Unit test Java class that loads native library

Question

I\'m running unit tests in Android Studio. I have a Java class that loads a native library with the following code

 static
    {
       System.loadLibrary(\"myli         


        

Answer 1

Just make sure, the directory containing the library is contained in the java.library.path system property.

From the test you could set it before you load the library:

System.setProperty("java.library.path", "... path to the library .../libs/x86");

You can specify the path hard coded, but this will make the project less portable to other environments. So I suggest you build it up programmatically.

Answer 2

Try running your test code with java -XshowSettings:properties option and make sure your destination path for system libraries and in the output of this command, library path values are the same

Answer 3

If the library is required for your test, use an AndroidTest (under src/androidTest/...) rather than a junit test. This will allow you to load and use the native library like you do elsewhere in your code.

If the library is not required for your test, simply wrap the system load in a try/catch. This will allow the JNI class to still work in junit tests (under src/test/...) and it is a safe workaround, given that it is unlikely to mask the error (something else will certainly fail, if the native lib is actually needed). From there, you can use something like mockito to stub out any method calls that still hit the JNI library.

For example in Kotlin:

    companion object {
        init {
            try {
                System.loadLibrary("mylibrary")
            } catch (e: UnsatisfiedLinkError) {
                // log the error or track it in analytics
            }
        }
    }

Answer 4

This is very, very tricky. Setting java.library.path does not work, but trying to understand someone else’s Mac OSX approach I eventually found a working solution.

Legal release: all code examples directly copied into this post are available under CC0 but it would be appeciated to credit my employer ⮡ tarent, the LLCTO project at Deutsche Telekom, and the author mirabilos.

CAVEATS first:

• with this, you’re testing a version of the native code compiled against your system libraries (usually glibc on GNU/Linux, and on BSD, Mac OSX and Windows it’s even trickier) so adding some instrumented tests should be done anyway, use the unittests only for faster testing of things that actually can be tested on the host OS

• I’ve only tested this with a GNU/Linux host (and am, in fact, excluding these native tests on all other host OSes, see below)

  • it should work under unixoid OSes with GNU/BSD-style shared libraries as-is
  • with small adaptions from the “someone else’s” article linked above, it might probably work on Mac OSX
  • Windows… no, just no. Use WSL, which is basically Linux anyway and makes things much easier, and so much closer to Android which is also basically Linux just not GNU

• IDE integration needs manual steps at each developer’s machine (but these are easily documented, see (much) below)

Prerequisites

You’ll need to make sure that all build dependencies of your native code are also installed in the host system. This includes cmake (because we sadly cannot reuse the NDK cmake) and a host C compiler. Note that these introduce further differences in the build: you’re testing something that has been built with the host C compiler (often GCC, not clang like in Android) against the host C library and other libraries by the host clang. Do consider this when writing your tests. I had to move one of the tests to instrumented because it was impossible to test under glibc.

For filesystem layout, we assume the following:

• ~/MYPRJ/build.gradle is the top-level build file (generated by IntelliJ / Android Studio)
• ~/MYPRJ/app/build.gradle is where the Android code in question is built (generated by IntelliJ / Android Studio)
• ~/MYPRJ/app/src/main/native/CMakeLists.txt is where the native code is situated

This means build.gradle (for the app) has something like this already, by the point where you begin wondering about whether your project can be unittested:

externalNativeBuild {
    cmake {
        path "src/main/native/CMakeLists.txt"
        return void // WTF‽
    }
}

Make sure your code builds on the host

Doing this ought to be easy at first glance:

$ rm -rf /tmp/build
$ mkdir /tmp/build
$ cd /tmp/build
$ cmake ~/MYPRJ/app/src/main/native/
$ make

(Make sure you give cmake the path to the directory the main CMakeLists.txt file is in, but not to that file itself!)

