|
| 1 | +--- |
| 2 | +title: "Unit Testing" |
| 3 | +--- |
| 4 | + |
| 5 | +The purpose of this page is to give advice on how to write useful unit tests in |
| 6 | +asynchronous applications. |
| 7 | + |
| 8 | +## Pausing and resuming time in tests |
| 9 | + |
| 10 | +Sometimes, asynchronous code explicitly waits by calling [`tokio::time::sleep`] |
| 11 | +or waiting on a [`tokio::time::Interval::tick`]. Testing behaviour based on |
| 12 | +time (for example, an exponential backoff) can get cumbersome when the unit |
| 13 | +test starts running very slowly. However, internally, the time-related |
| 14 | +functionality of tokio supports pausing and resuming time. Pausing time has the |
| 15 | +effect that any time-related future may become ready early. The condition for |
| 16 | +the time-related future resolving early is that there are no more other futures |
| 17 | +which may become ready. This essentially fast-forwards time when the only |
| 18 | +future being awaited is time-related: |
| 19 | + |
| 20 | +```rust |
| 21 | +#[tokio::test] |
| 22 | +async fn paused_time() { |
| 23 | + tokio::time::pause(); |
| 24 | + let start = std::time::Instant::now(); |
| 25 | + tokio::time::sleep(Duration::from_millis(500)).await; |
| 26 | + println!("{:?}ms", start.elapsed().as_millis()); |
| 27 | +} |
| 28 | +``` |
| 29 | + |
| 30 | +This code prints `0ms` on a reasonable machine. |
| 31 | + |
| 32 | +For unit tests, it is often useful to run with paused time throughout. This can |
| 33 | +be achieved simply by setting the macro argument `start_paused` to `true`: |
| 34 | + |
| 35 | +```rust |
| 36 | +#[tokio::test(start_paused = true)] |
| 37 | +async fn paused_time() { |
| 38 | + let start = std::time::Instant::now(); |
| 39 | + tokio::time::sleep(Duration::from_millis(500)).await; |
| 40 | + println!("{:?}ms", start.elapsed().as_millis()); |
| 41 | +} |
| 42 | +``` |
| 43 | + |
| 44 | +See [tokio::test "Configure the runtime to start with time paused"](https://docs.rs/tokio/latest/tokio/attr.test.html#configure-the-runtime-to-start-with-time-paused) for more details. |
| 45 | + |
| 46 | +Of course, the temporal order of future resolution is maintained, even when |
| 47 | +using different time-related futures: |
| 48 | + |
| 49 | +```rust |
| 50 | +#[tokio::test(start_paused = true)] |
| 51 | +async fn interval_with_paused_time() { |
| 52 | + let mut interval = interval(Duration::from_millis(300)); |
| 53 | + let _ = timeout(Duration::from_secs(1), async move { |
| 54 | + loop { |
| 55 | + interval.tick().await; |
| 56 | + println!("Tick!"); |
| 57 | + } |
| 58 | + }) |
| 59 | + .await; |
| 60 | +} |
| 61 | +``` |
| 62 | + |
| 63 | +This code immediately prints `"Tick!"` exactly 4 times. |
| 64 | + |
| 65 | +[`tokio::time::Interval::tick`]: https://docs.rs/tokio/1/tokio/time/struct.Interval.html#method.tick |
| 66 | +[`tokio::time::sleep`]: https://docs.rs/tokio/1/tokio/time/fn.sleep.html |
| 67 | + |
| 68 | +## Mocking using [`AsyncRead`] and [`AsyncWrite`] |
| 69 | + |
| 70 | +The generic traits for reading and writing asynchronously ([`AsyncRead`] and |
| 71 | +[`AsyncWrite`]) are implemented by, for example, sockets. They can be used for |
| 72 | +mocking I/O performed by a socket. |
| 73 | + |
| 74 | +Consider, for setup, this simple TCP server loop: |
| 75 | + |
| 76 | +```no_run |
| 77 | +use tokio::net::TcpListener; |
| 78 | +
|
| 79 | +#[tokio::main] |
| 80 | +async fn main() { |
| 81 | + let listener = TcpListener::bind("127.0.0.1:8080").await.unwrap(); |
| 82 | + loop { |
| 83 | + let Ok((mut socket, _)) = listener.accept().await else { |
| 84 | + eprintln!("Failed to accept client"); |
| 85 | + continue; |
| 86 | + }; |
| 87 | +
|
| 88 | + tokio::spawn(async move { |
| 89 | + let (reader, writer) = socket.split(); |
