People will argue that, the need to mock static methods, final classes/methods, mock static class, etc. is a sign of bad coding. I couldn't agree more! But time and again I have come to terms with a fact that there is a lot of legacy code people have already written and we are inevitably faced with situations where we have to work with it. In such situations mocking framework like PowerMock is a real boon!
PowerMock basically extends other mocking libraries such as Mockito, EasyMocks and now even TestNG. PowerMock uses a custom class-loader and byte-code manipulation to enable mocking of static methods, final classes/methods, etc. Because of this, no changes need to be done to the IDE or continuous integration servers which simplifies adoption.
PowerMocks have the following capabilities
- Extends various well known mocking frameworks like Mockito, EasyMocks and TestNG. Hence, it has an extremely low learning curve if you are familiar with any of of those mocking libraries.
- Can
- mock static methods
- mock final methods
- mock static classes
- mock final classes
- mock constructors
- mock private methods
- remove static initializes
- partially mock a class i.e. create spy
- Suppress methods
- Suppress constructors
- Suppress static initializes
- Suppress fields!
- On top of all this it can also mock/stub normal classes and interfaces :)
Well, if you like what you are reading and what to see some code in action, stay tuned in the next series of posts I will show working samples of how actually its done!
As usual, feedback, comments and complaints are always welcome!
