Functional Testing

Dealing with common Robotium Issues

Common Robotium Issues
When working with Robotium one may encounter issues that are due to the SDK, Eclipse or how Robotium works.

The intent of this tutorial is to explain and show solutions to common issues that new users experience.

1. NullPointerException when creating a test project for the first time

This problem comes especially with novice, when they for the first time create a new workspace and start working with Robotium.

If we create a new workspace for this tutorial, when creating the Test Project, Eclipse will show error ‘java.lang.NullPointerException’, because it is a new workspace and eclipse is not able to get selected Android resources for first test project.

We can solve this issue by following any of the suggestions below:

1. Create another TestProject & eclipse will automatically get selected resources(for the new one) & not show error for second created Test Project(we can use the second one for our work)

2. First create an Android Project (we can also use Android Sample application bundled with Android SDK), run it, then create Test Project will not show error

2.Java.lan.NoClassDefFoundError: com.jayway.android.robotium.solo.solo

In the latest Android SDK versions (17 or above) java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError:
com.jayway.android.robotium.solo.Solo error is shown if the Robotium jar is not exported. To fix the issue, after adding the Robotium jar go to the “Order & Export” tab and click the check-box besides the Robotium Jar and then click “OK”. Please see the screenshots below.

3. Robotium does not work with all the activities

Important to know that Robotium runs in the same process as the application under test. Due to this Robotium only works with the activities and views within the defined package (see below).

In the AndroidManifest.xml we use the following code to describe which application to test:

android:targetPackage=”com.app.testingapp”
android:name=”android.test.InstrumentationTestRunner” />

“com.app.testingapp” is the package name of the application under test. Robotium is locked to this package.

4. Unstable test case

Its important to continuously use the waitFor methods, especially if new windows open or loading screens are shown. The waitFor methods tell Robotium to wait for a condition to happen before the execution continues.

Robotium contains the following wait methods:

waitForActivity(String name)
Waits for the given Activity.

waitForActivity(String name, int timeout)
Waits for the given Activity.

waitForDialogToClose(long timeout)
Waits for a Dialog to close.

waitForFragmentById(int id)
Waits for a Fragment with a given id to appear.

waitForFragmentById(int id, int timeout)
Waits for a Fragment with a given id to appear.

waitForFragmentByTag(String tag)
Waits for a Fragment with a given tag to appear.

waitForFragmentByTag(String tag, int timeout)
Waits for a Fragment with a given tag to appear.

waitForLogMessage(String logMessage)
Waits for a log message to appear.

waitForLogMessage(String logMessage, int timeout)
Waits for a log message to appear.
waitForText(String text)
Waits for a text to be shown.

waitForText(String text, int minimumNumberOfMatches, long timeout)
Waits for a text to be shown.

waitForText(String text, int minimumNumberOfMatches, long timeout, boolean scroll)
Waits for a text to be shown.

waitForText(String text, int minimumNumberOfMatches, long timeout, boolean scroll, boolean onlyVisible)
Waits for a text to be shown.

waitForView(Class viewClass)
Waits for a View of a certain class to be shown.

waitForView(Class viewClass, int minimumNumberOfMatches, int timeout)
Waits for a View of a certain class to be shown.

waitForView(Class viewClass, int minimumNumberOfMatches, int timeout, boolean scroll)
Waits for a View of a certain class to be shown.

waitForView(android.view.View view)
Waits for a given View to be shown.

waitForView(android.view.View view, int timeout, boolean scroll)
Waits for a given View to be shown.

5. Hanging/Freezing test cases

During test execution we open multiple activities, which stay alive depending upon the free memory available. Therefore use solo.finishOpenedActivities() in your tearDown method, it will close all the opened activities and free resources for the following test executions.

@AfterClass
   public void tearDown() throws Exception
   {
      solo.finishOpenedActivities();
   }

6. Problems when resigning APK

Use resign tool to re-sign an APK, observe that tool doesn’t work with Java 7(Java 1.7).

Manually re-sign APK
To manually re-sing APK:s follow the below steps:

* Un-zip the APK file
* Delete the META-¬INF folder
* Re‐zip the APK file
It will zip file as “applicationName.apk.zip” , rename it to: “applicationName.apk”
* In Dos prompt/Terminal write following commands> jarsigner -keystore ~/.android/debug.keystore -storepass android -keypass android applicationName.apk androiddebugkey
> zipalign 4 applicationName.apk TempApplicationName.apkThen rename TempApplicationName.apk to applicationName.apk if you want.

