Test utilities for kotlinx.coroutines
.
This package provides testing utilities for effectively testing coroutines.
Add kotlinx-coroutines-test
to your project test dependencies:
dependencies {
testImplementation 'org.jetbrains.kotlinx:kotlinx-coroutines-test:1.3.0'
}
Do not depend on this project in your main sources, all utilities are intended and designed to be used only from tests.
Dispatchers.setMain
will override the Main
dispatcher in test situations. This is helpful when you want to execute a
test in situations where the platform Main
dispatcher is not available, or you wish to replace Dispatchers.Main
with a
testing dispatcher.
Once you have this dependency in the runtime,
ServiceLoader
mechanism will overwrite
Dispatchers.Main with a testable implementation.
You can override the Main
implementation using setMain method with any CoroutineDispatcher implementation, e.g.:
class SomeTest {
private val mainThreadSurrogate = newSingleThreadContext("UI thread")
@Before
fun setUp() {
Dispatchers.setMain(mainThreadSurrogate)
}
@After
fun tearDown() {
Dispatchers.resetMain() // reset main dispatcher to the original Main dispatcher
mainThreadSurrogate.close()
}
@Test
fun testSomeUI() = runBlocking {
launch(Dispatchers.Main) { // Will be launched in the mainThreadSurrogate dispatcher
// ...
}
}
}
Calling setMain
or resetMain
immediately changes the Main
dispatcher globally. The testable version of
Dispatchers.Main
installed by the ServiceLoader
will delegate to the dispatcher provided by setMain
.
To test regular suspend functions or coroutines started with launch
or async
use the runBlockingTest coroutine
builder that provides extra test control to coroutines.
- Auto-advancing of time for regular suspend functions
- Explicit time control for testing multiple coroutines
- Eager execution of
launch
orasync
code blocks - Pause, manually advance, and restart the execution of coroutines in a test
- Report uncaught exceptions as test failures
To test regular suspend functions, which may have a delay, you can use the runBlockingTest builder to start a testing
coroutine. Any calls to delay
will automatically advance virtual time by the amount delayed.
@Test
fun testFoo() = runBlockingTest { // a coroutine with an extra test control
val actual = foo()
// ...
}
suspend fun foo() {
delay(1_000) // auto-advances virtual time by 1_000ms due to runBlockingTest
// ...
}
runBlockingTest
returns Unit
so it may be used in a single expression with common testing libraries.
Inside of runBlockingTest, both launch and async will start a new coroutine that may run concurrently with the test case.
To make common testing situations easier, by default the body of the coroutine is executed eagerly until the first call to delay or yield.
@Test
fun testFooWithLaunch() = runBlockingTest {
foo()
// the coroutine launched by foo() is completed before foo() returns
// ...
}
fun CoroutineScope.foo() {
// This coroutines `Job` is not shared with the test code
launch {
bar() // executes eagerly when foo() is called due to runBlockingTest
println(1) // executes eagerly when foo() is called due to runBlockingTest
}
}
suspend fun bar() {}
runBlockingTest
will auto-progress virtual time until all coroutines are completed before returning. If any coroutines
are not able to complete, an UncompletedCoroutinesError will be thrown.
Note: The default eager behavior of runBlockingTest will ignore CoroutineStart parameters.
If the coroutine created by launch
or async
calls delay
then the runBlockingTest will not auto-progress time
right away. This allows tests to observe the interaction of multiple coroutines with different delays.
To control time in the test you can use the DelayController interface. The block passed to
runBlockingTest can call any method on the DelayController
interface.
@Test
fun testFooWithLaunchAndDelay() = runBlockingTest {
foo()
// the coroutine launched by foo has not completed here, it is suspended waiting for delay(1_000)
advanceTimeBy(1_000) // progress time, this will cause the delay to resume
// the coroutine launched by foo has completed here
// ...
}
suspend fun CoroutineScope.foo() {
launch {
println(1) // executes eagerly when foo() is called due to runBlockingTest
delay(1_000) // suspends until time is advanced by at least 1_000
println(2) // executes after advanceTimeBy(1_000)
}
}
Note: runBlockingTest
will always attempt to auto-progress time until all coroutines are completed just before
exiting. This is a convenience to avoid having to call advanceUntilIdle
as the last line of many common test cases.
If any coroutines cannot complete by advancing time, an UncompletedCoroutinesError is thrown.
Time control can be used to test timeout code. To do so, ensure that the function under test is suspended inside a
withTimeout
block and advance time until the timeout is triggered.
Depending on the code, causing the code to suspend may need to use different mocking or fake techniques. For this
example an uncompleted Deferred<Foo>
is provided to the function under test via parameter injection.
