Akka testkit: what is the timeFactor?

Question

There are several methods on the Akka TestProbe that say they are "correctly treating the timeFactor." What does that mean?

http://doc.akka.io/api/akka/2.0/akka/testkit/TestProbe.html

For example, see the second version of expectMsg.

Answer 1

Using the setting akka.test.timefactor (1 by default) you may increase or decrease all timeouts in your tests (it may be useful when running tests on very different machines in terms of performance). These methods use as max duration the following value: akka.test.single-expect-default (3 seconds by default) multiplied by the akka.test.timefactor mentioned above.