Robolectric tanks on Application objects that load JNI libraries. Can I get a workaround?

Question

The Application object for my Android app loads a JNI library, and Robolectric doesn\'t seem to like that. When I go to run my tests Robolectric craps out and I

Answer 1

As @Jared pointed out, the solution @Christopher gave doesn't work for Robolectric 2 or 3.

The solution I ended up using was to add the environmental variable:

ROBOLECTRIC=TRUE

to the build configuration for my tests. (Run -> Edit Configurations, Environmental Variables).

Then you check for that environmental variable before loading problematic libraries. For example:

class MyClass {
    if(System.getenv("ROBOLECTRIC") == null) {
        System.loadLibrary("libname");
    }
}

Obviously you won't be able to test any code that relies on that library, but at least some testing will be possibel!

Answer 2

One option for apps with heavyweight Application classes that don't work well with Robolectric is to create an empty Application object and use this for your Robolectric tests:

Something like this:

public void EmptyApp extends Application { 
}

Then your test setup can look like this:

@RunWith(RobolectricTestRunner.class)
@Config(application = EmptyApplication.class, manifest = "src/main/AndroidManifest.xml", sdk = 23)   

Since you have referenced the manifest, all of the resources will still be available in Context#getString(int id) and so on.

Answer 3

Solution works for Robolectric 1.2, not 2.+

Thanks to Jan Berkel for answering this here: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/robolectric/beW9XjT8E1A/pJQrRaybN30J

class MyJniClass {
 static {
        try {
            System.loadLibrary("libname");
        } catch (UnsatisfiedLinkError e) {
            // only ignore exception in non-android env
            if ("Dalvik".equals(System.getProperty("java.vm.name"))) throw e;
        }
    }
}

then in the testrunner:

public class MyTestRunner  extends RobolectricTestRunner {
   public MyTestRunner(Class testClass) throws InitializationError {
         // remove native calls + replace with shadows
        addClassOrPackageToInstrument("com.example.jni.MyJniClass");
   }

   protected void bindShadowClasses() {
         // bind shadow JNI classes
   }
}