JUnit confusion: use ‘extends TestCase’ or ‘@Test’?

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The distinction is rather easy:

  • extending TestCase is the way unit tests were written in JUnit 3 (of course it’s still supported in JUnit 4)
  • using the @Test annotation is the way introduced by JUnit 4

Generally you should choose the annotation path, unless compatibility with JUnit 3 (and/or a Java version earlier than Java 5) is needed. The new way has several advantages:

To test for expected exceptions in a JUnit 3 TestCase you’d have to make the text explicit.

public void testMyException() {
  try {
    objectUnderTest.myMethod(EVIL_ARGUMENT);
    fail("myMethod did not throw an Exception!");
  } catch (MyException e) {
    // ok!
    // check for properties of exception here, if desired
  }
}

JUnit 5 introduced yet another API change, but still uses annotations. The new @Test annotation is org.junit.jupiter.api.Test (the “old” JUnit 4 one was org.junit.Test), but it works pretty much the same as the JUnit 4 one.

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