Robolectric

test-drive your Android code

Running tests on an Android emulator or device is slow! Building, deploying, and running the tests often take minutes. That's no way to do TDD. There must be a better way. Robolectric is a framework that brings fast and reliable unit tests to Android. Tests run inside the JVM in seconds. With Robolectric you can write tests like this:

@RunWith(RobolectricTestRunner.class)
public class MyActivityTest {
  @Test
  public void clickingButton_shouldChangeMessage() {
    try (ActivityController<MyActivity> controller = Robolectric.buildActivity(MyActivity.class)) {
      controller.setup(); // Moves the Activity to the RESUMED state
      MyActivity activity = controller.get();

      activity.findViewById(R.id.button).performClick();
      assertEquals(((TextView) activity.findViewById(R.id.text)).getText(), "Robolectric Rocks!");
    }
  }
}

@RunWith(RobolectricTestRunner::class)
class MyActivityTest {
  @Test
  fun clickingButton_shouldChangeMessage() {
    Robolectric.buildActivity(MyActivity::class).use { controller ->
      controller.setup() // Moves the Activity to the RESUMED state
      val activity = controller.get()

      activity.findViewById(R.id.button).performClick()
      assertEquals((activity.findViewById(R.id.text) as TextView).text, "Robolectric Rocks!")
    }
  }
}

Get started

  • Test APIs & Isolation

    Unlike traditional emulator-based Android tests, Robolectric tests run inside a sandbox which allows the Android environment to be precisely configured to the desired conditions for each test, isolates each test from its neighbors, and extends the Android framework with test APIs which provide minute control over the Android framework's behavior and visibility of state for assertions.

    While much of the Android framework will work as expected inside a Robolectric test, some Android components' regular behavior doesn't translate well to unit tests: hardware sensors need to be simulated, system services need to be loaded with test fixture data. In those cases, Robolectric provides a test double that's suitable for most unit testing scenarios.

  • No Mocking Frameworks Required

    An alternate approach to Robolectric is to use mock frameworks such as Mockito or to mock out the Android SDK. While this is a valid approach, it often yields tests that are essentially reverse implementations of the application code.

    Robolectric allows a test style that is closer to black box testing, making the tests more effective for refactoring and allowing the tests to focus on the behavior of the application instead of the implementation of Android. You can still use a mocking framework along with Robolectric if you like.

  • Run Tests Outside the Emulator

    Robolectric lets you run your tests on your workstation, or on your continuous integration environment, in a regular JVM, without an emulator. Because of this, the dexing, packaging, and installing steps aren't necessary, reducing test cycles from minutes to seconds so you can iterate quickly and refactor your code with confidence.

  • SDK, Resources, & Native Method Simulation

    Robolectric handles inflation of Views, resource loading, and lots of other stuff that's implemented in native C code on Android devices. This allows tests to do most things you could do on a real device. You can provide your own implementation for specific SDK methods too, so you could simulate error conditions or real-world sensor behavior, for example.