AppiumMobile App Automation

On iOS Platform (Apple's XCUITest)

Created by: Ambreen Khanwww.softwaretestingtrends.com

2

Contents

• Appium Background• Appium Architecture• Appium Installation on Mac• Running Appium on Real Devices• How Apple's XCUITest is different?

3

Appium Background

4

What is Appium?

• Appium is an open source test automation framework for use with native, hybrid and mobile web apps.

• Appium is “cross-platform”, means it allows you to write tests against multiple platforms (iOS, Android, Windows), using the same API (WebDriver API). This enables code reuse between iOS, Android, and Windows test suites.

5

What are different App Types

• Native apps are those written using the iOS, Android, or Windows SDKs.

• Mobile web apps are web apps accessed using a mobile browser (Appium supports Safari on iOS and Chrome or the built-in ‘Browser’ app on Android).

• Hybrid apps have a wrapper around a “webview” – a native control that enables interaction with web content.

6

Appium Philosophy

• You shouldn’t have to recompile your app or modify it in any way in order to automate it.

• You shouldn’t be locked into a specific language or framework to write and run your tests.

• A mobile automation framework shouldn’t reinvent the wheel when it comes to automation APIs.

• A mobile automation framework should be open source, in spirit and practice as well as in name!

7

Appium Architecture

8

Appium Architecture

• An HTTP server written in Node.js that creates and handles WebDriver sessions.

• Appium web server follows same approach as Selenium WebDriver

• Receives HTTP requests from client libraries through JSON

• Handles received requests in different ways, depending on platform it is running on.

9

Client/Server Architecture

Appium is at its heart a webserver that exposes a REST API. It receives connections from a client, listens for commands, executes those commands on a mobile device, and responds with an HTTP response representing the result of the command execution.

10

Session

• Automation is always performed in the context of a session.

• Clients initiate a session with a server in ways specific to each library, but they all end up sending a POST /session request to the server, with a JSON object called the ‘desired capabilities’ object.

• At this point the server will start up the automation session and respond with a session ID which is used for sending further commands.

11

Desired capabilities

• Desired capabilities are a set of keys and values (i.e., a map or hash) sent to the Appium server to tell the server what kind of automation session we’re interested in starting up.

• There are also various capabilities which can modify the behavior of the server during automation.

• Example: Set the platformName capability to iOS to tell Appium that we want an iOS session, rather than an Android or Windows one.

12

Vendor-provided frameworks used by Appium

The vendor-provided frameworks used by Appium:• iOS: Apple's XCUITest (iOS 9.3 and up)• iOS: Apple’s UIAutomation (iOS 9.3 and below)• Android 5.0+: Google’s UiAutomator V2• Android 4.2+: Google’s UiAutomator• Android 2.3+: Google’s Instrumentation

(Instrumentation support is provided by bundling a separate project, Selendroid)

• Windows: Microsoft’s WinAppDriver

13

Why XCUITest?

• For iOS automation, Appium relies on system frameworks provided by Apple.

• For iOS 9.2 and below, Apple's only automation technology was called UIAutomation, and it ran in the context of a process called "Instruments".

• Apple introduced a new automation technology, called XCUITest, beginning with iOS 9.3.

• For iOS 10 and up, this will be the only supported automation framework from Apple.

14

Why XCUITest?

• with iOS 10 / Xcode 8, Apple has removed the older UIAutomation framework, which powered Appium's iOS automation up to this point.

• When you specify a platformVersion of 10 or higher, Appium will automatically use the XCUITest automation backend.

• If you would like to run the XCUITest automation backend with iOS 9.3, simply specify automationName: XCUITest in your desired capabilities.

15

Appium InstallationMac O X

16

Software Requirements• Java • The Eclipse IDE• Xcode (8.0 or later)• Xcode Apple Developer Tools (iPhone simulator SDK,

command line tools)• Homebrew• Node and npm• The Appium Server• The Appium Client Library (Java)• Selenium WebDriver Java library

17

Java

• Java - Download & install Java SE Development kit 8 for Mac OS X

Link: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/pt/java/javase/downloads/jdk8-downloads-2133151.html

18

The Eclipse IDE

• Download & install Eclipse IDE for Java developers

Link: http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/index-developer.php?osType=macosx

19

Xcode

• Install Xcode (Version 8.0 or above)• Xcode can be downloaded free from Mac App

Store

Note: To test an app in iOS 10 or above with Appium, we have to use Xcode 8 or newer with Appium 1.6 or newer.

