Espresso - Click by text in List view

Issue

I am trying to click on a text in a list view using Espresso. I know they have this guide, but I can't see how to make this work by looking for text. This is what I have tried

Espresso.onData(Matchers.allOf(Matchers.is(Matchers.instanceOf(ListView.class)), Matchers.hasToString(Matchers.startsWith("ASDF")))).perform(ViewActions.click());

As expected, this didn't work. The error said no view in hierarchy. Does anyone know how to select a String? ("ASDF" in this case) Thanks in advance.

Update due to @haffax

I received error:

com.google.android.apps.common.testing.ui.espresso.AmbiguousViewMatcherException: 'is assignable from class: class android.widget.AdapterView' matches multiple views in the hierarchy.

Second error

With this code

onData(hasToString(startsWith("ASDF"))).inAdapterView(withContentDescription("MapList")).perform(click());

I get this error

com.google.android.apps.common.testing.ui.espresso.PerformException: Error performing 'load adapter data' on view 'with content description: is "MapList"'.

Caused by: java.lang.RuntimeException: No data found matching: asString(a string starting with "ASDF")

---

Solution

onData(anything()).inAdapterView(withContentDescription("desc")).atPosition(x).perform(click())

Solution

The problem is, that you try to match the list view itself with the instanceOf(ListView.class) as argument for onData(). onData() requires a data matcher that matches the adapted data of the ListView, not the ListView itself, and also not the View that Adapter.getView() returns, but the actual data.

If you have something like this in your production code:

ListView listView = (ListView)findViewById(R.id.myListView);
ArrayAdapter<MyDataClass> adapter = getAdapterFromSomewhere();
listView.setAdapter(adapter);

Then the Matcher argument of Espresso.onData() should match the desired instance of MyDataClass. So, something like this should work:

onData(hasToString(startsWith("ASDF"))).perform(click());

(You can use another Matcher using a method of org.hamcrest.Matchers)

In case you have multiple adapter views in your activity, you can call ViewMatchers.inAdapterView() with a view matcher that specifies the AdapterView like this:

onData(hasToString(startsWith("ASDF")))
    .inAdapterView(withId(R.id.myListView))
    .perform(click());

Answered By - haffax