build

Synopsis#

Build app binaries for integration testing.

patrol build android
patrol build ios

To see all available options and flags, run patrol build android --help or patrol build ios --help.

For patrol build to work, you must complete native setup.

Description#

patrol build is useful if you want to run test on CI, for example on Firebase Test Lab. It works the same as patrol test, except that it does run tests.

patrol build builds apps in debug mode by default.

To run tests on a physical iOS device on a device farm, the apps have to be built in release mode. To do so, pass the --release flag.

Examples#

To build for Android in debug mode

patrol build android --target integration_test/example_test.dart

or alternatively (but redundantly):

patrol build android --target integration_test/example_test.dart --debug

To build for iOS device in release mode

patrol build ios --target integration_test/example_test.dart --release

To build for iOS simulator in debug mode

patrol build ios --target integration_test/example_test.dart --debug

Caveats#

Only a single test target file can be built. For example, consider the following integration_test directory containing 4 test targets:

integration_test/
├── common.dart
├── example_test.dart
├── notifications_test.dart
├── permissions_location_test.dart
├── webview_login_test.dart

Dart file must end with _test.dart to be considered to be a test.

To build the app for testing on Android, you have to run:

patrol build android --target <your file>

4 times, each time with a different --target, to get 4 different app binaries.

These 4 different binaries are almost the same – the only difference is the entrypoint. This is needlessly inefficient for apps with many tests, but it's a design flaw in the way integration testing in Flutter works.

We know about this issue and we're aiming to fix it soon with an approach we call "test bundling". This will dramatically speed up testing apps with many integration tests.