For android projects, some engineers use Android Studio (new), some use Eclipse with ADT (old), few like me still savor command line, this blog post is about handling (building, installing and testing) android projects from command line.

  1. To create android project

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    $ android create project --target 4 --name TestAndroidApp --path ./test_android_app --activity Main --package net.ashishb.TestAndroidApp --gradle --gradle-version 1.0.+ 
...

  2. After changing to directory test_android_app (cd test_android_app), fix a bug

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    # Replace "runProguard" with "minifyEnabled" in build.gradle
$ sed -i '' 's/runProguard/minifyEnabled/' build.gradle
...

  3. Some useful gradle commands

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    $ gradle tasks  # Lists all tasks.
$ gradle assembleDebug  # Assemble debug build
$ gradle installDebug  # Install debug build
$ gradle assembleRelease  # Install release build
...

  4. The code will be in src directory, eg. for the Main activity, code is in src/ main/java/net/ashishb/TestAndroidApp/Main.java and test is in src/ androidTest/java/net/ashishb/TestAndroidApp/MainTest.java

  5. For testing, modify the Main class and add square method,

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    public static int square(int x) {
      return x * x;
}

    And in MainTest

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    public void testSquare() {  // Tests must start with test prefix.
   this.assertEquals(100, Main.square(10));
}

  6. Modify build.gradle to add a testing config

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    android {
    ...

    defaultConfig {
      testApplicationId "net.ashishb.TestAndroidApp.test"
      testInstrumentationRunner "android.test.InstrumentationTestRunner"
      testHandleProfiling true
      testFunctionalTest true
    }

    ...
}

  7. Run the test(s)

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    $ gradle installDebug installDebugTest && adb shell am instrument -w -e class net.ashishb.TestAndroidApp.MainTest#testSquare net.ashishb.TestAndroidApp.test/android.test  # Runs the testSquare test.
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$ gradle installDebug installDebugTest && adb shell am instrument -w  net.ashishb.TestAndroidApp.test/android.test.InstrumentationTestRunner  # Runs all tests.
...

  8. Complete code can be seen at https://github.com/ashishb/android_gradle_demo