page.title=Testing In Other IDEs @jd:body

In this document

  1. Working with Test Projects
    1. Creating a test project
    2. Updating a test project
  2. Creating a Test Application
  3. Running Tests
    1. Quick build and run with Ant
    2. Running tests on a device or emulator
  4. Using the Instrument Command
    1. Instrument options
    2. Instrument examples

See Also

  1. Testing and Instrumentation
  2. Activity Testing
  3. Android Debug Bridge

This document describes how to create and run tests directly from the command line. You can use the techniques described here if you are developing in an IDE other than Eclipse or if you prefer to work from the command line. This document assumes that you already know how to create a Android application in your programming environment. Before you start this document, you should read the document Testing and Instrumentation, which provides an overview of Android testing.

If you are developing in Eclipse with ADT, you can set up and run your tests directly in Eclipse. For more information, please read Testing in Eclipse, with ADT.

Working with Test Projects

You use the android tool to create test projects. You also use android to convert existing test code into an Android test project, or to add the run-tests Ant target to an existing Android test project. These operations are described in more detail in the section Updating a test project. The run-tests target is described in Quick build and run with Ant.

Creating a test project

To create a test project with the android tool, enter:

android create test-project -m <main_path> -n <project_name> -p <test_path>

You must supply all the flags. The following table explains them in detail:

Flag Value Description
-m, --main Path to the project of the application under test, relative to the test application directory. For example, if the application under test is in source/HelloAndroid, and you want to create the test project in source/HelloAndroidTest, then the value of --main should be ../HelloAndroid.
-n, --name Name that you want to give the test project.  
-p, --path Directory in which you want to create the new test project. The android tool creates the test project files and directory structure in this directory. If the directory does not exist, android creates it.

If the operation is successful, android lists to STDOUT the names of the files and directories it has created.

This creates a new test project with the appropriate directories and build files. The directory structure and build file contents are identical to those in a regular Android application project. They are described in detail in the topic Developing In Other IDEs.

The operation also creates an AndroidManifest.xml file with instrumentation information. When you run the test, Android uses this information to load the application you are testing and control it with instrumentation.

For example, suppose you create the Hello, World tutorial application in the directory ~/source/HelloAndroid. In the tutorial, this application uses the package name com.example.helloandroid and the activity name HelloAndroid. You can to create the test for this in ~/source/HelloAndroidTest. To do so, you enter:

$ cd ~/source
$ android create test-project -m ../HelloAndroid -n HelloAndroidTest -p HelloAndroidTest

This creates a directory called ~/src/HelloAndroidTest. In the new directory you see the file AndroidManifest.xml. This file contains the following instrumentation-related elements and attributes:

Updating a test project

You use the android tool when you need to change the path to the project of the application under test. If you are changing an existing test project created in Eclipse with ADT so that you can also build and run it from the command line, you must use the "create" operation. See the section Creating a test project.

Note: If you change the Android package name of the application under test, you must manually change the value of the <android:targetPackage> attribute within the AndroidManifest.xml file of the test application. Running android update test-project does not do this.

To update a test project with the android tool, enter:

android update-test-project -m <main_path> -p <test_path>
Flag Value Description
-m, --main The path to the project of the application under test, relative to the test project For example, if the application under test is in source/HelloAndroid, and the test project is in source/HelloAndroidTest, then the value for --main is ../HelloAndroid.
-p, --path The of the test project. For example, if the test project is in source/HelloAndroidTest, then the value for --path is HelloAndroidTest.

If the operation is successful, android lists to STDOUT the names of the files and directories it has created.

Creating a Test Application

Once you have created a test project, you populate it with a test application. The application does not require an {@link android.app.Activity Activity}, although you can define one if you wish. Although your test application can combine Activities, Android test class extensions, JUnit extensions, or ordinary classes, you should extend one of the Android test classes or JUnit classes, because these provide the best testing features.

If you run your tests with {@link android.test.InstrumentationTestRunner} (or a related test runner), then it will run all the methods in each class. You can modify this behavior by using the {@link junit.framework.TestSuite TestSuite} class.

To create a test application, start with one of Android's test classes in the Java package {@link android.test android.test}. These extend the JUnit {@link junit.framework.TestCase TestCase} class. With a few exceptions, the Android test classes also provide instrumentation for testing.

For test classes that extend {@link junit.framework.TestCase TestCase}, you probably want to override the setUp() and tearDown() methods:

Another useful convention is to add the method testPreConditions() to your test class. Use this method to test that the application under test is initialized correctly. If this test fails, you know that that the initial conditions were in error. When this happens, further test results are suspect, regardless of whether or not the tests succeeded.

To learn more about creating test applications, see the topic Testing and Instrumentation, which provides an overview of Android testing. If you prefer to follow a tutorial, try the Activity Testing tutorial, which leads you through the creation of tests for an actual Android application.

Running Tests

If you are not developing in Eclipse with ADT, you need to run tests from the command line. You can do this either with Ant or with the {@link android.app.ActivityManager ActivityManager} command line interface.

You can also run tests from the command line even if you are using Eclipse with ADT to develop them. To do this, you need to create the proper files and directory structure in the test project, using the android tool with the option create test-project. This is described in the section Working with Test Projects.

Quick build and run with Ant

You can use Ant to run all the tests in your test project, using the target run-tests, which is created automatically when you create a test project with the android tool.

This target re-builds your main project and test project if necessary, installs the test application to the current AVD or device, and then runs all the test classes in the test application. The results are directed to STDOUT.

You can update an existing test project to use this feature. To do this, use the android tool with the update test-project option. This is described in the section Updating a test project.

