Working with JUnit 4
JUnit is a unit testing framework for Java. It allows developers to unit test the code elegantly. Apparently, TestNG is cleaner than JUnit, but JUnit is far more popular than TestNG. JUnit has a better mocking framework support such as Mockito, which offers a custom JUnit 4 runner.
The latest version of JUnit (4.11) can be downloaded from https://github.com/junit-team/junit/wiki/Download-and-Install.
JUnit 4 is an annotation-based, flexible framework. Its predecessor has many downsides. The following are the advantages of JUnit 4 over its predecessor:
- Instead of inheriting from
junit.framework.Testcase
, any class can be a test class - The
setUp
andtearDown
methods are replaced by the@before
and@after
annotations - Any public method annotated as
@test
can be a test method
In this chapter, we will use Eclipse to execute the JUnit tests; in the following chapters, we will be using Ant, Maven, and Gradle to execute tools. Eclipse is an integrated development environment, and can be used to develop applications in Java. It can be downloaded from is KEPLER (4.3).
Note
Since 2006, Eclipse releases a project annually. It started with the name Callisto (starts with a C). Lexicographically, Eclipse project names go like C, E, G, H, I, J, K, and L.
In 2014, they will release the Luna (which starts with L) version. Between 2006 and now, they released Europa (E), Ganymede (G), Galileo (G), Helios (H), Indigo (I), Juno (J), and Kepler (K).
In the following section, we will set up Eclipse and execute our first JUnit test.
Setting up Eclipse
You can skip this section if you know how to install Eclipse and add JUnit JAR to the classpath
project. The following are the steps to set up Eclipse:
- Visit hyperlink, that is, 32 Bit or 64 Bit, and download the binary, as shown in the following screenshot:
- Extract the binary and launch Eclipse, for example, click on
Eclipse.exe
in Windows to launch Eclipse. - Create a new workspace (for example, in Windows, enter
C:\dev\junit
or in Linux or Mac enter/user/local/junit
; Eclipse will create the directories). Once the workspace is open, press Ctrl + N or navigate to File | New; it will open a wizard. Select Java Project and click on Next. EnterJUnitTests
as the project name and click on Finish. This will create a Java project namedJUnitTests
. - Download the
junit.jar
andhamcrest-core.jar
packages from https://github.com/junit-team/junit/wiki/Download-and-Install and copy the jars to theJUnitTests
project folder. - You can add the JAR to the
classpath
project in two ways; either right-click on both JAR, select Build Path, and then click on Add to build path. Or, right-click on the project and select the Properties menu item. Click on Java build path on the left-hand side and open the Libraries tab. Then, click on the Add JARs... button, and it will open a pop-up window. Expand the JUnitTests project from the pop up, select the two JAR (junit.jar
andhamcrest-core.jar
), and add them to Libraries. We are now ready with the Eclipse setup.
Running the first unit test
JUnit 4 is an annotation-based framework. It doesn't force you to extend the TestCase
class. Any Java class can act as a test. In this section, we will uncover the JUnit 4 annotations, assertions, and exceptions.
We will examine the annotations before writing our first test.
Exploring annotations
The @Test
annotation represents a test. Any public
method can be annotated with the@Test
annotation with @Test
to make it a test method. There's no need to start the method name with test.
We need data to verify a piece of code. For example, if a method takes a list of students and sorts them based on the marks obtained, then we have to build a list of students to test the method. This is called data setup. To perform the data setup, JUnit 3 defines a setUp()
method in the TestCase
class. A test class can override the setUp()
method. The method signature is as follows:
protected void setUp() throws Exception
JUnit 4 provides a @Before
annotation. If we annotate any public void
method of any name with @Before
, then that method gets executed before every test execution.
Similarly, any method annotated with @After
gets executed after each test method execution. JUnit 3 has a tearDown()
method for this purpose.
JUnit 4 provides two more annotations: @BeforeClass
and @AfterClass
. They are executed only once per test class. The @BeforeClass
and @AfterClass
annotations can be used with any public static void methods. The @BeforeClass
annotation is executed before the first test and the @AfterClass
annotation is executed after the last test. The following example explains the annotation usage and the execution sequence of the annotated methods.
