Writing unit test for actors

When we develop an Akka application, we should write an automated test for our actors to check whether they are working as expected. Since the actor model is different as they are asynchronous in nature, we have a different view of how we will perform unit tests on them.

Getting ready

First of all, we will add the akka-testkit dependency to our application's build.sbt. So, add the following dependency to build.sbt:

libraryDependencies += "com.typesafe.akka" % "akka-testkit_2.11" % "2.4.4"

libraryDependencies += "org.scalatest" % "scalatest_2.11" % "3.0.1"

Now move to the project root directory and run the sbt update command; it will download the preceding dependencies. Now import the Hello-Akka project in the IDE.

How to do it…

1. Create a com.packt.chapter5 package in the src/test/scala project folder.
2. Create a Scala file, say, Testing.scala, in the com.packt.chapter5 package.
3. Add the following import to the top of the file:

        import akka.actor.{Actor, ActorSystem...