⚠ WARNING: JDK Compatibility. From JDK16 onwards, there are deeper restrictons on the ability to use reflection. Previous versions of this library, and others in the space, encounter an Illegal Reflective Access warning, or even a runtime error such as
java.lang.reflect.InaccessibleObjectException
when trying to manipulate theMap
behind the system's environment variables.Consequently, this library now uses
mockito-inline
version 3.x to enable the interception of calls for reading environment variables. This requires consumers to both use a compatible version of Mockito AND be prepared for the inline implementation of Mockito mocks.Note: Groovy users may need Mockito >= 4.5.0 for compatibility.
Where this isn't appropriate, the v1.x version of this will still work for Java versions below 16, and may also be co-erced into working with via the java command line.
The long-term plan for this library is to use more interceptors of system functions with Mockito where possible, unless a more direct route becomes available. While this library will continue to be built for Java 8 at the moment, in future it may also move to a higher base version. The v1.x branch will stay on Java 8.
System Stubs is used to test code which depends on methods in java.lang.System
.
It is published under the MIT license and requires at least Java 8. There is a walkthrough of its main features over on Baeldung.com.
System Stubs originated as a fork of System Lambda, originally by Stefan Birkner, and is a partial rewrite and refactor of it. It has diverged in implementation from the original, but largely retains compatibility.
It is divided into:
system-stubs-core
- can be used stand-alone to stub system resources around test code- Using the
SystemStubs
facade to build and execute stubs around test code - Using the subclasses of
TestResource
, likeEnvironmentVariables
orSystemIn
to create stubs and then execute test code viaexecute
- Using the
system-stubs-junit4
- a set of JUnit4 rules that activate the stubs around test codesystem-stubs-jupiter
- a JUnit 5 extension that automatically injects System Stubs into JUnit 5 tests.
This library now depends heavily on mockito-inline
. This is to
avoid the Illegal Reflective Access from previous attempts to override
System.getenv
. To use this library, you need a version of mockito-inline
of 3.12.4
or later.
<dependency>
<groupId>org.mockito</groupId>
<artifactId>mockito-inline</artifactId>
<version>3.12.4</version>
<scope>test</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>uk.org.webcompere</groupId>
<artifactId>system-stubs-core</artifactId>
<version>2.0.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>uk.org.webcompere</groupId>
<artifactId>system-stubs-junit4</artifactId>
<version>2.0.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>uk.org.webcompere</groupId>
<artifactId>system-stubs-jupiter</artifactId>
<version>2.0.2</version>
</dependency>
In order to support migration from System Lambda, and to enable reuse of the original unit tests, the SystemStubs
facade supports the execute around idiom.
To use the SystemStubs
facade:
import static uk.org.webcompere.systemstubs.SystemStubs.*;
You can declare a system stub object:
EnvironmentVariables environmentVariables = new EnvironmentVariables("a", "b");
Then you can configure it and execute your test code inside it:
environmentVariables.set("c", "d")
.execute(() -> { ... some test code that gets the environment variables ... });
Where necessary, each of the System Stub objects can be manually activated with setup
and turned off again with teardown
. Where possible, these objects also support
reconfiguration while they're active, allowing you to set environment variables within
a test, for example:
EnvironmentVariables env = new EnvironmentVariables("HOST", "localhost");
// start controlling the environment
env.setup();
// the HOST variable is currently set
env.set("a", "b");
// this has set "a" as "b" in the environment
// tidy up
env.teardown();
It should not be necessary to use setup
and teardown
as the execute
method handles this more cleanly, avoiding accidentally leaving the stubbing active:
new EnvironmentVariables("HOST", "localhost")
.execute(() -> {
// in here the environment is temporarily set
});
// out here everything has been tidied away
Note: there are two versions of the execute
method in Executable
allowing
the test code to return values, or not.
While you can set up stubs inside the execute
method of a parent stub:
new EnvironmentVariables("a", "b")
.execute(() -> {
new SystemProperties("j", "k")
.execute(() -> { ... has env and properties ... });
});
There is a more convenient way to use multiple stubs together:
EnvironmentVariables env = new EnvironmentVariables("a", "b");
SystemProperties props = new SystemProperties("f", "g");
Resources.execute(() -> { .. some test code .. },
env, props);
The convenience method Resource.with
may make this read more cleanly:
with(new EnvironmentVariables("HTTP_PROXY", ""),
new SystemProperties("http.connections", "123"))
.execute(() -> executeTestCode());
Note: the JUnit4 and JUnit5 plugins make it easier to use multiple test stubs, as they set all the stubs up before the test method and then tidy them up at the end.
