Appium Python Client

An extension library for adding Selenium 3.0 draft and Mobile JSON Wire Protocol Specification draft functionality to the Python language bindings, for use with the mobile testing framework Appium.

Getting the Appium Python client

There are three ways to install and use the Appium Python client.

1. Install from PyPi, as 'Appium-Python-Client'.

   pip install Appium-Python-Client

2. Install from source, via PyPi. From 'Appium-Python-Client', download and unarchive the source tarball (Appium-Python-Client-X.X.tar.gz).

   tar -xvf Appium-Python-Client-X.X.tar.gz
   cd Appium-Python-Client-X.X
   python setup.py install

3. Install from source via GitHub.

   git clone git@github.com:appium/python-client.git
   cd python-client
   python setup.py install

Usage

The Appium Python Client is fully compliant with the Selenium 3.0 specification draft, with some helpers to make mobile testing in Python easier. The majority of the usage remains as it has been for Selenium 2 (WebDriver), and as the official Selenium Python bindings begins to implement the new specification that implementation will be used underneath, so test code can be written that is utilizable with both bindings.

To use the new functionality now, and to use the superset of functions, instead of including the Selenium webdriver module in your test code, use that from Appium instead.

from appium import webdriver

From there much of your test code will work with no change.

As a base for the following code examples, the following sets up the UnitTest environment:

# Android environment
import unittest
from appium import webdriver

desired_caps = {}
desired_caps['platformName'] = 'Android'
desired_caps['platformVersion'] = '4.2'
desired_caps['deviceName'] = 'Android Emulator'
desired_caps['app'] = PATH('../../../apps/selendroid-test-app.apk')

self.driver = webdriver.Remote('http://localhost:4723/wd/hub', desired_caps)

# iOS environment
import unittest
from appium import webdriver

desired_caps = {}
desired_caps['platformName'] = 'iOS'
desired_caps['platformVersion'] = '7.1'
desired_caps['deviceName'] = 'iPhone Simulator'
desired_caps['app'] = PATH('../../apps/UICatalog.app.zip')

self.driver = webdriver.Remote('http://localhost:4723/wd/hub', desired_caps)

Changed or added functionality

The methods that do change are...

Switching between 'Native' and 'Webview'

For mobile testing the Selnium methods for switching between windows was previously commandeered for switching between native applications and webview contexts. Methods explicitly for this have been added to the Selenium 3 specification, so moving forward these 'context' methods are to be used.

To get the current context, rather than calling driver.current_window_handle you use

current = driver.current_context

The available contexts are not retrieved using driver.window_handles but with

driver.contexts

Finally, to switch to a new context, rather than driver.switch_to.window(name), use the comparable context method

context_name = "WEBVIEW_1"
driver.switch_to.context(context_name)

Finding elements by iOS UIAutomation search

This allows elements in iOS applications to be found using recursive element search using the UIAutomation library. Adds the methods driver.find_element_by_ios_uiautomation and driver.find_elements_by_ios_uiautomation.

el = self.driver.find_element_by_ios_uiautomation('.elements()[0]')
self.assertEqual('UICatalog', el.get_attribute('name'))

els = self.driver.find_elements_by_ios_uiautomation('.elements()')
self.assertIsInstance(els, list)

Finding elements by Android UIAutomator search

This allows elements in an Android application to be found using recursive element search using the UIAutomator library. Adds the methods driver.find_element_by_android_uiautomator and driver.find_elements_by_android_uiautomator.

el = self.driver.find_element_by_android_uiautomator('new UiSelector().description("Animation")')
self.assertIsNotNone(el)

els = self.driver.find_elements_by_android_uiautomator('new UiSelector().clickable(true)')
self.assertIsInstance(els, list)

Finding elements by Accessibility ID

Allows for elements to be found using the "Accessibility ID". The methods take a string representing the accessibility id or label attached to a given element, e.g., for iOS the accessibility identifier and for Android the content-description. Adds the methods driver.find_element_by_accessibility_id and find_elements_by_accessibility_id.

el = self.driver.find_element_by_accessibility_id('Animation')
self.assertIsNotNone(el)

els = self.driver.find_elements_by_accessibility_id('Animation')
self.assertIsInstance(els, list)