Test Android Apk with Robotium Using Eclipse Indigo – Latest

Test Android apk file with Robotium
To test an Android apk file using Robotium, it requires to

Install apk file on device we will use AndroidCalculator apk file, click here to find apk

Create Test Project using eclipse to test that apk

Note: If android working environment is not set on your machine, follow Set up Android Working Environment

1. Install AUT (Application Under Test) APK
Apk file can be installed on device or emulator. Before installing it needs to make sure that apk file is signed in debug mode. If not it can be signed as debug mode in next steps.
If apk file already has debug mode signatures skip next steps and jump to Load Emulator section.
Note: if you are not sure about the current signed mode of apk file, it’s better to resign it.

Sign Apk file in debug mode
The apk file must have the same certificate signature that your test project has. The signature will identify the author of the android application. Signature means it contains the information like First Name and Last Name of the developer, Name of the Organizational Unit, Organization, City, State, two-letter Country Code. We will un-sign already signed apk file and then again sign it with debug key. Standard tools like Keytool and Jarsigner are used to generate keys and sign applications. For more help visit: http://developer.android.com/guide/publishing/app-signing.html

Important Steps:
1.If you know the certificate signature then use the same signature in test project
2. If you do not know the certificate signature then delete the certificate signature and use the same android debug key signature in both the application and the test project
3. If the application is unsigned then sign the application apk with the android debug key

To un-signed a signed application download java program from http://www.troido.de/re-sign.jar double click on it to open it and drop apk file on it
Or
* Un-zip the apk file
* Delete the META-¬INF folder
* Re‐zip the apk file

It will zip file as “applicationName.apk.zip” , rename it and make it as “applicationName.apk”
* In Dos prompt/Terminal write following commands

> jarsigner -keystore ~/.android/debug.keystore -storepass android -keypass android applicationName.apk androiddebugkey
> zipalign 4 applicationName.apk TempApplicationName.apk

Then rename TempApplicationName.apk to applicationName.apk if you need.

For more help visit: http://developer.android.com/guide/publishing/app-signing.html

Load Emulator
Load command prompt (windows user) or Terminal (Linux users) and write following command to run emulator
emulator -avd
here the Device Name is our AVD (Android Virtual Device) created in Set up Android Working Environment, it will load emulator in few seconds.
If it shows some error most probably the Android SDK path in not set in PATH environment variable. One can set up Android SDK path in next step, skip next step if emulator is working

Set Up Android SDK Path

Follow the section suits your OS (Operating System) to set SDK path

Linux (ubuntu)
Load terminal and write

echo $PATH

(it will print value of PATH, if Android SDK path is not visible move on next step to add path). To set path enter following command

sudo gedit /etc/bash.bashrc (it will ask password, enter the password)

It will load bash.bashrc file into gedit (text editor) and at end of file add following lines into file and save it.

Note: it is showing the path for all tools necessary for android, based on my current system directory; you need to replace with your own path where Android SDK resides

export PATH=${PATH}:/home/naveed/android-sdk/
export PATH=${PATH}:/home/naveed/android-sdk/tools/
export PATH=${PATH}:/home/naveed/android-sdk/platform-tools/

now reload the Terminal and run emulator -avd command again it will load emulator

Windows
Load Command Prompt and write

echo %PATH%

(it will print value of PATH, if Android SDK path is not visible move on next step to set path). To set path enter following commands one by one

set PATH=${PATH}:c:/naveed/android-sdk/
set PATH=${PATH}:c:/naveed/android-sdk/tools
set PATH=${PATH}:c:/naveed/android-sdk/platform-tools/

Note: it is showing the path for all tools necessary for android, based on my current system directory, you need to replace with your own path where Android SDK resides

Now reload the Command Prompt and run

emulator -avd

now it will load emulator

Install AUT apk on Emulator

After the emulator is working, we can now install AUT (application under Test) apk on emulator. To install apk load another instance of command prompt/terminal (based on your os), and write following command to install AndroidCalculator apk on emulator

adb install /AndroidCalculator.apk

the showing the directory where AndroidCalculator.apk is located, in my case it was
adb install /home/naveed/AndroidCalculator.apk

as apk is at my home directory ( I am using ubuntu). You need to enter your own path where apk resides. It will successfully install apk file and show success

Note: For sake of understanding Test Project app will be installed on emulator which will then call/load the AUT (already installed) and perform test scenarios on it. When we will run our Test project through Eclipse it will automatically install it on emulator (will do it in coming sections)

2. Create Test Project

Click on File menu, select New and click on the Others,
From New window, Drag down to Android option, expand it, and select Android Test Project and Click on Next

From ‘New Android Project’ Window, enter Test Project Name as ‘TestProject’, and click on ‘Next’

On next window under ‘Select TestTarget’ section select ‘This project’ option & click ‘Next’

On ‘Next’ window under ‘Select Build Target’ section select your desired SDK version, we can select Android 2.3.3 or latest of your choice & press Finish.

