[java] Using Mockito with multiple calls to the same method with the same arguments

Is there a way to have a stubbed method return different objects on subsequent invocations? I'd like to do this to test nondeterminate responses from an ExecutorCompletionService. i.e. to test that irrespective of the return order of the methods, the outcome remains constant.

The code I'm looking to test looks something like this.

// Create an completion service so we can group these tasks together
ExecutorCompletionService<T> completionService =
        new ExecutorCompletionService<T>(service);

// Add all these tasks to the completion service
for (Callable<T> t : ts)
    completionService.submit(request);

// As an when each call finished, add it to the response set.
for (int i = 0; i < calls.size(); i ++) {
    try {
        T t = completionService.take().get();
        // do some stuff that I want to test
    } catch (...) { }        
}

Related to @[Igor Nikolaev]'s answer from 8 years ago, using an Answer can be simplified somewhat using a lambda expression available in Java 8.

when(someMock.someMethod()).thenAnswer(invocation -> {
    doStuff();
    return;
});

or more simply:

when(someMock.someMethod()).thenAnswer(invocation -> doStuff());

Following can be used as a common method to return different arguments on different method calls. Only thing we need to do is we need to pass an array with order in which objects should be retrieved in each call.

@SafeVarargs
public static <Mock> Answer<Mock> getAnswerForSubsequentCalls(final Mock... mockArr) {
    return new Answer<Mock>() {
       private int count=0, size=mockArr.length;
       public Mock answer(InvocationOnMock invocation) throws throwable {
           Mock mock = null;
           for(; count<size && mock==null; count++){
                mock = mockArr[count];
           }

           return mock;    
       } 
    }
}

Ex. getAnswerForSubsequentCalls(mock1, mock3, mock2); will return mock1 object on first call, mock3 object on second call and mock2 object on third call. Should be used like when(something()).doAnswer(getAnswerForSubsequentCalls(mock1, mock3, mock2)); This is almost similar to when(something()).thenReturn(mock1, mock3, mock2);

Here is working example in BDD style which is pretty simple and clear

given(carRepository.findByName(any(String.class))).willReturn(Optional.empty()).willReturn(Optional.of(MockData.createCarEntity()));

BDD style:

import static org.mockito.BDDMockito.given;
        ...

        given(yourMock.yourMethod()).willReturn(1, 2, 3);

Classic style:

import static org.mockito.Mockito.when;
        ...

        when(yourMock.yourMethod()).thenReturn(1, 2, 3);

As previously pointed out almost all of the calls are chainable.

So you could call

when(mock.method()).thenReturn(foo).thenReturn(bar).thenThrow(new Exception("test"));

//OR if you're mocking a void method and/or using spy instead of mock

doReturn(foo).doReturn(bar).doThrow(new Exception("Test").when(mock).method();

More info in Mockito's Documenation.

You can use a LinkedList and an Answer. Eg

MyService mock = mock(MyService.class);
LinkedList<String> results = new LinkedList<>(List.of("A", "B", "C"));
when(mock.doSomething(any())).thenAnswer(invocation -> results.removeFirst());

You can even chain doReturn() method invocations like this

doReturn(null).doReturn(anotherInstance).when(mock).method();

cute isn't it :)

doReturn( value1, value2, value3 ).when( method-call )

I've implemented a MultipleAnswer class that helps me to stub different answers in every call. Here the piece of code:

private final class MultipleAnswer<T> implements Answer<T> {

    private final ArrayList<Answer<T>> mAnswers;

    MultipleAnswer(Answer<T>... answer) {
        mAnswers = new ArrayList<>();
        mAnswers.addAll(Arrays.asList(answer));
    }

    @Override
    public T answer(InvocationOnMock invocation) throws Throwable {
        return mAnswers.remove(0).answer(invocation);
    }
}

How about

when( method-call ).thenReturn( value1, value2, value3 );

You can put as many arguments as you like in the brackets of thenReturn, provided they're all the correct type. The first value will be returned the first time the method is called, then the second answer, and so on. The last value will be returned repeatedly once all the other values are used up.