Touch actions

In order to accommodate mobile touch actions, and touch actions involving multiple pointers, the Selenium 3.0 draft specifies "touch gestures" and "multi actions", which build upon the touch actions.

move_to: note that use keyword arguments if no element

The API is built around TouchAction objects, which are chains of one or more actions to be performed in a sequence. The actions are:

perform

The perform method sends the chain to the server in order to be enacted. It also empties the action chain, so the object can be reused. It will be at the end of all single action chains, but is unused when writing multi-action chains.

tap

The tap method stands alone, being unable to be chained with other methods. If you need a tap-like action that starts a longer chain, use press.

It can take either an element with an optional x-y offset, or absolute x-y coordinates for the tap, and an optional count.

el = self.driver.find_element_by_accessibility_id('Animation')
action = TouchAction(self.driver)
action.tap(el).perform()
el = self.driver.find_element_by_accessibility_id('Bouncing Balls')
self.assertIsNotNone(el)

press

long_press

release

move_to

wait

cancel

Multi-touch actions

In addition to chains of actions performed with in a single gesture, it is also possible to perform multiple chains at the same time, to simulate multi-finger actions. This is done through building a MultiAction object that comprises a number of individual TouchAction objects, one for each "finger".

Given two lists next to each other, we can scroll them independently but simultaneously:

els = self.driver.find_elements_by_class_name('listView')
a1 = TouchAction()
a1.press(els[0]) \
    .move_to(x=10, y=0).move_to(x=10, y=-75).move_to(x=10, y=-600).release()

a2 = TouchAction()
a2.press(els[1]) \
    .move_to(x=10, y=10).move_to(x=10, y=-300).move_to(x=10, y=-600).release()

ma = MultiAction(self.driver, els[0])
ma.add(a1, a2)
ma.perform();

Appium-Specific touch actions

There are a small number of operations that mobile testers need to do quite a bit that can be relatively complicated to build using the Touch and Multi-touch Action API. For these we provide some convenience methods in the Appium client.

driver.tap

This method, on the WebDriver object, allows for tapping with multiple fingers, simply by passing in an array of x-y coordinates to tap.

el = self.driver.find_element_by_name('Touch Paint')
action.tap(el).perform()

# set up array of two coordinates
positions = []
positions.append((100, 200))
positions.append((100, 400))

self.driver.tap(positions)

driver.swipe

Swipe from one point to another point.

driver.zoom

Zoom in on an element, doing a pinch out operation.

driver.pinch

Zoom out on an element, doing a pinch in operation.

Application management methods

There are times when you want, in your tests, to manage the running application, such as installing or removing an application, etc.

Backgrounding an application

The method driver.background_app sends the running application to the background for the specified amount of time, in seconds. After that time, the application is brought back to the foreground.

driver.background_app(1)
sleep(2)
el = driver.find_element_by_name('Animation')
assertIsNotNone(el)

Checking if an application is installed

To check if an application is currently installed on the device, use the device.is_app_installed method. This method takes the bundle id of the application and return True or False.

assertFalse(self.driver.is_app_installed('sdfsdf'))
assertTrue(self.driver.is_app_installed('com.example.android.apis'))

Installing an application

To install an uninstalled application on the device, use device.install_app, sending in the path to the application file or archive.

assertFalse(driver.is_app_installed('io.selendroid.testapp'))
driver.install_app('/Users/isaac/code/python-client/test/apps/selendroid-test-app.apk')
assertTrue(driver.is_app_installed('io.selendroid.testapp'))

Removing an application

If you need to remove an application from the device, use device.remove_app, passing in the application id.

assertTrue(driver.is_app_installed('com.example.android.apis'))
driver.remove_app('com.example.android.apis')
assertFalse(driver.is_app_installed('com.example.android.apis'))

Closing and Launching an application

To launch the application specified in the desired capabilities, call driver.launch_app. Closing that application is initiated by driver.close_app

el = driver.find_element_by_name('Animation')
assertIsNotNone(el)
driver.close_app();

try:
    driver.find_element_by_name('Animation')
except Exception as e:
    pass # should not exist

driver.launch_app()
el = driver.find_element_by_name('Animation')
assertIsNotNone(el)