As the execute
methods can be used with code that throws exceptions, they
declare throws Exception
so your tests need to declare throws Exception
, even if
the code under the test doesn't use checked exceptions.
This is a good argument for using the JUnit4 or JUnit5 plugins, where you do not
need to specifically turn the stubbing on via the execute
method.
Command-line applications terminate by calling System.exit
with some status
code. If you test such an application then the JVM that executes the test exits
when the application under test calls System.exit
.
The method catchSystemExit
returns the status code of the
System.exit
call rather than ending the JVM
@Test
void application_exits_with_status_42() throws Exception {
int statusCode = catchSystemExit(() -> {
System.exit(42);
});
assertEquals(42, statusCode);
}
The method catchSystemExit
throws an AssertionError
if the code under test
does not call System.exit
. Therefore your test fails with the failure message
"System.exit has not been called."
The SystemExit
class can be used just to ignore a System exit:
new SystemExit()
.execute(() -> {
System.exit(0);
});
// execution continues without error
Or an instance can be used to capture the return code, or whether there was an exit at all.
SystemExit exit = new SystemExit();
exit.execute(() -> {
System.exit(0);
});
assertThat(exit.getExitCode()).isEqualTo(0);
// the exit code will be `null` if no System.exit was called
The method withEnvironmentVariable
allows you to set environment variables
within your test code that are removed after your code under test is executed.
@Test
void execute_code_with_environment_variables() throws Exception {
List<String> values = withEnvironmentVariable("first", "first value")
.and("second", "second value")
.execute(() -> asList(
System.getenv("first"),
System.getenv("second")
));
assertEquals(asList("first value", "second value"), values);
}
Create an object of EnvironmentVariables
and use execute
:
List<String> values = new EnvironmentVariables("first", "first value")
.set("second", "second value")
.execute(() -> asList(
System.getenv("first"),
System.getenv("second")
));
assertEquals(asList("first value", "second value"), values);
Note: the SystemStubs
facade creates an identical object and set
is a
mutable version of the and
method used in the first example.
Note: calling set
on EnvironmentVariables
from inside execute
will
affect the runtime environment. Calling it outside of execution will store the
value for writing into the environment within execute
.
The method restoreSystemProperties
guarantees that after executing the test
code each System property has the same value as before. Therefore you can
modify System properties inside of the test code without having an impact on
other tests.
@Test
void execute_code_that_manipulates_system_properties() throws Exception {
restoreSystemProperties(() -> {
System.setProperty("some.property", "some value");
//code under test that reads properties (e.g. "some.property") or
//modifies them.
});
//Here the value of "some.property" is the same like before.
//E.g. it is not set.
}
A SystemProperties
object allows you to set the system properties that will be provided
within execute
. It provides a set
method which writes to the System while the
object is active, though any other set operations that are performed with
System.setProperty
are also reset on clean up:
SystemProperties someProperties = new SystemProperties(
"foo", "bar",
"foz", "boz");
someProperties.execute(() -> {
// here we expect the properties to have been set
// we can also call "set" on the "someProperties"
// to set more system properties - these will be
// remembered for reuse later with that object
// any calls to System.setProperty will be undone when
// "execute" is finished
});
// here the system properties are reverted
Once you have constructed an EnvironmentVariables
or SystemProperties
object, you can use the set
method to apply properties. If these objects are presently active
then the values are applied to the running environment immediately, otherwise they
are kept until the object is activated either by execute
or within the JUnit test
lifecycle, as part of the JUnit 4 or JUnit 5 plugins.
There is a set
function for name/value pairs, and also a set
function that
takes Map<Object, Object>
, which is the base class of Properties
. There are helper
functions within PropertySource
for loading Properties
from file or resources.
So you can initialise one of these stubs from a resource:
// Note, we have statically imported `PropertySource.fromResource`
EnvironmentVariables env = new EnvironmentVariables()
.set(fromResource("test.properties"))
.execute(() -> {... test code });
Or from a file:
SystemProperties props = new SystemProperties();
props.execute(() -> {
// do something
// now set the system properties from a file
props.set(fromFile("src/test/resources/test.properties"));
});
Or from a map:
// Map.of is available in later Java versions
// ImmutableMap.of from Guava is a similar alternative
EnvironmentVariables env = new EnvironmentVariables();
env.execute(() -> {
// do something
// now set some environment variables
env.set(Map.of("VAL", "value1",
"VAL2", "value"));
});
The name/value pair constructors in both EnvironmentVariables
and SystemProperties
are probably easier than using set
with a Map
where it's possible to use them.
