Tomated continuous integration using circleci and firebase for android application development

ication being developed should be compatible with multiple platforms, different 
 display units independent of the disk configuration in order to hit a larger market. For the 
 development of an android application for example, requires be compatible with multiple android 
 versions and different screen sizes. A web application on mobile phone /tablet should be as fully 
 functional as on a desktop using any browser version. 
 - Developing such a multi-platform Software requires a large number of test cases for each of the 
 configuration and devices. 
 - Additionally, the number of hardware devices connected to the test system also increases. 
 - For each new build, the Software has to be flashed on hardware. This task must be automated, 
 which is difficult to achieve because it requires manually setting 
 © 2020 Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City 
 AUTOMATED CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION USING CIRCLECI AND 83 
 FIREBASE FOR ANDROID APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT 
 - Up the connections. In this paper, we tried to overcome the challenges mentioned above by 
 creating automation scripts for integration tasks which can be executed using CircleCI. 
3. IMPLEMENTATION 
Most of CI tools using the same architect that have a repository to store the project source code and CI tool 
will detect the change trigger on this repository. We define sub-tasks of us build task, tell CircleCI the 
dependencies between these tasks, and it will run all independent tasks in parallel and as soon as possible, 
as long as idle containers are available: 
 - When the new source code is committed, CI tools download the new source code and make a build. 
 After testing process, the test result will be sent back to developer. 
 - CircleCI will ask for authentication of VCS like Github or Bitbucket at the first access. It 
 automatic makes the first build when authentication is given. 
 - CircleCI allows user directly configure by project setting or via the circle.yml configuration file. 
In this paper, we use build configuration by circle.yml configuration file and connect to Firebase Test Lab 
via project setting. Following is circle.yml file. The Fig. 1 showing CircleCI architect with linked with 
Google Firebase Test Lab. 
 Fig. 1. CircleCI using Firebase Test Lab architect 
 Debug build only needs output APKs in later stages but build release, we need to maintain more files. 
For example, maps.txt generated is required when we upload the APK during the task check. 
 artifacts: 
 - /home/ubuntu/Test/app/build/outputs/apk/ 
 We store the output APKs as CircleCI artifacts so we can download them from CircleCI when the task 
is completed. It works for other developers to test APKs without having to build or require development on 
their own. On the other hand, it is common to build APKs on a dedicated environment instead of machines 
developed on the system, which may be unstable and tend to change frequently. 
 # Build configuration for Circle CI 
 general: 
 artifacts: 
 - /home/ubuntu/Test/app/build/outputs/apk/ 
 machine: 
 environment: 
 © 2020 Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City 
84 AUTOMATED CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION USING CIRCLECI AND 
 FIREBASE FOR ANDROID APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT 
 ANDROID_HOME: /usr/local/android –sdk –linux 
 dependencies: 
 override: 
 - chmod +x gradlew 
 - echo y | android update sdk --no-ui --all --filter 
 tools, platform-tools, build-tools -25. 0. 2, android-25, extra –googlem–2repository, extra 
 google –google_play_services, extra –android –support 
 - echo y | $ANDROID_HOME/tools/bin/sdkmanager 
 "extras; m2repository; com; android; support;constraint;constraint-layoutsolver;1.0.2" 
 - ANDROID_HOME=/usr/local/android-sdk-linux ./gradlew 
 dependencies test: 
 override: 
 - (./gradlew assemble): 
 timeout: 370 
Review last updates and push them up to the master branch of the repository. Now, head back to CircleCI 
and check out the Jobs tab. We see a passing build. It was able to take the settings from config.yml, set up 
the correct virtual environments, and run our tests just as we did locally when we first generated the project. 
CircleCI will automatic detect the circle.yml configuration file in the VCS repository and parsing it to 
project setting. Fig. 2 show build history for a test project. 
