Using Espresso to click view inside RecyclerView item

Question

You can do it with customize view action.

public class MyViewAction {

    public static ViewAction clickChildViewWithId(final int id) {
        return new ViewAction() {
            @Override
            public Matcher<View> getConstraints() {
                return null;
            }

            @Override
            public String getDescription() {
                return "Click on a child view with specified id.";
            }

            @Override
            public void perform(UiController uiController, View view) {
                View v = view.findViewById(id);
                v.performClick();
            }
        };
    }

}

Then you can click it with

onView(withId(R.id.rv_conference_list)).perform(
            RecyclerViewActions.actionOnItemAtPosition(0, MyViewAction.clickChildViewWithId(R.id. bt_deliver)));

Now with android.support.test.espresso.contrib it has become easier:

1)Add test dependency

androidTestCompile('com.android.support.test.espresso:espresso-contrib:2.0') {
    exclude group: 'com.android.support', module: 'appcompat'
    exclude group: 'com.android.support', module: 'support-v4'
    exclude module: 'recyclerview-v7'
}

*exclude 3 modules, because very likely you already have it

2) Then do something like

onView(withId(R.id.recycler_grid))
            .perform(RecyclerViewActions.actionOnItemAtPosition(0, click()));

Or

onView(withId(R.id.recyclerView))
  .perform(RecyclerViewActions.actionOnItem(
            hasDescendant(withText("whatever")), click()));

Or

onView(withId(R.id.recycler_linear))
            .check(matches(hasDescendant(withText("whatever"))));

Here is, how I resolved issue in kotlin:

fun clickOnViewChild(viewId: Int) = object : ViewAction {
    override fun getConstraints() = null

    override fun getDescription() = "Click on a child view with specified id."

    override fun perform(uiController: UiController, view: View) = click().perform(uiController, view.findViewById<View>(viewId))
}

and then

onView(withId(R.id.recyclerView)).perform(RecyclerViewActions.actionOnItemAtPosition<RecyclerView.ViewHolder>(position, clickOnViewChild(R.id.viewToClickInTheRow)))

Try next approach:

    onView(withRecyclerView(R.id.recyclerView)
                    .atPositionOnView(position, R.id.bt_deliver))
                    .perform(click());

    public static RecyclerViewMatcher withRecyclerView(final int recyclerViewId) {
            return new RecyclerViewMatcher(recyclerViewId);
    }

public class RecyclerViewMatcher {
    final int mRecyclerViewId;

    public RecyclerViewMatcher(int recyclerViewId) {
        this.mRecyclerViewId = recyclerViewId;
    }

    public Matcher<View> atPosition(final int position) {
        return atPositionOnView(position, -1);
    }

    public Matcher<View> atPositionOnView(final int position, final int targetViewId) {

        return new TypeSafeMatcher<View>() {
            Resources resources = null;
            View childView;

            public void describeTo(Description description) {
                int id = targetViewId == -1 ? mRecyclerViewId : targetViewId;
                String idDescription = Integer.toString(id);
                if (this.resources != null) {
                    try {
                        idDescription = this.resources.getResourceName(id);
                    } catch (Resources.NotFoundException var4) {
                        idDescription = String.format("%s (resource name not found)", id);
                    }
                }

                description.appendText("with id: " + idDescription);
            }

            public boolean matchesSafely(View view) {

                this.resources = view.getResources();

                if (childView == null) {
                    RecyclerView recyclerView =
                            (RecyclerView) view.getRootView().findViewById(mRecyclerViewId);
                    if (recyclerView != null) {

                        childView = recyclerView.findViewHolderForAdapterPosition(position).itemView;
                    }
                    else {
                        return false;
                    }
                }

                if (targetViewId == -1) {
                    return view == childView;
                } else {
                    View targetView = childView.findViewById(targetViewId);
                    return view == targetView;
                }

            }
        };
    }
}

You can click on 3rd item of recyclerView Like this:

onView(withId(R.id.recyclerView)).perform(
                RecyclerViewActions.actionOnItemAtPosition<RecyclerView.ViewHolder>(2,click()))

Do not forget to provide the ViewHolder type so that inference does not fail.

You can even generalize this approach to support more actions not only click. Here is my solution for this:

fun <T : View> recyclerChildAction(@IdRes id: Int, block: T.() -> Unit): ViewAction {
  return object : ViewAction {
    override fun getConstraints(): Matcher<View> {
      return any(View::class.java)
    }

    override fun getDescription(): String {
      return "Performing action on RecyclerView child item"
    }

    override fun perform(
        uiController: UiController,
        view: View
    ) {
      view.findViewById<T>(id).block()
    }
  }
 
}

And then for EditText you can do something like this:

onView(withId(R.id.yourRecyclerView))
        .perform(
            actionOnItemAtPosition<YourViewHolder>(
                0,
                recyclerChildAction<EditText>(R.id.editTextId) { setText("1000") }
            )
        )