RestKit/Docs/TESTING.md

RestKit Spec Environment

RestKit ships with a testing infrastructure built around UISpec and an associated Ruby Gem called UISpecRunner. To be able to run the tests, you need to do a little bit of setup:

1. Initialize the UISpec submodule: git submodule init && git submodule update
2. Install the Ruby Bundler Gem (if necessary): sudo gem install bundler
3. Install the other required Gems via Bundler: bundle
4. Start the spec server: rake uispec:server
5. Verify the configuration by running the specs: uispec -v

If the project builds the UISpec target correctly and executes the suite, then you are all set. If there are any issues, you may need to reach out to the mailing list for help debugging.

Once your spec environment has been configured and set up, you can run the entire suite by executing rake or uispec.

Running Specs

UISpecRunner is both a library and a general purpose CLI runner. The library works by plugging into the application and executing specs as configured by some environment variables.

You can use the uispec executable to target and run specific specs or grouping of specs (i.e. unit, functional, integration):

• Run all specs: uispec
• Run a specific spec class: uispec -s RKClientSpec
• Run a specific spec example: uispec -s RKClientSpec -e itShouldDetectNetworkStatusWithAHostname
• Run all specs conforming to a protocol: uispec -p UISpecUnit

Common spec groupings (i.e. Units and Integration) are configured for execution via the Rakefile. Execute rake -T for a full listing of the pre-configured spec groups available.

Writing Specs

RestKit specs are divided into two portions. There are pure unit tests, which only require the test harness to be configured and there are integration tests that test the full request/response life-cycle. In general, testing RestKit is very straight-forward. There are only a few items to keep in mind:

1. Specs are implemented in Objective-C and run inside the Simulator or on the Device.

2. Spec files live in sub-directories under Specs/ appropriate to the layer the code under test belongs to

3. UISpec executes Specs via categories. Adding the UISpec category to your spec class definition will cause it to be picked up and executed.

4. Specs begin with "it" and should be camel-cased descriptive. i.e. itShouldConsiderA200ResponseSuccessful

5. UISpec expectations are implemented via the expectThat macro:

    [expectThat([someObject someMethod]) should:be(YES)];
   

   There is a corresponding shouldNot method available as well.

6. The RKSpecEnvironment.h header includes a number of helpers.

7. OCMock is available for mock objects support. See http://www.mulle-kybernetik.com/software/OCMock/ for details

Writing Integration Tests

RestKit ships with a Sinatra powered specs server for testing portions of the codebase that require interaction with a web service. Sinatra is a simple Ruby DSL for defining web server. See the Sinatra homepage for more details.

The specs server is built as a set of modular Sinatra application in the Specs/Server subdirectory of the RestKit distribution. When you are adding new integration test coverage to the library, you will need to create a new Sinatra application to serve your needs. By convention, these are namespaced by functional unit for simplicity. For example, if we are adding a new cacheing component to the application and want to test the functionality, we would:

1. Create a new file at Server/lib/restkit/network/cacheing.rb

2. Create a namespaced Ruby class inheriting from Sinatra::Base to suit our purposes:

    module RestKit
      module Network
        class Cacheing < Sinatra::Base
          get '/cacheing/index' do
            "OK"
          end
        end
      end
    end
   

3. Open restkit.rb and add a require for the cacheing server:

    require 'restkit/network/cacheing'
   

4. Open server.rb and add a use directive to the main spec server to import our module:

    class RestKit::SpecServer < Sinatra::Base
      self.app_file = __FILE__
      use RestKit::Network::Authentication
      use RestKit::Network::Cacheing
   

You now have a functional server-side component to work with. Consult the Sinatra documentation for example on setting response headers, MIME types, etc. It's all very simple and low ceremony.

You can now switch to the RestKit sources and look the in Specs directory. Keeping with the cacheing example, we would create a new RKCacheingSpec.m file and pull in RKSpecEnvironment.h. From there we can utilize RKSpecResponseLoader to asynchronously test the entire request/response cycle. The response loader essentially spins the run-loop to allow background processing to execute and simulate a blocking API. The response, objects, or errors generated by processing the response are made available via properties on the RKSpecResponseLoader object.

Let's take a look at an example of how to use the response loader to test some functionality:

 - (void)itShouldFailAuthenticationWithInvalidCredentialsForHTTPAuthBasic {
    RKSpecResponseLoader* loader = [RKSpecResponseLoader responseLoader];
    RKClient* client = [RKClient clientWithBaseURL:RKSpecGetBaseURL()];
    client.username = RKAuthenticationSpecUsername;
    client.password = @"INVALID";
    [client get:@"/authentication/basic" delegate:loader];
    [loader waitForResponse];
    [expectThat([loader.response isOK]) should:be(NO)]; 
    [expectThat([loader.response statusCode]) should:be(0)];
    [expectThat([loader.failureError code]) should:be(NSURLErrorUserCancelledAuthentication)];
  }

That's really all there is to it. Consult the existing test code in Specs/ for reference.

Happy Testing!