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 just wrote a blog entry about this (in fact I started a blog because I thought this was an interesting topic). I ended up using method swizzling so I can call the completion handler using any arguments I want without waiting, which seemed good for unit testing. Something like this:

- (void)swizzledGeocodeAddressString:(NSString *)addressString completionHandler:(CLGeocodeCompletionHandler)completionHandler
{
    completionHandler(nil, nil); //You can test various arguments for the handler here.
}

- (void)testGeocodeFlagsComplete
{
    //Swizzle the geocodeAddressString with our own method.
    Method originalMethod = class_getInstanceMethod([CLGeocoder class], @selector(geocodeAddressString:completionHandler:));
    Method swizzleMethod = class_getInstanceMethod([self class], @selector(swizzledGeocodeAddressString:completionHandler:));
    method_exchangeImplementations(originalMethod, swizzleMethod);

    MyGeocoder * myGeocoder = [[MyGeocoder alloc] init];
    [myGeocoder geocodeAddress]; //the completion handler is called synchronously in here.

    //Deswizzle the methods!
    method_exchangeImplementations(swizzleMethod, originalMethod);

    STAssertTrue(myGeocoder.geocoded, @"Should flag as geocoded when complete.");//You can test the completion handler code here. 
}

blog entry for anyone that cares.