The EnvironmentVariables
and SystemProperties
objects both accept a Properties
object via their constructor. It's a question of preference whether to use the constructor or set method:
new EnvironmentVariables()
.set(fromFile("somefile"));
// vs
new EnvironmentVariables(fromFile("someFile"));
If you have the properties to set in memory already as a series of String
objects in the name=value
format used by properties files, you can use LinesAltStream
to provide them to the property loader as an InputStream
:
EnvironmentVariables env = new EnvironmentVariables()
.set(fromInputStream(new LinesAltStream("PROXY_HOSTS=foo.bar.com")))
.execute(() -> {
// the PROXY_HOSTS environment variable is set here
});
Command-line applications usually write to the console. If you write such
applications you need to test the output of these applications. The methods
tapSystemErr
, tapSystemErrNormalized
, tapSystemOut
and
tapSystemOutNormalized
and tapSystemErrAndOut
allow you to tap the text that is written to
System.err
/System.out
. The methods with the suffix Normalized
normalize
line breaks to \n
so that you can run tests with the same assertions on
different operating systems.
@Test
void application_writes_text_to_System_err() throws Exception {
String text = tapSystemErr(() -> {
System.err.print("some text");
});
assertEquals("some text", text);
}
@Test
void application_writes_mutliple_lines_to_System_err() throws Exception {
String text = tapSystemErrNormalized(() -> {
System.err.println("first line");
System.err.println("second line");
});
assertEquals("first line\nsecond line\n", text);
}
@Test
void application_writes_text_to_System_out() throws Exception {
String text = tapSystemOut(() -> {
System.out.print("some text");
});
assertEquals("some text", text);
}
@Test
void application_writes_multiple_lines_to_System_out() throws Exception {
String text = tapSystemOutNormalized(() -> {
System.out.println("first line");
System.out.println("second line");
});
assertEquals("first line\nsecond line\n", text);
}
System.err
and System.out
can be directed to a single stream:
@Test
void application_writes_text_to_System_err_and_out() throws Exception {
String text = tapSystemErrAndOut(() -> {
System.err.print("text from err");
System.out.print("text from out");
});
assertEquals("text from errtext from out", text);
}
You can assert that nothing is written to System.err
/System.out
by wrapping
code with the function
assertNothingWrittenToSystemErr
/assertNothingWrittenToSystemOut
. E.g. the
following tests fail:
@Test
void fails_because_something_is_written_to_System_err() throws Exception {
assertNothingWrittenToSystemErr(() -> {
System.err.println("some text");
});
}
@Test
void fails_because_something_is_written_to_System_out() throws Exception {
assertNothingWrittenToSystemOut(() -> {
System.out.println("some text");
});
}
If the code under test writes text to System.err
/System.out
then it is
intermixed with the output of your build tool. Therefore you may want to avoid
that the code under test writes to System.err
/System.out
. You can achieve
this with the function muteSystemErr
/muteSystemOut
. E.g. the following tests
don't write anything to System.err
/System.out
:
@Test
void nothing_is_written_to_System_err() throws Exception {
muteSystemErr(() -> {
System.err.println("some text");
});
}
@Test
void nothing_is_written_to_System_out() throws Exception {
muteSystemOut(() -> {
System.out.println("some text");
});
}
The methods on the facade provide some useful shortcuts, but there are also
the classes SystemOut
and SystemErr
which can be used independently.
When creating a SystemOut
object, its constructor can be passed the relevant Output
types of NoopStream
, DisallowWriteStream
or TapStream
. The default is TapStream
.
Once output has been captured, all of the objects provide functions for getting the text that arrived at the stream, sliced into lines or whole.
You can plug in an alternative output by implementing your own Output
subclass.
Note: The DisallowWriteStream
cannot capture text as any writes stop the text with an error.
The NoopStream
does not capture text, so it useful for saving memory/log files during a test.
Example:
SystemOut systemOut = new SystemOut();
systemOut.execute(() -> System.out.print("hello world"));
assertThat(systemOut.getText()).isEqualTo("hello world");
The objects can be reused and have a clear
function to clear captured text between usages.
