iOS asserting NSMutableArray contains 2 objects, regardless of index

Question

I have the following test case in my iOS application :

-(void) testTwoDefaultUsersExist
{
NSString * expected;
NSString * actual;

expected = @"John Smith";
actual = [[[userService getAllUsers]objectAtIndex:0] fullName];
STAssertEqualObjects(expected, actual, @"Not equal");
expected = @"Dave Brown";
actual = [[[userService getAllUsers]objectAtIndex:1] fullName];
STAssertEqualObjects(expected, actual, @"Not equal");
}

The above just checks that my call to [userService getAllUsers] returns 2 User objects, one with a name of John Smith, the other with Dave Brown. This appears to work fine for this scenario, but I have other cases where that ordering may change, so John may be placed in index 1 rather than 0

Question : How can I assert that the NSMutableArray , being returned from the call to [userService getAllUsers] contains those 2 objects, regardless of ordering?

Answer 1

Can you not simply use the NSArray method -containsObject: ? An NSMutableArray is still an NSArray, so you can do:

NSArray * expected = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:@"John Smith", @"Dave Brown", nil];
NSArray * actual = [[userService getAllUsers] valueForKey:@"fullName"];
for(NSString * name in expected) {
    STAssertTrue([actual containsObject:name], @"Missing name");
}

Note the (ab)use of -valueForKey: to transform an array of user objects into an array of NSString objects, making the -containsObject: call simpler. This will only work if your user object is key-value coding compliant for the fullName property.

Answer 2

1. NSMutableArray always contains the elements as you insert them to the array

2. You can iterate over the elements that you insert and test if they're at the NSArray using:

- (NSUInteger)indexOfObject:(id)anObject

If the object is not found it returns NSNotFound, that can be used with the Unit Test Framework that you choice

Greetings

Answer 3

Assert on equality like this

   NSAssert1([userService getAllUsers].count == 2, @"SomeDescription", nil);

If you want to search an array for the existence of some strings, use the following function

- (BOOL) containsAllNames:(NSArray*)arrToSearch namesToSearch:(NSArray*)arr
{    
    BOOL containsAll = YES;

    for (NSString *name in arr) {

        BOOL containsCurrent = NO;
        for (NSString *nameToSearch in arrToSearch) {
            if ([name isEqualToString:nameToSearch]) {
                containsCurrent = YES;
                break;
            }
        }

        if (!containsCurrent) {
            containsAll = NO;
        }
    }

    return containsAll;
}

Call it like

NSArray *toSearch = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:@"John Smith", @"Dave Brown", nil];
[self containsAllNames:YourArray namesToSearch:toSearch];