20

The Appium Server

• You can install & run an Appium server usingo node.js o using the application

21

Before You install Appium Server…

Before you install Appium using node.js, you should have:• Homebrew• NPM - node.js package manager

The Appium server is written in Node.js; that's why we need it to download Appium

22

Homebrew

• A package manager for macOS that complements macOS.

• Homebrew helps you install applications that are not installed by default on your MAC.

• It's all git and ruby underneath. • The standard script installs Homebrew

to /usr/local so that you don’t need sudo when you brew install

• Homebrew is designed to work without using sudo.

23

Install/Uninstall Homebrew(commands for terminal)

• Installing Homebrew ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

• How do I uninstall Homebrew?To uninstall Homebrew, paste the command below in a terminal prompt.ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/uninstall)"• How to check available options on brew:brew help, man brew

24

Homebrew Installation

25

Homebrew Doctor

• After installing the Homebrew, run command brew doctor• You'll get the message: your system is ready

to brew.• If you don't get above message then try to fix

warnings and errors using the brew doctor

26

NPM

• npm is a Node.js package manager• It is an online repository of open source

Node.js projects.• It is command-line utility to package

installation

27

Installing Node.js and/or npm

• Install node.js using brew. brew install node• Once you install node, you can check version:node --versionnpm —versionNote: Don’t use the big green install button on nodejs.org website or all npm commands will require sudo.

28

Installing Appium using Node.js

• Install appium using node.js$ npm install -g appium

Alert: Make sure you have not installed Node or Appium with sudo, otherwise you’ll run into problems later.

29

Run Appium

• To run Appium$ appium (Run Appium)• Now Appium server will be ready for

accepting requests of client.

[Appium] Welcome to Appium v1.6.0[Appium] Appium REST http interface listener started on 0.0.0.0:4723

30

Appium Doctor

• To verify that all of Appium’s dependencies are met you can use appium-doctor.

• Install it with:$npm install -g appium-doctor • run appium-doctor and supply the --ios or --

android flags to verify that all of the dependencies are set up correctly.

$appium-doctor --ios

31

Appium Doctor

32

Stopping Appium Server

• Simply press CTRL+C in the same terminal window to stop the Appium server.

33

Appium.app, Appium.exe

• There exist GUI wrappers around the Appium server that can be downloaded.

• These come bundled with everything required to run the Appium server, so you don’t need to worry about Node.

• They also come with an Inspector, which enables you to check out the hierarchy of your app. This can come in handy when writing tests.

34

Installation using the APP

To install:• Download the latest version from Appium.io.• Mount the disk image.• Drag Appium.app to your Applications folder.• Run it!!!

35

Appium GUI

36

Install Dependencies

• Currently logging is based on idevicesyslog, and port forwarding is based on iProxy, both of which are part of libimobiledevice, so you need to install it with Homebrew

brew install libimobiledevice• In order to run the WebDriverAgent bootstrap

script you will need to install the Carthage dependency manager

brew install carthage

37

Install Dependencies

• Installing deviceconsole• An iOS system log trailer to debug problems• Allows analyzing Crash Logs and Console output from

the device.npm install deviceconsole• Installing ios-deployiOS deploy is used to deploy your app to a connected devicenpm install -g ios-deploy

38

Installing dependencies using HEAD

• head URLs (activated by passing --HEAD) build the development cutting edge. By passing the --HEAD option allows installing software directly from a branch of a version-control repository.

npm install ios-deploy –HEADnpm install deviceconsole –HEAD

39

Installing Xcode Command line tools

• To install Xcode command line tools run:$ xcode-select --install

40

Selenium

Install following Selenium components• Selenium Standalone Server• Get selenium WebDriver language binding

library for Java from section 'Selenium Client & WebDriver Language Bindings' present on below link:

http://docs.seleniumhq.org/download/

41

Appium Clients

• There are client libraries (in Java, Ruby, Python, PHP, JavaScript, and C#) which support Appium’s extensions to the WebDriver protocol.

• When using Appium, you need to use these client libraries instead of your regular WebDriver client.

Link: https://search.maven.org/#search%7Cga%7C1%7Cg%3Aio.appium%20a%3Ajava-client

42

Authorize use of iOS Simulator

• You need to authorize use of the iOS Simulator by running the authorize-ios binary made available through npm.

