[java] How to capture a list of specific type with mockito

Is there a way to capture a list of specific type using mockitos ArgumentCaptore. This doesn't work:

ArgumentCaptor<ArrayList<SomeType>> argument = ArgumentCaptor.forClass(ArrayList.class);

For an earlier version of junit, you can do

Class<Map<String, String>> mapClass = (Class) Map.class;
ArgumentCaptor<Map<String, String>> mapCaptor = ArgumentCaptor.forClass(mapClass);

If you're not afraid of old java-style (non type safe generic) semantics, this also works and is simple'ish:

ArgumentCaptor<List> argument = ArgumentCaptor.forClass(List.class);
verify(subject.method(argument.capture()); // run your code
List<SomeType> list = argument.getValue(); // first captured List, etc.

Yeah, this is a general generics problem, not mockito-specific.

There is no class object for ArrayList<SomeType>, and thus you can't type-safely pass such an object to a method requiring a Class<ArrayList<SomeType>>.

You can cast the object to the right type:

Class<ArrayList<SomeType>> listClass =
              (Class<ArrayList<SomeType>>)(Class)ArrayList.class;
ArgumentCaptor<ArrayList<SomeType>> argument = ArgumentCaptor.forClass(listClass);

This will give some warnings about unsafe casts, and of course your ArgumentCaptor can't really differentiate between ArrayList<SomeType> and ArrayList<AnotherType> without maybe inspecting the elements.

(As mentioned in the other answer, while this is a general generics problem, there is a Mockito-specific solution for the type-safety problem with the @Captor annotation. It still can't distinguish between an ArrayList<SomeType> and an ArrayList<OtherType>.)

Edit:

Take also a look at tenshis comment. You can change the original code from Paulo Ebermann to this (much simpler)

final ArgumentCaptor<List<SomeType>> listCaptor
        = ArgumentCaptor.forClass((Class) List.class);

Based on @tenshi's and @pkalinow's comments (also kudos to @rogerdpack), the following is a simple solution for creating a list argument captor that also disables the "uses unchecked or unsafe operations" warning:

@SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
final ArgumentCaptor<List<SomeType>> someTypeListArgumentCaptor =
    ArgumentCaptor.forClass(List.class);

Full example here and corresponding passing CI build and test run here.

Our team has been using this for some time in our unit tests and this looks like the most straightforward solution for us.

I had the same issue with testing activity in my Android app. I used ActivityInstrumentationTestCase2 and MockitoAnnotations.initMocks(this); didn't work. I solved this issue with another class with respectively field. For example:

class CaptorHolder {

        @Captor
        ArgumentCaptor<Callback<AuthResponse>> captor;

        public CaptorHolder() {
            MockitoAnnotations.initMocks(this);
        }
    }

Then, in activity test method:

HubstaffService hubstaffService = mock(HubstaffService.class);
fragment.setHubstaffService(hubstaffService);

CaptorHolder captorHolder = new CaptorHolder();
ArgumentCaptor<Callback<AuthResponse>> captor = captorHolder.captor;

onView(withId(R.id.signInBtn))
        .perform(click());

verify(hubstaffService).authorize(anyString(), anyString(), captor.capture());
Callback<AuthResponse> callback = captor.getValue();

There is an open issue in Mockito's GitHub about this exact problem.

I have found a simple workaround that does not force you to use annotations in your tests:

import org.mockito.ArgumentCaptor;
import org.mockito.Captor;
import org.mockito.MockitoAnnotations;

public final class MockitoCaptorExtensions {

    public static <T> ArgumentCaptor<T> captorFor(final CaptorTypeReference<T> argumentTypeReference) {
        return new CaptorContainer<T>().captor;
    }

    public static <T> ArgumentCaptor<T> captorFor(final Class<T> argumentClass) {
        return ArgumentCaptor.forClass(argumentClass);
    }

    public interface CaptorTypeReference<T> {

        static <T> CaptorTypeReference<T> genericType() {
            return new CaptorTypeReference<T>() {
            };
        }

        default T nullOfGenericType() {
            return null;
        }

    }

    private static final class CaptorContainer<T> {

        @Captor
        private ArgumentCaptor<T> captor;

        private CaptorContainer() {
            MockitoAnnotations.initMocks(this);
        }

    }

}

What happens here is that we create a new class with the @Captor annotation and inject the captor into it. Then we just extract the captor and return it from our static method.

In your test you can use it like so:

ArgumentCaptor<Supplier<Set<List<Object>>>> fancyCaptor = captorFor(genericType());

Or with syntax that resembles Jackson's TypeReference:

ArgumentCaptor<Supplier<Set<List<Object>>>> fancyCaptor = captorFor(
    new CaptorTypeReference<Supplier<Set<List<Object>>>>() {
    }
);

It works, because Mockito doesn't actually need any type information (unlike serializers, for example).

List<String> mockedList = mock(List.class);

List<String> l = new ArrayList();
l.add("someElement");

mockedList.addAll(l);

ArgumentCaptor<List> argumentCaptor = ArgumentCaptor.forClass(List.class);

verify(mockedList).addAll(argumentCaptor.capture());

List<String> capturedArgument = argumentCaptor.<List<String>>getValue();

assertThat(capturedArgument, hasItem("someElement"));