how do I test (rspec) a http request that takes too long?

Question

How do I test the behavior if a request takes too long with rspec?

I am thinking of using thread to mock this:

describe "Test" do 
  it "should timeout if the request takes too long" do 
    lambda {
      thread1 = Thread.new { #net::http request to google.com }
      thread2 = Thread.new { sleep(xx seconds) }
      thread1.join 
      thread2.join
    }.should raise_error
  end 
end

I want to make sure that after the request is first made, another thread "kicks in" which in this case is just a sleep for xx seconds. Then I should expect the request to timeout because it takes too long to execute

I think that there are better ways to do this. Given the fact that the url I am requesting is not relevant. I just want to test that it will indeed timeout if it takes too long to execute.

Can I use stub(), expect() or any rspec features to simulate this?

Is there any way that I can pass in a 'block' into stub method

http_request_to_google.stub(:connection).executethisblock(sleep for xx seconds)
.and_throw error ?

any help is appreciated

Answer 1

If you purely care about Net::HTTP raising a Timeout::Error, you could always just force it to return the error with a mock, here is a good compilation of various things you can use with RSpec.

It would depend on your exact Net::HTTP request, but something such as Net::HTTP.should_receive(:request_get).and_raise(Timeout::Error) would skip any networking calls and just raise the error immediately.