Waiting for actor to "become" x in test cases

[Kostas kougios]

Hi,

Currently my actor becomes ready when it receives a msg :

class MyActor {
    private val mediator = DistributedPubSubExtension(context.system).mediator
    mediator ! Subscribe(Subscriptions.Index, self)

...
    override def receive = {
        case SubscribeAck(Subscribe(Subscriptions.Index, None, self)) =>
            context become ready
    }

    def ready =
        createPart.receive orElse
            retrievePart.receive

}

This creates problems in test cases, when I send a msg to my actor:

myActor ! Create(...) // this is received before SubscribeAck and hence it is ignored

My temp solution is to sleep a bit after creating an actor so that I give an opportunity to the mediator to send the SubscribeAck:

        val indexActor = system.actorOf(Props(IndexActor.empty(IntKey, StringValue, cluster.ref)))
        // TODO: replace this with something better. This is required so that the actor becomes ready
        Thread.sleep(5)


Is there a better solution?

Thanks
#

[Martynas Mickevičius]

Hi Kostas,

I see two ways in approaching this. First, you could use TestActorRef to test the insides of your actor. In this way you could reach to the underlying instance of your actor and test each Receive block independently in a unit test fashion.

Now another approach is akin to integration testing when you test an actor by sending and expecting messages. In such case the actor either has to signal to the outside by a message that it has become a particular actor, or you have to periodically send messages and wait for a response for a finite period of time.

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Martynas Mickevičius

Typesafe – Reactive Apps on the JVM

[Konstantinos Kougios]

Thanks Martynas, currently I am trying the TestActorRef approach which works.

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