Let's write our first test by performing the following steps:
- We will create a test class under a test source package. Create a Source folder named
test
and create aSanityTest.java
Java class under packagecom.packtpub.junit.recap
.It is a good practice to create test classes with a
Test
suffix. So, aMyClass
class will have aMyClassTest
test class. Some code coverage tools ignore tests if they don't end with aTest
suffix. - Add the following code to the
SanityTest
class:import org.junit.After; import org.junit.AfterClass; import org.junit.Before; import org.junit.BeforeClass; import org.junit.Test; public class SanityTest { @BeforeClass public static void beforeClass() { System.out.println("***Before Class is invoked"); } @Before public void before() { System.out.println("____________________"); System.out.println("\t Before is invoked"); } @After public void after() { System.out.println("\t After is invoked"); System.out.println("================="); } @Test public void someTest() { System.out.println("\t\t someTest is invoked"); } @Test public void someTest2() { System.out.println("\t\t someTest2 is invoked"); } @AfterClass public static void afterClass() { System.out.println("***After Class is invoked"); } }
Tip
Downloading the example code
You can download the example code files for all Packt books you have purchased from your account at http://www.packtpub.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit http://www.packtpub.com/support and register to have the files e-mailed directly to you.
In the preceding class, we created six methods. Two test methods are annotated with
@Test
. Note that two methods (beforeClass
andafterClass
) arestatic
and the other four are nonstatic. A static method annotated with@BeforeClass
is invoked only once, that is, before the test class is instantiated, and@AfterClass
is invoked after the class is done with all the execution. - Run the test. Press Alt + Shift + X and T or navigate to Run | Run As | JUnit Test. You will see the following console (
System.out.println
) output:Check whether the
before
andafter
methods are executed before and after every test run. However, the order of the test method execution may vary. In some runs,someTest
may be executed beforesomeTest2
or vice versa. TheafterClass
andbeforeClass
methods are executed only once.
Congratulations! We successfully ran our first JUnit 4 test.
Note
@Before
and @After
can be applied to any public void
methods. @AfterClass
and @BeforeClass
can be applied to only public static void
methods.
Verifying test conditions with Assertion
Assertion is a tool (a predicate) used to verify a programming assumption (expectation) with an actual outcome of a program implementation; for example, a programmer can expect that the addition of two positive numbers will result in a positive number. So, he or she can write a program to add two numbers and assert the expected result with the actual result.
The org.junit.Assert
package provides static overloaded methods to assert expected and actual values for all primitive types, objects, and arrays.
The following are the useful assert methods:
assertTrue(condition)
orassertTrue(failure message, condition)
: If the condition becomes false, the assertion fails andAssertionError
is thrown. When a failure message is passed, the failure message is thrown.assertFalse(condition)
orassertFalse(failure message, condition)
: If the condition becomes true, the assertion fails andAssertionError
is thrown.assertNull
: This checks whether the object is null, otherwise throwsAssertionError
if the argument is not null.assertNotNull
: This checks whether the argument is not null; otherwise, it throwsAssertionError
.assertEquals(string message, object expected, object actual)
, orassertEquals(object expected, object actual)
, orassertEquals(primitive expected, primitive actual)
: This method exhibits an interesting behavior if primitive values are passed and then the values are compared. If objects are passed, then theequals()
method is invoked. Moreover, if the actual value doesn't match the expected value,AssertionError
is thrown.assertSame(object expected, object actual)
: This supports only objects and checks the object reference using the == operator. If two different objects are passed, thenAssertionError
is thrown.assertNotSame
: This is just the opposite ofassertSame
. It fails when the two argument references are the same.Note
Sometimes
double
can lead to surprising results due to the representation that Java uses to store doubles. Any operation on a double value can lead to an unexpected result. Assert doesn't rely on double comparison; so,assertEquals(double expected, double actual)
is deprecated.Declare a
double
variablesum = .999+ .98
. Thesum
variable should add the values and store 1.98, but when you print the value in your machine, you will get1.9889999999999999
as the output. So, if you assertsum
with adouble
value 1.98, the test will fail.The
assert
method provides an overloaded method for thedouble
value assertion, that is,assertEquals(double expected, double actual, double delta)
. During comparison, if the difference between the expected and the actual value is less than the delta value, the result is considered passed.For monetary calculations, it is recommended to use
BigDecimal
instead of doubles.
