Polling with $timeout prevents scenario step from completing

[karlgoldstein]

If you use $timeout to perform any operation on a set interval in your application, then the 'browseTo' step never completes.

Minimal demonstration here:

http://plnkr.co/edit/iW3dHM?p=preview

Note that the test application is not hung in the scenario runner iframe, it's just that browseTo never completes.

Problem seems to be with the way that the scenario runner tries to make sure that all async operations are complete before advancing to the next step. outstandingRequestCount never decrements to zero because the $timeout callback reschedules itself.

[pa3zo6]

+1
Any workaround?

[karlgoldstein]

My workaround was to create an 'interval' service that I can disable using a query parameter when the application loads:

module = angular.module 'fl.interval', ['fl.env']

module.service 'interval', ['$timeout', 'environment', ($timeout, environment) ->

  tasks = []

  poll = ->
    for task in tasks
      elapsed = Math.ceil(Date.now() / 1000) - task.start
      if elapsed > 0 && elapsed % task.seconds == 0
        task.job()
    $timeout poll, 1000
    return null

  poll() if environment.interactive

  schedule: (job, seconds) ->
    tasks.push
      job: job
      seconds: seconds
      start: Math.ceil(Date.now() / 1000)
]

It's actually kind of nice to have this wrapped in a service, instead of having the polling setup mixed in with other code.

'environment' is just a 'constant' (in angular terms) that I have for global config. I do this in a run block at startup:

interactive = $location.search().interactive
environment.interactive = false if interactive == 'false'

when I call browseTo to start a scenario, I add ?interactive=false to the path

[lucassus]

@pa3zo6 you could find some ideas in this commit lucassus/angular-coffee-seed@445f55c

[petebacondarwin]

Should be fixed by $interval service