How to check expected intent sent without actually launching activity in Espresso?

Question

I have a UI test which clicks a button, and then launch a new Activity in its onClickListener. The test checks whether expected intent is sent or not.

My problem is, I want to test whether expected intent is sent without actually launching the activity. Because I found that new activity initializes its state, and it makes subsequent tests flaky.

I know there are two Espresso Intents api, which are intended and intending, but both fail to meet my needs. intended api actually launches the target activity, and intending api doesn't launch the activity, but it calls onActivityResult callback which I don't want either. Because I'm afraid that code inside onActivityResult may cause another flakiness. Also intending doesn't assert whether matching intent is sent, it just calls onActivityResult callback when matching intent is found, which means I have to check whether onActivityResult is called or not!

Is there any clean way to achieve what I want?

Answer 1

If you want to test whether expected intent is sent without actually launching the activity you can do it by capturing the intent with an activityResult and then catching the activity :

Intent intent = new Intent();
ActivityResult intentResult = new ActivityResult(Activity.RESULT_OK,intent);

intending(anyIntent()).respondWith(intentResult);

onView(withId(R.id.view_id_to_perform_clicking)).check(matches(isDisplayed())).perform(click());

intended(allOf(hasComponent(ActivityToBeOpened.class.getName())));

This would catch any attempt of launching ActivityToBeOpened. If you want to be more specific you can also catch an intent with Extras:

intended(allOf(hasComponent(ActivityToBeOpened.class.getName()), hasExtra("paramName", "value")));

Hope that helps.