This document discusses unit testing Android applications. It introduces Robolectric, an emulation framework that runs unit tests for Android apps on a Java Virtual Machine instead of an emulator or device. This allows tests to run much faster. Robolectric emulates the Android SDK and resources using shadow objects and view/resource loading. It is easy to extend and has good community support. While useful for unit testing, it cannot replace integrated tests that run on actual devices.

1. Unit Testing
Android Applications
Multunus Software Pvt. Ltd.
Leena SN
Krishnaprasad R
Agile Software Development
Head of Engineering
Software Architect
@multunus
@leenasn
@krikrn

2. Demo of AndroidUnitTestCase

3. AndroidInstrumentationTestCase
● Extension to JUnit
● Provides wrappers for instantiating Activities
● Provide methods for interacting with
Activities

4. The Problem
● Slow tests
● Resulting in slow iterations

5. The Solution
● Mocking
● But its not easy :(

6. Mocking is Hard because..
● Google has stripped all the classes with
android.jar with RuntimeException(“Stub”)
● Most classes and methods are final
● Non public constructors
● Lack of interfaces
● Many static methods

7. Why Robolectric?
● Faster tests - runs in JVM
● Emulates Android SDK and Resources

8. Lets see it in action!

9. How it works
● Emulates Android SDK, modified to run it on
JVM Using
○ Shadow Objects
○ View and Resource Loading

10. What is Special
● Extending Robolectric is easy too
● Awesome Community Support

11. What Robolectric is NOT
● Never runs on actual device as it emulates
the environment
● It can test small units, so can not replace
automated integration tests
● The above are for purpose :)

12. Summary

13. References
http://bit.ly/android-robolectric
http://bit.ly/how-robolectric
http://bit.ly/multunus-robo-sample
http://bit.ly/robolectric-blog