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Can use simple JUnit tests

C++ to Java → JUnit →

JUnit: Basic

When writing JUnit tests for a class Foo, the common practice is to create a FooTest class, which will contain various test methods for testing methods of the Foo class.

Suppose we want to write tests for the IntPair class below.

public class IntPair {
    int first;
    int second;

    public IntPair(int first, int second) {
        this.first = first;
        this.second = second;
    }

    /**
     * Returns the result of applying integer division first/second.
     * @throws Exception if second is 0
     */
    public int intDivision() throws Exception {
        if (second == 0){
            throw new Exception("Divisor is zero");
        }
        return first/second;
    }

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return first + "," + second;
    }
}

Here's a IntPairTest class to match (using JUnit 5).

import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test;

import static org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.assertEquals;
import static org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.fail;

public class IntPairTest {

    @Test
    public void intDivision_nonZeroDivisor_success() throws Exception {
        // normal division results in an integer answer 2
        assertEquals(2, new IntPair(4, 2).intDivision());

        // normal division results in a decimal answer 1.9
        assertEquals(1, new IntPair(19, 10).intDivision());

        // dividend is zero but devisor is not
        assertEquals(0, new IntPair(0, 5).intDivision());
    }

    @Test
    public void intDivision_zeroDivisor_exceptionThrown() {
        try {
            assertEquals(0, new IntPair(1, 0).intDivision());
            fail(); // the test should not reach this line
        } catch (Exception e) {
            assertEquals("Divisor is zero", e.getMessage());
        }
    }

    @Test
    public void testStringConversion() {
        assertEquals("4,7", new IntPair(4, 7).toString());
    }
}
  • Note how each test method is marked with a @Test annotation.
  • Tests use assertEquals(expected, actual) methods (provided by JUnit) to compare the expected output with the actual output. If they do not match, the test will fail.
    JUnit comes with other similar methods such as assertNull, assertNotNull, assertTrue, assertFalse etc. [more ...]
  • Java code normally use camelCase for method names e.g., testStringConversion but when writing test methods, sometimes another convention is used:
    unitBeingTested_descriptionOfTestInputs_expectedOutcome
    e.g., intDivision_zeroDivisor_exceptionThrown
  • There are several ways to verify the code throws the correct exception. The second test method in the example above shows one of the simpler methods. If the exception is thrown, it will be caught and further verified inside the catch block. But if it is not thrown as expected, the test will reach fail() line and will fail as a result.

What to test for when writing tests? While test case design techniques is a separate topic altogether, it should be noted that the goal of these tests is to catch bugs in the code. Therefore, test using inputs that can trigger a potentially buggy path in the code. Another way to approach this is, to write tests such that if a future developer modified the method to unintentionally introduce a bug into it, at least one of the test should fail (thus alerting that developer to the mistake immediately).

In the example above, the IntPairTest class tests the IntPair#intDivision(int, int) method using several inputs, some even seemingly attempting to 'trick' the method into producing a wrong result. If the method still produces the correct output for such 'tricky' inputs (as well as 'normal' outputs), we can have a higher confidence on the method being correctly implemented.
However, also note that the current test cases do not (but probably should) test for the inputs (0, 0), to confirm that it throws the expected exception.

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