Test automation is an essential practice that provides a variety of benefits. In addition to reducing the time to develop test scripts, test automation tools can help make testing more accurate, efficient and consistent. Also, some of these automated tests can be re-used for regression testing and other automation tasks, saving you time and money in the long-term. And with the XCUITest which is a popular test framework, the testers can easily access all the features available for testing in it.
XCUITest is easy to use, maintainable and has a high test coverage. It helps developers to write automated UI tests quickly without sacrificing the quality. XCUITest is built on top of Xcode’s testing suite and the APIs available in SpriteKit, GameplayKit, and SceneKit. It empowers you to write test code easily and provide many ways that would allow you to assert the app under tests.
Introduction to XCUITest Framework
The XCUITest framework is an essential tool for automating UI Tests which provides 100% code coverage for your iOS app. XCUITest is being particularly used by the top organizations across the globe and has helped them to achieve higher productivity. It offers unprecedented flexibility in test automation, and even allows you to test on real devices, because it offers device plug-ins to automate tests on physical iOS & macOS devices.
- XCUITest is relatively new for the automation testing framework, but more advanced than other test automation tools such as WebDriver, Appium and Calabash. It provides powerful APIs for Objective-C and Swift, with a simple way to implement test scripts and can easily be integrated into Continuous Integration (CI).
- It makes you quickly write automated tests and in a way to separate the UI testing code from your app. XCUITest is one of the best frameworks for testing apps on iOS devices because it offers powerful capabilities to execute multiple test scripts and test cases using different user interactions, such as clicks, taps, drags, and so on.
- XCUITest works only with Objective-C code and comes with various testing APIs that cover almost all aspects of UI testing. With the help of this automated testing framework, a developer can save his time significantly and focus on writing automation test cases instead of setting up the environment as it has already been done by Apple in the Swift framework.
XCUITest is a browser-based test framework and Selenium and Behat are screen recorder libraries for iOS apps. It is also the nascent marketplace where both consumers and developers are interacting with full-featured AI systems in a conversational manner. The core elements are the standard suite of Bluetooth controls, such as voice inputs and output, as well as touch controls to select menu items and control parameters.
Features of XCUITest for iOS Testing
When you are manually testing your app, one of the hardest things is to know how to break down your application into smaller pieces that can be easily tested. One of the goals of developing tests using XCUITest is to make them fast so that they can be run often, so even if you are working with a large-scale application, the feedback loop will remain very fast and smooth. However, the features that makes it ideal for the iOS Testing are
1. Better Collaborative features
As compared to other testing frameworks, XCUITest is much more convenient and powerful. Test code written with XCUITest supports the native iOS language, so developers and testers can write their test code in the same language, resulting in better collaboration. This is a huge plus for testers who are used to JavaScript, as it allows developers and testers to write test code in the same language, thus increasing productivity. The tool lets developers write test scripts and run them on actual devices with no or little maintenance.
2. Easy installation Process with best testing support
The XCUITest framework was introduced as part of Xcode 6. It supports user interface testing and it's built on top of the XCTest framework. The XCUITest framework has many features like Test Recorder to help you quickly create test cases and the ability to execute tests across all devices. It comes with the full-featured library and all you have to do is write the test cases. There are various reasons to use automated testing instead of manual testing. Saving time, saving money and increasing the quality of your app are just some of them.
3. Easy and Fast execution of tests with test recorder
During Xcode integration with iOS 10, Apple added an option to allow developers to add tests by recording the user interface (UI). This new function allows developers and testers who are less familiar with programming to record their actions and comments in the form of an interface reference describing what is being performed. Xcode's UI Test recorder allows developers to record the interactions on a device and generate the corresponding test script by doing basic actions on the device. Furthermore, the inclusion of Test Recorder has made it easier for the testers to come up with brilliant testing skills.
4. Easy Configuration with Continuous Integration (CI)
Continuous integration (CI) is one of the fundamental processes in Test Automation. It provides immediate feedback on developers' code commits. XCUITest is a popular UI automation testing framework for iOS, tvOS, and watchOS. CI is a part of Continuous Deployment that typically runs automated tests after each code commit. Furthermore, implementing or configuring Continuous Integration makes the process easy for the testers. By implementing automated testing on a continuous integration server, we ensure that our apps work as expected even after multiple app updates. We can run automated tests for each new iOS version as Apple does and make sure that the app works well when targeting new platform versions.