Eclipse will create TestProject with no package,

To manually create package right click on project select New > Package. On ‘New Java Package’ window fill package name against ‘Name:’. Like to test AndroidCalculator which has com.calculator package name, TestProject should be com.testcalculator or com.calculator.test package name

3. Create Test Class
Right click on com.testcalculator package, from New click on Class to add class. Enter class name TestApk (one can put and any name suits) and click on Finish

4. Code Test Class
Enter following code into new created TestApk class and save it

package com.testcalculator;

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

@SuppressWarnings(“unchecked”)
public class TestApk extends ActivityInstrumentationTestCase2{

private static final String TARGET_PACKAGE_ID=”com.calculator”;
private static final String LAUNCHER_ACTIVITY_FULL_CLASSNAME=”com.calculator.Main”;
private static Class launcherActivityClass;
static{

try
{
launcherActivityClass=Class.forName(LAUNCHER_ACTIVITY_FULL_CLASSNAME);
} catch (ClassNotFoundException e){
throw new RuntimeException(e);
}
}

public TestApk()throws ClassNotFoundException{
super(TARGET_PACKAGE_ID,launcherActivityClass);
}

private Solo solo;

@Override
protected void setUp() throws Exception
{
solo = new Solo(getInstrumentation(),getActivity());
}

public void testDisplayBlackBox() {
//Enter any integer/decimal value for first editfield, we are writing 10
solo.enterText(0, “10”);

//Enter any interger/decimal value for first editfield, we are writing 20
solo.enterText(1, “20”);

//Click on Multiply button
solo.clickOnButton(“Multiply”);

//Verify that resultant of 10 x 20
assertTrue(solo.searchText(“200”));
}

@Override

public void tearDown() throws Exception {
solo.finishOpenedActivities();
}

5. Add Robotium jar
Right click on project (AndroidCalculatorTestApk) select Build Path, and then click on Configure Build Path option. On Properties window click on Libraries tab and add Robotium jar into project

Download Robotium jar from http://code.google.com/p/robotium/downloads/list

6. Targeting AndroidManifest.xml to apk
From project explorer window open AndroidManifest.xml file

Put ‘com.calculator’ as value of following parameter like above
< span=””>“com.calculator”

7. Run your test
Its time to run test, now right click on AndroidCalculatorTestApk project and Run As AndroidJUnit Test. Wait for some time, it will automatically load AndroidCalculator.apk (installed on emulator) and
* Enter the first & second values into editfields
* Click on Multiply button
* Verify their multiply value

After complete verification it will show the report like below

Test can also be run using command prompt/terminal by following simple steps

* Write following command to install AndroidCalculator apk on emulator
> adb install /AndroidCalculator.apk

* Write following command to install AndroidCalculatorTest apk on emulator
> adb install /AndroidCalculatorTestApk.apk

* Run the test cases:
> adb shell am instrument ‐w com.testcalculator/android.test.InstrumentationTestRunner

Note: Click here to download TestProject project source code

March 20, 2012 by admin Android Testing Automated Testing Functional Testing Mobile Automation Regression Testing Tools Robotium Testing Tools 8

GenerateData – An open source data generator tool

Thanks to the Open Source Community for providing bunch of tools. It made our life so easy. I am software tester & during my work some times we need to generate some data for testing. Thanks to BenjaminKeen.com who provided Data Generator tool.

It is a web based tool with multiple options to generate data. Using it intelligently one make different

patterns. Generated data can be exported into multiple formats.

Features

(JS-enabled) browser-friendly.
Many data types available: names, phone numbers, email addresses, cities, states, provinces, counties, dates, street addresses, number ranges, alphanumeric strings, lorem ipsum text and more.
Option to generate data in XML, Excel, HTML, CSV or SQL.
Country specific data (state / province / county) for Canada, US, Netherlands and UK.
Does your laundry.
Saves your data generation forms for later use (downloadable version & for donators only)

It can be used on line, and one can also deploy it on its own machine with some normal requirements.

Any one can install it will following simple steps,

By using data generator we can use any number of records with any number of columns. If we need to generate data for user registration form like,

After defining columns with their required input type simple click on Generate button, and see its magic 🙂

We can use that data in manual and automate testing, and on many other areas.

January 18, 2009 by admin Functional Testing Regression Testing Tools Testing Tools 1

Functional Testing

Dealing with common Robotium Issues

1. NullPointerException when creating a test project for the first time

2.Java.lan.NoClassDefFoundError: com.jayway.android.robotium.solo.solo