confusedvorlon / hstestingbackchannel

Send notifications directly from your UITesting classes to your running app.

Backchannel for UITesting.

Snapshot is awesome.

Now it uses UI Testing.

UI Testing is massively better than UI Automation - but sometimes, you just want to cheat.

HSTestingBackchannel gives you a simple method to send messages from your UITesting tests directly to your running app in the form of notifications.

Installation

Install with CocoaPods

pod 'HSTestingBackchannel', :configuration => 'Debug'

# Dependency of HSTestingBackchannel - include this line to install it only in debug
pod 'GCDWebServer', :configuration => 'Debug'

Usage

1. In your App Delegate, install the helper

#if DEBUG
    import HSTestingBackchannel
#endif

And then, in application(_:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:):

#if DEBUG
    HSTestingBackchannel.installReceiver()
#endif

2. Send notifications from your UITesting class

HSTestingBackchannel.sendNotification("SnapshotTest")

or

HSTestingBackchannel.sendNotification("SnapshotTest", with: ["aKey": "aValue"])

3. Respond to notifications within your app

#if DEBUG
    NotificationCenter.default.addObserver(
        forName: NSNotification.Name("SnapshotTest"),
        object: nil,
        queue: .main) { _ in
            // Do Something
    }) 
#endif

Bonus - Copy dummy files to the Simulator

Within a test method (or in setUp), call something like

HSTestingBackchannel.installFiles(from: "..pathTo/fastlane/DummyImages",
                                    to: HSTestingResources)

This will install the contents of DummyImages in the resources folder of your running app. You can also install directly to the Documents directory in the app.

Multiple Simultaneous Simulators

By default, Fastlane now runs multiple simulators simultaneously. This means you need to make sure that the server for each simulator is running on a different test.

Use the setup method to do the following

let app = XCUIApplication()

HSTestingBackchannel.port = UInt.random(in: 8000...60000)
app.launchArguments.append(
    contentsOf: ["-HSTestingBackchannelPort", "\(HSTestingBackchannel.port)"])

Snapshot.setupSnapshot(app, waitForAnimations: true)

app.launch()

How it works

HSTestingBackchannel installs a web server in your main app (GCDWebServer).

You simply send requests directly to that - and it recognises them and broadcasts NSNotifications

hstestingbackchannel's Issues

Xcode 9 concurrent_simulators

With Xcode 9, snapshot can run multiple simulators concurrently (concurrent_simulators).
But when this is enabled (as it is by default), HSTestingBackchannel sends its notifications only to one simulator, all others don't receive anything.

Detect UI Testing mode at compilation time in Swift

Is there a way to detect UI Testing mode at compilation time in Swift App Delegate?

I have successfully used HSTestingBackchannel in Swift with a bridging header and by detecting it at run time.

In XCTestCase subclass:

let app = XCUIApplication()
app.launchArguments = ["-testMode"]
app.launch()

In App Delegate:

if CommandLine.arguments.contains("-testMode")
{
    HSTestingBackchannel.installReceiver()
}

But it appears that the app is run in the Release configuration, so I can't set a preprocessor macro to distinguish it from a real release. In the scheme, Test is set to Debug, but that seems to apply to the XCTestCase code, not the app itself when launched in UI Testing mode.

I fear that importing HSTestingBackchannel in a release configuration will be detected and rejected by Apple at app review.

Question - 2 way communication

Is it possible to send a message back from the app to the UI test target? Currently I'm successfully doing messaging from the UI to the app but would love to do the other way around as well....

Latest podspec not on CocoaPods

Hi,

I tried using this repo with Snapshot and found out my tests were freezing because of the flag for port numbers. This was fixed in version 1.3.0, but CocoaPods is still hosting 1.2.2. I fixed it by cloning the repo and using a :path specifier in my Podfile. Maybe I was doing something wrong, but if not could you please publish version 1.3.0 on CocoaPods?

-Chris

README could suggest using pod scoped to a configuration

You could recommend that the pod be installed this way:

pod 'HSTestingBackchannel', :configuration => ['Debug']

Consider Documentation for installFilesFrom

Correct me if I'm wrong, but files should be in the target's "Copy Bundle Resources" and then they're accessible via:

        let bundle = NSBundle(forClass: self.dynamicType)
        let path = bundle.resourcePath! + "/" + AppConstants.UITesting.DemoCSVFilename
        XCTAssertTrue(NSFileManager.defaultManager().fileExistsAtPath(path))
        HSTestingBackchannel.installFilesFrom(path, to: HSTestingDocuments)

Crash in installReceiver()

Consistently crashes when initializing HSTestingBackchannel. The web server is being deallocated when the HSTestingBackchannel initializer returns.

Podspec should scope GCDWebServer to debug configurations only

Setting :configuration => ['Debug'] in my Podfile for HSTestingBackchannel still installs the dependency GCDWebServer in release builds.

According to the Cocoapods documentation, you should also be able to scope GCDWebServer to debug builds like so:
s.dependency 'GCDWebServer', :configurations => ['Debug']