Note: As the SystemOut
, SystemErr
and SystemErrAndOut
classes are also derived from Output
, they have friendlier methods on them for reading the text that was sent to the output. E.g. getLines
which returns a stream of lines, separated from the text captured by the system line separator.
Note: The withSystemErrAndOut
method on the facade constructs a SystemErrAndOut
object for use with the execute
method and for assertion via getLines
or getText
:
// finer control over assertion can be made using the SystemErrAndOut object
@Test
void construct_system_err_and_out_tap() throws Exception {
SystemErrAndOut stream = withSystemErrAndOut(new TapStream());
stream.execute(() -> {
System.err.println("text from err");
System.out.println("text from out");
});
assertThat(stream.getLines())
.containsExactly("text from err","text from out");
}
One of the advantages of tapping the System.out
and System.err
streams is that the tests can assert what was output. However, seeing the output of the application during the test can also be helpful for debugging.
There is an alternative way to provide the Output
object for the SystemOut
, SystemErr
and SystemErrAndOut
objects to use. If you pass an OutputFactory
then this can be used to construct the final Output
object using the original OutputStream
that was being used before the stubbing started. This allows the output to reuse the original console PrintStream
alongside any other streams.
There is also a MultiplexOutput
class which is able to direct the output to more than one Output
object. Note: the first Output
will be the default used for getText
and related operations. Though if you created and stored references to all of the Output
objects in the multiplex, you can interact with them directly.
Though the lower level classes may be useful for building custom configurations, the most common options are within the OutputFactories
class.
For example, you can both capture System.out
and allow it to continue writing to the console like this:
SystemOut systemOut = new SystemOut(tapAndOutput());
systemOut.execute(() -> System.out.println("I write to the console and the tap"));
assertThat(systemOut.getLines()).containsExactly("I write to the console and the tap");
The tapAndOutput
function produces a multiplex of both TapStream
and writing to the original stream.
When using the execute
method (as above), rather than any of the JUnit plugins, it's also possible to capture the output to a file using writeToFile
as the OutputFactory
:
File target = new File(tempDir, "file");
new SystemOut(ofMultiplePlusOriginal(writeToFile(target)))
.execute(() -> {
System.out.println("This is going into a file");
});
assertThat(target).hasContent("This is going into a file" + System.lineSeparator());
While the file output does not depend itself on the original stream, it hooks its creation and closure of the OutputStream
into the lifecycle of the execute method.
Technically this could also be used with the JUnit plugins, but the written file could not be accessed within the test that it logged.
The OutputFactories
class provides various methods for adding together multiple Output
objects. The Output.fromStream
and Output.fromCloseableStream
methods provide Output
wrappers of your own OutputStream
objects.
Note: you can compose multiple Output
objects or multiple OutputFactory
objects. If you have a mixture, then convert the Output
objects into OutputFactory
objects using Output.factoryOfSelf
.
There are some worked examples in the tests of OutputFactories
.
The SystemOut
stub allows logging output to be captured in situations where the logging framework is configured to write to the console.
Let's say the code under test contained this line:
LOGGER.info("Saving to database");
We could imagine testing that with a SystemOut
object:
SystemOut systemOut = new SystemOut();
// then either in the execute method, or via JUnit4 or JUnit5 integration
realCode.doThingThatLogs();
assertThat(systemOut.getLines())
.anyMatch(line -> line.contains("Saving to database"));
Interactive command-line applications read from System.in
. You can
supply the application with input at test time as lines of text, delimited by
the system line separator, or by hooking System.in
up to a
specific InputStream
.
You can specify
the lines that are available from System.in
with the method
withTextFromSystemIn
@Test
void Scanner_reads_text_from_System_in() throws Exception {
withTextFromSystemIn("first line", "second line")
.execute(() -> {
Scanner scanner = new Scanner(System.in);
assertEquals("first line", scanner.nextLine());
assertEquals("second line", scanner.nextLine());
});
}
For a complete test coverage you may also want to simulate System.in
throwing
exceptions when the application reads from it. You can specify such an
exception (either RuntimeException
or IOException
) after specifying the
text. The exception will be thrown by the next read
after the text has been
consumed.
