Backdoor Method

The Espresso driver allows to directly invoke a method from the application under test using the mobile: backdoor execute method.

Info

Only 'public' methods can be invoked (they must have the Kotlin open modifier).

Targets

The execute method allows to specify the application methods using the methods parameter, and distinguish the target type depending on the value of the target parameter:

• application: methods will be invoked on the application class
• activity: methods will be invoked on the current application activity
• element: methods will be invoked on the selected view element

Argument Types

Arguments provided in methods must have one of the following primitive types: int, boolean, byte, short, long, float, or char.

The driver also supports object wrappers over primitive types with the java.lang.* fully qualified name: java.lang.CharSequence, java.lang.String, java.lang.Integer, java.lang.Float, java.lang.Double, java.lang.Boolean, java.lang.Long, java.lang.Short, java.lang.Character, etc.

Example

{
   "target": "activity",
   "methods":
   [
     {
       "name": "firstMethod",
     },
     {
       "name": "secondMethod",
       "args": [
         {"value": "foo", "type": "java.lang.CharSequence"},
         {"value": 1, "type": "int"}
       ]
     }
   ]
}

The flow in the above example is as follows:

1. firstMethod is called on the current activity instance. It takes no arguments.
2. secondMethod is called on the object returned by firstMethod. It accepts two arguments, with the first one being foo of type java.lang.CharSequence, and the second being 1 of type int.
3. The result of secondMethod is returned to the client.