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iOS Unit Tests

barK automatically detects XCTest environments and switches to console output — no configuration required.

How Test Detection Works

barK inspects the loaded frameworks at runtime for XCTest. When detected, ColoredUnitTestTrainer activates automatically and NSLogTrainer output is suppressed.

This works for:

  • XCTest unit tests (via xctest runner)
  • Xcode UI tests
  • CI runs (GitHub Actions, Fastlane, etc.)
ExampleTests.swift
import XCTest
@testable import shared

final class ExampleTests: XCTestCase {

    override func setUp() {
        super.setUp()
        Bark.releaseAllTrainers()
        Bark.train(trainer: ColoredUnitTestTrainer())
    }

    override func tearDown() {
        Bark.releaseAllTrainers()
        super.tearDown()
    }

    func testSomething() {
        Bark.d("Starting test")
        // ...
        Bark.i("Test completed")
    }
}

Choosing a Test Trainer

ColoredUnitTestTrainer

ANSI-colored output. Works in Terminal and CI (GitHub Actions, Fastlane). Falls back to plain text automatically in Xcode's test console, which doesn't support ANSI.

[D] MyClass: Debug message       ← Terminal / CI
[I] MyClass: Info message

UnitTestTrainer

Plain text with timestamps. Always readable regardless of environment — safe choice for Xcode console:

12:34:56 [D] MyClass: Debug message
12:34:56 [I] MyClass: Info message

Xcode console limitation

Xcode's test output panel strips ANSI escape codes. If you're running tests exclusively in Xcode (not from the command line), UnitTestTrainer gives cleaner output.

Color Support Detection

ColoredUnitTestTrainer auto-detects ANSI support using two checks:

  1. isatty() — is stdout connected to a terminal?
  2. TERM environment variable — is it set to a color-supporting value?
Environment Colors
Terminal (macOS) ✅
GitHub Actions ✅
Fastlane ✅
Xcode test console ❌ (falls back to plain text)

Log Level Filtering in Tests

override func setUp() {
    super.setUp()
    Bark.releaseAllTrainers()
    // Only show warnings and above during this test class
    Bark.train(trainer: ColoredUnitTestTrainer(minLevel: .warning))
}

Running Tests from the Command Line

barK's Kotlin tests on iOS run via Gradle:

./gradlew shared:iosSimulatorArm64Test

Colors will render correctly in terminal output. Xcode tests can also be run directly:

xcodebuild test \
  -project sample-ios/barK-sample/barK-sample.xcodeproj \
  -scheme barK-sample \
  -destination 'platform=iOS Simulator,name=iPhone 15'