@Test
void System_in_throws_IOException() throws Exception {
withTextFromSystemIn("first line", "second line")
.andExceptionThrownOnInputEnd(new IOException())
.execute(() -> {
Scanner scanner = new Scanner(System.in);
scanner.nextLine();
scanner.nextLine();
assertThrownBy(
IOException.class,
() -> scanner.readLine()
);
});
}
@Test
void System_in_throws_RuntimeException() throws Exception {
withTextFromSystemIn("first line", "second line")
.andExceptionThrownOnInputEnd(new RuntimeException())
.execute(() -> {
Scanner scanner = new Scanner(System.in);
scanner.nextLine();
scanner.nextLine();
assertThrownBy(
RuntimeException.class,
() -> scanner.readLine()
);
});
}
You might also write a test that throws an exception immediately by not providing any text.
withTextFromSystemIn()
.andExceptionThrownOnInputEnd(...)
.execute(() -> {
Scanner scanner = new Scanner(System.in);
assertThrownBy(
...,
() -> scanner.readLine()
);
});
The SystemStubs
implementation only allows you to specify
text for stubbing System.in
, the SystemIn
object is more
configurable.
The SystemIn
object allows you to compose your own input text. You can
use it with any InputStream
.
E.g.
SystemIn systemIn = new SystemIn(new FileInputStream("someTestFile"));
systemIn.execute(() -> {
// code that uses System.in
});
The SystemIn
object can be manipulated to throw an exception
when the calling code reads from System.in
when it has run out of text:
new SystemIn("some text in the input")
.andExceptionThrownOnInputEnd(new IOException("file is broken"))
.execute(() -> {
// some test code
});
SystemIn
can be constructed with lines of text,
or any instance of AltStream
or InputStream
you wish to create.
The lines of input are automatically separated by the system line separator
via the LinesAltStream
object. But the alternative TextAltStream
can be used
where the input is already formatted and should not have an extra line breaks added.
While hardcoded lists of strings are often perfect sources of test
data, LinesAltStream
also allows for more custom use cases, for example,
SystemIn
could be hooked up to a random input generator:
new SystemIn(new LinesAltStream(
Stream.generate(() -> UUID.randomUUID().toString())))
.execute(() -> {
// this test code will be provided with an unlimited
// series of lines in System.in containing GUIDs
});
The function withSecurityManager
lets you specify the SecurityManager
that
is returned by System.getSecurityManger()
while your code under test is
executed.
@Test
void execute_code_with_specific_SecurityManager() throws Exception {
SecurityManager securityManager = new ASecurityManager();
withSecurityManager(
securityManager,
() -> {
//code under test
//e.g. the following assertion is met
assertSame(
securityManager,
System.getSecurityManager()
);
}
);
}
After withSecurityManager(...)
is executedSystem.getSecurityManager()
returns the original security manager again.
The SecurityManagerStub
allows you to substitute the system security manager with
another. Provide the alternative manager via the constructor.
new SecurityManagerStub(otherManager)
.execute(() -> { ... test code ... });
This is used internally by the stubbing for System.exit
.
⚠ WARNING: Don't Break Your Parallel Tests!
If you are using System Stubs alongside concurrent test execution, then you MUST ensure that the concurrency is achieved by forking multiple JVMs to run different test classes, rather than running multiple threads within the same JVMs executing tests in parallel.
This is because many of the stubs modify global system properties which would bleed to other tests in the same JVM runtime and cannot be localised to just the current test.
Build tools allow the test runner to fork separate processes for running subsets of the test classes, and this is the only safe way to use System Stubs with concurrent testing.
You have two options if you have a feature request, found a bug or simply have a question.
- Write an issue.
- Create a pull request. (See Understanding the GitHub Flow)
System Stubs is built with Maven. It requires JDK8 to build as it depends on some deprecated system class functions.
If you want to contribute code then:
- Please write a test for your change.
- Ensure that you didn't break the build by running
mvnw test
. - Fork the repo and create a pull request. (See Understanding the GitHub Flow)
The basic coding style is described in the
EditorConfig file .editorconfig
.
System Stubs is built with Appveyor:
- Move the snapshot version number if necessary using Semantic Versioning 2.0.0 Standard.
- With
gpg
installed - May need to login to
gpg
to set the passphrase - With env variables
JAVA_HOME
set to JDK8GPG_TTY=$(tty)
GPG_AGENT_INFO
- With the nexus credentials set in the
.m2/settings.xml
- Run
mvn clean -Dgpg.executable=gpg -Prelease-sign-artifacts -Dgpg.passphrase=<biscuit leet> release:prepare release:perform
- Update the installation guide in the README
- Push a new version to the README