
    import useCounter from "./useCounter"
    
    test("increments counter", () => {
      const { result } = renderHook(() => useCounter())
    
      act(() => {
        result.current.increment()
      })
    
      expect(result.current.count).toBe(1)
    })
    

    Key points:

    • Use renderHook to test hooks in isolation
    • Wrap state updates in act() to ensure React processes them
    • Test both built-in hooks (useState, useEffect) and custom hooks
    • Verify hook return values and side effects

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  7. What is Snapshot Testing in React?

    Snapshot Testing in React is a testing technique that captures the rendered output of a component and saves it as a snapshot. Subsequent test runs compare the current output with the saved snapshot to detect any unexpected changes. If the output differs from the snapshot, the test fails, indicating that the component's output has changed.

    import React from "react"
    import renderer from "react-test-renderer"
    import MyComponent from "./MyComponent"
    
    test("renders correctly", () => {
      const tree = renderer.create(<MyComponent />).toJSON()
      expect(tree).toMatchSnapshot()
    })
    

    In this example, the renderer.create function renders the MyComponent and converts it to a JSON tree. The toMatchSnapshot function saves the snapshot of the component's output. Subsequent test runs compare the current output with the saved snapshot, ensuring the component's output remains consistent.

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  8. How do you test React components that use context?

    To test React components that use context, you can wrap the component in a context provider with the desired context values for testing. This allows you to simulate the context values and test the component's behavior based on those values.

    import { render } from "@testing-library/react"
    import { MyContextProvider } from "./MyContextProvider"
    import MyComponent from "./MyComponent"
    
    test("renders correctly with context", () => {
      const { getByText } = render(
        <MyContextProvider value="test value">
          <MyComponent />
        </MyContextProvider>
      )
      expect(getByText("test value")).toBeInTheDocument()
    })
    

    In this example, the MyComponent is wrapped in a MyContextProvider with a specific context value for testing. The test verifies that the component renders correctly with the provided context value.

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  9. How do you test React components that use Redux?

    To test React components that use Redux, you can use the redux-mock-store library to create a mock store with the desired state for testing. This allows you to simulate the Redux store and test the component's behavior based on the state.

    import { render } from "@testing-library/react"
    import configureStore from "redux-mock-store"
    import { Provider } from "react-redux"
    import MyComponent from "./MyComponent"
    
    const mockStore = configureStore([])
    
    test("renders correctly with Redux state", () => {
      const store = mockStore({ counter: 0 })
      const { getByText } = render(
        <Provider store={store}>
          <MyComponent />
        </Provider>
      )
      expect(getByText("Counter: 0")).toBeInTheDocument()
    })
    

    In this example, the MyComponent is wrapped in a Provider with a mock Redux store containing the initial state { counter: 0 } for testing. The test verifies that the component renders correctly with the provided Redux state.

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  10. What are the key differences between shallow rendering and full DOM rendering in React tests?

    Shallow Rendering:

    • Renders only the component being tested, without rendering its child components
    • Useful for isolated unit testing
    • Faster execution since it doesn't render child components
    • Can be done using ShallowRenderer from react-test-renderer/shallow
    • Note: Shallow rendering is less commonly used in modern React testing. React Testing Library encourages full rendering to test components as users interact with them.

    Full DOM Rendering:

    • Mounts the entire component tree, including children
    • Provides a complete DOM structure
    • Ideal for integration tests
    • Used by React Testing Library's render() function
    • Better reflects how components work in real applications
    import { render, screen } from '@testing-library/react';
    import MyComponent from './MyComponent';
    
    test('renders component with children', () => {
      render(<MyComponent />);
      expect(screen.getByText('Title')).toBeInTheDocument();
      expect(screen.getByText('Description')).toBeInTheDocument();
    });
    

    Modern best practice: Prefer full DOM rendering with React Testing Library over shallow rendering, as it tests components more realistically.

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  11. What is TestRenderer package in React?

    This package provides a renderer that can be used to render components to pure JavaScript objects, without depending on the DOM or a native mobile environment. This package makes it easy to grab a snapshot of the platform view hierarchy (similar to a DOM tree) rendered by a ReactDOM or React Native without using a browser or jsdom.

    import TestRenderer from "react-test-renderer";
    
    const Link = ({ page, children }) => <a href={page}>{children}</a>;
    
    const testRenderer = TestRenderer.create(
      <Link page={"https://www.facebook.com/"}>{"Facebook"}</Link>
    );
    
    console.log(testRenderer.toJSON());
    // {
    //   type: 'a',
    //   props: { href: 'https://www.facebook.com/' },
    //   children: [ 'Facebook' ]
    // }
    

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  1. What is the purpose of ReactTestUtils package?

    ReactTestUtils are provided in the with-addons package and allow you to perform actions against a simulated DOM for the purpose of unit testing.

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  1. What is Jest?

    Jest is a JavaScript unit testing framework created by Facebook based on Jasmine and provides automated mock creation and a jsdom environment. It's often used for testing components.

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  1. What are the advantages of Jest over Jasmine?

    There are couple of advantages compared to Jasmine:

    • Automatically finds tests to execute in your source code.
    • Automatically mocks dependencies when running your tests.
    • Allows you to test asynchronous code synchronously.
    • Runs your tests with a fake DOM implementation (via jsdom) so that your tests can be run on the command line.
    • Runs tests in parallel processes so that they finish sooner.

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📖

Complete React Interview Guide

Master all aspects of React development

This article is part of our comprehensive React JS interview questions series covering all aspects of React development. Explore all topics:

  1. Give a simple example of Jest test case

    Let's write a test for a function that adds two numbers in sum.js file:

    const sum = (a, b) => a + b
    
    export default sum
    

    Create a file named sum.test.js which contains actual test:

    import sum from "./sum"
    
    test("adds 1 + 2 to equal 3", () => {
      expect(sum(1, 2)).toBe(3)
    })
    

    And then add the following section to your package.json:

    {
      "scripts": {
        "test": "jest"
      }
    }
    

    Finally, run yarn test or npm test and Jest will print a result:

    $ yarn test
    PASS ./sum.test.js
    ✓ adds 1 + 2 to equal 3 (2ms)