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      1 page.title=What To Test
      2 parent.title=Testing
      3 parent.link=index.html
      4 @jd:body
      5 <p>
      6     As you develop Android applications, knowing what to test is as important as knowing how to
      7     test. This document lists some most common Android-related situations that you should consider
      8     when you test, even at the unit test level. This is not an exhaustive list, and you consult the
      9     documentation for the features that you use for more ideas. The
     10     <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers">android-developers</a> Google Groups
     11     site is another resource for information about testing.
     12 </p>
     13 <h2 id="Tests">Ideas for Testing</h2>
     14 <p>
     15     The following sections are organized by behaviors or situations that you should test. Each
     16     section contains a scenario that further illustrates the situation and the test or tests you
     17     should do.
     18 </p>
     19 <h4>Change in orientation</h4>
     20 <p>
     21     For devices that support multiple orientations, Android detects a change in orientation when
     22     the user turns the device so that the display is "landscape" (long edge is horizontal) instead
     23     of "portrait" (long edge is vertical).
     24 </p>
     25 <p>
     26     When Android detects a change in orientation, its default behavior is to destroy and then
     27     re-start the foreground Activity. You should consider testing the following:
     28 </p>
     29 <ul>
     30     <li>
     31         Is the screen re-drawn correctly? Any custom UI code you have should handle changes in the
     32         orientation.
     33     </li>
     34     <li>
     35         Does the application maintain its state? The Activity should not lose anything that the
     36         user has already entered into the UI. The application should not "forget" its place in the
     37         current transaction.
     38     </li>
     39 </ul>
     40 <h4>Change in configuration</h4>
     41 <p>
     42     A situation that is more general than a change in orientation is a change in the device's
     43     configuration, such as a change in the availability of a keyboard or a change in system
     44     language.
     45 </p>
     46 <p>
     47     A change in configuration also triggers the default behavior of destroying and then restarting
     48     the foreground Activity. Besides testing that the application maintains the UI and its
     49     transaction state, you should also test that the application updates itself to respond
     50     correctly to the new configuration.
     51 </p>
     52 <h4>Battery life</h4>
     53 <p>
     54     Mobile devices primarily run on battery power. A device has finite "battery budget", and when it
     55     is gone, the device is useless until it is recharged. You need to write your application to
     56     minimize battery usage, you need to test its battery performance, and you need to test the
     57     methods that manage battery usage.
     58 </p>
     59 <p>
     60     Techniques for minimizing battery usage were presented at the 2010 Google I/O conference in the
     61     presentation
     62     <a href="http://code.google.com/events/io/2009/sessions/CodingLifeBatteryLife.html">
     63     Coding for Life -- Battery Life, That Is</a>. This presentation describes the impact on battery
     64     life of various operations, and the ways you can design your application to minimize these
     65     impacts. When you code your application to reduce battery usage, you also write the
     66     appropriate unit tests.
     67 </p>
     68 <h4>Dependence on external resources</h4>
     69 <p>
     70     If your application depends on network access, SMS, Bluetooth, or GPS, then you should
     71     test what happens when the resource or resources are not available.
     72 </p>
     73 <p>
     74     For example, if your application uses the network,it can notify the user if access is
     75     unavailable, or disable network-related features, or do both. For GPS, it can switch to
     76     IP-based location awareness. It can also wait for WiFi access before doing large data transfers,
     77     since WiFi transfers maximize battery usage compared to transfers over 3G or EDGE.
     78 </p>
     79 <p>
     80     You can use the emulator to test network access and bandwidth. To learn more, please see
     81     <a href="{@docRoot}tools/help/emulator.html#netspeed">Network Speed Emulation</a>.
     82     To test GPS, you can use the emulator console and {@link android.location.LocationManager}. To
     83     learn more about the emulator console, please see
     84     <a href="{@docRoot}tools/help/emulator.html#console">
     85     Using the Emulator Console</a>.
     86 </p>
     87