How to test Akka Actor functionality by mocking one or more methods in it

Question

I'm interested to know about how to test Akka Actor functionality, by mocking some methods (substitute real object's/actor's method implementation by mocked one) in Actor.

I use akka.testkit.TestActorRef;

Also: I tried to use SpyingProducer but it is not clear how to use it. (like I if I created actor inside its implementation it would be the same I have now). The google search result about that is not very verbose.

I use powemockito and java. But It does not matter. I would be interested to know how to do it in principle with any language with any framework

(so if you do not know how power/mockito works just provide your code.. (please) or complete idea about how you would do it with your tools you know.)

So, let's say we have an Actor to test:

package example.formock;

import akka.actor.UntypedActor;

public class ToBeTestedActor extends UntypedActor {

    @Override
    public void onReceive(Object message) throws Exception {

        if (message instanceof String) {
            getSender().tell( getHelloMessage((String) message), getSelf());
        }

    }

    String getHelloMessage(String initMessage) { // this was created for test purposes (for testing mocking/spy capabilities). Look at the test
        return "Hello, " + initMessage;
    }

}

And in our test we want to substitute getHelloMessage() returning something else.

This is my try:

package example.formock;

import akka.testkit.TestActorRef;
...

@RunWith(PowerMockRunner.class)
@PrepareForTest(ToBeTestedActor.class)
public class ToBeTestedActorTest {

    static final Timeout timeout = new Timeout(Duration.create(5, "seconds"));

    @Test
    public void getHelloMessage() {

        final ActorSystem system = ActorSystem.create("system");

        // given
        final TestActorRef<ToBeTestedActor> actorRef = TestActorRef.create(
                system,
                Props.create(ToBeTestedActor.class),
                "toBeTestedActor");

        // First try:
        ToBeTestedActor actorSpy = PowerMockito.spy(actorRef.underlyingActor());
        // change functionality
        PowerMockito.when(actorSpy.getHelloMessage (anyString())).thenReturn("nothing"); // <- expecting result   


        try {

           // when
           Future<Object> future = Patterns.ask(actorRef, "Bob", timeout);
           // then
           assertTrue(future.isCompleted());

            // when
           String resultMessage = (String) Await.result(future, Duration.Zero());
            // then
           assertEquals("nothing", resultMessage);  // FAIL HERE

        } catch (Exception e) {
           fail("ops");
        }
    }
}

Result:

org.junit.ComparisonFailure: 
Expected :nothing
Actual   :Hello, Bob

Answer 1

Akka has a class AutoPilot that is basically a general mock for actors, with the ability to respond to messages and assert that messages were sent. http://doc.akka.io/docs/akka/snapshot/java/testing.html

Here's the java example for that page. You create a probe, set an auto-pilot that can respond to messages, and get an ActorRef from it that you can substitute in for your real actor.

new JavaTestKit(system) {{
  final JavaTestKit probe = new JavaTestKit(system);
  // install auto-pilot
  probe.setAutoPilot(new TestActor.AutoPilot() {
    public AutoPilot run(ActorRef sender, Object msg) {
      sender.tell(msg, ActorRef.noSender());
      return noAutoPilot();
    }
  });
  // first one is replied to directly ...
  probe.getRef().tell("hello", getRef());
  expectMsgEquals("hello");
  // ... but then the auto-pilot switched itself off
  probe.getRef().tell("world", getRef());
  expectNoMsg();
}};