junit Getting started with junit Catch expected exception

Example

It is possible to easily catch the exception without any try catch block.

public class ListTest {
  private final List<Object> list = new ArrayList<>();

  @Test(expected = IndexOutOfBoundsException.class)
  public void testIndexOutOfBoundsException() {
    list.get(0);
  }
}

The example above should suffice for simpler cases, when you don't want/need to check the message carried by the thrown exception.

If you want to check information about exception you may want to use try/catch block:

@Test
public void testIndexOutOfBoundsException() {
    try {
        list.get(0);
        Assert.fail("Should throw IndexOutOfBoundException");
    } catch (IndexOutOfBoundsException ex) {
        Assert.assertEquals("Index: 0, Size: 0", ex.getMessage());
    }
}

For this example you have to be aware to always add Assert.fail() to ensure that test will be failed when no Exception is thrown.

For more elaborated cases, JUnit has the ExpectedException @Rule, which can test this information too and is used as follows:

public class SimpleExpectedExceptionTest {
     @Rule
     public ExpectedException expectedException = ExpectedException.none();

     @Test
     public void throwsNothing() {
         // no exception expected, none thrown: passes.
     }

     @Test
     public void throwsExceptionWithSpecificType() {
         expectedException.expect(NullPointerException.class);

         throw new NullPointerException();
     }

     @Test
     public void throwsExceptionWithSpecificTypeAndMessage() {
         expectedException.expect(IllegalArgumentException.class);
         expectedException.expectMessage("Wanted a donut.");

         throw new IllegalArgumentException("Wanted a donut.");
     }
}

Testing exceptions in JUnit5

To achieve the same in JUnit 5, you use a completely new mechanism:

The tested method

public class Calculator {
    public double divide(double a, double b) {
        if (b == 0.0) {
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Divider must not be 0");
        }
        return a/b;
    }
}

The test method

public class CalculatorTest {
    @Test
    void triangularMinus5() { // The test method does not have to be public in JUnit5
        Calculator calc = new Calculator();

        IllegalArgumentException thrown = assertThrows(
            IllegalArgumentException.class, 
            () -> calculator.divide(42.0, 0.0));
        // If the exception has not been thrown, the above test has failed.

        // And now you may further inspect the returned exception...
        // ...e.g. like this:
        assertEquals("Divider must not be 0", thrown.getMessage());
}