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Concepts involved in XCUITest
The XCUITest framework provides a run-time environment for executing automated UI tests. It allows you to execute your automated tests without requiring access to the source code of your app's UI. You can also use the XCUITest framework to evaluate some expressions. The XCUITest framework has a different approach to handling test failures than the iOS UIAutomation testing framework offers. The XCUITest framework uses handlers and delegates, whereas iOS UIAutomation uses the assertion method.
1. Accessing the features of XCUITest
When testing applications for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers, it is important to make sure that the interface can be used by people with disabilities. This means taking accessibility into account during your testing. Even though the core of iOS has powerful accessibility features, UI testing is cumbersome to do with these APIs. It is also difficult to determine if your tests are running successfully in an automated way. There are existing tools for Android but not for iOS. This tool creates an easy-to-use automation framework for iOS using UI Automation. With accessibility testing, web engineers and developers can take their testing to the next level.
2. Running XCTest
The XCTest framework can help automated unit tests and UI functional tests for iOS and OS X in Swift language. Using an assertion statement, you are able to validate the results of your methods to ensure that a piece of code yields the result that you expect. The problem with Objective-C is that the syntax is not as straightforward as Swift, less features and can be more complicated than it should be, but it has its advantages. For example, you can specify types, which will give developers a direct insight into what they should expect from the method at hand. However, there are ways in which XCTest stands out in comparison with OCUnit test suite, which can assist in testing your application.
Drawbacks of using XCUITest Framework
XCUITest runs as a standalone command-line tool for Xcode projects. It is also accessible via the Xcode testing framework. Testing is most useful when done at three levels - test groups, tests, and individual test cases. A test group refers to the collection of all the tests that you want to execute. The test group can be based on the code project or entire project build. Moreover, XCUITest uses a simple, domain-specific language composed of strings and comparisons to describe the tests. The frameworks are fully integrated into Xcode and are used to write automated tests for your projects. Both can be used in the Objective-C and Swift-languages. But even after having numerous advantages, XCUITest has some drawbacks too which makes the testers think about it.
1. Less Languages are available in XCUITest
The XCUITest framework relies heavily on the Objective C runtime and other parts of the Cocoa and iOS frameworks. The current version of XCUITest does not provide support for a wide range of languages. XCUITest testing is done through simulators and real devices connected to hardware ports of the Apple host computers. There is no intent to support languages such as Java or JavaScript in the future. If you wish to unit test your code in those languages, you should look at alternatives.
2. Flakiness might appear in the tests
Some tests are flaky. They sometimes pass and sometimes fail. This occurs when there is an intermittent error, such as a broken connection or an unstable server. The test passes when the system is working correctly, but fails when there is an error of some sort. XCUITest uses the instrumentation feature to hook method calls and run tests on a simulated device. During a run of a test, each time a method call is hooked and executed, the mock object has to return its value. The time taken for that can introduce jitter into your tests.
3. Isn’t supportive while going for Regression Testing
There are two main reasons why XCUI testing is not ideal for smoke or regression testing on real devices. Firstly, XCUI tests have to talk to a running instance of the code you are testing. This means whenever we run an XCUI test, the device is also executing our code and using some of its resources. It can be slow and confusing if we're trying to debug both at once. The second reason is that the UI tested by an XCUI test is a simulation of a real mobile device's interface rather than an exact replica of the way it appears on a physical phone or tablet.
4. XCUITest can be only run for Apple Devices
XCUITest is a testing framework by Apple. It's used for iOS application testing and offers both unit testing support and user interface testing support. The great thing about it is that it can be easily integrated with popular test automation frameworks, such as Appium or Calabash. Unfortunately, it doesn't offer support for Android automation testing. It is a tool that enables users to create user interfaces easily. It supports drag and drop, which means that you don't need to learn programming logic to make the app functional.
(Image Source: TestEngineer)
Test automation is crucial for the continuous maintenance of your iOS application. It is additionally true for any XCUITest developers to save time and costs by automating their testing tasks. On the other hand, many companies still face issues with automating Apple (both iOS and Mac) device labs which is a critical issue. Using a real device cloud platform can resolve such problems and make development more productive.
Wrapping Up
Frameworks, or test automation toolkits, are various kinds of specialized tools that help you develop automated testing scripts in a more efficient way. If a framework can't do what you need it to do, you can create plugins which customize the framework's functionality to your needs. After all, almost all popular frameworks are open-sourced. XCUITest is a very powerful testing framework included in Xcode, and you can use it to write your UI tests. You can write tests using built-in XCUITest APIs, such as its various functions to click on views, or even in the native iOS language. As XCUITests are executed inside of the UIAutomation tool, you can use them to automate the most common user interface operations on iOS devices, including retrieving text from the device's UI elements.
