How to test UITextField in Xcode UI Testing when the text field is empty?

Question

I am making a UITest in Xcode. When I record my test it works fine but when I run the test, it gives an error.

These are the lines of code where the error occurs:

XCUIElement *clearTextTextField = [app.textFields containingType:XCUIElementTypeButton 
                                                      identifier:@"Clear text"].element;
[clearTextTextField typeText:@"sheffield"];

The error says

UI Testing Failure - No matches found for textfield

I imagine this is because my Text Field does not have any initial string and the tester cannot find a text box with initial string "Clear Text".

I watched the following tutorial on youtube.

The demonstrators code turns out fine because his textfield has an initial string. (At least that is what I think the problem is)

Is there a way to make the test work for empty text fields?

Answer 1

There are a few ways to do this.

1. If the textField has placeholder text you can use the placeholder text to find the textField.

2. You can use the elementBoundByIndex method to get a textField at an index. i.e. If that is the only textField in the app at the time you can use

   XCUIApplication().textFields.elementBoundByIndex(0) 
   

to get the textField. (or whatever query you need to get that particular textField at that time)

3. You can set an accessibility identifier in code or in the storyboard to find the textField.

It is nice to use option 2 before setting up accessibility identifiers, so long as your textField is always going to be findable with the same query. Also, option 1 will fail if multiple textFields have the same placeholder text at the same time, so option 2 is even more appealing.