Tests for custom UITableViewCell, cellForRowAtIndexPath crashes with nil outlets

Question

I have a ViewController that contains a tableView. Since I need to keep the code well covered with tests, I need to write a test for [tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath]

Answer 1

There are two separate concepts, the tableView and the dataSource. TableView is just a view, and has cells which are views as well. DataSource is the data provider of the tableView, and the only component responsible for data. In your test example, you call a tableView.cellForRowAtIndexPath function in order to get a cell, in a specific indexPath. Based on official docs, this function will return nil if the cell is not visible. So this function should be used, only when you know that the table is visible. In your example, you are trying to test that your table will load data properly. When referring to data, data source is the first thing that should come to your mind. So you need to test that the dataSource will bind the correct information to your cells. As a result you call controller.tableView.dataSource(controller.tableView, cellForRowAt: IndexPath(row: 0, section: 0)))