We will use the assert
methods in the test as follows:
- Create a
AssertTest
test class undercom.packtpub.junit.recap
. Add the following lines to the class:package com.packtpub.junit.recap; import org.junit.Assert; import org.junit.Test; public class AssertTest { @Test public void assertTrueAndFalseTest() throws Exception { Assert.assertTrue(true); Assert.assertFalse(false); } @Test public void assertNullAndNotNullTest() throws Exception { Object myObject = null; Assert.assertNull(myObject); myObject = new String("Some value"); Assert.assertNotNull(myObject); } }
In the preceding code,
assertTrueAndFalseTest
sendstrue
toassertTrue
andfalse
toassertFalse
. So, the test should not fail.In
assertNullAndNotNullTest
, we are passingnull
toassertNull
and a non-nullString
toassertNotNull
; so, this test should not fail.Run the tests. They should be green.
- We will examine
assertEquals
and add the following test and static import theassertEquals
method:import static org.junit.Assert.assertEquals; @Test public void assertEqualsTest() throws Exception { Integer i = new Integer("5"); Integer j = new Integer("5");; assertEquals(i,j); }
In the preceding code, we defined two
Integer
objects,i
andj
, and they are initialized with 5. Now, when we pass them toassertEquals
, the test passes, as theassertEquals
method callsi.equals(j)
and noti == j
. Hence, only the values are compared, not the references.The
assertEquals
method works on all primitive types and objects. To verify a double value, either use the overloadedassertEquals(actual, expected, delta)
method or just useBigDecimal
instead of usingDouble
. - Add a test to verify the
assertNotSame
behavior and static import theassertNotSame
method:import static org.junit.Assert.assertNotSame; @Test public void assertNotSameTest() throws Exception { Integer i = new Integer("5"); Integer j = new Integer("5");; assertNotSame(i , j); }
The
assertNotSame
method fails only when the expected object and the actual object refers to the same memory location. Here,i
andj
hold the same value but the memory references are different. - Add a test to verify the
assertSame
behavior and static import theassertSame
method:import static org.junit.Assert.assertSame; @Test public void assertSameTest() throws Exception { Integer i = new Integer("5"); Integer j = i; assertSame(i,j); }
The
assertSame
method passes only when the expected object and the actual object refer to the same memory location. Here,i
andj
hold the same value and refer to the same location.
Working with exception handling
To test an error condition, exception handling feature is important. For example, an API needs three objects; if any argument is null, then the API should throw an exception. This can be easily tested. If the API doesn't throw an exception, the test will fail.
The @Test
annotation takes the expected=<<Exception class name>>.class
argument.
If the expected exception class doesn't match the exception thrown from the code, the test fails. Consider the following code:
@Test(expected=RuntimeException.class) public void exception() { throw new RuntimeException(); }
This is only one solution. There are several other methods that are generally considered to be better solutions. Utilizing @Rule
in JUnit 4.8+ and assigning ExpectedException
is a stronger solution because you can inspect the message as well as the type. We have covered @Rule
in the Working with JUnit 4++ section of this chapter.
Exploring the @RunWith annotation
Test runners execute the JUnit tests. Eclipse has a built-in native graphical runner. JUnit 4 provides tools to define the suite to be run and to display its results.
When a class is annotated with @RunWith
or the class extends a class annotated with @RunWith
, JUnit will invoke the class that it references to run the tests on that class, instead of using the built-in runner. The @RunWith
annotation is used to change the nature of the test class. It can be used to run a test as a parameterized test or even a Spring test, or it can be a Mockito runner to initialize the mock objects annotated with a @Mock
annotation.
The @RunWith
annotation takes an argument. The argument must be a class extended from org.junit.runner.Runner
.
JUnit4.class
is an example of a runner. This class aliases the current default JUnit 4 class runner.
Suite
is a standard runner that allows us to build a suite that contains tests from many packages. The following is an example of @RunWith
:
@RunWith(Suite.class) public class Assumption { }