Abstract
Sauce Labs has recently announced Appium support which makes it easier to test mobile apps in the cloud. Appium is a mobile test automation framework for hybrid and native mobile apps. Cucumber is a behaviour driven development a.k.a BDD tool used with different programming languages. The combination of Cucumber and Appium can be used for automating iOS apps in the cloud using Sauce Labs. This is a repost of the original post. In this post, we will see how to set up test automation of our iOS app in the cloud using Sauce Labs.
Getting Started
In order to get started, we need to have the initial setup handy. This includes the following:
Mac OSX 10.7.4 or higher with Xcode installed with command line tools.
Your app source code or a prebuilt .app bundle for your app. Browse wide range of open-source iOS apps
Saucelabs Username and API key. Signup for Saucelabs free account.
Web development environment on Mac OSX for Ruby including Xcode, RVM, HomeBrew, Git and Ruby. Follow Moncef’s blog
Appium-Ruby-console with Node and npm (Node must be >= v0.8)
Ruby 1.9.3
Get Appium and Your iOS App
Before we go ahead, let’s get the Appium server up and running. There are two ways to do it-
You can download Mac OSX Appium.dmg package and launch Appium.
You can run it from source. Follow instructions. You need to make sure, You have authorized use of the iOS Simulator. If you are running Appium from NPM, you’ll do this by running
There are a wide range of open source iOS mobile apps available here, we are going to use PlainNote iOS app for this tutorial.
Compile and Upload iOS App on SauceLabs
Now we need to compile PlainNote App with Sauce. [ Note Additional parameter TARGET_DEVICE_FAMILY]
In Sauce, there are optional parameters like TARGETED_DEVICE_FAMILY parameter . To build an app for iPhone, we use TARGETED_DEVICE_FAMILY= 1, for iPad TARGETED_DEVICE_FAMILY=2 .
Now, once the build is successful, it will create “PlaneNote.app” at ‘/build/Release-iphonesimulator‘.
Zip the PlainNote App & Upload to SauceLabs
Now that we have ‘PlainNote.app‘, we need to zip it by navigating to that directory
Now you will see ‘PlainNote.zip‘ file in that directory
Now, we need to upload this file to Sauce Labs temporary storage using the Sauce REST API. I am using my Username and API key here.
It will show you response something like this,
It will be now uploaded to “sauce-storage:PlainNote.zip“. Now we are all set for writing tests for the application with Cucumber.
Setup Cucumber project
Now that we have already uploaded our app on SauceLabs temporary storage, we can setup Cucumber project to talk to the mobile app in the cloud. I assume that you are familiar with the BDD Code and code structure for the Cucumber project. Please refer my old post if you are not aware of BDD code.
Create Gemfile
We need a Gemfile in order to specify all our dependencies
Now insert the following dependencies into the Gemfile
Now we need to install the bundle to download all the dependencies.
This will create a ‘Gemfile.lock’ file.
Create Feature File
Now, we will write a feature file using Given When Then format. The feature file is written using the Gherkin Domain Specific Language.
Let’s create ‘features/plain_note_sauce.feature‘ file.
The PlainNote app feature will look something like this
This feature is self explanatory, we are going to add a new note and make sure it displayed on the Home page.
Setup Cucumber Environment
Let’s create ‘features/support/env.rb‘ where we can put our support code. We need to add sauce_capabilities mentioned in the Sauce Labs Appium tutorial.
Insert the following code in the file.
Now that we have a created ‘sauce’ driver with all required desired capabilities, ee will using the ‘sauce’ object in our step_definitions
Write Step definitions using Selenium-Webdriver JSON Wire Protocol
At this point if you run the ‘bundle exec cucumber’ command it will tell you steps that are not implemented yet. We need to implement these step definitions using Selenium-Webdriver JSON Wire Protocol for Appium. Now we will create a step definition file and implement it
Now add these step definitions to the file.
Appium Inspector
Appium Inspector is a feature of the Appium OSX app which allows you to inspect elements on your mobile app. You can also record tests in the different languages. Writing the Ruby code is easy if you have used Appium Inspector locally to record tests. Watch this video to know ‘How to use Appium Inspector‘.
Now, we are all set to run cucumber to execute tests on the SauceLabs
Now you will see the tests running on Sauce Labs and in your terminal you will see something like this
You can watch video and screenshots of the job.
Cucumber-Appium-SauceLabs
You can find source code on GitHub:
GitHub : cucumber-appium
Watch this video get a clear idea of the cucumber-appium setup on Sauce Labs. If any questions, feel free to contact me.