This will fail for everything nōntrivial, of course. Most people would use Android logging. (It will also fail because it cannot find <jni.h>, and because GNU libc requires an extra _GNU_SOURCE definition to access some prototypes, etc…)

So I wrote a header to include instead of <android/log.h> which abstracts the logging away…

#ifndef MYPRJ_ALOG_H
#define MYPRJ_ALOG_H

#ifndef MYPRJ_ALOG_TAG
#define MYPRJ_ALOG_TAG "MYPRJ-JNI"
#endif

#if defined(MYPRJ_ALOG_TYPE) && (MYPRJ_ALOG_TYPE == 1)

#include <android/log.h>

#define ecnlog_err(msg, ...)    __android_log_print(ANDROID_LOG_ERROR, \
            MYPRJ_ALOG_TAG, msg, ##__VA_ARGS__)
#define ecnlog_warn(msg, ...)   __android_log_print(ANDROID_LOG_WARN, \
            MYPRJ_ALOG_TAG, msg, ##__VA_ARGS__)
#define ecnlog_info(msg, ...)   __android_log_print(ANDROID_LOG_INFO, \
            MYPRJ_ALOG_TAG, msg, ##__VA_ARGS__)

#elif defined(MYPRJ_ALOG_TYPE) && (MYPRJ_ALOG_TYPE == 2)

#include <stdio.h>

#define ecnlog_err(msg, ...)    fprintf(stderr, \
            "E: [" MYPRJ_ALOG_TAG "] " msg "\n", ##__VA_ARGS__)
#define ecnlog_warn(msg, ...)   fprintf(stderr, \
            "W: [" MYPRJ_ALOG_TAG "] " msg "\n", ##__VA_ARGS__)
#define ecnlog_info(msg, ...)   fprintf(stderr, \
            "I: [" MYPRJ_ALOG_TAG "] " msg "\n", ##__VA_ARGS__)

#else
# error What logging system to use?
#endif

#endif

… and updated my CMakeLists.txt to indicate whether building for NDK (must be default) or native:

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.10)
project(myprj-native)

option(UNDER_NDK        "Build under the Android NDK"   ON)

add_compile_options(-fvisibility=hidden)
add_compile_options(-Wall -Wextra -Wformat)

add_library(myprj-native SHARED
        alog.h
        myprj-jni.c
        )

if (UNDER_NDK)
        add_definitions(-DECNBITS_ALOG_TYPE=1)

        find_library(log-lib log)
        target_link_libraries(myprj-native ${log-lib})
else (UNDER_NDK)
        add_definitions(-DECNBITS_ALOG_TYPE=2)
        include(FindJNI)
        include_directories(${JNI_INCLUDE_DIRS})

        add_definitions(-D_GNU_SOURCE)
endif (UNDER_NDK)

Note this also already includes the fix for <jni.h> (FindJNI) and the extra definitions.

Now let’s try to build it again:

$ rm -rf /tmp/build
$ mkdir /tmp/build
$ cd /tmp/build
$ cmake -DUNDER_NDK=OFF ~/MYPRJ/app/src/main/native/
$ make

In my case, this was sufficient. If you’re still not there, fix this first before proceeding. If you cannot fix this, give up on buildhost-local unit tests for your JNI code and move the respective tests to instrumented.

Let Gradle build the host-native code

Add the following to the app build.gradle:

def dirForNativeNoNDK = project.layout.buildDirectory.get().dir("native-noNDK")
def srcForNativeNoNDK = project.layout.projectDirectory.dir("src/main/native").asFile

task createNativeNoNDK() {
    def dstdir = dirForNativeNoNDK.asFile
    if (!dstdir.exists()) dstdir.mkdirs()
}
task buildCMakeNativeNoNDK(type: Exec) {
    dependsOn createNativeNoNDK
    workingDir dirForNativeNoNDK
    commandLine "/usr/bin/env", "cmake", "-DUNDER_NDK=OFF", srcForNativeNoNDK.absolutePath
}
task buildGMakeNativeNoNDK(type: Exec) {
    dependsOn buildCMakeNativeNoNDK
    workingDir dirForNativeNoNDK
    commandLine "/usr/bin/env", "make"
}

project.afterEvaluate {
    if (org.gradle.internal.os.OperatingSystem.current().isLinux()) {
        testDebugUnitTest {
            dependsOn buildGMakeNativeNoNDK
            systemProperty "java.library.path", dirForNativeNoNDK.asFile.absolutePath + ":" + System.getProperty("java.library.path")
        }
        testReleaseUnitTest {
            dependsOn buildGMakeNativeNoNDK
            systemProperty "java.library.path", dirForNativeNoNDK.asFile.absolutePath + ":" + System.getProperty("java.library.path")
        }
    }
}

