What is the best way to unit test Objective-C code?

Question

What frameworks exist to unit test Objective-C code? I would like a framework that integrates nicely with Apple Xcode.

To the best of my knowledge the some answers here are outdated. Apple now has XCTest, which helps you address this issue. I think most answers need to be updated. — mfaani, Jul 12 '16 at 19:15

Chris Hanson · Accepted Answer · 2016-07-15T07:40:01.863

317

Xcode includes XCTest, which is similar to OCUnit, an Objective-C unit testing framework, and has full support for running XCTest-based unit tests as part of your project's build process. Xcode's unit testing support is described in the Xcode Overview: Using Unit Tests.

Back in the Xcode 2 days, I wrote a series of weblog posts about how to perform some common tasks with Xcode unit testing:

Despite using OCUnit rather than XCTest, the concepts are largely the same.

Finally, I also wrote a few posts on how to write tests for Cocoa user interfaces; the way Cocoa is structured makes it relatively straightforward, because you don't have to spin an event loop or anything like that in most cases.

This makes it possible to do test-driven development for not just your model-level code but also your controller-level and even view-level code.

edited Jul 15 '16 at 07:40

answered Aug 28 '08 at 19:52

Chris Hanson

54,380
8
73
102

5

Peter Hosey also gave a good presentation on Cocoa Unit Testing at the Lake Forest, CA Cocoaheads meeting in December. Here's a video of it: http://vimeo.com/2725498 – Grant Limberg Mar 02 '09 at 19:06
1

When I started iOS stuff about a year ago I found that OCUnit had (for me) a serious drawback - I could not run it on the simulator or device. It may have changed since then - I haven't checked, but I've been using GHUnit simply because of that reason. – drekka Apr 12 '11 at 02:11
1

Are there any official Apple Developer videos on this subject? I went through WWDC 2011 and 2010 but couldn't find any... strange since testing is important yes? – Robert Apr 24 '12 at 21:37
4

Xcode Unit Testing Guide link has moved to [Xcode Unit Testing Guide](http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/DeveloperTools/Conceptual/UnitTesting/00-About_Unit_Testing/about.html) – Steven Green Aug 14 '12 at 14:18
5

Xcode 5 now has XCTest does it still include OCUnit? Will you update your answer with information for XCode 5. – BrightIntelDusk Mar 24 '14 at 22:48
If you have enough reputation, you should be able to update it. Xcode 5 continued to include OCUnit, we removed it in either Xcode 6 or Xcode 7. We have a converter, however, and the concepts behind the frameworks remain the same, and at least some of my blog posts (which were written in the Xcode 2 & 3 days) remain. – Chris Hanson Jul 15 '16 at 07:32

score 50 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 25 '09 at 13:53

50

Check out GHUnit by Gabriel Handford:

"The goals of GHUnit are:

Runs unit tests within XCode, allowing you to fully utilize the XCode Debugger. A simple GUI to help you visualize your tests. Show stack traces. Be installable as a framework (for Cocoa apps) with a simple (or not) target setup; or easy to package into your iPhone project."

answered Feb 25 '09 at 13:53

elasticrat

7,060
5
36
36

5

+1 for GHUnit! I'm new to iPhone development and I can honestly say I had GHUnit up and running with no fuss (instructions are perfect) compared to the absolute nightmare of OCUnit and the mild migraine of GTM. GHUnit wins for usability and ease! – Tim Reddy Jul 07 '10 at 03:55
3

Note that this answer and the accompanying comments were written some time ago. Xcode has much better support for OCUnit-based tests now, making it easy to set up tests and run them in the debugger. – Kristopher Johnson May 06 '13 at 13:02
1

This project has since been deprecated. – BigHeadCreations Apr 04 '18 at 03:09

score 18 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 19 '08 at 16:59

18

I started using the Google toolbox testing rig for iPhone, and its working out great for me.

google-toolbox-for-mac

answered Nov 19 '08 at 16:59

Ryan Townshend

2,404
21
36

score 13 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 28 '08 at 19:46

13

Check out OCUnit. Apple's developer network has a great introduction.

answered Aug 28 '08 at 19:46

Mike Caron

5,674
4
48
71

score 12 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 24 '09 at 17:48

I came to the conclusion that GHUnit is the most advanced testing framework for Objective-C. I have done a roundup of testing frameworks on my blog. It is the most flexible in terms of deployment (iphone, simulator or mac os native) and assert capabilities. Because it is based on GTM, it inherits all of GTM's advantages over SenTestingKit but also adds a lot more. Another bonus is that it is being maintained very actively.

I have conducted effort to integrate OCMock into GHUnit, it works great!. You can get the code on github.

score 12 · Answer 6 · edited Oct 30 '11 at 22:03

I realize this is an old question, but if you prefer BDD-style testing (rspec, Jasmine, etc.) over xUnit-style testing (Test::Unit, JSUnit, JUnit, etc.), then you may consider checking out Cedar. Cedar brings BDD-style testing to Objective-C, now that the language supports closures.

