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https://github.com/plu/pxctest

Execute tests in parallel on multiple iOS Simulators
https://github.com/plu/pxctest

ios parallel simulator xctest

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Execute tests in parallel on multiple iOS Simulators

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README 

        
# Deprecation Warning



Xcode 9 perfectly supports executing tests in parallel without any 3rd party tool like pxctest. We suggest moving to `xcodebuild` for running tests in parallel on multiple Simulators.



# pxctest



Execute tests in parallel on multiple iOS Simulators.



[![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/plu/pxctest.svg?branch=master)](https://travis-ci.org/plu/pxctest)



![screencast](static/screencast.gif?raw=true "screencast")



## Installation



To install via Homebrew you can use the [plu/homebrew-pxctest](https://github.com/plu/homebrew-pxctest) tap:



```shell

$ brew tap plu/pxctest && brew install pxctest

```



## Usage



Compile your tests with `build-for-testing`, example:



```shell

$ xcodebuild \

    -IDEBuildLocationStyle=Custom \

    -IDECustomBuildLocationType=Absolute \

    -IDECustomBuildProductsPath="$PWD/build/Products" \

    -scheme 'MyApp' \

    -workspace 'MyApp.xcworkspace' \

    -destination 'platform=iOS Simulator,name=iPhone 5,OS=10.1' \

    build-for-testing

```



In `build/Products` you should find a `.xctestrun` file. This can then be passed to `pxctest`:



```shell

$ pxctest \

    run-tests \

    --destination 'name=iPhone 5,os=iOS 9.3' \

    --destination 'name=iPhone 5,os=iOS 10.1' \

    --testrun build/Products/MyApp_iphonesimulator10.1-i386.xctestrun

```



The `--destination` option can be passed in several times and will execute the tests in parallel on all Simulators.



### run-tests options



To see a list of possible options, just run:



```shell

$ pxctest run-tests --help

```



Most of the options should be self-explanatory. If not, please open an issue or submit some pull request. However the `--defaults` option needs a special section here.



#### run-tests --defaults



This option expects a path to a file, which contains some JSON. After loading this file, its content gets applied to the Simulator's defaults. On the top level the keys must be either a relative path or a domain where the defaults are located.



Example: You can turn off all keyboard settings that you can find in the Simulator's Settings app by using following JSON content:



```json

{

  "com.apple.Preferences": {

    "KeyboardAllowPaddle": false,

    "KeyboardAssistant": false,

    "KeyboardAutocapitalization": false,

    "KeyboardAutocorrection": false,

    "KeyboardCapsLock": false,

    "KeyboardCheckSpelling": false,

    "KeyboardPeriodShortcut": false,

    "KeyboardPrediction": false,

    "KeyboardShowPredictionBar": false

  }

}

```



### Headless testing



It's possible to execute the tests without actually launching a `Simulator.app` window. This can be convenient because it will separate your test workflow from your development. If the tests run in the `Simulator.app` window and you launch your app during the test run from Xcode, it will stop the tests. There's not much we can do about that, it's just the way Xcode is handling `Simulator.app` - it takes control over all instances.



![headless_screencast](static/headless_screencast.gif?raw=true "headless screencast")



First you need to pre-boot some Simulators in the background, with a custom device set path:



```shell

$ mkdir /tmp/test-simulators

$ pxctest boot-simulators \

    --deviceset /tmp/test-simulators \

    --destination 'name=iPhone 5,os=iOS 9.3' \

    --destination 'name=iPad Retina,os=iOS 9.3'

```



Once the command has finished, the Simulators are in a usable state and we can begin running tests on them.



To launch your tests on these Simulators, you just need to pass the `--deviceset` option to the `run-tests` command:



```shell

$ pxctest run-tests \

    --testrun build/Products/KIF_iphonesimulator10.1-i386.xctestrun \

    --deviceset /tmp/test-simulators \

    --destination 'name=iPhone 5,os=iOS 9.3' \

    --destination 'name=iPad Retina,os=iOS 9.3' \

    --only 'KIF Tests:TappingTests'

....................

KIF Tests - iPhone 5 iOS 9.3 - Finished executing 10 tests after 25.252s. 0 Failures, 0 Unexpected

KIF Tests - iPad Retina iOS 9.3 - Finished executing 10 tests after 25.119s. 0 Failures, 0 Unexpected

Total - Finished executing 20 tests. 0 Failures, 0 Unexpected

```



If you still see some `Simulator.app` window showing up, it might have different reasons:



* something went wrong pre-booting the devices earlier

* you forgot the `--deviceset` option

* you didn't pre-boot all devices that you're using as `--destination` options now



You can verify the state of your devices via:



```shell

$ xcrun simctl --set /tmp/test-simulators list

== Devices ==

-- iOS 9.3 --

    iPhone 5 (716A9864-08BD-4200-96ED-20EA1E81BE65) (Booted)

    iPad Retina (D2EB2BB9-8862-4F0D-A933-079C9BA0342A) (Booted)

```



The `Booted` state here however does not mean "is ready for launching apps or running tests". After booting a device it enters the `Booted` state quickly, but still showing the loading bar above the Springboard (you can see that if you boot them via `Simulator.app` and keep watching the state that `xcrun simctl` reports).