This defines a few new tasks to compile the buildhost-native version of the shared library, and hooks this up if the host OS is “Linux”. (This syntax will also work for other unixoid OSes — BSD, Mac OSX — but not for Windows. But we can probably test this under Linux only anyway. WSL counts as Linux.) It also sets up the JVM library path so that ../gradlew test will let the JVM pick up the library from its path.

Loose ends

There’s a few loose ends you might have noticed here:

• In the last paragraph of the previous section, I mentioned that ../gradlew test will pick up the library. Testing from the IDE will not work yet; this involves manual setup.

• I mentioned that the relevant unit tests must be skipped if the buildhost OS is not “Linux”; we have yet to do that. Unfortunately, JUnit 4 lacks such facilities, but switching the unit tests to JUnit 5 “Jupiter” will allow us to do that. (We’re not switching the instrumented tests, though; that’d be more invasive.)

• You’ll probably not yet have noticed, but the logging output from the native code will not show up thanks to Gradle’s default settings which we’ll need to change.

So, let’s do that. First, edit your app build.gradle file again. There will be a dependencies { block. We’ll need to fill that with suitable dependencies for either JUnit:

dependencies {
    testImplementation 'org.junit.jupiter:junit-jupiter-api:5.7.0'
    testRuntimeOnly 'org.junit.jupiter:junit-jupiter-engine:5.7.0'

    //noinspection GradleDependency
    androidTestImplementation 'com.android.support.test:runner:1.0.1'
    //noinspection GradleDependency
    androidTestImplementation 'com.android.support.test.espresso:espresso-core:3.0.1'
    //noinspection GradleDependency
    androidTestImplementation 'junit:junit:4.12'
}

You’ll also have a line apply plugin: 'com.android.application' (or perhaps apply plugin: 'com.android.library') at the top. Directly below that line, insert this one:

apply plugin: 'de.mannodermaus.android-junit5'

Also, make sure that, under android { defaultConfig { the testInstrumentationRunner is still "android.support.test.runner.AndroidJUnitRunner" (the default as generated by IntelliJ / Android Studio).

Next, edit the top-level ~/MYPRJ/build.gradle file. You’ll already have a buildscript { dependencies { and will have to add a line to that section to make the JUnit5 plugin available in the first place:

        //noinspection GradleDependency
        classpath 'de.mannodermaus.gradle.plugins:android-junit5:1.5.2.0'

Then, add a new section under allprojects {:

    tasks.withType(Test) {
        testLogging {
            outputs.upToDateWhen { false }
            showStandardStreams = true
            exceptionFormat = 'full'
        }
        systemProperty 'java.util.logging.config.file', file('src/test/resources/logging.properties').getAbsolutePath()
    }

This ensures that…

• tests are never skipped because Gradle thinks them up-to-date
• logging output and exceptions are shown in full
• if you have a ~/MYPRJ/app/src/test/resources/logging.properties it will set up java.util.logging with this (recommended)

Now see to your test, something like ~/MYPRJ/app/src/test/java/org/example/packagename/JNITest.java. First, you should add a “test” that can always run (I use one that merely tests whether my JNI class can be loaded), and ensure it displays some information first:

// or Lombok @Log
private static final java.util.logging.Logger LOGGER = java.util.logging.Logger.getLogger(JNITest.class.getName());

@Test
public void testClassBoots() {
    LOGGER.info("running on " + System.getProperty("os.name"));
    if (!LINUX.isCurrentOs()) {
        LOGGER.warning("skipping JNI tests");
    }
    // for copy/paste into IntelliJ run options
    LOGGER.info("VM options: -Djava.library.path=" +
      System.getProperty("java.library.path"));

