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docs(fakeTimers): Explain how to use fake timers in testing-library #528

Merged
merged 8 commits into from
Jul 28, 2020
49 changes: 49 additions & 0 deletions docs/using-fake-timers.md
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---
id: using-fake-timers
title: Using Fake Timers
sidebar_label: Using Fake Timers
---

In some cases, when your code uses timers (`setTimeout`, `setInterval`,
`clearTimeout`, `clearInterval`), your tests may become unpredictable, slow and
flaky.

To solve these problems, or if you need to rely on specific timestamps in your
code, most testing frameworks offer the option to replace the real timers in
your tests with fake ones. This should be used sporadically and not on a regular
basis since using it contains some overhead.

When using fake timers in your tests, all of the code inside your test uses fake
timers.
The common pattern to setup fake timers is usually within the `beforeEach`, for
example:

```js
// Fake timers using Jest
beforeEach(() => {
jest.useFakeTimers()
})
```

When using fake timers, you need to remember to restore the timers after your
test runs.
The main reason to do that is to prevent 3rd party libraries running after your
test finishes (e.g cleanup functions), from being coupled to your fake timers
and use real timers instead.
For that you usually call `useRealTimers` in `afterEach`.
It's important to also call `runOnlyPendingTimers` before switching to real
timers.
This will ensure you flush all the pending timers before you switch to real
timers. If you don't progress the timers and just switch to real timers, the
scheduled tasks won't get executed and you'll get an unexpected behavior.
This is mostly important for 3rd parties that schedule tasks without you being
aware of it.
Here's an example of doing that using jest:

```js
// Running all pending timers and switching to real timers using Jest
afterEach(() => {
jest.runOnlyPendingTimers()
jest.useRealTimers()
})
```
2 changes: 1 addition & 1 deletion website/sidebars.json
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@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
{
"docs": {
"Getting Started": ["intro", "guiding-principles"],
"Getting Started": ["intro", "guiding-principles", "using-fake-timers"],
"Frameworks": [
{
"type": "subcategory",
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