When you're finished running tests, you may wish to shut down running simulators to release their resources.



```shell

$ pxctest shutdown-simulators \

    --deviceset /tmp/test-simulators

```



## Development



```shell

git clone --recursive https://github.com/plu/pxctest.git pxctest

cd pxctest

scripts/bootstrap.sh

NSUnbufferedIO=YES xcodebuild -scheme pxctest test | xcpretty -c

```



## FBSimulatorControl



The functionality of `pxctest` would not be possible without the

great [FBSimulatorControl Framework](https://github.com/facebook/FBSimulatorControl)

provided by [Lawrence Lomax](https://github.com/lawrencelomax) at

[Facebook](https://github.com/facebook).



There are two command line tools that come with [FBSimulatorControl](https://github.com/facebook/FBSimulatorControl):



* [fbsimctl](https://github.com/facebook/FBSimulatorControl/tree/master/fbsimctl) - command line interface to the FBSimulatorControl Framework

* [fbxctest](https://github.com/facebook/FBSimulatorControl/tree/master/fbxctest) - test runner for running iOS testing bundles for the iOS Simulator Platform



Both of them are more flexible than `pxctest`, so it might be worth having a look at them.



## Resource limits



By default the resource limitations (maximum processes per user, maximum open files) on Mac OS are quite small. There even seems to be a hard limit baked into the kernel of 2500 maximum processes per user. But there's some boot arguments that can be set to raise this limit to at least 5000.



So why is this important? A booted iPhone 7 Simulator is not just one process, it comes with a whole set of running processes. If you boot a couple Simulators at the same time, add your other running programs/processes on top of that, then you will hit these limits soon.



First we [set the nvram boot argument](https://support.apple.com/en-ae/HT202528):



```shell

$ sudo nvram boot-args="serverperfmode=1 $(nvram boot-args 2>/dev/null | cut -f 2-)"

```



If you're using Sierra, you will probably get an error message like

```shell

nvram: Error setting variable - 'boot-args': (iokit/common) general error

```

This is because starting from Sierra the `nvram` command should be executed from the recovery partition. [more info here](https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT206871)

To restart a mac from the recovery partition press CMD+r during the boot procedure. From there open a terminal and insert the same command as before.



Next step is to make `launchd` set the new limits:



```shell

$ sudo cp config/limit.maxfiles.plist /Library/LaunchDaemons/limit.maxfiles.plist

$ sudo cp config/limit.maxproc.plist /Library/LaunchDaemons/limit.maxproc.plist

```



The two files can be found in this repository:



* [limit.maxfiles.plist](config/limit.maxfiles.plist)

* [limit.maxproc.plist](config/limit.maxproc.plist)



And we reboot! Afterwards you can check:



```shell

$ ulimit -a

core file size          (blocks, -c) 0

data seg size           (kbytes, -d) unlimited

file size               (blocks, -f) unlimited

max locked memory       (kbytes, -l) unlimited

max memory size         (kbytes, -m) unlimited

open files                      (-n) 524288

pipe size            (512 bytes, -p) 1

stack size              (kbytes, -s) 8192

cpu time               (seconds, -t) unlimited

max user processes              (-u) 5000

virtual memory          (kbytes, -v) unlimited

```



The `open files` part should say `524288`, and `max user processes` should be `5000`.



If you are using Sierra, the output looks a bit different:



```shell

› ulimit -a

-t: cpu time (seconds)              unlimited

-f: file size (blocks)              unlimited

-d: data seg size (kbytes)          unlimited

-s: stack size (kbytes)             8192

-c: core file size (blocks)         0

-v: address space (kbytes)          unlimited

-l: locked-in-memory size (kbytes)  unlimited

-u: processes                       5000

-n: file descriptors                524288

```

The `open files` is now `file descriptors` and `max user processes` is renamed to `processes`.



## Can't find the `.xctestrun`? 



When code coverage is enabled on the project specifying `IDECustomBuildProductsPath` to `xcodebuild` has no effect. Instead you can provide `derivedDataPath` and get the `.xctestrun` file from the directory.



Compile your tests with `build-for-testing`, specifying `derivedDataPath`, for example:



```shell

$ xcodebuild \

    -derivedDataPath "$PWD/derivedData" \

    -scheme 'MyApp' \

    -workspace 'MyApp.xcworkspace' \

    -destination 'platform=iOS Simulator,name=iPhone 5,OS=10.1' \

    build-for-testing

```



In `derivedData/Build/Intermediates/CodeCoverage/Products` you should find a `.xctestrun` file. This can then be passed to `pxctest`:



```shell

$ pxctest \

    run-tests \

    --destination 'name=iPhone 5,os=iOS 9.3' \

    --destination 'name=iPhone 5,os=iOS 10.1' \

    --testrun derivedData/Build/Intermediates/CodeCoverage/Products/MyApp_iphonesimulator10.1-i386.xctestrun

```



## Release version update



1. Update `Info.plist` > `CFBundleShortVersionString`

2. Update `CHANGELOG.md`

3. Ensure the latest stable Xcode version is installed and `xcode-select`ed.

4. From project root directory run `./scripts/release.sh`

5. Create a GitHub release: https://github.com/plu/pxctest/releases/new

    * Specify the tag you just pushed in the dropdown.

    * Set the release title to the new version number.

    * Add the changelog section to the release description text box.

    * Upload the portable zip you just built to the GitHub release binaries.

    * Click "Publish release".

6. Publish to Homebrew and CocoaPods: `./scripts/publish.sh`



## License



[MIT](LICENSE)