I wanted to run UI tests within my Android app and I decided to go ahead with Robotium. I went through the project pages of Robotium and Robotium recorder and noticed that they seemed a little outdated. Most importantly, I couldn’t find information easily on how to run Robotium with Android Studio. Robotium Recorder, on the other hand, provided a plugin for Android Studio and you can find more info about it here: robotium.com/pages/user-guide-android-studio.

Problem:

Install and run Robotium in Android Studio.

Observations:

  1. Gradle, please provided a hit when I searched for Robotium. Robotium is indeed available as a Gradle dependency.

     dependencies {
   compile 'com.jayway.android.robotium:robotium-solo:5.2.1'
 }

  2. I downloaded and installed Robotium Recorder out of curiosity. It worked perfectly. It recorded my actions, allowed me to run my recorded test and also save it. The generated file was a .class though, instead of .java. This meant that I couldn’t edit the test once it was generated. I understood that it would be a non-free feature and moved on.

  3. A Google search for integrating Robotium with Android Studio led me to this Stack Overflow question: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/23275602/robotium-with-android-studio. But the answer wasn’t very helpful. So I decided to figure things out on my own and find a solution.

Experiments

  1. I peered through the contents of the Robotium website more carefully and found that the project owners had provided PDF files for the Tutorials, instead of displaying them directly. But I was not still clear about creating tests in Android Studio.

  2. Now that I wanted to know how to create tests in Android Studio, I searched for it specifically, I came upon this answer: http://stackoverflow.com/a/20348909/568169

  3. I followed the steps in the above answer and created a test file. I then copy-pasted my recorded test case from Robotium Recorder and ran it. It ran successfully.

Summary:

  1. In your app module, create an androidTest/java package under the src folder.

  2. Open that module’s build.gradle and add the below lines:

     android {
      
   sourceSets {
        
     androidTest {
       java.srcDirs = ['androidTest/java']
     }
        
   }
 }
  3. Sync the Project. You should now see a folder named “java” in a green color.

  4. Create your Robotium test file. For example, in a test file called ExampleTest.java, add the below code:

     import android.test.ActivityInstrumentationTestCase2;
 import com.robotium.solo.Solo;

 @SuppressWarnings("rawtypes")
 public class ExampleTest extends ActivityInstrumentationTestCase2 {
   private Solo solo;
      
   private static final String LAUNCHER_ACTIVITY_FULL_CLASSNAME = "com.example.ExampleActivty";
      
   private static Class<?> launcherActivityClass;
   static{
     try {
       launcherActivityClass = Class.forName(LAUNCHER_ACTIVITY_FULL_CLASSNAME);
       } catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
         throw new RuntimeException(e);
       }
     }
        
     @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
     public ExampleTestTest() throws ClassNotFoundException {
       super(launcherActivityClass);
     }
        
     public void setUp() throws Exception {
       super.setUp();
       solo = new Solo(getInstrumentation());
       getActivity();
     }
        
     @Override
     public void tearDown() throws Exception {
       solo.finishOpenedActivities();
       super.tearDown();
     }
        
     public void testRun() {
       //Wait for activity: 'com.example.ExampleActivty'
       solo.waitForActivity("ExampleActivty", 2000);
       //Clear the EditText editText1
       solo.clearEditText((android.widget.EditText) solo.getView("editText1"));
       solo.enterText((android.widget.EditText) solo.getView("editText1"), "This is an example text");
     }
   }

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