Robolectric unit tests using legacy instead of binary resources only when running multi-module unit test run config

Issue

I have a multi-module android project. I have a bunch of unit tests in each module and I have always been able to run them all at once using a run configuration like this one:

Many of my tests use a base class that runs with RobolectricTestRunner. This base class looks like this:

@RunWith(RobolectricTestRunner::class)
@Config(application = AndroidTest.ApplicationStub::class,
        manifest = Config.NONE,
        sdk = [21])
abstract class AndroidTest {
    @Suppress("LeakingThis")
    @Rule @JvmField val injectMocks = InjectMocksRule.create(this@AndroidTest)

    fun application(): Application = ApplicationProvider.getApplicationContext()

    internal class ApplicationStub : Application()
}

**When running these tests using the above config, I get the error **

[Robolectric] NOTICE: legacy resources mode is deprecated; see http://robolectric.org/migrating/#migrating-to-40

This makes many of my tests fail with ResourceNotFoundException

However, when I run tests only in a specific module, everything passes. This is because Robolectric now uses Binary resources:

[Robolectric] sdk=21; resources=BINARY

I have followed the migration instructions in build.gradle files for each module, having added the following in each android block:

testOptions {
    unitTests {
        includeAndroidResources = true
        returnDefaultValues = true
    }
}

One clue I have found but have been unable to fix is this when I run the ALL UNIT TEST task:

WARNING: No manifest file found at build/intermediates/merged_manifests/debug/../../library_manifest/debug/AndroidManifest.xml.
Falling back to the Android OS resources only.
No such manifest file: build/intermediates/merged_manifests/debug/../../library_manifest/debug/AndroidManifest.xml
To remove this warning, annotate your test class with @Config(manifest=Config.NONE).

I have tried, as you have seen, to add the manifest=Config.NONE, which had no effect (and is now deprecated anyway).

Edit: Also tried android.enableUnitTestBinaryResources = true in settings.gradle, but this prevents the app from building due to it being a deprecated flag in the current gradle tools.

Thanks for any help provided!

Solution

So with the default unit test run platform being changed to Gradle in Android Studio, I managed to figure out a way to run unit tests in multiple modules all at once, circumventing the Robolectric bug.

First, go into run configurations and create a new Gradle Config.

Then, as the gradle project, select the top level project. For arguments, use --tests "*"

And now for the gradle tasks, this is a little bit more error-prone. Here is an example of how I have it setup for my project:

:androidrma:cleanTestGoogleDebugUnitTest :androidrma:testGoogleDebugUnitTest 
:calendar:cleanTestDebugUnitTest :calendar:testDebugUnitTest 
:gamification:cleanTest :gamification:test 
:player:cleanTest :player:test 
:playlists:cleanTest :playlists:test 
:sleepjournal:cleanTest :sleepjournal:test 
:sound-content-filters:cleanTest :sound-content-filters:test

Please note that I inserted new lines between each module for more clarity here, in the tasks, just separate each entry with a space.

For your app module, in my case named androidrma, you must use your build variants name in the cleanTestUnitTest and testUnitTest , in my case being GoogleDebug.

If we look at the calendar module, it is an android module, , so it still operates with the same logic as the appModule.

However, if you look at player, playlists, sleepjournal, etc. those are pure kotlin modules. The tasks thus differ in their syntax.

Once you have entered all this information and everything is functioning, I recommend checking "store as project file" checkbox at the top right of the run config setup screen.

This works in Android Studio 4.2 as well as Arctic Fox, haven't tested on other versions.

Answered By - Sean Blahovici