Espresso: return boolean if view exists

Conditional logic in tests is undesirable. With that in mind, Espresso's API was designed to guide the test author away from it (by being explicit with test actions and assertions).

Having said that, you can still achieve the above by implementing your own ViewAction and capturing the isDisplayed check (inside the perform method) into an AtomicBoolean.

Another less elegant option - catch the exception that gets thrown by failed check:

    try {
        onView(withText("my button")).check(matches(isDisplayed()));
        //view is displayed logic
    } catch (NoMatchingViewException e) {
        //view not displayed logic
    }

Kotlin version with an extension function:

    fun ViewInteraction.isDisplayed(): Boolean {
        try {
            check(matches(ViewMatchers.isDisplayed()))
            return true
        } catch (e: NoMatchingViewException) {
            return false
        }
    }

    if(onView(withText("my button")).isDisplayed()) {
        //view is displayed logic
    } else {
        //view not displayed logic
    }

I think to mimic UIAutomator you can do this:
(Though, I suggest rethinking your approach to have no conditions.)

ViewInteraction view = onView(withBlah(...)); // supports .inRoot(...) as well
if (exists(view)) {
     view.perform(...);
}

@CheckResult
public static boolean exists(ViewInteraction interaction) {
    try {
        interaction.perform(new ViewAction() {
            @Override public Matcher<View> getConstraints() {
                return any(View.class);
            }
            @Override public String getDescription() {
                return "check for existence";
            }
            @Override public void perform(UiController uiController, View view) {
                // no op, if this is run, then the execution will continue after .perform(...)
            }
        });
        return true;
    } catch (AmbiguousViewMatcherException ex) {
        // if there's any interaction later with the same matcher, that'll fail anyway
        return true; // we found more than one
    } catch (NoMatchingViewException ex) {
        return false;
    } catch (NoMatchingRootException ex) {
        // optional depending on what you think "exists" means
        return false;
    }
}

---

Also exists without branching can be implemented really simple:

onView(withBlah()).check(exists()); // the opposite of doesNotExist()

public static ViewAssertion exists() {
    return matches(anything());
}

Though most of the time it's worth checking for matches(isDisplayed()) anyway.

You check with the below code also. If view is displayed it will click else it will pass on.

onView(withText("OK")).withFailureHandler(new FailureHandler() {
        @Override
        public void handle(Throwable error, Matcher<View> viewMatcher){
        }
    }).check(matches(isDisplayed())).perform(customClick());

We need that functionality and I ended up implementing it below:

https://github.com/marcosdiez/espresso_clone

if(onView(withText("click OK to Continue")).exists()){ 
    doSomething(); 
} else { 
   doSomethingElse(); 
}

I hope it is useful for you.