mzulch is right to point out that services cannot be injected in an angular.module(...).config block. He also provides the right solution for the scenario where you actually need to use services in module initialization code: use the .run block instead of the .config block. His answer works perfectly for this scenario.
The question of how to write a unit test for the .config block remains. Let's adapt the naieve code from my question to a scenario where .config is actually warranted. The following snippet injects a provider dependency instead of a service dependency:
angular.module('myModule', []).config(['$httpProvider', function($httpProvider) {
$httpProvider.useApplyAsync(true);
}]);
describe('myModule', function() {
it('configures the $http service to combine response processing via $applyAsync', inject(function($httpProvider) {
angular.module('myModule');
expect($httpProvider.useApplyAsync()).toBeTruthy();
}));
});
This time, the implementation of 'myModule' is correct. The unit test however, which is analogous to the attempt in my question, is still incorrect. Now Karma gives me the following error:
Error: [$injector:unpr] Unknown provider: $httpProviderProvider <- $httpProvider
This cryptical error is coming from the inject which is passed as the second argument to the it. Note how Provider is being stuttered. This is caused by the fact that inject is looking for the provider for $httpProvider. A "meta provider", as we may call it. Such things don't exist in the Angular framework, but inject is trying it anyway because it expects you to only ask for service dependencies. Services do have providers, for example, $http has $httpProvider.
So inject (full name: angular.mock.inject, here available globally) is not the right way to get hold of $httpProvider in the testcase. The right way is to define an anonymous module configuration function using module (angular.mock.module) which closes over a variable in which we can capture the provider. This works because providers can be injected at configuration time (see the link at the bottom of mzulch's answer as well as my own answer to my other question for details on configuration time vs run time). It looks like this:
var $httpProvider;
beforeEach(function() {
module(function(_$httpProvider_) {
// this is a .config function
$httpProvider = _$httpProvider_;
});
// after this I can use inject() to make the magic happen
});
Another mistake in my naieve testcase is that I'm trying to execute 'myModule's configuration steps by calling angular.module('myModule'). For testcase purposes, I should be using the global module (angular.mock.module) instead, and the wisest place to do so is in the beforeEach fixture. In conclusion, the following code does the job:
describe('myModule', function() {
var $httpProvider;
beforeEach(function() {
module(function(_$httpProvider_) {
$httpProvider = _$httpProvider_;
});
module('myModule');
});
it('configures the $http service to combine response processing via $applyAsync', function() {
inject(); // enforces all the module config steps
expect($httpProvider.useApplyAsync()).toBeTruthy();
});
});
I opted to put the inject() at the start of my testcase, but I could also put it at the end of the beforeEach. The advantage of the latter approach would be that I can write the call to inject in one place and not need to repeat it in every testcase. The advantage of the approach actually taken here is that more modules can be added to the injector in later beforeEaches or even in individual testcases.
I pushed this alternative solution to a new branch on GitHub.
configblocks, (3) why you can't have both at the same time. – Inpatient$httpinconfigblock is a conundrum. – Lionhearted