Android Unit Tests with Dagger 2

Question

I have an Android app that uses Dagger 2 for dependency injection. I am also using the latest gradle build tools that allow a build variant for unit testing and one for inst

Answer 1

You have hit the nail on the head by saying:

application's Component doesn't have inject methods for my test classes

So, to get around this problem we can make a test version of your Application class. Then we can have a test version of your module. And to make it all run in a test, we can use Robolectric.

1) Create the test version of your Application class

public class TestPipeGameApp extends PipeGameApp {
    private PipeGameModule pipeGameModule;

    @Override protected PipeGameModule getPipeGameModule() {
        if (pipeGameModule == null) {
            return super.pipeGameModule();
        }
        return pipeGameModule;
    }

    public void setPipeGameModule(PipeGameModule pipeGameModule) {
        this.pipeGameModule = pipeGameModule;
        initComponent();
    }}

2) Your original Application class needs to have initComponent() and pipeGameModule() methods

public class PipeGameApp extends Application {
    protected void initComponent() {
        DaggerPipeGameComponent.builder()
            .pipeGameModule(getPipeGameModule())
            .build();
    }

    protected PipeGameModule pipeGameModule() {
        return new PipeGameModule(this);
    }}

3) Your PipeGameTestModule should extend the production module with a constructor:

public class PipeGameTestModule extends PipeGameModule {
    public PipeGameTestModule(Application app) {
        super(app);
    }}

4) Now, in your junit test's setup() method, set this test module on your test app:

@Before
public void setup() {
    TestPipeGameApp app = (TestPipeGameApp) RuntimeEnvironment.application;
    PipeGameTestModule module = new PipeGameTestModule(app);
    app.setPipeGameModule(module);
}

Now you can customize your test module how you originally wanted.