Android Testing Framework Overview:

 

Working with Android Test Projects:

http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/testing/testing_otheride.html

http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/testing/testing_android.html

The testing framework has these key features:

• Android test suites are based on JUnit. You can use plain JUnit to test a class that doesn't call the Android API, or Android's JUnit extensions to test Android components. If you're new to Android testing, you can start with general-purpose test case classes such as AndroidTestCase and then go on to use more sophisticated classes.  
• The Android JUnit extensions provide component-specific test case classes. These classes provide helper methods for creating mock objects and methods that help you control the lifecycle of a component.
• Test suites are contained in test packages that are similar to main application packages, so you don't need to learn a new set of tools or techniques for designing and building tests.
• The SDK tools for building and tests are available in Eclipse with ADT, and also in command-line form for use with other IDES. These tools get information from the project of the application under test and use this information to automatically create the build files, manifest file, and directory structure for the test package.
• The SDK also provides monkeyrunner, an API testing devices with Python programs, and UI/Application Exerciser Monkey, a command-line tool for stress-testing UIs by sending pseudo-random events to a device.

MonkeyRunner Testing on Android - Kapil Sharma

The android monkeyrunner tool provides an API for writing programs that control an Android device or emulator from outside of Android code. 

With monkeyrunner, you can write a Python program that installs an Android application or test package, runs it, sends keystrokes to it, takes screenshots of its user interface, and stores screenshots on the workstation. 

The monkeyrunner tool is primarily designed to test applications and devices at the functional/framework level and for running unit test suites, but you are free to use it for other purposes.

The monkeyrunner tool is not related to the UI/Application Exerciser Monkey, also known as the monkey tool. The monkey tool runs in an adb shell directly on the device or emulator and generates pseudo-random streams of user and system events. 

In comparison, the monkeyrunner tool controls devices and emulators from a workstation by sending specific commands and events from an API.

The monkeyrunner tool provides these unique features for Android testing:

• Multiple device control: The monkeyrunner API can apply one or more test suites across multiple devices or emulators. You can physically attach all the devices or start up all the emulators (or both) at once, connect to each one in turn programmatically, and then run one or more tests. You can also start up an emulator configuration programmatically, run one or more tests, and then shut down the emulator.
• Functional testing: monkeyrunner can run an automated start-to-finish test of an Android application. You provide input values with keystrokes or touch events, and view the results as screenshots.
• Regression testing - monkeyrunner can test application stability by running an application and comparing its output screenshots to a set of screenshots that are known to be correct.
• Extensible automation - Since monkeyrunner is an API toolkit, you can develop an entire system of Python-based modules and programs for controlling Android devices. Besides using the monkeyrunner API itself, you can use the standard Python os and subprocess modules to call Android tools such as Android Debug Bridge.
  You can also add your own classes to the monkeyrunner API. This is described in more detail in the section Extending monkeyrunner with plugins.
  
  
  The monkeyrunner tool uses Jython, a implementation of Python that uses the Java programming language. Jython allows the monkeyrunner API to interact easily with the Android framework. With Jython you can use Python syntax to access the constants, classes, and methods of the API.