How to test AFNetworking

Question

*Edit - I originally wanted to test AFNetworking using Nocilla but ended up using OHHTTPStubs to do the job. I've answered the original question below, using OHHTTPStubs *

Original Question:

I want to test the APIClient of our app - the bare bones of one of methods which needs to be tested is detailed below. So I need to mimic the HTTPRequestOperationWithRequest: call from AFNetworking. Nocilla seems like an option to do this (more suitable than OCMock). I've checked out the github page which deals with Nocilla and AFNetworking but I'm not sure how to apply it to my problem - the syntax isn't very familiar.

• So my wondering if someone could give me a hint as to how I might use Nocilla in this case?
• Also, must one use Kiwi with Nocilla?

Thanks in advance :)

    -(AFHTTPRequestOperation *)getBroadcastsForChannel:(TINChannel *)channel
                                     startTime:(NSDate *)date
                                         limit:(NSNumber *)limit
                                     pastLimit:(NSNumber *)pastLimit
                                        fields:(NSArray *)fieldsArray
                                      interval:(TINBroadcastsInterval)interval
                               completionBlock:(void (^)(NSArray *broadcasts, NSError *error))block {

    // Some setup here

    NSURLRequest *request = [self requestWithMethod:@"GET" path:path parameters:params];

    AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation = [self HTTPRequestOperationWithRequest:request success:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, id responseObject) {

    NSError *error;

    NSDictionary *responseDic = [self parseResponse:responseObject error:&error];

        if (error) {
            if (block) {
                block([NSArray array], error);
            }
            return;
        }

        // Parse the response object here

        if (block) {
            block([NSArray arrayWithArray:broadcastsOutput], nil);
        }

    } failure:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, NSError *error) {

    if (block) {
        block([NSArray array], error);
    }
    }];

        [self enqueueHTTPRequestOperation:operation];

        return operation;

}

Answer 1

I ended up solving this problem using another library, OHHTTPStubs. One can easily return mock objects through AFNetworking, stub out certain requests & vary response/ request times. It is well documented here. Also here is the github page. A stub is removed like this:

[OHHTTPStubs removeStub:stub];

Here is some sample code:

// A mockJSON file is loaded here
NSArray *paths = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES);
NSString *documentsDirectory = [paths objectAtIndex:0];
NSString *filePath = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@/%@", documentsDirectory,@"sampleJSON18.json"];
NSData* data = [NSData dataWithContentsOfFile:filePath];
NSError* error = nil;
id mockJSON = [NSJSONSerialization JSONObjectWithData:data options:kNilOptions error:&error];

//*** stub out AFNetworkingRequestOperation and return custom NSDictionary "mockJSON", in order to see how it is handled
id<OHHTTPStubsDescriptor> stub = nil;
stub = [OHHTTPStubs stubRequestsPassingTest:^BOOL(NSURLRequest *request) {
    return [[request.URL path]isEqualToString:@"/v1/epg/packages/59/broadcasts"]; // this means that any request which is equal to the above string is stubbed, return YES to stub *all* requests
} withStubResponse:^OHHTTPStubsResponse*(NSURLRequest *request) {
    // The `stubbing` procedure occurs in this block.
    return [[OHHTTPStubsResponse responseWithJSONObject:mockJSON statusCode:200 headers:nil] requestTime:1.0f responseTime:5.0f]; // one can vary the request/responseTime here
}];

stub.name = @"getChannelsWithBroadcastsForDay";

AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation = [self HTTPRequestOperationWithRequest:request
                                                                  success:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, id responseObject)
    {
        // The response object is now the mockJSON object, i.e. the original request is stubbed out

        } failure:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, NSError *error) {
        // handle failure
    }

        }];

    [self enqueueHTTPRequestOperation:operation];
    return operation;

}