We're happily using Cedar for our iOS projects at Pivotal Labs, and we're actively working on improving it. Any feedback or suggestions are welcome at cedar-discuss@googlegroups.com

clint · Answer 7 · 2009-03-02T19:14:58.917

Note that the Google Toolbox for Mac (GTM) project simply extends/augments Apple's SenTestingKit framework (which is, itself based on OCUnit). As they say on the project site:

GTM has several enhancement to the standard SenTestingKit allowing you to do UI unit testing, automated binding unit testing, log tracking, and unit testing on the iPhone, as well as tools for doing static and dynamic testing of your code.

Note the following comment about user-interface testing:

GTM has extensive support for user interface unit tests. It supports testing both the imaging and/or internal state of almost all of the standard Cocoa/UIKit UI objects, and makes it easy for you to extend this support to your own UI objects.

See their "Code Verification and Unit Testing" page for instructions on how to use it.

score 10 · Answer 8 · answered Mar 14 '09 at 21:47

I would also recommend using coverage tools to see which part of the code are covered with unit tests and which are not. Basic line and branch code coverage can be generated with the GCOV tool. If you want to generate nice HTML coverage reports there are LCOV and ZCOV which do just that.

score 7 · Answer 9 · answered Aug 10 '10 at 05:58

7

The Unit Testing support bundled within xcode (for its simple setup) combined with ocrunner (for some autotest/Growl goodness) is currently my favorite Obj-C Unit Testing setup.

answered Aug 10 '10 at 05:58

Steph Thirion

9,313
9
50
58

score 7 · Answer 10 · edited Jun 14 '13 at 10:21

7

Sen:te (the creator of the testing framework included with Xcode) explains how to use OCUnit with an iPhone project: simple-iphone-ipad-unit-test.

edited Jun 14 '13 at 10:21

NANNAV

4,875
4
32
50

answered Jan 18 '09 at 15:32

nst

3,862
1
31
40

score 7 · Answer 11 · edited Jun 14 '13 at 10:14

7

here is a whole lot of them

List_of_unit_testing_frameworks in Objective-C

edited Jun 14 '13 at 10:14

NANNAV

4,875
4
32
50

answered Apr 26 '11 at 03:43

score 7 · Answer 12 · answered Mar 14 '09 at 21:57

7

I recommend gh-unit, it has a nice GUI for test results.

http://github.com/gabriel/gh-unit/tree/master

answered Mar 14 '09 at 21:57

Joel Levin

2,878
1
21
13

score 6 · Answer 13 · answered Dec 23 '09 at 18:39

6

Matt Gallagher of Cocoa with Love has a very good article on unit testing.

answered Dec 23 '09 at 18:39

Mihir Mathuria

6,479
1
22
15

score 5 · Answer 14 · edited Jun 14 '13 at 10:13

5

I would suggest looking into Kiwi, an open source BDD testing framework for iOS: Kiwi

Check out the project's WIKI to start or get Daniel Steinberg's book "Test Driving iOS Development with Kiwi" test-driving-ios-development

edited Jun 14 '13 at 10:13

NANNAV

4,875
4
32
50

answered Feb 23 '13 at 23:28

Krzysztof Grzywacz

51
1
2

Kiwi also supports OS X, see https://github.com/allending/Kiwi/wiki/Up-and-Running-with-Kiwi-for-Mac – dbainbridge Mar 15 '14 at 15:51

score 4 · Answer 15 · edited Oct 30 '11 at 22:03

4

I use SimpleUnitTest works with iPhone and iPad libs.

http://cbess.blogspot.com/2010/05/simple-iphone-ipad-unit-test.html

It comes with a unit test Xcode template to easily add a unit test class. Wraps GTM.

You can literally drop it into an active project and start adding unit tests within 3 minutes (or less).

edited Oct 30 '11 at 22:03

logancautrell

8,762
3
39
50

answered May 18 '10 at 23:52

C. Bess

567
7
10

Er.. is it supposed to fail as soon as you run it? – quantumpotato Sep 30 '11 at 01:56

score 3 · Answer 16 · answered Mar 15 '14 at 16:05

3

Specta is a modern TDD(Test Driven Development)/BDD(Behavior Driven Development) framework which runs on top of XCTest. It supports unit testing for iOS and Mac OS X projects.

answered Mar 15 '14 at 16:05

dbainbridge

1,190
11
18

score 0 · Answer 17 · answered Jun 14 '13 at 13:48

0

I hope u can use 'SenTestKit', from which u can test each and every method.

answered Jun 14 '13 at 13:48

Karthik

88
5

What is the best way to unit test Objective-C code?

17 Answers17

Linked