Selendroid Tutorial for Beginners with Example

Details

Have you ever developed an Android application and publish it to Google Play? What will you do if you get a user review like -

Introduction to Selendroid

When you publish an app to Google Play, it must be well tested to avoid the potential bugs. There's a ton of test scenarios that should be executed before publishing an app. To save the Testing effort, you need a testing tool. One of the best testing tools for Android app is Selendroid.

What is Selendroid?

Selendroid is a test automation framework for multi-type of mobile application: native and hybrid Android app and mobile web.

Introduction to Selendroid

 

You can write the tests using the Selenium 2 client APIs. Because Selendroid still reuses of the existing Selenium infrastructure for the web

Selendroid is a powerful testing tool. It can be used on emulators and real devices

Introduction to Selendroid

Why do we need Selendroid?

Selendroid is a great testing tool. But you may still doubt its usefulness.

Introduction to Selendroid

This section will introduce the important features of the Selendroid to answer the question why you need Selendroid.

Introduction to Selendroid

Selendroid Architecture

Selendroid is based on the Android instrumentation framework. Selendroid tests are written base on the Selenium Web driver client API, so it supports full integration with current Selenium frameworks.

The following figure describes the architecture of Selendroid

Introduction to Selendroid

Selendroid contains 4 major components:

Introduction to Selendroid

 

Getting started with Selendroid

You already have known the importance of the Selendroid. Now let's get our hands dirty with Selendroid.

There're 3 steps should be done before the first test with Selendroid

Introduction to Selendroid

Setting up a Selendroid environment

Selendroid can work on Window, Linux and Mac OS. In this tutorial, we will setup Selendroid in Window OS.

Before using Selendroid, you need install following package first

How to launch Selendroid

Step 1) Getting an application under test

You can use existing Selendroid test app to check that how Selendroid works (Link to sample application under test)

Once a download is complete, copy this APK and the above Selendroid Standalone jar file to a folder with the name "gtupapers"

Step 2) Launch the Selendroid

Open the terminal on Windows & navigate to the folder gtupapers created in step 1.

Run the following command

Introduction to Selendroid

The output will display as following

Introduction to Selendroid

 

After running this command, Selendroid-standalone HTTP server starts! The default port number of this server is 4444. All hardware device, as well as Android Virtual Device, will be scanned and recognized automatically. Selendroid will identify the Android target version and device screen size.

To check the Android target version as well as the device information, you can launch the following URL on a browser:

http://localhost:4444/wd/hub/status.

Introduction to Selendroid

Selendroid basic command

This section introduces you some basic Selendroid-Standalone command line. You may use them to set up the Selendroid testing environment

  1. Setting port of Selendroid

    The default port of Selendroid is 4444. But you can change to other port by adding a parameter to the command to launch Selendroid

    Parameter: -port [port number]

    For example:

    Introduction to Selendroid

    In above command, 5555 is the new port.

    So the URL to check the Android target version is changed to: http://localhost:5555/wd/hub/status

  1. Specify the location of the application under test (Binary APK file). Selendroid often required the absolute path for this file

    Parameter: -app [file path]

    For example:

    Introduction to Selendroid

    In above command, the Selendroid automatically find the binary file base on the "C:\gtupapersApp.apk" to get the information of the application under test.

    Check the URL http://localhost:4444/wd/hub/status, you will see this information

    Introduction to Selendroid

  2. Change the port the Selendroid uses to communicate with instrumentation server. Selendroid uses the port 8080 as the default

    Parameter: -selendroidServerPort [port number]

    Example

    Introduction to Selendroid

    The port now is changed to 9000

  3. Change the timeout to start emulators. The unit is milliseconds.

    Parameter: -timeoutEmulatorStart

    By default, Selendroid will wait 300,000 milliseconds until the emulator starts. You can change to new timeout (200,000 ms) by command

    Introduction to Selendroid

    After this time our expired, if the emulator cannot start, the Selendroid will throw the exception error (Error occurred while looking for devices/emulators.) then stop running

  4. When you start the Selendroid command on terminal, you will see a log printed out on the screen. You can change the type of log you see by adding the following parameter

    Parameter: -logLevel [type of log]

    The log level values are ERROR, WARNING, INFO, DEBUG, and VERBOSE. Default: ERROR.

