How to test that no exception is thrown?

Question

I know that one way to do it would be:

@Test
public void foo() {
   try {
      // execute code that you expect not to throw Exceptions.
   } catch(Exception e) {
      fail("Should not have thrown any exception");
   }
}

Is there any cleaner way of doing this? (Probably using Junit's @Rule?)

Answer 1

You're approaching this the wrong way. Just test your functionality: if an exception is thrown the test will automatically fail. If no exception is thrown, your tests will all turn up green.

I have noticed this question garners interest from time to time so I'll expand a little.

Background to unit testing

When you're unit testing it's important to define to yourself what you consider a unit of work. Basically: an extraction of your codebase that may or may not include multiple methods or classes that represents a single piece of functionality.

Or, as defined in The art of Unit Testing, 2nd Edition by Roy Osherove, page 11:

A unit test is an automated piece of code that invokes the unit of work being tested, and then checks some assumptions about a single end result of that unit. A unit test is almost always written using a unit testing framework. It can be written easily and runs quickly. It's trustworthy, readable, and maintainable. It's consistent in its results as long as production code hasn't changed.

What is important to realize is that one unit of work usually isn't just one method but at the very basic level it is one method and after that it is encapsulated by other unit of works.

Ideally you should have a test method for each separate unit of work so you can always immediately view where things are going wrong. In this example there is a basic method called getUserById() which will return a user and there is a total of 3 unit of works.

The first unit of work should test whether or not a valid user is being returned in the case of valid and invalid input.
Any exceptions that are being thrown by the datasource have to be handled here: if no user is present there should be a test that demonstrates that an exception is thrown when the user can't be found. A sample of this could be the IllegalArgumentException which is caught with the @Test(expected = IllegalArgumentException.class) annotation.

Once you have handled all your usecases for this basic unit of work, you move up a level. Here you do exactly the same, but you only handle the exceptions that come from the level right below the current one. This keeps your testing code well structured and allows you to quickly run through the architecture to find where things go wrong, instead of having to hop all over the place.

Handling a tests' valid and faulty input

At this point it should be clear how we're going to handle these exceptions. There are 2 types of input: valid input and faulty input (the input is valid in the strict sense, but it's not correct).

When you work with valid input you're setting the implicit expectancy that whatever test you write, will work.

Such a method call can look like this: existingUserById_ShouldReturn_UserObject. If this method fails (e.g.: an exception is thrown) then you know something went wrong and you can start digging.

By adding another test (nonExistingUserById_ShouldThrow_IllegalArgumentException) that uses the faulty input and expects an exception you can see whether your method does what it is supposed to do with wrong input.

TL;DR

You were trying to do two things in your test: check for valid and faulty input. By splitting this into two method that each do one thing, you will have much clearer tests and a much better overview of where things go wrong.

By keeping the layered unit of works in mind you can also reduce the amount of tests you need for a layer that is higher in the hierarchy because you don't have to account for every thing that might have gone wrong in the lower layers: the layers below the current one are a virtual guarantee that your dependencies work and if something goes wrong, it's in your current layer (assuming the lower layers don't throw any errors themselves).

Answer 2

I stumbled upon this because of SonarQube's rule "squid:S2699": "Add at least one assertion to this test case."

I had a simple test whose only goal was to go through without throwing exceptions.

Consider this simple code:

public class Printer {

    public static void printLine(final String line) {
        System.out.println(line);
    }
}

What kind of assertion can be added to test this method? Sure, you can make a try-catch around it, but that is only code bloat.

The solution comes from JUnit itself.

In case no exception is thrown and you want to explicitly illustrate this behaviour, simply add expected as in the following example:

@Test(expected = Test.None.class /* no exception expected */)
public void test_printLine() {
    Printer.printLine("line");
}

Test.None.class is the default for the expected value.

Answer 3

JUnit 5 (Jupiter) provides three functions to check exception absence/presence:

● assertAll​()

  Asserts that all supplied executables
  do not throw exceptions.

● assertDoesNotThrow​()

  Asserts that execution of the
  supplied executable/supplier
  does not throw any kind of exception.

  This function is available
  since JUnit 5.2.0 (29 April 2018).

● assertThrows​()

  Asserts that execution of the supplied executable
  throws an exception of the expectedType
  and returns the exception.