    LOGGER.info("testing Java™ part of JNI class…");
  […]
}

Then, annotate the actual JNI tests that need to be skipped on other OSes:

@Test
@EnabledOnOs(LINUX)
public void testJNIBoots() {
    LOGGER.info("testing JNI part of JNI class…");
    final long tid;
    try {
        tid = JNI.n_gettid();
    } catch (Throwable t) {
        LOGGER.log(Level.SEVERE, "it failed", t);
        Assertions.fail("JNI does not work");
        return;
    }
    LOGGER.info("it also works: " + tid);
    assertNotEquals(0, tid, "but is 0");
}

For comparison, instrumented tests (unittests that run on the Android device or emulator) — e.g. ~/MYPRJ/app/src/androidTest/java/org/example/packagename/JNIInstrumentedTest.java — look like this:

@RunWith(AndroidJUnit4.class)
public class JNIInstrumentedTest {
    @Test
    public void testJNIBoots() {
        Log.i("ECN-Bits-JNITest", "testing JNI part of JNI class…");
        final long tid;
        try {
            tid = JNI.n_gettid();
        } catch (Throwable t) {
            Log.e("ECN-Bits-JNITest", "it failed", t);
            fail("JNI does not work");
            return;
        }
        Log.i("ECN-Bits-JNITest", "it also works: " + tid);
        assertNotEquals("but is 0", 0, tid);
    }
}

See Testable.java if you need an assertThrows for instrumented tests (JUnit 5 already comes with one), by the way. (Note that this does not fall under the CC0 grant above but comes under a permissive licence.)

Now, you can run both tests, unittests and (if an Android emulator is started or device commected) instrumented tests:

../gradlew test connectedAndroidTest

Do so. Note the output of the VM options: logger call from the buildhost-native unit tests; in fact, copy it to the clipboard. You’ll now need it to set up testing in the IDE.

In the Project view (left-side tree), right-click either on your JNITest class or the entire src/test/java/ directory. Click on Run 'JNITest' (or Run 'Tests in 'java''), it will fail with an UnsatisfiedLinkError as in the original post.

Now click on the arrow in the test drop-down below the menu bar, then select Save JNITest configuration, then do it again and select Edit configurations… and select your configuration. Append the entire pasted thing to VM options: so the field will now look like -ea -Djava.library.path=/home/USER/MYPRJ/app/build/native-noNDK:/usr/java/packages/lib:/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/jni:/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu:/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu:/usr/lib/jni:/lib:/usr/lib (of course, the actual value will differ) and click OK. Re-run the test, and it will succeed.

Unfortunately, you’ll have to do this for every native test class once and for the entire directory, so all possible ways of invocation will be covered. You’ll also have to do this manually, by clicking around, for every IDE instance, and these values depend on the path the code was checked out into. I’ve not found a way to automate these (if you know of one, do tell).

Exception backtraces

If you’re throwing custom exceptions from your code, you’ll most likely wish to include file/lineno/function information. Use a constructor like MyprjNativeException(final String file, final int line, final String func, final String msg, … /* custom data */, final Throwable cause) and, after calling super(msg, cause) (possibly with a changed message), do this:

        StackTraceElement[] currentStack = getStackTrace();
        StackTraceElement[] newStack = new StackTraceElement[currentStack.length + 1];
        System.arraycopy(currentStack, 0, newStack, 1, currentStack.length);
        newStack[0] = new StackTraceElement("<native>", func, file, line);
        setStackTrace(newStack);

Then, to throw an exception like this from native code:

#define throw(env,...) vthrow(__FILE__, __func__, env, __LINE__, __VA_ARGS__)
static void vthrow(const char *loc_file, const char *loc_func, JNIEnv *env,
    int loc_line, /* custom args */ const char *msg, ...);

Use as follows:

if (func() != expected)
        throw(env, /* custom args */ "foo");