@Test(expected = TimeoutCancellationException::class)
fun testFooWithTimeout() = runBlockingTest {
val uncompleted = CompletableDeferred<Foo>() // this Deferred<Foo> will never complete
foo(uncompleted)
advanceTimeBy(1_000) // advance time, which will cause the timeout to throw an exception
// ...
}
fun CoroutineScope.foo(resultDeferred: Deferred<Foo>) {
launch {
withTimeout(1_000) {
resultDeferred.await() // await() will suspend forever waiting for uncompleted
// ...
}
}
}
Note: Testing timeouts is simpler with a second coroutine that can be suspended (as in this example). If the
call to withTimeout
is in a regular suspend function, consider calling launch
or async
inside your test body to
create a second coroutine.
The eager execution of launch
and async
bodies makes many tests easier, but some tests need more fine grained
control of coroutine execution.
To disable eager execution, you can call pauseDispatcher to pause the TestCoroutineDispatcher that runBlockingTest uses.
When the dispatcher is paused, all coroutines will be added to a queue instead running. In addition, time will never
auto-progress due to delay
on a paused dispatcher.
@Test
fun testFooWithPauseDispatcher() = runBlockingTest {
pauseDispatcher {
foo()
// the coroutine started by foo has not run yet
runCurrent() // the coroutine started by foo advances to delay(1_000)
// the coroutine started by foo has called println(1), and is suspended on delay(1_000)
advanceTimeBy(1_000) // progress time, this will cause the delay to resume
// the coroutine started by foo has called println(2) and has completed here
}
// ...
}
fun CoroutineScope.foo() {
launch {
println(1) // executes after runCurrent() is called
delay(1_000) // suspends until time is advanced by at least 1_000
println(2) // executes after advanceTimeBy(1_000)
}
}
Using pauseDispatcher
gives tests explicit control over the progress of time as well as the ability to enqueue all
coroutines. As a best practice consider adding two tests, one paused and one eager, to test coroutines that have
non-trivial external dependencies and side effects in their launch body.
Important: When passed a lambda block, pauseDispatcher
will resume eager execution immediately after the block.
This will cause time to auto-progress if there are any outstanding delay
calls that were not resolved before the
pauseDispatcher
block returned. In advanced situations tests can call pauseDispatcher
without a lambda block and then explicitly resume the dispatcher with resumeDispatcher.
Code that uses structured concurrency needs a CoroutineScope in order to launch a coroutine. In order to integrate runBlockingTest with code that uses common structured concurrency patterns tests can provide one (or both) of these classes to application code.
Name | Description |
---|---|
TestCoroutineScope | A CoroutineScope which provides detailed control over the execution of coroutines for tests and integrates with runBlockingTest. |
TestCoroutineDispatcher | A CoroutineDispatcher which can be used for tests and integrates with runBlockingTest. |
Both classes are provided to allow for various testing needs. Depending on the code that's being tested, it may be easier to provide a TestCoroutineDispatcher. For example Dispatchers.setMain will accept a TestCoroutineDispatcher but not a TestCoroutineScope.
TestCoroutineScope will always use a TestCoroutineDispatcher to execute coroutines. It also uses TestCoroutineExceptionHandler to convert uncaught exceptions into test failures.
By providing TestCoroutineScope a test case is able to control execution of coroutines, as well as ensure that uncaught exceptions thrown by coroutines are converted into test failures.
In simple cases, tests can use the TestCoroutineScope created by runBlockingTest directly.
@Test
fun testFoo() = runBlockingTest {
foo() // runBlockingTest passed in a TestCoroutineScope as this
}
fun CoroutineScope.foo() {
launch { // CoroutineScope for launch is the TestCoroutineScope provided by runBlockingTest
// ...
}
}
This style is preferred when the CoroutineScope
is passed through an extension function style.
In many cases, the direct style is not preferred because CoroutineScope may need to be provided through another means such as dependency injection or service locators.
Tests can declare a TestCoroutineScope explicitly in the class to support these use cases.
