TestNG: How to test for mandatory exceptions?

Question

I'd like to write a TestNG test to make sure an exception is thrown under a specific condition, and fail the test if the exception is not thrown. Is there an easy way to do this without having to create an extra boolean variable?

A related blog post on this subject: http://konigsberg.blogspot.com/2007/11/testng-and-expectedexceptions-ive.html

Answer 1

Why don't you use the try/fail/catch pattern mentioned in the blog post you linked to?

Answer 2

@Test(expectedExceptions) is useful for the most common cases:

• You expect a specific exception to be thrown
• You need the message of that exception to contain specific words

Here are a few scenarios where @Test(expectedExceptions) is not sufficient:

• Your test method has several statements and only one of them is expected to throw
• You are throwing your own type of exception and you need to make sure it matches a certain criterion

In such cases, you should just revert to the traditional (pre-TestNG) pattern:

try {
  // your statement expected to throw
  fail();
}
catch(<the expected exception>) {
  // pass
}