Android Testing Tools

Testing is a critical software development activity because it helps you improve the quality of
your apps, ensure better user satisfaction, and reduce overall development time spent on
fixing defects.
The following sections describe tools that help you test your mobile apps for the Android
platform.
Android Testing Support Library
This library provides a set of APIs that allow you to quickly build and run test code for
your apps, including JUnit 4 and functional user interface (UI) tests. The Android
Testing Support Library includes the following test automation tools:

AndroidJUnitRunner: JUnit 4-compatible test runner for Android

Espresso: UI testing framework; suitable for functional UI testing within an app

UI Automator: UI testing framework; suitable for cross-app functional UI testing

across system and installed apps

Monkey
This tool runs on your emulator or device and generates pseudo-random streams of
user events such as clicks, touches, or gestures, as well as a number of systemlevel events. You can use the Monkey tool to stress-test applications that you are
developing, in a random yet repeatable manner.
monkeyrunner
This testing system provides an API for writing programs that control an Android
device or emulator from outside of Android code.

Testing Support Library

The Android Testing Support Library provides an extensive framework for testing Android
apps. This library provides a set of APIs that allow you to quickly build and run test code for
your apps, including JUnit 4 and functional user interface (UI) tests. You can run tests
created using these APIs from theAndroid Studio IDE or from the command line.

The Android Testing Support library is available through the Android SDK Manager. For
more information, see Testing Support Library Setup
This page provides information about what tools are provided in the Android Testing Support
Library, how to use them in your testing environment, and information about library
releases.

Testing Support Library Features

The Android Testing Support Library includes the following test automation tools:

AndroidJUnitRunner: JUnit 4-compatible test runner for Android

Espresso: UI testing framework; suitable for functional UI testing within an app

UI Automator: UI testing framework; suitable for cross-app functional UI testing

across system and installed apps

AndroidJUnitRunner
The AndroidJUnitRunner class is a JUnit test runner that lets you run JUnit 3 or JUnit 4style test classes on Android devices, including those using the Espresso and UI
Automator testing frameworks. The test runner handles loading your test package and the
app under test to a device, running your tests, and reporting test results. This class replaces
theInstrumentationTestRunner class, which only supports JUnit 3 tests.
The key features of this test runner include:

JUnit support

Access to instrumentation information

Test filtering

Test sharding

Requires Android 2.2 (API level 8) or higher.

JUnit support
The test runner is compatible with your JUnit 3 and JUnit 4 (up to JUnit 4.10) tests.
However, you should avoid mixing JUnit 3 and and JUnit 4 test code in the same package,

as this might cause unexpected results. If you are creating an instrumented JUnit 4 test
class to run on a device or emulator, your test class must be prefixed with
the@RunWith(AndroidJUnit4.class) annotation.

Access to instrumentation information

You can use the InstrumentationRegistry class to access information related to your
test run. This class includes theInstrumentation object, target app Context object, test
app Context object, and the command line arguments passed into your test. This data is
useful when you are writing tests using the UI Automator framework or when writing tests
that have dependencies on the Instrumentation or Context objects.

Test filtering
In your JUnit 4.x tests, you can use annotations to configure the test run. This feature
minimizes the need to add boilerplate and conditional code in your tests. In addition to the
standard annotations supported by JUnit 4, the test runner also supports Android-specific
annotations, including:

@RequiresDevice: Specifies that the test should run only on physical devices, not on

emulators.

@SdkSupress: Suppresses the test from running on a lower Android API level than

the given level. For example, to suppress tests on all API levels lower than 18 from
running, use the annotation @SDKSupress(minSdkVersion=18).

@SmallTest, @MediumTest, and @LargeTest: Classify how long a test should take

to run, and consequently, how frequently you can run the test.

Test sharding
The test runner supports splitting a single test suite into multiple shards, so you can easily
run tests belonging to the same shard together as a group, under the
same Instrumentation instance. Each shard is identified by an index number. When
running tests, use the -e numShards option to specify the number of separate shards to
create and the -e shardIndexoption to specify which shard to run.
For example, to split the test suite into 10 shards and run only the tests grouped in the
second shard, use the following command:
adb shell am instrument -w -e numShards 10 -e shardIndex 2

To learn more about using this test runner, see the API reference.

Espresso
The Espresso testing framework provides a set of APIs to build UI tests to test user flows
within an app. These APIs let you write automated UI tests that are concise and that run
reliably. Espresso is well-suited for writing white box-style automated tests, where the test
code utilizes implementation code details from the app under test.
The key features of the Espresso testing framework include:

Flexible APIs for view and adapter matching in target apps. For more information,
see View matching.

An extensive set of action APIs to automate UI interactions. For more information,

see Action APIs.

UI thread synchronization to improve test reliability. For more information, see UI

thread synchronization.

Requires Android 2.2 (API level 8) or higher.