    For example, set Selendroid to print the WARNING log only, you can use this command

    Introduction to Selendroid

    The Selendroid only print the WARNING log

Start your first test with Selendroid

This section is a step by step guide to creating your first test script using Selendroid

Suppose we have an Android application under test name gtupapersApp. The application includes a text field and a button name "Show Text".

DOWNLOAD THE APK HERE

Introduction to Selendroid

We need to execute following Test Case using Selendroid

Test Cases 

Condition 

Expected output: 

  1. Launch the application
  2. Enter a text "gtupapers Test" to the text field
  3. Press "Show Text" button

The binary of the application under test is available

A device is connected to PC 

The text "Text Show here" is changed to the text

which user enter in a text field

 

Step 1) Create a Java project in Eclipse

Step 2) Add selenium and Selendroid jar file in eclipse environments

Right-click gtupapersTest Project -> Build Path -> Add External Archives

 

Introduction to Selendroid

Navigate to the folder which stored the jar files

There're 3 jar files should be added

Select all -> Choose Open to add a jar file to the project

 

Introduction to Selendroid

 

Step 3) after adding the above library, those libraries will be added to the Reference Libraries of the test project. A tester can use the APIs of those libraries to develop the test program

Create package "com.guru.test" and add java file "gtupapersTest.java" like below

Right Click gtupapersTest -> New -> Package

Introduction to Selendroid

Type com.guru.test to the Name field on New Java Package dialog à Finish

Introduction to Selendroid

 

The Eclipse will create list folders and subfolders like this in the source code structure

Introduction to Selendroid

 

Step 4) Install TestNG for Eclipse


In Eclipse, Help -> Install New Software, in the Install Dialog, click Add and enter the following

Press OK -> Next to install the TestNG

Introduction to Selendroid

Step 5) Copy the gtupapersApp.apk to the folder of Test App

Introduction to Selendroid

 

Step 6) Get the ID of an application under test.

Suppose we have an APK file name gtupapersApp.apk. Follow the step which is described in previous section, execute the command on terminal

Introduction to Selendroid

Open following link in a browser

http://localhost:4444/wd/hub/status.

The information of the device is displayed, copy the appId value "com.gtupapersapp:1.0"

Introduction to Selendroid

Step 7) Open the file gtupapersTest.java (in the sample code) and change as following

Introduction to Selendroid

To create a new test session with Selendroid, you have to provide the app id in the format: com.gtupapersapp:1.0. This app Id can is identified in step 6. If you don't set the app Id matching the Android device, the test session will throw an error and will not start.

After initializing the found device, Selendroid creates a customized selendroid-server and installs the Selendroid server on it

Selendroid also installs the application under test and starts the selendroid-server on device

After initializing the test session successfully, the test command is started executing on a device. (Such as entering text, press button…). If the test appends the test session, the emulator will stop automatically

Step 8) Start the new test session

Launch the Selendroid server using the following command on terminal like step 6

Introduction to Selendroid

After the Selendroid Server started, open the sample test project gtupaperstest on Eclipse, set a breakpoint at line 77 on file gtupapersTest.java by double click to the line 77 -> A dot will display like below

Introduction to Selendroid

Start a test session by right Click to gtupapersTest project -> Debug As -> Testng Test.

A test session will start like below

Introduction to Selendroid

Step 9) Get the Id of GUI element of an application under test

After test session start successfully, open browser, navigate to the URL http://localhost:4444/inspector

You will see the Application Under Test is launched like below

Introduction to Selendroid

Use mouse hover to each UI element of AUT (Button, TextField, Text Label), the ID of each element will highlight on the right pane

Introduction to Selendroid

After this step, you can get the ID of each above UI element

Those IDs will be used in next step

Step 10) Enter the test program like below

A test program using Selendroid includes 3 sections

Setup Test:

Following is the code for setup test, it will set up the condition for a test session.In case of an error, the Selendroid will throw the exception and the test app will stop.

