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Using JUnit 5 with Spring Boot 2, Kotlin and Mockito

A guide explaining how to install, configure, and use JUnit 5 with Mockito in a Spring Boot Kotlin project

Sebastien Dubois

Sebastien Dubois

— 6 min read

This article is a short guide explaining how to use JUnit 5+ with Spring Boot 2 (M7 at the moment), Kotlin and Mockito. A bit of a mouthful, but not that hard to get working ;-)

JUnit 5

JUnit 5 is still “recent” and different frameworks/libraries are slowwwwly adding support for it. The thing is that when you’re impatient to play with the shiny new toys, it’s just too boring waiting for the stable releases.

Steps to use JUnit 5 with Spring Boot, Kotlin and Mockito

Steps we’ll go through:

  • Build configuration
  • Implement a JUnit 5+ Extension class for Mockito
  • Adapt existing tests

Build configuration

I’m still using Maven (sorry Gradle fanboys), so just adapt to your build system of choice.

First off, add some properties for JUnit and Surefire:

<!-- Need at least 1.1.x for compatibility with Surefire -->
<junit-platform.version>1.1.0-SNAPSHOT</junit-platform.version>

<!-- Need at least 5.1.x for compatibility with Surefire -->
<junit-jupiter.version>5.1.0-SNAPSHOT</junit-jupiter.version>

<!-- TODO remove once a newer version of surefire (2.21.1+) is compatible with JUnit 5 and used by Spring Boot -->
<!-- Reference: https://github.com/junit-team/junit5/issues/809 -->
<maven-surefire-plugin.version>2.19.1</maven-surefire-plugin.version>

As you can see at this point in time, we need to use non-stable releases, but that should not last too long ;-)

For the Maven Surefire plugin, keep an eye on that issue.

Next, add the JUnit dependencies:

<!-- JUnit 5 -->
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.junit.platform</groupId>
    <artifactId>junit-platform-launcher</artifactId>
    <scope>test</scope>
    <version>${junit-platform.version}</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.junit.platform</groupId>
    <artifactId>junit-platform-engine</artifactId>
    <scope>test</scope>
    <version>${junit-platform.version}</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.junit.jupiter</groupId>
    <artifactId>junit-jupiter-api</artifactId>
    <!-- TODO put back scope test once we can remove the MockitoExtension.kt class -->
    <scope>compile</scope>
    <version>${junit-jupiter.version}</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.junit.jupiter</groupId>
    <artifactId>junit-jupiter-engine</artifactId>
    <scope>test</scope>
    <version>${junit-jupiter.version}</version>
</dependency>

If you want support for parameterized tests, you can also add the following dependency:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.junit.jupiter</groupId>
    <artifactId>junit-jupiter-params</artifactId>
    <version>${junit-jupiter.version}</version>
</dependency>

If you already have many tests written with JUnit 4, then you can ease the transition using the Vintage module of JUnit 5+:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.junit.vintage</groupId>
    <artifactId>junit-vintage-engine</artifactId>
    <version>${junit-jupiter.version}</version>
</dependency>

If you use Mockito, then you’ll also need to add a direct dependency (i.e., not with scope test); we’ll see why in the next section:

<!-- TODO: Remove once we don't need MockitoExtension anymore -->
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.mockito</groupId>
    <artifactId>mockito-core</artifactId>
</dependency>

In order to be able to execute the tests using Maven, you also need to properly configure Surefire:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>${maven-surefire-plugin.version}</version>
    <configuration>
        <failIfNoTests>true</failIfNoTests>
        <includes>
            <include>**/*Test.java</include>
            <include>**/*Test.kt</include>
            <include>**/*Tests.java</include>
            <include>**/*Tests.kt</include>
        </includes>
        <properties>
            <excludeTags>integration-test</excludeTags>
        </properties>
    </configuration>
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.junit.platform</groupId>
            <artifactId>junit-platform-surefire-provider</artifactId>
            <version>${junit-platform.version}</version>
            <scope>runtime</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.junit.jupiter</groupId>
            <artifactId>junit-jupiter-api</artifactId>
            <version>${junit-jupiter.version}</version>
            <scope>runtime</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.junit.jupiter</groupId>
            <artifactId>junit-jupiter-engine</artifactId>
            <version>${junit-jupiter.version}</version>
            <scope>runtime</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
</plugin>

Some remarks about the code snippet above:

  • the includes should match your personal preferences
  • the excludeTags (you may also use includeTags) allow you to filter tests that you’re not interested in; I usually do this to distinguish between fast & slow-running tests that you’d rather only execute when a certain Maven profile is active. The ability to easily tag and filter tests is a nice improvement of JUnit 5
  • the dependencies of the plugin ensure that the JUnit provider for Surefire is active; that’s what allows Surefire to find the JUnit 5+ tests

Add the following repositories:

<repositories>
    ...
    <repository>
        <id>sonatype-snaphosts</id>
        <url>https://oss.sonatype.org/content/repositories/snapshots</url>
        <snapshots>
            <!-- Always update snapshot JARs -->
            <updatePolicy>always</updatePolicy>
            <enabled>true</enabled>
        </snapshots>
    </repository>
</repositories>

<pluginRepositories>
    <pluginRepository>
        <id>sonatype-snaphosts</id>
        <url>https://oss.sonatype.org/content/repositories/snapshots</url>
        <releases>
            <enabled>false</enabled>
        </releases>
        <snapshots>
            <!-- Always update snapshot JARs -->
            <updatePolicy>always</updatePolicy>
            <enabled>true</enabled>
        </snapshots>
    </pluginRepository>
    <pluginRepository>
        <id>spring-snapshots</id>
        <name>Spring Snapshots</name>
        <url>https://repo.spring.io/snapshot</url>
        <releases>
            <enabled>false</enabled>
        </releases>
        <snapshots>
            <enabled>true</enabled>
        </snapshots>
    </pluginRepository>
    ...
</pluginRepositories>

Finally, create a file called junit-platform.properties in src/test/resources:

# JUnit configuration
junit.jupiter.testinstance.lifecycle.default = per_class
junit.jupiter.conditions.deactivate = *
junit.jupier.extensions.autodetection.enabled = true

Reference: http://junit.org/junit5/docs/current/user-guide/#running-tests-config-params

Mockito Extension

At the time of writing, Mockito doesn’t support JUnit 5 yet: https://github.com/mockito/mockito/issues/445

So for the time being, some manual plumbing is required.

JUnit 5+ uses an extension model rather than the old “test runner” that we’re used to (@RunWith): http://junit.org/junit5/docs/current/user-guide/#extensions

The guys behind JUnit have written and published such an extension for Mockito: https://github.com/junit-team/junit5-samples/blob/master/junit5-mockito-extension/src/main/java/com/example/mockito/MockitoExtension.java

Here’s a basic Kotlin conversion of that code; you’ll need it in your codebase for now:

package who.cares.mockito

import org.junit.jupiter.api.extension.ExtensionContext
import org.junit.jupiter.api.extension.ParameterContext
import org.junit.jupiter.api.extension.ParameterResolver
import org.junit.jupiter.api.extension.TestInstancePostProcessor
import org.mockito.Mock
import org.mockito.Mockito.mock
import org.mockito.MockitoAnnotations
import java.lang.reflect.Parameter

// TODO remove once Mockito officially supports Junit 5+
// See: https://github.com/mockito/mockito/issues/445

/**
 * JUnit 5+ extension for Mockito
 * Reference: https://github.com/junit-team/junit5-samples/blob/master/junit5-mockito-extension/src/main/java/com/example/mockito/MockitoExtension.java
 */
class MockitoExtension : TestInstancePostProcessor, ParameterResolver {

    override fun postProcessTestInstance(testInstance: Any,
                                         context: ExtensionContext) {
        MockitoAnnotations.initMocks(testInstance)
    }

    override fun supportsParameter(parameterContext: ParameterContext,
                                   extensionContext: ExtensionContext): Boolean {
        return parameterContext.parameter.isAnnotationPresent(Mock::class.java)
    }

    override fun resolveParameter(parameterContext: ParameterContext,
                                  extensionContext: ExtensionContext): Any {
        return getMock(parameterContext.parameter, extensionContext)
    }

    private fun getMock(
            parameter: Parameter, extensionContext: ExtensionContext): Any {

        val mockType = parameter.type
        val mocks = extensionContext.getStore(ExtensionContext.Namespace.create(
                MockitoExtension::class.java, mockType))
        val mockName = getMockName(parameter)

        return if (mockName != null) {
            mocks.getOrComputeIfAbsent(
                    mockName, { _ -> mock(mockType, mockName) })
        } else {
            mocks.getOrComputeIfAbsent(
                    mockType.canonicalName, { _ -> mock(mockType) })
        }
    }

    private fun getMockName(parameter: Parameter): String? {
        val explicitMockName = parameter.getAnnotation(Mock::class.java)
                .name.trim()
        if (!explicitMockName.isEmpty()) {
            return explicitMockName
        } else if (parameter.isNamePresent) {
            return parameter.name
        }
        return null;
    }
}

With the above extension on your classpath, you can now add this to your Mockito-based tests:

@ExtendWith(MockitoExtension::class)

Adapting existing tests

Well sorry but let’s not reinvent the wheel here, the official migration guide should provide you with more than enough information :)

That's it for today! ✨

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About Sébastien

I am Sébastien Dubois. You can follow me on X 🐦 and on BlueSky 🦋.


I am an author, founder, and coach. I write books and articles about Knowledge Work, Personal Knowledge Management, Note-taking, Lifelong Learning, Personal Organization, and Zen Productivity. I also craft lovely digital products . You can learn more about my projects here.

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