Android: Testing on the Android platform - Unit tests

This is the first installment of a series of articles about testing on the Android platform. Things have changed with the release of the version 1.0 of the SDK and will change in the future for sure, as there are still some lose ends.

Electron and Positron frameworks are not valid anymore in this new SDK, so let's back to base and start analyzing the possibilities featured in the Android platform as it is.

As with previous version of articles covering testing for different platforms we will be using our simple Temperature Converter (also analyzed in Test Driven Development and GUI Testing) example.

For a Test Driven Development approach you should

1. create your Android project
2. add the tests source folder (New -> Source Folder -> Folder name: tests/src)
3. in the newly created folder add a Java Package. Its name should be the same as the project package with .tests appended
4. in the 'tests' package create a new JUnit Test Case using JUnit 3 (New -> JUnit Test Case). Name it TemperatureConverterTest, leave class under test blank
5. Copy this code into TemperatureConverterTest.java 

package com.codtech.android.temperatureconverter.tests;

import junit.framework.TestCase;

import java.util.HashMap;

import java.util.Map;

import com.codtech.android.temperatureconverter.TemperatureConverter;

/**

 * @author diego

 *

 */

public class TemperatureConverterTest extends TestCase {

private static final Map conversionTable = new HashMap();

static {

// initialize (c, f) pairs

conversionTable.put(0, 32);

conversionTable.put(100, 212);

conversionTable.put(-1, 30);

conversionTable.put(-100, -148); conversionTable.put(32, 90);

conversionTable.put(-40, -40);

conversionTable.put(-273, -459);

}

/**

* @param name

*/

public TemperatureConverterTest(String name) { super(name);

}

/**

* Test method for {@link com.codtech.android.temperatureconverter.TemperatureConverter#celsiusToFahrenheit(int)}.

*/

public void testCelsiusToFahrenheit() {

for (int c: conversionTable.keySet()) {

int f = conversionTable.get(c);

String msg = "" + c + "C -> " + f + "F"; int r = TemperatureConverter.celsiusToFahrenheit(c);

assertEquals(msg, f, r);

}

}

}

1. Accept Eclipse hints to create TemperatureConverter class and celsiusToFahrenheit method
   
2. Run -> Run As -> Run configurations and create a new JUnit configuration and select the previously created Test class
3. Run the tests and instead of the expected test results you'll get

# An unexpected error has been detected by Java Runtime Environment:

#

#  Internal Error (classFileParser.cpp:2924), pid=5364, tid=6644

#  Error: ShouldNotReachHere

1. That's because we are using Android's JUnit stub implementation. Go to Run -> Run As -> Run configurations again and in the recently created JUnit configuration Classpath's Bootstrap Entries remove Android Library
2. Then Add Library, using Advanced... button, and add JRE System Library and JUnit 3
3. Apply and Run
4. And now our tests run, failing as expected. We haven't created the conversion method anyway

So far so good, our tests are running. But as you may have discovered already, mainly when we changed the libraries, those tests are not Android platform tests so they are only useful as part of our Test Driven Development strategy and we must have always in mind that real Android implementation of some functionality may vary.

1. Let's finish our TemperatureConverter class
   
2. package com.codtech.android.temperatureconverter;

/**

 * @author diego

 *

 */

package com.codtech.android.temperatureconverter;

public class TemperatureConverter {

public static final int ABSOLUTE_ZERO_C = -273;

public static int celsiusToFahrenheit(int c) {

if (c < ABSOLUTE_ZERO_C ) {
throw new RuntimeException("Invalid temperature: " + c + " below absolute zero");
}
return (int)Math.round(c * 1.8 + 32);
}
}

Run the test again and it will success. A Test Suite can allso be added, however in this case as we have only one test it's not necessary.

Stay tuned. Next article will explore Android Instrumentation to run tests on the real platform.