JUnit 4.5 in Eclipse 3.4

I was quite disappointed when I realized that Eclipse 3.4 (Ganymede) still uses JUnit 4.3. JUnit 4.4 was released last summer so it shouldn't be rocket science to it a part of Ganymede, which was released this summer. Well, I guess it all comes down to lack of time and resources. Of course, it could also be because of compatabilty issues between JUnit versions, or something similar.

Luckely, it quite easy to use a newer version of JUnit in Eclipse. By simply adding the new JUnit JAR to the classpath of an Eclipse project and removing the JUnit 4 Library (that is, the entry in 'Java Build Path' with an icon that looks like a pile of books), the project will run the test-case with the new JUnit. Of course, your other projects will still use JUnit 4.3. We have done this at work with JUnit 4.5 and it works really good.

I recommend you to do this, since there are some really nice features in JUnit 4.5; the possibility do distinguish between assumptions and assertions, and better descriptions of failed assertions, for instance.

Don't Repeat Yourself - what does 'repeat' really mean?

It is not uncommon to have some kind of script (e.g., a .sh-script) to start an application. For example, a start script for an Java application could check that the correct version of the JRE is installed, set up the classpath, and then start the application by executing java -cp [classpath] [mainclass].

In a case like this, the start script contains some information that is already embedded in the source code, e.g., the name of the class containing the static void main(String[]) method. Is this a violation of the DRY principle? I certainly think so.

However, you could argue that source code is filled with this kind of violation (refering to something by its textual name) since classes/types are referred to by name everywhere, for example when instantiating a new object in most OO languages. I don't consider this to be a violation of DRY, though.

Why? Because with modern IDEs classes can be renamed/moved and all references to the class will be updated. Thus, effectively, there is no repetition (since you don't manually handle it). So, no violation of the DRY principle.

However, if the application uses reflection, or something similar, then the IDE can't safely handle it. Consequently, you have to handle these repetions manually with IDE support. In other words, the DRY principle is violated.

The impact of these violations can be minimzed by having a good test-suit. This way, if you fail to update the code correctly the tests will tell you so. Reflection-heavy code is not different than any other code in this sense.

Ok, so let's get back to the original example: the start script and the reference to the main class of the application. This is a violation of the DRY principle since the IDE does not update the script's references to classes. But not only that, in most cases it does not have any test-cases. This is very bad, because you'll get no indication that something has gone wrong. (You could argue that you shouldn't rename the main class, but that's beside the point I'm making).

So, how to fix this? Simple. Either

1. unit test the start-script (run it, or use some kind of pattern matching), or
2. generate the test-script by a well-tested generator.

All executable parts of the application it should be possible to test; but how about the non-executable parts? How about documentation, e.g., user guides? I don't have a good answer to this besides generate what can be generated but this is hard in practice. If you have a good soluation, please let me know...

A run-time equivalent to JUnit's @Ignore

It's been some time since I wrote about things that annoy me. Now it's time again. The pain-in-the-lower-back this time is: why isn't there a (good) way to ignore a JUnit test-case based on a piece of information that only awailable at run-time? In short: dynamically ignore a test-case.
I think a "good way" to solve this should fulfill the following:

• a dynamically ignore test-case should marked as "ignored" in the JUnit test-run,
• possible search for dynamically ignored test-cases in the IDE.

There is a very simple way to ignore a test-case base on run-time information:
@Test
public void testIt() {
  if (shouldIgnore())
    return;
  // ... the rest of the test-case.
}
However, this solution does not fulfill the above requirements at all. Something better is needed.

JUnit uses a org.junit.runner.Runner to run test-cases. Since JUnit 4.0 it's possible to define which such Runner that should be used to run a set of test-cases. The @RunWith annotation does just this. Here is an example:
@RunWith(MyRunner.class)
public final class MyTest {
  // ... some test-cases.
}
There are several ways @RunWith can make you testing filled days easier; for a real-world example you need to look no further than to JMock. I have implemented a Runner that makes it possible to do:
@RunWith(RuntimeIgnoreable.class)
public final class MyTest {
  @Test
  public void perhapsIgnored() {
    ignoreIf(perhapsTrue())
    // ... the rest of the test-case.
  }
}
Neat, ey? I think so at least. What's even neater is that the RuntimeIgnoreable class and the ignoreIf method was embaressingly straight-forward to implement. You can browse the code, or look at the individuals files:

• RuntimeIgnoreable
• ignoreIf
• example

Oh, one final note: this was develop for JUnit 4.3. If you are using any other JUnit version, the you prbably need to make some minor changes to the code.

Update: I just realize that JUnit Extensions does this (among aother things)...