Choose order to execute JUnit tests

Question

Hi!

I wanted to choose the order to execute the JUnit tests. I have 4 classes with several test methods in it, my goal is to execute, for instance, method Y of class A, then method X from class B, and finally method Z from class A.

Would you help please?

Answer 1

The JUnit answer to that question is to create one test method like this:

  @Test public void testAll() {
       classA.y();
       classB.x();
       classA.z();
  }

That is obviously an unsatisfying answer in certain cases (where setup and teardown matter), but the JUnit view of unit testing is that if tests are not independant, you are doing something wrong.

If the above doesn't meet your needs, have a look at TestNG.

Answer 2

If the previous answer is not satisfying I have noticed with the Sun JVM JUnit always seems to execute unit tests in the order of which they are defined. Obviously this is not a good idea to rely on this.

Answer 3

Create a TestSuite and call the test methods in the desired order. @Yishai is right in that JUnit is designed so each test is independent. So if you are calling test methods that can be run independently then there should be no problem with creating a TestSuite to cover a scenario for a specific calling-order.

Answer 4

In general, you can't specify the order that separate unit tests run in (though you could specify priorities in TestNG and have a different priority for each test). However, unit tests should be able to be run in isolation, so the order of the tests should not matter. This is a bad practice. If you need the tests to be in a specific order, you should be rethinking your design. If you post specifics as to why you need the order, I'm sure we can offer suggestions.

Answer 5

This might be interesting to you: JExample

A different approach to testing with interdepentent tests.