[FIXED] Dealing with System.exit(0) in JUnit tests

Issue

I am implementing some tests for an existing Java Swing application, so that I can safely refactor and extend the code without breaking anything. I started with some unit tests in JUnit, since that seems the simplest way to get started, but now my priority is to create some end-to-end tests to exercise the application as a whole.

I am starting the application afresh in each test by putting each test method in a separate test case, and using the fork="yes" option in Ant's junit task. However, some of the use cases I would like to implement as tests involve the user exiting the application, which results in one of the methods calling System.exit(0). This is regarded by JUnit as an error: junit.framework.AssertionFailedError: Forked Java VM exited abnormally.

Is there a way to tell JUnit that exiting with a return code of zero is actually OK?

Solution

How I deal with that is to install a security manager that throws an exception when System.exit is called. Then there is code that catches the exception and doesn't fail the test.

public class NoExitSecurityManager
    extends java.rmi.RMISecurityManager
{
    private final SecurityManager parent;

    public NoExitSecurityManager(final SecurityManager manager)
    {
        parent = manager;
    }

    public void checkExit(int status)
    {
        throw new AttemptToExitException(status);
    }

    public void checkPermission(Permission perm)
    {
    }
}

And then in the code, something like:

catch(final Throwable ex)
{
    final Throwable cause;

    if(ex.getCause() == null)
    {
        cause = ex;
    }
    else
    {
        cause = ex.getCause();
    }

    if(cause instanceof AttemptToExitException)
    {
        status = ((AttemptToExitException)cause).getStatus();
    }
    else
    {
        throw cause;
    }
}

assertEquals("System.exit must be called with the value of " + expectedStatus, expectedStatus, status);

Answered By - TofuBeer
Answer Checked By - Katrina (JavaFixing Volunteer)