Replicate pull to refresh in XCTest UI testing

You can use the XCUICoordinate API to interact with specific points on the screen, not necessarily tied to any particular element.

1. Grab a reference to the first cell in your table. Then create a coordinate with zero offset, CGVectorMake(0, 0). This will normalize a point right on top of the first cell.
2. Create an imaginary coordinate farther down the screen. (I've found that a dy of six is the smallest amount needed to trigger the pull-to-refresh gesture.)
3. Execute the gesture by grabbing the first coordinate and dragging it to the second one.

let firstCell = app.staticTexts["Adrienne"]
let start = firstCell.coordinateWithNormalizedOffset(CGVectorMake(0, 0))
let finish = firstCell.coordinateWithNormalizedOffset(CGVectorMake(0, 6))
start.pressForDuration(0, thenDragToCoordinate: finish)

More information along with a working sample app is also available.

Here is a Swift 5.1 version

    let firstCell = staticTexts["Id"]
    let start = firstCell.coordinate(withNormalizedOffset: CGVector(dx: 0, dy: 0))
    let finish = firstCell.coordinate(withNormalizedOffset: CGVector(dx: 0, dy: 100))
    start.press(forDuration: 0, thenDragTo: finish)

I managed to do such tasks with coordinates like Joe suggested. But i went a step further using coordinateWithOffset()

let startPosition = CGPointMake(200, 300)
let endPosition = CGPointMake(200, 0)
let start = elementToSwipeOn.coordinateWithNormalizedOffset(CGVectorMake(0, 0)).coordinateWithOffset(CGVector(dx: startPosition.x, dy: startPosition.y))
let finish = elementToSwipeOn.coordinateWithNormalizedOffset(CGVector(dx: 0, dy: 0)).coordinateWithOffset(CGVector(dx: endPosition.x, dy: endPosition.y))
start.pressForDuration(0, thenDragToCoordinate: finish)

Now i am able to drag from a specific point to another specific point. I implemented a custom refresh on some of my views. While implementing this, i also discovered that i can even use this to access the control center or the top menu.