Multiplatform Mobile app Test Framework

This is a sample project just to ilustrate how a multiplatform mobile test framework could look like to preserve the same code base for running tests against iOS or Android platforms. The idea behind the abstraction is the initial information of which platform should we use. If no platform is informed, we should use Android as default.

Pre requisites

• Node.js run time

• Python 3.12+

• All the environment set up for Appium solutions

  • Install Android Studio
  • Install Appium: npm install -g appium This is the appium server
  • Install UIAutomator2: appium driver install uiautomator2. The platform specific driver
  • Set JAVA_HOME and ANDROID_HOME to $PATH

• Non mandatory, but helpful

  • Install Appium Inspector: Useful to inspect the app to find elements locators
  • Install Appium doctor: Useful to check environment dependencies

for more info on setting up environment for mobile test automation using Appium, check:

• https://nshthshah.medium.com/appium-tutorial-step-by-step-android-automation-97b84de2fc55
• https://appium.io/docs/en/2.1/quickstart/
• https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-download-and-install-xcode/
• https://courtneyzhan.medium.com/set-up-appium-2-to-run-xcuitest-for-ios-d4fb557403f
• https://github.com/appium/python-client/blob/master/README.md

Main libraries used

• Pytest: To support all test management
• Dotenv: To support the use of .env files
• Appium Client: the API to interact with the app through drivers like UIAutomator2 or XCUITest

Project setup

• Clone the repo and cd to the folder
• Set python environment: python3 -m venv .venv
• Activate python environment: source .venv/bin/active
• Install dependencies: python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txt
• Create app folder on the root of the project
  • Download Android and iOS releases
  • To use the iOS version unzip it on the app folder
• Spin up Emulator/Simulator

Project Structure

Core package

core package is responsible for the driver management. The main idea is abstract the driver instatiation to provide a single interface to be used throught the code.

• DriverFactory
  • Responsible to manage which specific driver is going to be instantiated according to the PLATFORM environment variable
  • Make sure we have only one instance available (Singleton)
  • Tests should only call this Class to manage drivers
• AndroidDriver and IOSDriver are the specific drivers that interface with Appium Driver (or the Mocked version) binding the desired capabilities for each platform
• MockAppiumDriver is just a dummy class to mock actual Appium/Selenium drivers

Test files

• test_driverfactory.py is the test file
• hooks.py is a file to manage hooks used on the tests
• conftest.py is a special pytest file to glue any file to the tests

Running tests

In order to run the tests, we need to pass the value for PLATFORM environment variable. Currently this project supports Android and iOS values.

Important

Make sure your environment is good to go for both Android and iOS

There are 2 basic ways to set this variable value:

Using .env file

To use env file you will need to rename .env_sample file to .env and set PLATFORM variable with the expected value.

PLATFORM=Android 

or

PLATFORM=iOS 

after setting up .env file, go to the command line and run:

• $ pytest -s

WARNING: According to python-dotenv library docs, as we use load_dotenv(override=False) the precedence of environment variables value will be:

• Value of that variable in the environment.
• Value of that variable in the .env file.
• Default value, if provided.
• Empty string.

Using on Command line

Here we inform the value for PLATFORM straight on the command line, as it follows:

$ PLATFORM=iOS pytest -s

or

$ PLATFORM=Android pytest -s