JUNIT testing void methods

Question

I have a java class full of void methods  and I want to make some unit test to get maximal code coverage   For example I have this method    protected static void checkifValidElements int arg1   int arg2        method1 arg1       method2 arg1       method3 arg1  arg2       method4 arg1  arg2       method5 arg1       method6 arg2       method7        Its poorly named for a reason because I translated the code for better understanding  Each methods verify if the arguments are valid in some way and are well written    Example    private static void method1 arg1        if  arg1 indexOf         -1               Add an error message          ErrorFile errorMessages add  There is a dollar sign in the specified parameter              My unit test are covering the small methods fine because I ask them to check if the ErrorFile contains the error message  but I dont see how I can test my method checkIfValidElements  it returns nothing or change nothing  When I run code coverage with Maven  it tells me that the unit test doesent cover this part of my class   The only way I see is to change this method to return an int or bollean value  like this    protected static int checkifValidElements int arg1   int arg2        method1 arg1       method2 arg1       method3 arg1  arg2       method4 arg1  arg2       method5 arg1       method6 arg2       method7        return 0      With this method I am able to do an assert equals  but it seems to me that it is futile to do this  The problem is that I have a couple of class that are designed like this and its lowering my unit test coverage

User · Answer

If your method has no side effects  and doesn t return anything  then it s not doing anything    If your method does some computation and returns the result of that computation  you can obviously enough assert that the result returned is correct   If your code doesn t return anything but does have side effects  you can call the code and then assert that the correct side effects have happened  What the side effects are will determine how you do the checks   In your example  you are calling static methods from your non-returning functions  which makes it tricky unless you can inspect that the result of all those static methods are correct  A better way - from a testing point of view - is to inject actual objects in that you call methods on  You can then use something like EasyMock or Mockito to create a Mock Object in your unit test  and inject the mock object into the class  The Mock Object then lets you assert that the correct functions were called  with the correct values and in the correct order   For example   private ErrorFile errorFile   public void setErrorFile ErrorFile errorFile        this errorFile   errorFile     private void method1 arg1        if  arg1 indexOf         -1               Add an error message          errorFile addErrorMessage  There is a dollar sign in the specified parameter              Then in your test you can write   public void testMethod1         ErrorFile errorFile   EasyMock createMock ErrorFile class       errorFile addErrorMessage  There is a dollar sign in the specified parameter        EasyMock expectLastCall errorFile       EasyMock replay errorFile        ClassToTest classToTest   new ClassToTest        classToTest setErrorFile errorFile       classToTest method1  a b         EasyMock verify errorFile      This will fail the test if the required addErrorMessage call didn t happen

User · Answer

I want to make some unit test to get maximal code coverage   Code coverage should never be the goal of writing unit tests  You should write unit tests to prove that your code is correct  or help you design it better  or help someone else understand what the code is meant to do      but I dont see how I can test my method checkIfValidElements  it returns nothing or change nothing     Well you should probably give a few tests  which between them check that all 7 methods are called appropriately - both with an invalid argument and with a valid argument  checking the results of ErrorFile each time   For example  suppose someone removed the call to   method4 arg1  arg2         or accidentally changed the argument order   method4 arg2  arg1     How would you notice those problems  Go from that  and design tests to prove it

User · Answer

I think you should avoid writing side-effecting method  Return true or false from your method and you can check these methods in unit tests

User · Answer

If your method is void and you want to check for an exception  you could use expected  https   weblogs java net blog johnsmart archive 2009 09 27 testing-exceptions-junit-47

User · Answer

You can still unit test a void method by asserting that it had the appropriate side effect  In your method1 example  your unit test might look something like   public void checkIfValidElementsWithDollarSign         checkIfValidElement     19       assert ErrorFile errorMessages contains  There is a dollar sign in the specified parameter

User · Answer

You can learn something called  mocking   You can use this  for example  to check if   - a function was called  - a function was called x times  - a function was called at least x times  - a function was called with a specific set of parameters   In your case  for example  you can use mocking to check that method3 was called once with whatever you pass as arg1 and arg2   Have a look at these  https   code google com p mockito  https   code google com p powermock

User · Answer

If it is possible in your case  you could make your methods method1 arg1       method7   protected instead of private so they could be accesible from test class within the same package  Then you can simply test all theese methods separately

[java] JUNIT testing void methods

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