Print Android instrumentation tests logs in the terminal/console

While debugging some Android instrumentation tests that were ran using ‘adb shell am instrument', I needed to print some logs into the terminal/console to inspect the flow and resolve some issues.

One would think that you could simply use Log.i/e/d or System.out for logging into terminal. But Log.i/e/d or System.out won’t print the logs into the terminal. This forced me to look for another solution and I found something to print the logs I needed in the terminal. You can see below.

fun logToConsole(stringToPrint: String) {
        val bundle = Bundle()
        bundle.putString(
            Instrumentation.REPORT_KEY_STREAMRESULT, stringToPrint
        )
        InstrumentationRegistry.getInstrumentation().sendStatus(0, bundle)
    }

The ideea is to get the current Instrumentation instance. Then, use the sendStatus method to print your debug message/logs in the terminal.

Using the function above you can: print Android instrumentation tests logs into the terminal

Looking for some other Logs related article? Maybe you want to also read: “Logs – how to filter them in Android Studio“