| 90 | + // Run some client connection handler, for example: |
| 91 | + // handle_connection(reader, writer) |
| 92 | + // .await |
| 93 | + // .expect("Failed to handle connection"); |
| 94 | + }); |
| 95 | + } |
| 96 | +} |
| 97 | +``` |
| 98 | + |
| 99 | +Here, each TCP client connection is serviced by its dedicated tokio task. This |
| 100 | +task owns a reader and a writer, which are [`split`] off of a [`TcpStream`]. |
| 101 | + |
| 102 | +Consider now the actual client handler task, especially the `where`-clause of the |
| 103 | +function signature: |
| 104 | + |
| 105 | +```rust |
| 106 | +use tokio::io::{AsyncBufReadExt, AsyncRead, AsyncWrite, AsyncWriteExt, BufReader}; |
| 107 | + |
| 108 | +async fn handle_connection<Reader, Writer>( |
| 109 | + reader: Reader, |
| 110 | + mut writer: Writer, |
| 111 | +) -> std::io::Result<()> |
| 112 | +where |
| 113 | + Reader: AsyncRead + Unpin, |
| 114 | + Writer: AsyncWrite + Unpin, |
| 115 | +{ |
| 116 | + let mut line = String::new(); |
| 117 | + let mut reader = BufReader::new(reader); |
| 118 | + |
| 119 | + loop { |
| 120 | + if let Ok(bytes_read) = reader.read_line(&mut line).await { |
| 121 | + if bytes_read == 0 { |
| 122 | + break Ok(()); |
| 123 | + } |
| 124 | + writer |
| 125 | + .write_all(format!("Thanks for your message.\r\n").as_bytes()) |
| 126 | + .await |
| 127 | + .unwrap(); |
| 128 | + } |
| 129 | + line.clear(); |
| 130 | + } |
| 131 | +} |
| 132 | +``` |
| 133 | + |
| 134 | +Essentially, the given reader and writer, which implement [`AsyncRead`] and |
| 135 | +[`AsyncWrite`], are serviced sequentially. For each received line, the handler |
| 136 | +replies with `"Thanks for your message."`. |
| 137 | + |
| 138 | +To unit test the client connection handler, a [`tokio_test::io::Builder`] can |
| 139 | +be used as a mock: |
| 140 | + |
| 141 | +```rust |
| 142 | +# use tokio::io::{AsyncBufReadExt, AsyncRead, AsyncWrite, AsyncWriteExt, BufReader}; |
| 143 | +# |
| 144 | +# async fn handle_connection<Reader, Writer>( |
| 145 | +# reader: Reader, |
| 146 | +# mut writer: Writer, |
| 147 | +# ) -> std::io::Result<()> |
| 148 | +# where |
| 149 | +# Reader: AsyncRead + Unpin, |
| 150 | +# Writer: AsyncWrite + Unpin, |
| 151 | +# { |
| 152 | +# let mut line = String::new(); |
| 153 | +# let mut reader = BufReader::new(reader); |
| 154 | +# |
| 155 | +# loop { |
| 156 | +# if let Ok(bytes_read) = reader.read_line(&mut line).await { |
| 157 | +# if bytes_read == 0 { |
| 158 | +# break Ok(()); |
| 159 | +# } |
| 160 | +# writer |
| 161 | +# .write_all(format!("Thanks for your message.\r\n").as_bytes()) |
| 162 | +# .await |
| 163 | +# .unwrap(); |
| 164 | +# } |
| 165 | +# line.clear(); |
| 166 | +# } |
| 167 | +# } |
| 168 | + |
| 169 | +#[tokio::test] |
| 170 | +async fn client_handler_replies_politely() { |
| 171 | + let reader = tokio_test::io::Builder::new() |
| 172 | + .read(b"Hi there\r\n") |
| 173 | + .read(b"How are you doing?\r\n") |
| 174 | + .build(); |
| 175 | + let writer = tokio_test::io::Builder::new() |
| 176 | + .write(b"Thanks for your message.\r\n") |
| 177 | + .write(b"Thanks for your message.\r\n") |
| 178 | + .build(); |
| 179 | + let _ = handle_connection(reader, writer).await; |
| 180 | +} |
| 181 | +``` |
| 182 | + |
| 183 | +[`AsyncRead`]: https://docs.rs/tokio/latest/tokio/io/trait.AsyncRead.html |
| 184 | +[`AsyncWrite`]: https://docs.rs/tokio/latest/tokio/io/trait.AsyncWrite.html |
| 185 | +[`split`]: https://docs.rs/tokio/latest/tokio/net/struct.TcpStream.html#method.split |
| 186 | +[`TcpStream`]: https://docs.rs/tokio/latest/tokio/net/struct.TcpStream.html |
| 187 | +[`tokio_test::io::Builder`]: https://docs.rs/tokio-test/latest/tokio_test/io/struct.Builder.html |
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