 Fig. 2. CircleCI build history 
CircleCI can link with Google Firebase Test Lab to using some Google Cloud platform services like Robo 
test, Instrument testTo link with Firebase, we need to install Gcloud console by setting project 
dependency and test command: 
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 AUTOMATED CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION USING CIRCLECI AND 85 
 FIREBASE FOR ANDROID APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT 
Pre-dependency commands: 
 sudo pip install -U crcmod 
Post-dependency commands: 
./gradlew :app:assembleDebug –PdisablePreDex 
 echo $GCLOUD_SERVICE_KEY | base64 --decode --ignore-garbage > ${HOME}/gcloud-
servicekey.json 
 sudo /opt/google-cloud-sdk/bin/gcloud config set project project-79e99 
 sudo /opt/google-cloud-sdk/bin/gcloud --quiet components update 
 sudo /opt/google-cloud-sdk/bin/gcloud --quiet components install beta 
 sudo /opt/google-cloud-sdk/bin/gcloud auth activate-service-account project 
 -79e99@appspot.gserviceaccount.com --key-file ${HOME}/gcloud-service-key.json 
Test command 
echo "y" | sudo /opt/google-cloud-sdk/bin/gcloud beta test android run --app 
app/build/outputs/apk/app-debug.apk 
 And the test result is as follows: 
 Test results will be streamed to [https://console.firebase.google.com/project/project -
 79e99/testlab/histories/bh.4ac642071abe70ee/matrices/5455937340372128030]. 
 08:22:50 Test is Pending 
 08:23:15 Starting attempt 1 
 08:23:15 Test is Running 
 08:23:51 Logging into the device 
 08:23:51 Installing APK: android.com.project 
 08:24:28 Running Robo test. Package: android.com.project activity: 
 android.com.project.MainActivity 
 08:25:04 Robo test has finished 
 08:25:04 Generating video 
 08:25:04 Retrieving performance samples 
 08:25:29 Retrieving test artifacts 
 08:25:29 Retrieving any crash results 
 08:25:41 Retrieving logcat 
 08:26:05 Generating Robo ActivityMap 
 08:26:17 Done. Test time=36 (secs) 
 08:26:30 Test is Finished 
 Robo testing complete. 
 More details are available at [https://console.firebase.google.com/project/project-
 t79e99/testlab/histories/bh.4ac642071abe70ee/matrices/5455937340372128030]. 
 ┌─────────┬───────────────────────────┬──────────────┐ 
 │ OUTCOME │ TEST_AXIS_VALUE │ TEST_DETAILS │ 
 ├─────────┼───────────────────────────┼──────────────┤ 
 │ Passed │ hammerhead-21-en-portrait │ -- │ 
 └─────────┴───────────────────────────┴──────────────┘ 
 © 2020 Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City 
86 AUTOMATED CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION USING CIRCLECI AND 
 FIREBASE FOR ANDROID APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT 
The one more detail 
:app:generateReleaseSources 
:app:javaPreCompileRelease 
:app:compileReleaseJavaWithJavac 
:app:lint 
Download https://dl.google.com/dl/android/maven2/com/android/tools/lint/lint-
gradle/26.2.1/lint-gradle-26.2.1.pom 
Download 
https://dl.google.com/dl/android/maven2/com/android/tools/external/org-
jetbrains/uast/26.2.1/uast-26.2.1.pom 
Download https://jcenter.bintray.com/org/codehaus/groovy/groovy-
all/2.4.12/groovy-all-2.4.12.pom 
Calling mockable JAR artifact transform to create file: 
/home/circleci/.gradle/caches/transforms-1/files-
1.1/android.jar/f87b27d40560caf2cc53dafb2067c3ec/android.jar with input 
/opt/android/sdk/platforms/android-25/android.jar 
Ran lint on variant debug: 5 issues found 
Ran lint on variant release: 5 issues found 
Wrote HTML report to 
file:///home/circleci/androidlearn/app/build/reports/lint-results.html 
Wrote XML report to 
file:///home/circleci/androidlearn/app/build/reports/lint-results.xml 
:app:generateDebugUnitTestSources 
:app:preDebugUnitTestBuild UP-TO-DATE 
:app:javaPreCompileDebugUnitTest 
:app:compileDebugUnitTestJavaWithJavac 
:app:processDebugJavaRes NO-SOURCE 
