How to unit test asynchronous APIs?

Question

I have installed Google Toolbox for Mac into Xcode and followed the instructions to set up unit testing found here.

It all works great, and I can test my synchronous

Answer 1

I wrote a little helper that makes it easy to test asynchronous API. First the helper:

static inline void hxRunInMainLoop(void(^block)(BOOL *done)) {
    __block BOOL done = NO;
    block(&done);
    while (!done) {
        [[NSRunLoop mainRunLoop] runUntilDate:
            [NSDate dateWithTimeIntervalSinceNow:.1]];
    }
}

You can use it like this:

hxRunInMainLoop(^(BOOL *done) {
    [MyAsyncThingWithBlock block:^() {
        /* Your test conditions */
        *done = YES;
    }];
});

It will only continue if done becomes TRUE, so make sure to set it once completed. Of course you could add a timeout to the helper if you like,