AndroidHttpClient not found (when running Robolectric)

Question

I've set up a very simple project to test the integration of Robolectric + Data Binding + Retrolambda. When I run the test suit, I get the following message:

Error:(30, 30) Gradle: error: cannot access AndroidHttpClient
class file for android.net.http.AndroidHttpClient not found

This is pretty odd since I don't use AndroidHttpClient anywhere.

---

The error occurs here, on the "activity" line:

@Before
public void setup() {
    activity = Robolectric.setupActivity(MainActivity.class); // Error on this line
    textView = (TextView) shadowOf(activity).findViewById(R.id.textView);
    button = (Button) activity.findViewById(R.id.button);
    editText = (EditText) activity.findViewById(R.id.editText);
}

The program never uses AndroidHttpClient. In fact, this is the entire program:

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

    final ActivityMainBinding binding = DataBindingUtil.setContentView(this, R.layout.activity_main);

    binding.setUser(new User());
    binding.button.setOnClickListener((v) -> {
        binding.textView.setText(String.format("Hello, %s!", binding.editText.getText()));
        binding.editText.setText("");
    });
}

---

Ideas as to what's wrong?

Answer 1

AndroidHttpClient was removed from the SDK in v23 of the build tools.

As Robolectric is running against earlier versions, it expects it to be there, which is why you're seeing this error.

For now, you can add it back in:

android {
    useLibrary 'org.apache.http.legacy'
}

As detailed here.

There is a GitHub ticket open for Robolectric to fix this. You can follow the thread/ticket here.

Update:

As some people have correctly pointed out, a better way of doing this would be to create a class android.net.http.AndroidHttpClient in your test resources. This would be a preferred method because you're only modifying the test sources, not the production code, in order to accommodate the tests.