In Espresso, how to avoid AmbiguousViewMatcherException when multiple views match

Question

Having gridView which has some images. The gridView's cell comes out from same predefined layout, which has same id and desc.

R.id.item_image == 2131493330

onView(withId(is(R.id.item_image))).perform(click()); 

Since all cells in the grid have same id, it got AmbiguousViewMatcherException. How to just pick up first one or any of one of them? Thanks!

android.support.test.espresso.AmbiguousViewMatcherException: 'with id: is <2131493330>' matches multiple views in the hierarchy. Problem views are marked with '****MATCHES****' below.

+------------->ImageView{id=2131493330, res-name=item_image, desc=Image, visibility=VISIBLE, width=262, height=262, has-focus=false, has-focusable=false, has-window-focus=true, is-clickable=false, is-enabled=true, is-focused=false, is-focusable=false, is-layout-requested=false, is-selected=false, root-is-layout-requested=false, has-input-connection=false, x=0.0, y=0.0} ****MATCHES****

+------------->ImageView{id=2131493330, res-name=item_image, desc=Image, visibility=VISIBLE, width=262, height=262, has-focus=false, has-focusable=false, has-window-focus=true, is-clickable=false, is-enabled=true, is-focused=false, is-focusable=false, is-layout-requested=false, is-selected=false, root-is-layout-requested=false, has-input-connection=false, x=0.0, y=0.0} ****MATCHES**** |

Answer 1

EDIT: Someone mentioned in the comments that withParentIndex is now available, give that a try first before using the custom solution below.

I was amazed that I couldn't find a solution by simply providing an index along with a matcher (i.e. withText, withId). The accepted answer only solves the problem when you're dealing with onData and ListViews.

If you have more than one view on the screen with the same resId/text/contentDesc, you can choose which one you want without causing an AmbiguousViewMatcherException by using this custom matcher:

public static Matcher<View> withIndex(final Matcher<View> matcher, final int index) {     return new TypeSafeMatcher<View>() {         int currentIndex = 0;          @Override         public void describeTo(Description description) {             description.appendText("with index: ");             description.appendValue(index);             matcher.describeTo(description);         }          @Override         public boolean matchesSafely(View view) {             return matcher.matches(view) && currentIndex++ == index;         }     }; } 

For example:

onView(withIndex(withId(R.id.my_view), 2)).perform(click()); 

will perform a click action on the third instance of R.id.my_view.