sanmai/duoclock

PHP time mocking for tests - PSR-20 clock with mockable sleep(), time(), and TimeSpy for PHPUnit testing

0.1.1 2025-07-28 02:17 UTC

Requires

• php: >=8.2
• psr/clock: ^1.0

Requires (Dev)

• ergebnis/composer-normalize: ^2.8
• friendsofphp/php-cs-fixer: ^3.17
• infection/infection: >=0.29
• php-coveralls/php-coveralls: ^2.4.1
• phpstan/extension-installer: ^1.4
• phpstan/phpstan: ^2
• phpunit/phpunit: ^11.5.25
• sanmai/phpstan-rules: ^0.3.1
• vimeo/psalm: ^6.12

Provides

• psr/clock-implementation: 1.0

Apache-2.0

• Alexey Kopytko

README

DuoClock

I created DuoClock as a PSR-20-compatible clock abstraction. It provides dual time access (DateTimeImmutable, int, float) and mockable sleep functions (sleep, usleep) for testing time-sensitive code.

Features

I designed DuoClock to:

• Implement Psr\Clock\ClockInterface.
• Provide:
  • now(): DateTimeImmutable
  • time(): int
  • microtime(): float
• Offer mockable sleep() and usleep() for test environments.
• Mockable time methods: now(), time(), and microtime().
• Include a deterministic TimeSpy for testing.
• Be minimal, with a lightweight design (depends only on psr/clock).
• Have all classes non-final to allow easy mocking and testing.

Installation

composer require sanmai/duoclock

Interfaces

namespace DuoClock;

interface DuoClockInterface
{
    public function time(): int;
    public function microtime(): float;
}

interface SleeperInterface
{
    public function sleep(int $seconds): int;
    public function usleep(int $microseconds): void;
}

Usage

Real Clock:

$clock = new DuoClock\DuoClock();

$clock->now();        // DateTimeImmutable
$clock->time();       // int
$clock->microtime();  // float

$clock->sleep(1);     // real sleep
$clock->usleep(1000); // real micro-sleep

TimeSpy, as a testing-time dependency:

$clock = new DuoClock\TimeSpy(1752321600); // Corresponds to '2025-07-12T12:00:00Z'

$clock->time();       // 1752321600

$clock->sleep(10);    // advances virtual clock by 10 seconds
$clock->usleep(5000); // advances virtual clock by 0.005 seconds

$clock->time();       // 1752321610
$clock->microtime();  // 1752321610.005

Mocking and Spies

The recommended approach is to always use TimeSpy for testing ($clock = new TimeSpy();) because calls to $clock->sleep() and $clock->usleep() do not delay execution even if you do not specifically mock them.

$mock = $this->createMock(DuoClock\TimeSpy::class);

$mock->expects($this->exactly(1))
    ->method('time')
    ->willReturn(self::TIME_BEFORE_LAUNCH);

$example = new ExampleUsingTime($mock);
$this->assertFalse($example->launch());

$mock = $this->createMock(DuoClock\TimeSpy::class);

$mock->expects($this->exactly(1))
    ->method('usleep')
    ->with(self::POLL_TIME);

$example = new ExampleUsingSleep($mock);
$example->waitDuringPolling();

Why DuoClock Exists

PHP now has PSR-20, a standard interface for representing the current time using immutable objects. This interface works well for many applications, but assumes that all time-based code should consume DateTimeImmutable. In practice, testing time-based code often requires mocking and emulating sleep() and usleep(), especially for retry logic, timeout simulations, or rate limiters. You do not want to wait for literal seconds for your sleep() tests to pass! PSR-20 offers no solution for this, which is where DuoClock steps in.

Development

# Run all checks (tests, static analysis, mutation testing)
make -j -k

License

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. See LICENSE for details.