Timing Out Tests in C# & .NET

In unit testing, there are scenarios where you want to exit your test run early.

Take this simple test, in the xUnit framework:

public async Task SampleTest()
{
  await Task.Delay(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(15));
  Assert.True(true);
}

This is a test with a built-in 15 second delay to simulate work.

This runs in a pretty straightforward manner.

initTestRun

Suppose you then have a time threshold above which you want a test to fail for taking too long.

Typically, you’d do this within the test, like so:

[Fact(Timeout = 10_000)]
public async Task SampleTest()
{
  await Task.Delay(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(15));
  Assert.True(true);
}

Here, I am indicating that I want the test to time out after 10 seconds using the Timeout attribute, which accepts a delay in milliseconds.

The command-line test runner returns the following:

timoutAttribute

An IDE test runner will return something similar:

IDErunnerTimouut

The xUnit Timeout attribute lets you set a limit for how long a test can run; otherwise, it fails with a timeout.

The code is in my GitHub.

Happy hacking!