Android AsyncTask testing problem with Android Test Framework

Question

I have a very simple AsyncTask implementation example and have problem to test it using Android JUnit framework. It works just fine when I instantiate and execute it in normal application. However when it's executed from any of Android Testing framework classes (i.e. AndroidTestCase, ActivityUnitTestCase, ActivityInstrumentationTestCase2 etc) it behaves sarngely: - It executes doInBackground() method correctly - However it doesn't invokes any of its notification methods (onPostExecute(), onProgressUpdate(), etc) -- just silently ignores them whitout showing any errors.

This is very simple AsyncTask example

package kroz.andcookbook.threads.asynctask;

import android.os.AsyncTask;
import android.util.Log;
import android.widget.ProgressBar;
import android.widget.Toast;

public class AsyncTaskDemo extends AsyncTask<Integer, Integer, String> {

AsyncTaskDemoActivity _parentActivity;
int _counter;
int _maxCount;

public AsyncTaskDemo(AsyncTaskDemoActivity asyncTaskDemoActivity) {
    _parentActivity = asyncTaskDemoActivity;
}

@Override
protected void onPreExecute() {
    super.onPreExecute();
    _parentActivity._progressBar.setVisibility(ProgressBar.VISIBLE);
    _parentActivity._progressBar.invalidate();
}

@Override
protected String doInBackground(Integer... params) {
    _maxCount = params[0];
    for (_counter = 0; _counter <= _maxCount; _counter++) {
        try {
            Thread.sleep(1000);
            publishProgress(_counter);
        } catch (InterruptedException e) {
            // Ignore           
        }
    }
}

@Override
protected void onProgressUpdate(Integer... values) {
    super.onProgressUpdate(values);
    int progress = values[0];
    String progressStr = "Counting " + progress + " out of " + _maxCount;
    _parentActivity._textView.setText(progressStr);
    _parentActivity._textView.invalidate();
}

@Override
protected void onPostExecute(String result) {
    super.onPostExecute(result);
    _parentActivity._progressBar.setVisibility(ProgressBar.INVISIBLE);
    _parentActivity._progressBar.invalidate();
}

@Override
protected void onCancelled() {
    super.onCancelled();
    _parentActivity._textView.setText("Request to cancel AsyncTask");
}

}

This is a test case. Here AsyncTaskDemoActivity is a very simple Activity providing UI for testing AsyncTask in mode:

package kroz.andcookbook.test.threads.asynctask;
import java.util.concurrent.ExecutionException;
import kroz.andcookbook.R;
import kroz.andcookbook.threads.asynctask.AsyncTaskDemo;
import kroz.andcookbook.threads.asynctask.AsyncTaskDemoActivity;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.test.ActivityUnitTestCase;
import android.widget.Button;

public class AsyncTaskDemoTest2 extends ActivityUnitTestCase<AsyncTaskDemoActivity> {
AsyncTaskDemo _atask;
private Intent _startIntent;

public AsyncTaskDemoTest2() {
    super(AsyncTaskDemoActivity.class);
}

protected void setUp() throws Exception {
    super.setUp();
    _startIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_MAIN);
}

protected void tearDown() throws Exception {
    super.tearDown();
}

public final void testExecute() {
    startActivity(_startIntent, null, null);
    Button btnStart = (Button) getActivity().findViewById(R.id.Button01);
    btnStart.performClick();
    assertNotNull(getActivity());
}

}

All this code is working just fine, except the fact that AsynTask doesn't invoke it's notification methods when executed by whithin Android Testing Framework. Any ideas?

Answer 1

Add the decorator @UiThreadTest above testExecute():

@UiThreadTest
public final void testExecute() { ... code ... }

By default junit runs tests in a separate thread than the main application UI. AsyncTask's documentation says that the task instance and the call to execute() must be on the main UI thread; this is because AsyncTask depends on the main thread's Looper and MessageQueue for its internal handler to work properly. This decorator, which works in any test class that inherits from InstrumentationTestCase, forces the test to be run on the UI thread.

Update: It seems that @UiThreadTest isn't quite right for testing an AsyncTask because while your test method is running on the main thread no messages are processed on the main MessageQueue -- including the messages the AsyncTask sends about its progress. The way to deal with this is to not use @UiThreadTest but instead run any code that invokes an AsyncTask in runTestOnUiThread():

public final void testExecute() {
    startActivity(_startIntent, null, null);
    runTestOnUiThread(new Runnable() {
        public void run() {
            Button btnStart = (Button) getActivity().findViewById(R.id.Button01);
            btnStart.performClick();
        }
    });
    assertNotNull(getActivity());
    // To wait for the AsyncTask to complete, you can safely call get() from the test thread
    getActivity()._myAsyncTask.get();
    assertTrue(asyncTaskRanCorrectly());
}

Answer 2

I met a similar problem while implementing some unit-test. I had to test some service which worked with Executors, and I needed to have my service callbacks sync-ed with the test methods from my ApplicationTestCase classes. Usually the test method itself finished before the callback would be accessed, so the data sent via the callbacks would not be tested. Tried applying the @UiThreadTest bust still didn't work.

I found the following method, which worked, and I still use it. I simply use CountDownLatch signal objects to implement the wait-notify (you can use synchronized(lock){... lock.notify();}, however this results in ugly code) mechanism.

public void testSomething(){
final CountDownLatch signal = new CountDownLatch(1);
Service.doSomething(new Callback() {

  @Override
  public void onResponse(){
    // test response data
    // assertEquals(..
    // assertTrue(..
    // etc
    signal.countDown();// notify the count down latch
  }

});
signal.await();// wait for callback

}