Example

package test.mycompany.myapp.mymodule;

import static org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.*;

import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test;

class MyClassTest {

    @Test
    void when_string_has_been_constructed_then_myFunction_does_not_throw() {
        String myString = "this string has been constructed";
        assertAll(() -> MyClass.myFunction(myString));
    }
    
    @Test
    void when_string_has_been_constructed_then_myFunction_does_not_throw__junit_v520() {
        String myString = "this string has been constructed";
        assertDoesNotThrow(() -> MyClass.myFunction(myString));
    }

    @Test
    void when_string_is_null_then_myFunction_throws_IllegalArgumentException() {
        String myString = null;
        assertThrows(
            IllegalArgumentException.class,
            () -> MyClass.myFunction(myString));
    }

}

Answer 4

With AssertJ fluent assertions 3.7.0:

Assertions.assertThatCode(() -> toTest.method())
    .doesNotThrowAnyException();

Answer 5

Java 8 makes this a lot easier, and Kotlin/Scala doubly so.

We can write a little utility class

class MyAssertions{
  public static void assertDoesNotThrow(FailingRunnable action){
    try{
      action.run()
    }
    catch(Exception ex){
      throw new Error("expected action not to throw, but it did!", ex)
    }
  }
}

@FunctionalInterface interface FailingRunnable { void run() throws Exception }

and then your code becomes simply:

@Test
public void foo(){
  MyAssertions.assertDoesNotThrow(() -> {
    //execute code that you expect not to throw Exceptions.
  }
}

If you dont have access to Java-8, I would use a painfully old java facility: aribitrary code blocks and a simple comment

//setup
Component component = new Component();

//act
configure(component);

//assert 
/*assert does not throw*/{
  component.doSomething();
}

And finally, with kotlin, a language I've recently fallen in love with:

fun (() -> Any?).shouldNotThrow() 
    = try { invoke() } catch (ex : Exception){ throw Error("expected not to throw!", ex) }

@Test fun `when foo happens should not throw`(){

  //...

  { /*code that shouldn't throw*/ }.shouldNotThrow()
}

Though there is a lot of room to fiddle with exactly how you want to express this, I was always a fan of fluent assertions.

---

Regarding

You're approaching this the wrong way. Just test your functionality: if an exception is thrown the test will automatically fail. If no exception is thrown, your tests will all turn up green.

This is correct in principle but incorrect in conclusion.

Java allows exceptions for flow of control. This is done by the JRE runtime itself in APIs like Double.parseDouble via a NumberFormatException and Paths.get via a InvalidPathException.

Given you've written a component that validates Number strings for Double.ParseDouble, maybe using a Regex, maybe a hand-written parser, or perhaps something that embeds some other domain rules that restricts the range of a double to something specific, how best to test this component? I think an obvious test would be to assert that, when the resulting string is parsed, no exception is thrown. I would write that test using either the above assertDoesNotThrow or /*comment*/{code} block. Something like

@Test public void given_validator_accepts_string_result_should_be_interpretable_by_doubleParseDouble(){
  //setup
  String input = "12.34E+26" //a string double with domain significance

  //act
  boolean isValid = component.validate(input)

  //assert -- using the library 'assertJ', my personal favourite 
  assertThat(isValid).describedAs(input + " was considered valid by component").isTrue();
  assertDoesNotThrow(() -> Double.parseDouble(input));
}

I would also encourage you to parameterize this test on input using Theories or Parameterized so that you can more easily re-use this test for other inputs. Alternatively, if you want to go exotic, you could go for a test-generation tool (and this). TestNG has better support for parameterized tests.

What I find particularly disagreeable is the recommendation of using @Test(expectedException=IllegalArgumentException.class), this exception is dangerously broad. If your code changes such that the component under test's constructor has if(constructorArgument <= 0) throw IllegalArgumentException(), and your test was supplying 0 for that argument because it was convenient --and this is very common, because good generating test data is a surprisingly hard problem--, then your test will be green-bar even though it tests nothing. Such a test is worse than useless.

Answer 6

If you are unlucky enough to catch all errors in your code. You can stupidly do

class DumpTest {
    Exception ex;
    @Test
    public void testWhatEver() {
        try {
            thisShouldThrowError();
        } catch (Exception e) {
            ex = e;
        }
        assertEquals(null,ex);
    }
}

Answer 7

Although this post is 6 years old now, however, a lot has changed in the Junit world. With Junit5, you can now use

org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.assertDoesNotThrow()

Ex:

public void thisMethodDoesNotThrowException(){
   System.out.println("Hello There");
}

@Test
public void test_thisMethodDoesNotThrowException(){
  org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.assertDoesNotThrow(
      ()-> thisMethodDoesNotThrowException()
    );
}

Hope it will help people who are using newer version of Junit5

Answer 8

JUnit5 adds the assertAll() method for this exact purpose.

assertAll( () -> foo() )

source: JUnit 5 API

Answer 9

To test a scenario with a void method like

void testMeWell() throws SomeException {..}

to not throw an exception:

Junit5

assertDoesNotThrow(() -> {
    testMeWell();
});

Answer 10

Use assertNull(...)