View matching
The Espresso.onView() method lets you access a UI component in the target app and
interact with it. The method accepts a Matcher argument and searches the view hierarchy
to locate a corresponding View instance that meets some given criteria. You can refine
searches by specifying such criteria as:

The class name of the view

The content description of the view

The R.id of the view

Text displayed in the view

For example, to target a button that has the ID value of my_button, you can specify a
matcher like this:
onView(withId(R.id.my_button));

If the search is successful, the onView() method returns a reference which lets you
perform user actions and test assertions against the target view.

Adapter matching
In an AdapterView layout, the layout is dynamically populated with children views at
runtime. If the target view is inside a layout subclassed from AdapterView (such as
a ListView or GridView), the onView() method might not work because only a subset of
the layouts views may be loaded in the current view hierarchy.
Instead, use the Espresso.onData() method to access a target view element.
The Espresso.onData() method returns a reference which lets you perform user actions
and test assertions against the elements in an AdapterView.

Action APIs
Typically, you test an app by performing some user interactions against the apps user
interface. You can easily automate these actions in your test by using
the ViewActions API. You can perform such UI interactions as:

View clicks

Swipes

Key and button presses

Typing text

Opening a link

For example, to simulate entering a string value and pressing a button to submit the value,
you can write an automated test script like this.
The ViewInteraction.perform() and DataInteraction.perform() methods take
one or moreViewAction arguments and run the actions in the order provided.
// Type text into an EditText view, then close the soft keyboard
onView(withId(R.id.editTextUserInput))
.perform(typeText(STRING_TO_BE_TYPED), closeSoftKeyboard());
// Press the button to submit the text change
onView(withId(R.id.changeTextBt)).perform(click());

UI thread synchronization

Tests on Android devices can fail randomly because of timing issues. This testing issue is
referred to as test flakiness. Prior to Espresso, the workaround was to insert a sufficiently
long sleep or timeout period into a test or to add code to keep retrying the failing operation.
The Espresso testing framework handles synchronization between
theInstrumentation and the UI thread; this removes the need for the previous timing
workarounds and ensures that your test actions and assertions run more reliably.
To learn more about using Espresso, see the API reference and Testing UI for a Single
App training.

UI Automator
The UI Automator testing framework provides a set of APIs to build UI tests that perform
interactions on user apps and system apps. The UI Automator APIs allows you to perform
operations such as opening the Settings menu or the app launcher in a test device. The UI
Automator testing framework is well-suited for writing black box-style automated tests,
where the test code does not rely on internal implementation details of the target app.
The key features of the UI Automator testing framework include:

A viewer to inspect layout hierarchy. For more information, see UI Automator Viewer.

An API to retrieve state information and perform operations on the target device. For
more information, see Access to device state.

APIs that support cross-app UI testing. For more information, see UI Automator
APIs .

Requires Android 4.3 (API level 18) or higher.

UI Automator Viewer
The uiautomatorviewer tool provides a convenient GUI to scan and analyze the UI
components currently displayed on an Android device. You can use this tool to inspect the
layout hierarchy and view the properties of UI components that are visible on the foreground
of the device. This information lets you create more fine-grained tests using UI Automator,
for example by creating a UI selector that matches a specific visible property.
The uiautomatorviewer tool is located in the <android-sdk>/tools/ directory.

Access to device state

The UI Automator testing framework provides a UiDevice class to access and perform
operations on the device on which the target app is running. You can call its methods to
access device properties such as current orientation or display size. The UiDevice class
also let you perform actions such as:

Change the device rotation

Press a D-pad button

Press the Back, Home, or Menu buttons

Open the notification shade

Take a screenshot of the current window

For example, to simulate a Home button press, call the UiDevice.pressHome() method.

UI Automator APIs
The UI Automator APIs allow you to write robust tests without needing to know about the
implementation details of the app that you are targeting. You can use these APIs to capture
and manipulate UI components across multiple apps:

UiCollection: Enumerates a container's UI elements for the purpose of counting, or

targeting sub-elements by their visible text or content-description property.

UiObject: Represents a UI element that is visible on the device.

UiScrollable: Provides support for searching for items in a scrollable UI container.

UiSelector: Represents a query for one or more target UI elements on a device.

Configurator: Allows you to set key parameters for running UI Automator tests.

For example, the following code shows how you can write a test script that brings up the
default app launcher in the device:
// Initialize UiDevice instance
mDevice = UiDevice.getInstance(getInstrumentation());
// Perform a short press on the HOME button
mDevice().pressHome();
// Bring up the default launcher by searching for
// a UI component that matches the content-description for the
launcher button
UiObject allAppsButton = mDevice
.findObject(new UiSelector().description("Apps"));

// Perform a click on the button to bring up the launcher

allAppsButton.clickAndWaitForNewWindow();

To learn more about using UI Automator, see the API reference and Testing UI for Multiple
Apps training.