XIB outlets unit testing

Question

I have following code to test if view is properly configured(among others, I have the monthScrollview placed as a subview of view:

@implementation ECBrowserViewControllerTests
-(void)setUp
{
  //-deviceSpecific simply adds suffix like '_iPad'
  main=[[ECBrowserViewController alloc] initWithNibName:[@"ECBrowserViewController" deviceSpecific] bundle:nil];
}
-(void)testOutlets
{
    STAssertNotNil(main.view, @"View outlet not set!");

    STAssertNotNil(main.monthScrollView, @"no month scrollview");
    STAssertTrue(main.monthScrollView.pagingEnabled, @"Paging should be enabled");
}

-(void)testPaging
{
    STAssertNotNil(main.monthScrollView, @"no month scrollview");
    STAssertTrue(main.monthScrollView.pagingEnabled, @"Paging should be enabled");
}
@end

Could any one tell me why the testPaging fails, while testOutlets succeeds? I figured out that's about checking the parentView first, but why?

I'm using Xcode 4.6.3 and builtin SenTestingKit

Answer 1

It simply fails because ViewController's views in COCOA are loaded lazily: The view property is not set until it's needed, namely when one tries to fetch its value for the first time. At that moment loadView is summoned.

The reason why your testPaging test fails is due to the fact that the viewController's view in never fetched.

So, in your specific test, you have to explicitly invoke -view over a the view controller in order to have its -loadView method/callback summoned and hence get its view (and subviews) allocated.