:app:processDebugUnitTestJavaRes NO-SOURCE 
 © 2020 Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City 
 AUTOMATED CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION USING CIRCLECI AND 87 
 FIREBASE FOR ANDROID APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT 
:app:testDebugUnitTest 
:app:generateReleaseUnitTestSources 
:app:preReleaseUnitTestBuild 
:app:javaPreCompileReleaseUnitTest 
:app:compileReleaseUnitTestJavaWithJavac 
:app:processReleaseJavaRes NO-SOURCE 
:app:processReleaseUnitTestJavaRes NO-SOURCE 
:app:testReleaseUnitTest 
:app:test 
BUILD SUCCESSFUL in 12s 
39 actionable tasks: 39 executed 
 Other way, online available [8], [9] discussed about automated CI/CD process for a new idea. The 
goals of this process are version control, multiple levels of testing, and automated deployment. They’ll use 
them Azure CLI implement as it is small and simple enough to be fairly easily understood, yet also a bit 
complex, as it does integrate with Microsoft Azure, a third-party cloud provider. 
 Contribution of the article presenting solutions to solve difficulties in software development in 
environments where applications can run on many different platforms (phones, computers ...), software 
developers have many different groups in different geographical locations. Futhermore, The article execute 
the solution by script code to automate to build, test and test the android application using the cloud-based 
system and the circleCIs teamed with Firebase to set up self-test customizations dynamic. 
 4. CONCLUSION 
 Integration is a vital component of software development in the Software industry. Automation of 
these integration tasks is of at-most importance as these tasks need to be executed continuously. CircleCI 
provides a better solution for CI automation. This paper presented the implementation of automation script 
for build and running compatibility test suite by android using CircleCI. The challenges faced during 
automation of these tasks have been discussed in detail in this paper. We considered a case study of build 
and testing for android environment. Also, Algorithms and process work-flow for automation for android 
environment have been discussed in this paper. 
 Although there has been an opinion on the implementation in another cloud environment, Azure 
CircleCI and no conclusive conclusions for this implementation. However, we recommend choosing any 
kind of for integration of CircleCI automated in the cloud to be convenient and useful. 
5. FUTURE WORK 
 These automation scripts can be optimized in future, allowing merging and rebasing different patch 
branches using Git and test and then pushing to remote repository for deployment using CircleCI. 
REFERENCES 
[1] M. Shahin, M. A. Babar and L. Zhu, “Continuous Integration, Delivery and Deployment: A Systematic Review 
 on Approaches, Tools, Challenges and Practices”, IEEE Access, vol. 5, pp. 3909 – 3943, March 2017. 
[2] S. Li, H. Tsukiji and K. Takano, “Analysis of Software Developer Activity on a Distributed Version Control 
 System”, Advanced Information Networking and Applications Workshops (WAINA), 2016 30th International 
 Conference, March 2016. 
 © 2020 Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City 
88 AUTOMATED CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION USING CIRCLECI AND 
 FIREBASE FOR ANDROID APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT 
[3] N. Seth, R. Khare, “ACI (automated Continuous Integration) using Jenkins: Key for successful embedded 
 Software development”, 2nd International Conference on Recent Advances in Engineering & Computational 
 Sciences (RAECS), Dec. 2015. 
[4] circleci.com, ‘Test Android Applications’, 2017. [Online]. Available: https://circleci.com/docs/1.0/android/. 
 [Accessed: 27- May - 2017]. 