The code includes the comments to explain each the statement. 

package com.guru.test;
		
 import io.selendroid.SelendroidCapabilities;
		import io.selendroid.SelendroidConfiguration;
		import io.selendroid.SelendroidDriver;
		import io.selendroid.SelendroidLauncher;
		import io.selendroid.device.DeviceTargetPlatform;
		
		import org.openqa.selenium.By;
		import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
		import org.openqa.selenium.WebElement;
		import org.testng.Assert;
		import org.testng.annotations.AfterSuite;
		import org.testng.annotations.BeforeSuite;
		import org.testng.annotations.Test;
		
 /**
		 * @author gtupapers Test App using Selendroid
			 * Application under test: gtupapersApp
		 *
		 */
		public
				class gtupapersTest {
				
				     //Declare web driver variable
		    private WebDriver driver;
					   
   
		    /**
		     * Setup the environment before testing
		     * @throws Exception
			     */
		    @BeforeSuite
		    public
					void setUp() throws Exception {
							
        //Start selendroid-standalone during test
		        SelendroidConfiguration config = new SelendroidConfiguration();
			        
		      // Add the selendroid-test-app to the standalone server
		        config.addSupportedApp("gtupapersApp.apk");
			        
                 
		        //start the standalone server
		        SelendroidLauncher selendroidServer = new SelendroidLauncher(config);
			        selendroidServer.launchSelendroid();
		        
		       // Create the selendroid capabilities
		        SelendroidCapabilities capa = new SelendroidCapabilities();
			        
        
		       // Specify to use selendroid's test app
		        capa.setAut("com.gtupapersapp:1.0");
			       
		       // Specify to use the Android device API 19
		        capa.setPlatformVersion(DeviceTargetPlatform.ANDROID19);
			        
		        // Don't request simulator, use real device
		        capa.setEmulator(false);
			        
         
		        //capa.wait(10000000);
		        
		        // Create instance of Selendroid Driver
		        driver = new SelendroidDriver(capa);
					       
		    }

Execute Test

Below is the code to execute a test. The code includes the comments

Here are the test steps again

  1. Enter the text "Hello Guru"
  2. Click Show Text Button
  3. Wait a while
  4. Verify that the app displays the text as user enter to a text field (Ex. Display the text "Hello Guru")
 /**
		     * Start execute the test case
		     * 01. Enter the text "Selendroid" to the textfield
		     * 02. Press OK button
		     * @throws Exception
			     */
		    @Test
		    public
					void selendroidTest() throws Exception {
							        
		        // Print the log 
		        System.out.print("Start executing test");
					        
		        // Find the input text field on screen
        // The id of this text field was get from step 9
		        WebElement inputField = driver.findElement(By.id("edtText"));
					        
		        // Verify that the text field enabled so user can enter text
		        Assert.assertEquals("true", inputField.getAttribute("enabled"));
					        
		        // Enter a text to text field
		        inputField.sendKeys("Hello Guru");        
			
         // click Show Text button
        // The id of this button was get from step 9
		        WebElement button = driver.findElement(By.id("btnShow"));
					        button.click();
		        
		        // Delay time to take effect
		        Thread.sleep(5000);
		        
		        //Find the label "Text Show Here" on screen
        // The id of this label was get from step 9
		        WebElement txtView = driver.findElement(By.id("txtView"));
					        
		        //Get the text display on screen
		        String expected = txtView.getText();
		        
		// Verify that the text which user enter on text field is same as text display on screen
		        Assert.assertEquals(expected, inputField.getText());        
		
     }

 

Finish Test

The following code will complete the test by stopping the Selendroid driver. 

 /**
		     * Stop the Selendroid driver
		     * 
		     */
		    @AfterSuite
		    public
					void tearDown() {
					        driver.quit();
			    }

You can see the detail in sample code included in this article.

 

Step 10) Connect Android device to the PC via USB cable. Points to observe -

Step 11) Run the Test App: Right click gtupaperstest -> Run as -> TestNG test

Introduction to Selendroid

 

Step 10) The Script start executed as following

Introduction to Selendroid

Step 12) After test finishes execution, TestNG auto generates the test report as following

Introduction to Selendroid

Introduction to Selendroid

Good Job, you are done the test now.

Summary

 

Summary

 

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