Running tests on a device or emulator

When you run tests from the command line with the ActivityManager (am) command-line tool, you get more options for choosing the tests to run than with any other method. You can select individual test methods, filter tests according to their annotation, or specify testing options. Since the test run is controlled entirely from a command line, you can customize your testing with shell scripts in various ways.

You run the am tool on an Android device or emulator using the Android Debug Bridge (adb) shell. When you do this, you use the ActivityManager instrument option to run your test application using an Android test runner (usually {@link android.test.InstrumentationTestRunner}). You set am options with command-line flags.

To run a test with am:

  1. If necessary, re-build your main application and test application.
  2. Install your test application and main application Android package files (.apk files) to your current Android device or emulator
  3. At the command line, enter:
    $ adb shell am instrument -w <test_package_name>/<runner_class>
    

    where <test_package_name> is the Android package name of your test application, and <runner_class> is the name of the Android test runner class you are using. The Android package name is the value of the package attribute of the manifest element in the manifest file (AndroidManifest.xml) of your test application. The Android test runner class is usually InstrumentationTestRunner.

    Your test results appear in STDOUT.

This operation starts an adb shell, then runs am instrument in it with the specified parameters. This particular form of the command will run all of the tests in your test application. You can control this behavior with flags that you pass to am instrument. These flags are described in the next section.

Using the Instrument Command

The general syntax of the am instrument command is:

    am instrument [flags] <test_package>/<runner_class>

The main input parameters to am instrument are described in the following table:

Parameter Value Description
<test_package> The Android package name of the test application. The value of the package attribute of the manifest element in the test application's manifest file.
<runner_class> The class name of the instrumented test runner you are using. This is usually {@link android.test.InstrumentationTestRunner}.

The flags for am instrument are described in the following table:

Flag Value Description
-w (none) Forces am instrument to wait until the instrumentation terminates before terminating itself. The net effect is to keep the shell open until the tests have finished. This flag is not required, but if you do not use it, you will not see the results of your tests.
-r (none) Outputs results in raw format. Use this flag when you want to collect performance measurements, so that they are not formatted as test results. This flag is designed for use with the flag -e perf true (documented in the section Instrument options).
-e <test_options> Provides testing options , in the form of key-value pairs. The am instrument tool passes these to the specified instrumentation class via its onCreate() method. You can specify multiple occurrences of -e <test_options. The keys and values are described in the next table.

The only instrumentation class that understands these key-value pairs is InstrumentationTestRunner (or a subclass). Using them with any other class has no effect.

Instrument options

The am instrument tool passes testing options to InstrumentationTestRunner or a subclass in the form of key-value pairs, using the -e flag, with this syntax:

    -e <key> <value>

Where applicable, a <key> may have multiple values separated by a comma (,). For example, this invocation of InstrumentationTestRunner provides multiple values for the package key:

$ adb shell am instrument -w -e package com.android.test.package1,com.android.test.package2 com.android.test/android.test.InstrumentationTestRunner

The following table describes the key-value pairs and their result. Please review the Usage Notes following the table.

Key Value Description
package <Java_package_name> The fully-qualified Java package name for one of the packages in the test application. Any test case class that uses this package name is executed. Notice that this is not an Android package name; a test application has a single Android package name but may have several Java packages within it.
class <class_name> The fully-qualified Java class name for one of the test case classes. Only this test case class is executed.
<class_name>#method name A fully-qualified test case class name, and one of its methods. Only this method is executed. Note the hash mark (#) between the class name and the method name.
func true Runs all test classes that extend {@link android.test.InstrumentationTestCase}.
unit true Runs all test classes that do not extend either {@link android.test.InstrumentationTestCase} or {@link android.test.PerformanceTestCase}.
size [small | medium | large] Runs a test method annotated by size. The annotations are @SmallTest, @MediumTest, and @LargeTest.
perf true Runs all test classes that implement {@link android.test.PerformanceTestCase}. When you use this option, also specify the -r flag for am instrument, so that the output is kept in raw format and not re-formatted as test results.
debug true Runs tests in debug mode.
log true Loads and logs all specified tests, but does not run them. The test information appears in STDOUT. Use this to verify combinations of other filters and test specifications.
emma true Runs an EMMA code coverage analysis and writes the output to /data//coverage.ec on the device. To override the file location, use the coverageFile key that is described in the following entry.

Note: This option requires an EMMA-instrumented build of the test application, which you can generate with the coverage target.

coverageFile <filename> Overrides the default location of the EMMA coverage file on the device. Specify this value as a path and filename in UNIX format. The default filename is described in the entry for the emma key.
-e Flag Usage Notes

Instrument examples

Here are some examples of using am instrument to run tests. They are based on the following structure:

Running the Entire Test Application

To run all of the test classes in the test application, enter:

$ adb shell am instrument -w com.android.demo.app.tests/android.test.InstrumentationTestRunner

Running All Tests in a Test Case Class

To run all of the tests in the class UnitTests, enter:

$ adb shell am instrument -w  \
-e class com.android.demo.app.tests.UnitTests \
com.android.demo.app.tests/android.test.InstrumentationTestRunner

am instrument gets the value of the -e flag, detects the class keyword, and runs all the methods in the UnitTests class.

Selecting a Subset of Tests

To run all of the tests in UnitTests, and the testCamera method in FunctionTests, enter:

$ adb shell am instrument -w \
-e class com.android.demo.app.tests.UnitTests,com.android.demo.app.tests.FunctionTests#testCamera \
com.android.demo.app.tests/android.test.InstrumentationTestRunner

You can find more examples of the command in the documentation for {@link android.test.InstrumentationTestRunner}.