Implementation (assuming you cache class and constructor method references) looks as follows (adjust for custom args):

static void vthrow(const char *loc_file, const char *loc_func, JNIEnv *env,
    int loc_line, const char *fmt, ...)
{
        jthrowable e;
        va_list ap;
        jstring jfile = NULL;
        jint jline = loc_line;
        jstring jfunc = NULL;
        jstring jmsg = NULL;
        jthrowable cause = NULL;
        const char *msg;
        char *msgbuf;

        if ((*env)->PushLocalFrame(env, /* adjust for amount you need */ 5)) {
                cause = (*env)->ExceptionOccurred(env);
                (*env)->ExceptionClear(env);
                (*env)->Throw(env, (*env)->NewObject(env, classreference, constructorreference,
                    jfile, jline, jfunc, jmsg, /* custom */…, cause));
                return;
        }

        if ((cause = (*env)->ExceptionOccurred(env))) {
                /* will be treated as cause */
                (*env)->ExceptionClear(env);
        }

        va_start(ap, fmt);
        if (vasprintf(&msgbuf, fmt, ap) == -1) {
                msgbuf = NULL;
                msg = fmt;
        } else
                msg = msgbuf;
        va_end(ap);

        jmsg = (*env)->NewStringUTF(env, msg);
        free(msgbuf);
        if (!jmsg)
                goto onStringError;

        if (!(jfunc = (*env)->NewStringUTF(env, loc_func)))
                goto onStringError;

        /* allocate NewStringUTF for any custom things you need */
        /* exactly like the one for loc_func above */
        /* increase PushLocalFrame argument for each */

        jfile = (*env)->NewStringUTF(env, loc_file);
        if (!jfile) {
 onStringError:
                (*env)->ExceptionClear(env);
        }

        e = (*env)->PopLocalFrame(env, (*env)->NewObject(env, classreference, constructorreference,
            jfile, jline, jfunc, jmsg, /* custom */…, cause));
        if (e)
                (*env)->Throw(env, e);
}

Now using __FILE__ will put the full absolute path into the messages and backtraces. This is not very nice. There’s a compiler option to fix that, but NDK r21’s clang is much too old, so we need a workaround.

CMakeLists.txt:

if (NOT TOPLEV)
    message(FATAL_ERROR "setting the top-level directory is mandatory")
endif (NOT TOPLEV)

[…]

if (UNDER_NDK)
 […]
    execute_process(COMMAND ${CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER} --version OUTPUT_VARIABLE cxx_version_full)
    string(REGEX REPLACE "^Android [^\n]* clang version ([0-9]+)\\.[0-9].*$" "\\1" cxx_version_major ${cxx_version_full})
    if (${cxx_version_major} VERSION_GREATER_EQUAL 10)
            add_definitions("-ffile-prefix-map=${TOPLEV}=«MyPrj»")
    else (${cxx_version_major} VERSION_GREATER_EQUAL 10)
            add_definitions(-DOLD_CLANG_SRCDIR_HACK="${TOPLEV}/")
    endif (${cxx_version_major} VERSION_GREATER_EQUAL 10)
else (UNDER_NDK)
 […]
    add_definitions("-ffile-prefix-map=${TOPLEV}=«MyPrj»")
endif (UNDER_NDK)

app build.gradle:

(straight after the apply plugin lines)

def dirToplev = project.layout.projectDirectory.asFile.absolutePath

(inside android { defaultConfig { add a new block)

    externalNativeBuild {
        cmake {
            //noinspection GroovyAssignabilityCheck because Gradle and the IDE have different world views…
            arguments "-DTOPLEV=" + dirToplev
        }
        return void // WTF‽
    }

(later, where you call cmake)

commandLine "/usr/bin/env", "cmake", "-DTOPLEV=" + dirToplev, "-DUNDER_NDK=OFF", srcForNativeNoNDK.absolutePath

Then, replace the line jfile = (*env)->NewStringUTF(env, loc_file); with the following snippet:

#ifdef OLD_CLANG_SRCDIR_HACK
        if (!strncmp(loc_file, OLD_CLANG_SRCDIR_HACK, sizeof(OLD_CLANG_SRCDIR_HACK) - 1) &&
            asprintf(&msgbuf, "«ECN-Bits»/%s", loc_file + sizeof(OLD_CLANG_SRCDIR_HACK) - 1) != -1) {
                msg = msgbuf;
        } else {
                msg = loc_file;
                msgbuf = NULL;
        }
#else
#define msg loc_file
#endif
        jfile = (*env)->NewStringUTF(env, msg);
#ifdef OLD_CLANG_SRCDIR_HACK
        free(msgbuf);
#else
#undef msg
#endif

Tieing it all together

This all is implemented in the ECN-Bits project. I’m posting a permalink because it’s currently on a nōn-default branch but expected to be merged (once the actual functionality is no longer WIP), so be sure to check master at some point in time as well (although this permalink is probably a better example as it has the testing down and there’s not as much “actual” code to get in the way). Note that these links do not fall under the CC0 grant from above; the files all have a permissive licence though (the files which don’t have it explicit (gradle/cmake files) have the same as the unittest class permalink), but enough of it was reposted in this article so that should not be a problem for you; these only serve to show an actually-compiling-and-testing example.

In this project, it’s not in app/ but as a separate library module.

• top-level build.gradle
• library build.gradle
• instrumented tests
• unittest class
• unittest logging configuration
• native CMakeLists.txt
• native alog.h
• native code including caching the references
• Java™ code to which the JNI native code attaches including the Exception class

Answer 5

The only solution I found that works without hacks is to use JUnit through instrumentation testing (androidTest directory). My class can now be tested fine but with help of the android device or emulator.

Answer 6

There is a way to configure library path of Gradle-run VM for local unit tests, and I'm going to describe it below, but spoiler: in my expericence, @ThanosFisherman is right: local unit tests for stuff that uses the Android NDK seem to be a fools errand right now.

So, for anyone else looking for a way to load shared (i.e. .so) libraries into unit tests with gradle, here's the somewhat lengthy abstract:

The goal is to set the shared library lookup path for the JVM running the unit tests.

Althoug many people suggest putting the lib path into java.library.path, I found that it doesn't work, at least not on my linux machine. (also, same results in this CodeRanch thread)

What does work though is setting the LD_LIBRARY_PATH os environment variable (or PATH is the closest synonym in Windows)

Using Gradle:

// module-level build.gradle
apply plugin: 'com.android.library' // or application

android {
    ...

    testOptions {
        unitTests {
            all {
                // This is where we have access to the properties of gradle's Test class,
                // look it  up if you want to customize more test parameters

                // next we take our cmake output dir for whatever architecture
                // you can also put some 3rd party libs here, or override
                // the implicitly linked stuff (libc, libm and others)

                def libpath = '' + projectDir + '/build/intermediates/cmake/debug/obj/x86_64/'
                    +':/home/developer/my-project/some-sdk/lib'

                environment 'LD_LIBRARY_PATH', libpath
            }
        }
    }
}

With that, you can run, e.g. ./gradlew :mymodule:testDebugUnitTest and the native libs will be looked for in the paths that you specified.

Using Android Studio JUnit plugin For the Android Studio's JUnit plugin, you can specify the VM options and the environment variables in the test configuration's settings, so just run a JUnit test (right-clicking on a test method or whatever) and then edit the Run Configuration:

Although it sounds like "mission accomplished", I found that when using libc.so, libm.so and others from my os /usr/lib gives me version errors (probably because my own library is compiled by cmake with the android ndk toolkit against it's own platform libs). And using the platform libs from the ndk packages brought down the JVM wih a SIGSEGV error (due to incompatibility of the ndk platform libs with the host os environment)

Update As @AlexCohn incisively pointed out in the comments, one has to build against the host environment libs for this to work; even though your machine most likely is x86_64, the x86_64 binaries built against NDK environment will not do.

There may be something I overlooked, obviously, and I'll appreciate any feedback, but for now I'm dropping the whole idea in favor of instrumented tests.