@Test
public void foo() {
    try {
        //execute code that you expect not to throw Exceptions.
    } catch (Exception e){
        assertNull(e);
    }
}

Answer 11

If you want to test that whether your test target consumes the exception. Just leave the test as (mock collaborator using jMock2):

@Test
public void consumesAndLogsExceptions() throws Exception {

    context.checking(new Expectations() {
        {
            oneOf(collaborator).doSth();
            will(throwException(new NullPointerException()));
        }
    });

    target.doSth();
 }

The test would pass if your target does consume the exception thrown, otherwise the test would fail.

If you want to test your exception consumption logic, things get more complex. I suggest delegating the consumption to a collaborator which could be mocked. Therefore the test could be:

@Test
public void consumesAndLogsExceptions() throws Exception {
    Exception e = new NullPointerException();
    context.checking(new Expectations() {
        {
            allowing(collaborator).doSth();
            will(throwException(e));

            oneOf(consumer).consume(e);
        }
    });

    target.doSth();
 }

But sometimes it's over-designed if you just want to log it. In this case, this article(http://java.dzone.com/articles/monitoring-declarative-transac, http://blog.novoj.net/2008/09/20/testing-aspect-pointcuts-is-there-an-easy-way/) may help if you insist tdd in this case.

Answer 12

You can expect that exception is not thrown by creating a rule.

@Rule
public ExpectedException expectedException = ExpectedException.none();

Answer 13

This may not be the best way but it definitely makes sure that exception is not thrown from the code block that is being tested.

import org.assertj.core.api.Assertions;
import org.junit.Test;

public class AssertionExample {

    @Test
    public void testNoException(){
        assertNoException();
    }    

    private void assertException(){
        Assertions.assertThatThrownBy(this::doNotThrowException).isInstanceOf(Exception.class);
    }

    private void assertNoException(){
        Assertions.assertThatThrownBy(() -> assertException()).isInstanceOf(AssertionError.class);
    }

    private void doNotThrowException(){
        //This method will never throw exception
    }
}

Answer 14

I faced the same situation, I needed to check that exception is thrown when it should, and only when it should. Ended up using the exception handler to my benefit with the following code:

    try {
        functionThatMightThrowException()
    }catch (Exception e){
        Assert.fail("should not throw exception");
    }
    RestOfAssertions();

The main benefit for me was that it is quite straight forward and to check the other way of the "if and only if" is really easy in this same structure

Answer 15

You can do it by using a @Rule and then call method reportMissingExceptionWithMessage as shown below: This is Scala code.

Answer 16

You can create any kind of your own assertions based on assertions from junit:

static void assertDoesNotThrow(Executable executable) {
    assertDoesNotThrow(executable, "must not throw");
}
static void assertDoesNotThrow(Executable executable, String message) {
    try {
        executable.execute();
    } catch (Throwable err) {
        fail(message);
    }
}

And test:

//the following will succeed
assertDoesNotThrow(()->methodMustNotThrow(1));
assertDoesNotThrow(()->methodMustNotThrow(1), "fail with specific message: facepalm");
//the following will fail
assertDoesNotThrow(()->methodMustNotThrow(2));
assertDoesNotThrow(()-> {throw new Exception("Hello world");}, "Fail: must not trow");

Generally speaking there is possibility to instantly fail("bla bla bla") the test in any scenarios, in any place where it makes sense. For instance use it in a try/catch block to fail if anything is thrown in the test case:

try{methodMustNotThrow(1);}catch(Throwable e){fail("must not throw");}
//or
try{methodMustNotThrow(1);}catch(Throwable e){Assertions.fail("must not throw");}

This is the sample of the method we test, supposing we have such a method that must not fail under specific circumstances, but it can fail:

void methodMustNotThrow(int x) throws Exception{
    if (x == 1) return;
    throw new Exception();
}

The above method is a simple sample. But this works for complex situations, where the failure is not so obvious. There are the imports:

import org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions;
import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test;
import org.junit.jupiter.api.function.Executable;
import static org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.*;

Answer 17

The following fails the test for all exceptions, checked or unchecked:

@Test
public void testMyCode() {

    try {
        runMyTestCode();
    } catch (Throwable t) {
        throw new Error("fail!");
    }
}