Resetting an application

To reset the running application, use driver.reset.

el = driver.find_element_by_name('App')
el.click()

driver.reset()
sleep(5)

el = driver.find_element_by_name('App')
assertIsNotNone(el)

Other methods

Start an arbitrary activity

The driver.start_activity method opens arbitrary activities on a device. If the activity is not part of the application under test, it will also launch the activity's application.

driver.start_activity('com.foo.app', '.MyActivity')

Retrieving application strings

The property method driver.app_strings returns the application strings from the application on the device.

strings = driver.app_strings

Sending a key event to an Android device

The driver.keyevent method sends a keycode to the device. The keycodes can be found here. Android only.

# sending 'Home' key event
driver.press_keycode(3)

Hiding the keyboard in iOS

To hide the keyboard from view in iOS, use driver.hide_keyboard. If a key name is sent, the keyboard key with that name will be pressed. If no arguments are passed in, the keyboard will be hidden by tapping on the screen outside the text field, thus removing focus from it.

# get focus on text field, so keyboard comes up
el = driver.find_element_by_class_name('android.widget.TextView')
el.set_value('Testing')

el = driver.find_element_by_class_name('keyboard')
assertTrue(el.is_displayed())

driver.hide_keyboard('Done')

assertFalse(el.is_displayed())

# get focus on text field, so keyboard comes up
el = driver.find_element_by_class_name('android.widget.TextView')
el.set_value('Testing')

el = driver.find_element_by__name('keyboard')
assertTrue(el.is_displayed())

driver.hide_keyboard()

assertFalse(el.is_displayed())

Retrieving the current running activity

The property method driver.current_activity returns the name of the current activity running on the device.

activity = driver.current_activity
assertEquals('.ApiDemos', activity)

Set a value directly on an element

Sometimes one needs to directly set the value of an element on the device. To do this, the method driver.set_value or element.set_value is invoked.

el = driver.find_element_by_class_name('android.widget.EditText')
driver.set_value(el, 'Testing')

text = el.get_attribute('text')
assertEqual('Testing', text)

el.set_value('More testing')
text = el.get_attribute('text')
assertEqual('More testing', text)

Retrieve a file from the device

To retrieve the contents of a file from the device, use driver.pull_file, which returns the contents of the specified file encoded in Base64.

# pulling the strings file for our application
data = driver.pull_file('data/local/tmp/strings.json')
strings = json.loads(data.decode('base64', 'strict'))
assertEqual('You can\'t wipe my data, you are a monkey!', strings[u'monkey_wipe_data'])

Place a file on the device

To put a file onto the device at a particular place, use the driver.push_file method, which takes the path and the data, encoded as Base64, to be written to the file.

path = 'data/local/tmp/test_push_file.txt'
data = 'This is the contents of the file to push to the device.'
driver.push_file(path, data.encode('base64'))
data_ret = driver.pull_file('data/local/tmp/test_push_file.txt').decode('base64')
self.assertEqual(data, data_ret)

End test coverage

There is functionality in the Android emulator to instrument certain activities. For information on this, see the Appium docs. To end this coverage and retrieve the data, use driver.end_test_coverage, passing in the intent that is being instrumentalized, and the path to the coverage.ec file on the device.

coverage_ec_file = driver.end_test_coverage(intent='android.intent.action.MAIN', path='')

Lock the device

To lock the device for a certain amount of time, on iOS, use driver.lock. The argument is the number of seconds to wait before unlocking.

Shake the device

To shake the device, use driver.shake.

Appium Settings

Settings are a new concept introduced by appium. They are currently not a part of the Mobile JSON Wire Protocol, or the Webdriver spec.

Settings are a way to specify the behavior of the appium server.

Settings are:

Mutable, they can be changed during a session Only relevant during the session they are applied. They are reset for each new session. Control the way the appium server behaves during test automation. They do not apply to controlling the app or device under test.

See the docs for more information.

To get settings:

settings = driver.get_settings()

To set settings:

driver.update_settings({"some setting": "the value"})