• Install the program by runningnpm install -g authorize-ios

43

Authorize use of the iOS Simulator

• You can invoke the program usingsudo authorize-ios

• If you are running Appium.app, you can authorize iOS through the GUI.

Note: You need to do this every time you install a new version of Xcode.

44

What is Sudo?• sudo (/ˈsuːduː/ or /ˈsuːdoʊ/) is a program for Unix-like computer

operating systems that allows users to run programs with the security privileges of another user, by default the superuser.

• It originally stood for "superuser do" as the older versions of sudo were designed to run commands only as the superuser.

• Mac OS X: sudo command requires a non-blank admin password. The sudo Terminal command can be used by administrators to execute commands as a different user (for example, as root).

Alert: Be extra careful when using the sudo command. You will usually have to enter your OS X system password and any mistakes can permanently mess up your system for good. When in doubt, leave it out!

45

Documentation

• Refer to the official documentation for Appium versions 1.6 to see all the capabilities you can choose from.

• There are some common capabilities and then there are also separate Android only and iOS only capabilities.

http://appium.io/slate/en/v1.6.0/?java#appium-server-capabilities

46

Running Appium on Real Devices

47

Testing on real iOS Device

Why testing on real devices?• There could be bugs that only show up when

your app is running on an actual iPhone or iOS device.

• Testing your iOS app on a device is the best way to gauge performance issues before you go too far down the road.

48

Appium on real iOS devices

To get started on a real device, you will need the following:• An Apple Developer ID and a valid Developer Account

with a configured distribution certificate and provisioning profile.

• An iPad or iPhone. Configure the device for development and add the device to the member center

• A signed .ipa file of your app, or the source code to build one.

• A Mac with Xcode and the Xcode Command Line Developer Tools.

49

Testing on real iOS Device• Enroll in the Apple iOS Developer Program

– You’re going to need to enroll in the Apple iOS developer program which is $99 a year.– You’ll also need an actual iOS device.

• Your certificate is used to code sign the apps and they uniquely identify you. In this step, you have to generate and request two certificates: one for development and one for distribution. You only need to do this once (not for each app!).

• The development one is used for testing while the distribution certificate is used to sign your app bundle for distribution in the App Store once it’s ready.

50

Why Code Signing?

• Apple cares that it can identify who created the app and that it can tell if the app has been tampered with or not.

• These security measures are ensured by a process known as code signing. When you create an app package (binary) to put on a device, you have to put your “digital signature” on it by code signing it. Otherwise, Apple won’t let that app be deployed on any device.

51

Running your test

• Once your device and app are configured, you can run tests on that device by passing the -U or --udid flag to the server or the udid desired capability, and the bundle ID (if the app is installed on the device) or the path to the .ipa or .apk file via the --app flag or the app desired capability.

52

How Apple's XCUITest is different?

53

XCUITest API vs UIAutomation API• Unfortunately, the XCUITest API and the UIAutomation API are not

equivalent. In many cases (like with tap/click), the behavior is identical. But some features that were available in the UIAutomation backend are not yet available in the new XCUITest backend. These known lacking features include:

• Geolocation support (e.g., driver.location)• Shaking the device• Locking the device• Rotating the device (note that this is NOT device orientation, which

is supported)Appium has a plan to add these features back in future releases of Appium.

54

Changes to make in existing script

Here are the changes that you will have to make to your existing scripts to run automated tests on iOS10:• Apple has given different class names to UI elements

and changed the application hierarchy. If you use XPaths in your test, it will be necessary to rewrite them to account for these changes.

• Apple has removed native support for XPath selectors, making XPath significantly slower. When using XCUITest, you can improve performance by using other locators instead, such as accessibility id.

55

Avoid using Xpath locators

• Try not to use XPath locators unless there is absolutely no other alternatives.

• In general, xpath locators might be times slower, than other types of locators like accessibility id, class name and predicate (up to 100 times slower in some special cases).

• They are so slow, because xpath location is not natively supported by Apple's XCTest framework.

56

Migrating to XCUITest

• The Appium team has also published a doc which might be helpful in helping users migrate their tests:

https://github.com/appium/appium/blob/master/docs/en/advanced-concepts/migrating-to-xcuitest.md. (Released Oct 2016)