[5] firebase.google.com, ‘Firebase Test Lab for Android Overview’, 2017. [Online]. Available: 
 https://firebase.google.com/docs/testlab/overview. [Accessed: 27- May - 2017] 
[6] Alan Tai, ‘All you need to know about CircleCI 2.0 with Firebase Test Lab’[Online]. Available: 
 https://medium.com/@ayltai/all-you-need-to-know-about-circleci-2-0-with-firebase-test-lab-2a66785ff3c2, Dec 
 5, 2017 
[7] Bruno Correia, ‘Android Continuous Integration using Fastlane and CircleCI 2.0 — Part II’ [Online]. Available: 
 https://medium.com/pink-room-club/android-continuous-integration-using-fastlane-and-circleci-2-0-part-ii-
 7f8dd7265659 , Mar 2, 2018 
[8] Rose Kaplan-Bomberg, ‘Creating automated build, test, and deploy workflows for orbs, part 2’[Online]. 
 Available: https://circleci.com/blog/how-to-output-junit-tests-through-circleci-2-0-for-expanded-insights/, Mar 
 5, 2019 
[9] Rose Kaplan-Bomberg, ‘Creating automated build, test, and deploy workflows for orbs, part 1’[Online]. 
 Available: https://circleci.com/blog/how-to-output-junit-tests-through-circleci-2-0-for-expanded-insights/, Feb 
 26, 2019 
[10] B. Fitzgerald, and K.-J. Stol, ―Continuous Software Engineering: A Roadmap and Agenda,‖ Journal of Systems 
 and Software, vol. 123, 2017. 
[11] P. Rodríguez, A. Haghighatkhah, L. E. Lwakatare, S. Teppola, T. Suomalainen, J. Eskeli, T. Karvonen, P. Kuvaja, 
 J. M. Verner, and M. Oivo, ―Continuous deployment of software intensive products and services: A systematic 
 mapping study, Journal of Systems and Software, vol. 123, pp. 263-291, 2017. 
[12] Valery Ponomareko, Test and publish your apps with CircleCI + Fastlane + Firebase Test Lab 
 https://proandroiddev.com/test-and-publish-your-apps-with-circleci-fastlane-firebase-test-lab-e716c075b99b , 
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[13] Sergejs Bobrovskis, Aleksejs Jurenoks - A Survey of Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery and 
Continuous Deployment, CEUR – WS, Vol – 2018 , pp. 314 – 322 
 TÍCH HỢP LIÊN TỤC TỰ ĐỘNG BẰNG CIRCLECI VÀ FIREBASE ĐỂ PHÁT 
 TRIỂN ỨNG DỤNG ANDROID 
Tóm tắt. Tích hợp liên tục (CI) là cách phổ biến để các nhà phát triển phần mềm đưa vào công việc thường 
xuyên của họ. Ngành công nghiệp 4.0 đang phải gặp thách thức lớn trong phát triển phần mềm ở nhiều 
trang web và được thử nghiệm trên nhiều nền tảng. Ngày nay, có rất nhiều công cụ tích hợp liên tục được 
sử dụng rộng rãi để phát triển phần mềm như CircleCI, Jenkins, Travis CircleCI là một trong những công 
cụ tích hợp liên tục có thể tự dộng hóa quy trình hoàn chỉnh, giảm công việc của nhà phát triển và kiểm tra 
 © 2020 Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City 
 AUTOMATED CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION USING CIRCLECI AND 89 
 FIREBASE FOR ANDROID APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT 
sự phát triển của mỗi quá trình phát triển phần mềm. Trong bài báo này, chúng tôi thảo luận về việc triển 
khai CircleCI để phát triển ứng dụng Andriod. Firebase Test Lab sẽ được sử dụng cho một số thử nghiệm 
tự động hóa bổ sung. 
Từ khóa. Tích hợp liên tục tự động, Andriod, CỉcleCI, CircleCI and Firebase 
 Ngày nhận bài: 9/10/2019 
 Ngày chấp nhận đăng: 10/07/2020 
 © 2020 Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City