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Handle app links and apply unit tests in Open Event Attendee Application

The open event attendee is an android app which allows users to discover events happening around the world using the Open Event Platform. It consumes the APIs of the open event server to get a list of available events and can get detailed information about them. Users following links on devices have one goal in mind: to get to the content they want to see. As a developer, you can set up Android App Links to take users to a link’s specific content directly in your app, bypassing the app-selection dialog, also known as the disambiguation dialog. Because Android App Links leverage HTTP URLs and association with a website, users who don’t have your app installed go directly to content on your site.

A unit test generally exercises the functionality of the smallest possible unit of code (which could be a method, class, or component) in a repeatable way. You should build unit tests when you need to verify the logic of specific code in your app.

  • Why unit test cases?
  • Setup app link intent in the app
  • Apply unit test cases
  • Conclusion
  • Resources

Let’s analyze every step in detail.

Why unit test cases?

As it is already discussed what the app link intents are, and it is basically for providing a better user experience for the application. These are some following reason why unit test cases should use – 

  1. Rapid feedback on failures.
  2. Early failure detection in the development cycle.
  3. Safer code refactoring, letting you optimize code without worrying about regressions.
  4. Stable development velocity, helping you minimize technical debt.

JUnit4 library is used for unit tests.

Setup app link intent in the app

Declare the frontend host according to build flavor in the app level gradle file:

buildTypes {
        release {
            resValue "string",  "FRONTEND_HOST", "eventyay.com"
        }
        debug {
            resValue "string", "FRONTEND_HOST", "open-event-fe.netlify.com"
        }
    }

Handle the app link intent in Manifest file by adding intent filter under main activity decleartion:

<intent-filter>
    <action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
    <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
    <category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />

    <data
        android:scheme="https"
        android:host="@string/FRONTEND_HOST"/>
</intent-filter>

Manifest will through the intent in the main activity file.

Now handle the intent in main activity:

override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
        handleAppLinkIntent(intent)
    }

    override fun onNewIntent(intent: Intent?) {
        super.onNewIntent(intent)
        handleAppLinkIntent(intent)
    }

    private fun handleAppLinkIntent(intent: Intent?) {
        val uri = intent?.data ?: return
        val bundle = AppLinkUtils.getArguments(uri)
        val destinationId = AppLinkUtils.getDestinationId(uri)
        if (destinationId != null) {
            navController.navigate(destinationId, bundle)
        }
    }

Here a new class/object AppLinkUtils is defined which will return destination fragment id and the argument/data according to the intent URI.

Apply unit test cases:

First, implement the libraries in the gradle file –  1. JUnit for unit tests, 2. Robolectric for using android classes in the test class:

testImplementation 'junit:junit:4.12'
testImplementation 'org.robolectric:robolectric:3.4.2'

Create a test class for testing the app link functions and run it with RoboLectricTestRunner:

private const val EVENT = "event"
private const val RESET_PASSWORD = "resetPassword"
private const val VERIFY_EMAIL = "verifyEmail"

@RunWith(RobolectricTestRunner::class)
class AppLinkUtilsTest {

    private fun getAppLink(type: String): Uri {
        return when (type) {
            EVENT -> Uri.parse("https://eventyay.com/e/5f6d3feb")
            RESET_PASSWORD -> Uri.parse("https://eventyay.com/reset-password?token=822980340478781748445098077144")
            VERIFY_EMAIL -> Uri.parse("https://eventyay.com/verify?token=WyJsaXZlLmhhcnNoaXRAaG")
            else -> Uri.parse("")
        }
    }

    @Test
    fun `should get event link`() {
        val uri = getAppLink(EVENT)
        assertEquals(R.id.eventDetailsFragment, AppLinkUtils.getDestinationId(uri))
        assertEquals("""
            5f6d3feb
        """.trimIndent(), AppLinkUtils.getArguments(uri).getString(EVENT_IDENTIFIER))
    }// Find more test cases in the GitHub Repo.

Testing response:

GIF

In a Nutshell

So, essentially the Eventyay Attendee should have this feature to handle all links i.e. Reset password, verify user email and open event details in the app itself. So, we can provide a better user experience in-app instead of redirecting to the frontend for them.

Resources

  1. Android app links: https://developer.android.com/studio/write/app-link-indexing
  2. Developing android unit testing: https://www.vogella.com/tutorials/AndroidTesting/article.html

Tags

Eventyay, open-event, JUnit, AndroidUnitTest, AppLinks, Fossasia, GSoC, Android, Kotlin

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