Capturing Human Intelligence - ApprovalTests is an open source assertion/verification library to aid unit testing.
It is compatible with JUnit 3 & 4 and TestNG
Approval Tests can be used for verifying objects that require more than a simple assert. They also come prepackaged with utilities for some common .Net scenarios including
- HashMaps & Collections
- Long Strings
- Log Files
- JPanels
- Xml
- Html
- Json
Maven
<dependency>
<groupId>com.approvaltests</groupId>
<artifactId>approvaltests</artifactId>
<version>2.0.0</version>
</dependency>
or download the jars from maven central repository
You can watch a bunch of short videos on getting started and using ApprovalTests in Java at youtube
If you prefer auditory learning, you might enjoy the following podcast (Note: Some of these talk about the .net side)
You can find the latest ApprovalTests release under https://github.com/approvals/ApprovalTests.Java/releases.
ApprovalTests eats it own dogfood, so the best examples are in the source code itself.
None the less, Here's a quick look at some Sample Code
public class SampleArrayTest extends TestCase
{
public void testList() throws Exception
{
String[] names = {"Llewellyn", "James", "Dan", "Jason", "Katrina"};
Arrays.sort(names);
Approvals.verifyAll("", names);
}
}
Will Produce a File
SampleTest.TestList.received.txt
[0] = Dan
[1] = James
[2] = Jason
[3] = Katrina
[4] = Llewellyn
Simply rename this to SampleTest.testList.approved.txt and the test will now pass.
The *.approved.*
files must be checked into source your source control. This can be an issue with git as it will change the line endings.
The suggested fix is to add
*.approved.* binary
to your .gitattributes
twitter: @LlewellynFalco or #ApprovalTests
We are currently migrating the build from Ant to Maven. To build with Maven:
mvn install
If you see test failures and want to carry on anyway:
mvn install -DskipTests
If you have trouble with the "mrunit" package which is listed on Maven central but doesn't seem to download, install it locally with this command:
mvn install:install-file -Dfile=java/jars/hadoop/mrunit-0.9.0-incubating-hadoop1.jar -DgroupId=org.apache.mrunit -DartifactId=mrunit -Dversion=0.9.0-incubating -Dpackaging=jar
If you want to create the signed jars suitable for release, you will need a gpg key to sign it with. Install gpg (for example with brew install gnupg), and create a key.
Then build with this command:
mvn verify -DperformRelease=true -Dgpg.passphrase=xx
(Replace the xx with the actual passphrase for your key)
Helpful page if you get an error 'Inappropriate ioctl for device'
If you would like to instead build this project with Apache ant, then use these commands:
ant "Publish ApprovalTests-Util" -buildfile build/build.xml
cp approvaltests-util/target/approvaltests-util.jar java/jars/
ant "Publish ApprovalTests" -buildfile build/build.xml
cp approvals/target/ApprovalTests.jar java/jars
ant "Publish HtmlLocker" -buildfile build/build.xml
ant "Publish CounterDisplay" -buildfile build/build.xml
ant "Publish approvaltests-hadoop" -buildfile build/build.xml
ant "Publish approvaltests-testng" -buildfile build/build.xml
This will build jar files under the target folder for each respective project. At present you have to copy the built jar files by hand in between ant steps, since the subprojects depned on one another. Soon this will be handled by maven instead.