Delay/Wait in a test case of Xcode UI testing

Question

Additionally, you can just sleep:

sleep(10)

Since the UITests run in another process, this works. I don’t know how advisable it is, but it works.

Asynchronous UI Testing was introduced in Xcode 7 Beta 4. To wait for a label with the text "Hello, world!" to appear you can do the following:

let app = XCUIApplication()
app.launch()

let label = app.staticTexts["Hello, world!"]
let exists = NSPredicate(format: "exists == 1")

expectationForPredicate(exists, evaluatedWithObject: label, handler: nil)
waitForExpectationsWithTimeout(5, handler: nil)

More details about UI Testing can be found on my blog.

iOS 11 / Xcode 9

<#yourElement#>.waitForExistence(timeout: 5)

This is a great replacement for all the custom implementations on this site!

Be sure to have a look at my answer here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/48937714/971329. There I describe an alternative to waiting for requests which will greatly reduce the time your tests are running!

Xcode 9 introduced new tricks with XCTWaiter

Test case waits explicitly

wait(for: [documentExpectation], timeout: 10)

Waiter instance delegates to test

XCTWaiter(delegate: self).wait(for: [documentExpectation], timeout: 10)

Waiter class returns result

let result = XCTWaiter.wait(for: [documentExpectation], timeout: 10)
switch(result) {
case .completed:
    //all expectations were fulfilled before timeout!
case .timedOut:
    //timed out before all of its expectations were fulfilled
case .incorrectOrder:
    //expectations were not fulfilled in the required order
case .invertedFulfillment:
    //an inverted expectation was fulfilled
case .interrupted:
    //waiter was interrupted before completed or timedOut
}

sample usage

Before Xcode 9

Objective C

- (void)waitForElementToAppear:(XCUIElement *)element withTimeout:(NSTimeInterval)timeout
{
    NSUInteger line = __LINE__;
    NSString *file = [NSString stringWithUTF8String:__FILE__];
    NSPredicate *existsPredicate = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:@"exists == true"];

    [self expectationForPredicate:existsPredicate evaluatedWithObject:element handler:nil];

    [self waitForExpectationsWithTimeout:timeout handler:^(NSError * _Nullable error) {
        if (error != nil) {
            NSString *message = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"Failed to find %@ after %f seconds",element,timeout];
            [self recordFailureWithDescription:message inFile:file atLine:line expected:YES];
        }
    }];
}

USAGE

XCUIElement *element = app.staticTexts["Name of your element"];
[self waitForElementToAppear:element withTimeout:5];

Swift

func waitForElementToAppear(element: XCUIElement, timeout: NSTimeInterval = 5,  file: String = #file, line: UInt = #line) {
        let existsPredicate = NSPredicate(format: "exists == true")

        expectationForPredicate(existsPredicate,
                evaluatedWithObject: element, handler: nil)

        waitForExpectationsWithTimeout(timeout) { (error) -> Void in
            if (error != nil) {
                let message = "Failed to find \(element) after \(timeout) seconds."
                self.recordFailureWithDescription(message, inFile: file, atLine: line, expected: true)
            }
        }
    }

USAGE

let element = app.staticTexts["Name of your element"]
self.waitForElementToAppear(element)

or

let element = app.staticTexts["Name of your element"]
self.waitForElementToAppear(element, timeout: 10)

SOURCE