Sunday, March 31, 2013

AndroidViewClient: dump.py explained


dump.py is an extremely valuable tool if you are developing tests or scripts based on AndroidViewClient.
It was created as a simple example to demonstrate AndroidViewClient features but it became something more than that. Nevertheless, the intention is to keep it simple enough to be used as an example, so some extra features will be provided by different tools.
As its name indicates, the main function is to dump the content of the screen present on a device or emulator at any given time, but instead of providing it as a bitmap the result of running dump.py is the logical representation of the screen as a tree that can be also printed in textual form.
A detailed description of this important tool has been made available in AndroidViewClient's wiki at: https://github.com/dtmilano/AndroidViewClient/wiki/dump.py
Dont hesitate to send your comments and questions to AndroidViewClient's Google+ page where they can be easily follow up.