Since TestCoroutineScope is stateful in order to keep track of executing coroutines and uncaught exceptions, it is important to ensure that cleanupTestCoroutines is called after every test case.
class TestClass {
private val testScope = TestCoroutineScope()
private lateinit var subject: Subject = null
@Before
fun setup() {
// provide the scope explicitly, in this example using a constructor parameter
subject = Subject(testScope)
}
@After
fun cleanUp() {
testScope.cleanupTestCoroutines()
}
@Test
fun testFoo() = testScope.runBlockingTest {
// TestCoroutineScope.runBlockingTest uses the Dispatcher and exception handler provided by `testScope`
subject.foo()
}
}
class Subject(val scope: CoroutineScope) {
fun foo() {
scope.launch {
// launch uses the testScope injected in setup
}
}
}
Note: TestCoroutineScope, TestCoroutineDispatcher, and TestCoroutineExceptionHandler are interfaces to enable
test libraries to provide library specific integrations. For example, a JUnit4 @Rule
may call
Dispatchers.setMain then expose TestCoroutineScope for use in tests.
While providing a TestCoroutineScope is slightly preferred due to the improved uncaught exception handling, there are many situations where it is easier to provide a TestCoroutineDispatcher. For example Dispatchers.setMain does not accept a TestCoroutineScope and requires a TestCoroutineDispatcher to control coroutine execution in tests.
The main difference between TestCoroutineScope
and TestCoroutineDispatcher
is how uncaught exceptions are handled.
When using TestCoroutineDispatcher
uncaught exceptions thrown in coroutines will use regular
coroutine exception handling.
TestCoroutineScope
will always use TestCoroutineDispatcher
as it's dispatcher.
A test can use a TestCoroutineDispatcher
without declaring an explicit TestCoroutineScope
. This is preferred
when the class under test allows a test to provide a CoroutineDispatcher but does not allow the test to provide a
CoroutineScope.
Since TestCoroutineDispatcher is stateful in order to keep track of executing coroutines, it is important to ensure that cleanupTestCoroutines is called after every test case.
class TestClass {
private val testDispatcher = TestCoroutineDispatcher()
@Before
fun setup() {
// provide the scope explicitly, in this example using a constructor parameter
Dispatchers.setMain(testDispatcher)
}
@After
fun cleanUp() {
Dispatchers.resetMain()
testDispatcher.cleanupTestCoroutines()
}
@Test
fun testFoo() = testDispatcher.runBlockingTest {
// TestCoroutineDispatcher.runBlockingTest uses `testDispatcher` to run coroutines
foo()
}
}
fun foo() {
MainScope().launch {
// launch will use the testDispatcher provided by setMain
}
}
Note: Prefer to provide TestCoroutineScope
when it does not complicate code since it will also elevate exceptions
to test failures. However, exposing a CoroutineScope
to callers of a function may lead to complicated code, in which
case this is the preferred pattern.
It is supported to use both TestCoroutineScope and TestCoroutineDispatcher without using the runBlockingTest
builder. Tests may need to do this in situations such as introducing multiple dispatchers and library writers may do
this to provide alternatives to runBlockingTest
.
@Test
fun testFooWithAutoProgress() {
val scope = TestCoroutineScope()
scope.foo()
// foo is suspended waiting for time to progress
scope.advanceUntilIdle()
// foo's coroutine will be completed before here
}
fun CoroutineScope.foo() {
launch {
println(1) // executes eagerly when foo() is called due to TestCoroutineScope
delay(1_000) // suspends until time is advanced by at least 1_000
println(2) // executes after advanceTimeUntilIdle
}
}
Calls to withContext(Dispatchers.IO)
or withContext(Dispatchers.Default)
are common in coroutines based codebases.
Both dispatchers are not designed to interact with TestCoroutineDispatcher
.
Tests should provide a TestCoroutineDispatcher
to replace these dispatchers if the withContext
calls delay
in the
function under test. For example, a test that calls veryExpensiveOne
should provide a TestCoroutineDispatcher
using
either dependency injection, a service locator, or a default parameter.
suspend fun veryExpensiveOne() = withContext(Dispatchers.Default) {
delay(1_000)
1 // for very expensive values of 1
}
In situations where the code inside the withContext
is very simple, it is not as important to provide a test
dispatcher. The function veryExpensiveTwo
will behave identically in a TestCoroutineDispatcher
and
Dispatchers.Default
after the thread switch for Dispatchers.Default
. Because withContext
always returns a value by
directly, there is no need to inject a TestCoroutineDispatcher
into this function.
suspend fun veryExpensiveTwo() = withContext(Dispatchers.Default) {
2 // for very expensive values of 2
}
Tests should provide a TestCoroutineDispatcher
to code that calls withContext
to provide time control for
delays, or when execution control is needed to test complex logic.
This API is experimental and it is may change before migrating out of experimental (while it is marked as
@ExperimentalCoroutinesApi
).
Changes during experimental may have deprecation applied when possible, but it is not
advised to use the API in stable code before it leaves experimental due to possible breaking changes.
If you have any suggestions for improvements to this experimental API please share them them on the issue tracker.