Mock current time with Moment.js or Day.js

When writing unit tests for JavaScript code relying on Moment.js or Day.js (a lightweight alternative to the former, with pretty much the same API) to handle date-related shenanigans, one might find themselves in need to mock their library of choice when its main function is used with no parameters, to obtain a representation of current time.

The mock we actually need to set up in such a case is actually a partial one: we want it to act as a proxy for parameterized calls, passing them down to the original implementation, while returning a fixed value otherwise. Thankfully, Jest grants us the possibility to do so fairly easily:

jest.mock("dayjs", () => jest.fn((...args) => jest.requireActual("dayjs")(

  args.filter(arg => arg).length > 0 ? ...args : "1989-03-21"

)));

As you can see, the aforementioned original implementation is available from within jest.mock's scope through the use of jest.requireActual, allowing us to check if it was called with or without parameters, and pass a fixed value in the latter case.

Congratulations, you are now able to freeze time!