Why must jUnit's fixtureSetup be static?

I marked a method with jUnit's @BeforeClass annotation, and got this exception saying it must be static. What's the rationale? This forces all my init to be on static fields, for no good reason as far as I see.

In .Net (NUnit), this is not the case.

Edit - the fact that a method annotated with @BeforeClass runs only once has nothing to do with it being a static method - one can have a non-static method run only once (as in NUnit).

JUnit always creates one instance of the test class for each @Test method. This is a fundamental design decision to make it easier to write tests without side-effects. Good tests do not have any order-of-run dependencies (see F.I.R.S.T) and creating fresh instances of the test class and its instance variables for each test is crucial in achieving this. Some testing frameworks reuse the same test class instance for all tests, which leads to more possibilities of accidentally creating side-effects between tests.

And because each test method has its own instance, it makes no sense for the @BeforeClass/@AfterClass methods to be instance methods. Otherwise, on which of the test class instances should the methods be called? If it would be possible for the @BeforeClass/@AfterClass methods to reference instance variables, then only one of the @Test methods would have access to those same instance variables - the rest would have the instance variables at their default values - and the @Test method would be randomly selected, because the order of methods in the .class file is unspecified/compiler-dependent (IIRC, Java's reflection API returns the methods in the same order as they are declared in the .class file, although also that behaviour is unspecified - I have written a library for actually sorting them by their line numbers).

So enforcing those methods to be static is the only reasonable solution.

Here is an example:

public class ExampleTest {

    @BeforeClass
    public static void beforeClass() {
        System.out.println("beforeClass");
    }

    @AfterClass
    public static void afterClass() {
        System.out.println("afterClass");
    }

    @Before
    public void before() {
        System.out.println(this + "\tbefore");
    }

    @After
    public void after() {
        System.out.println(this + "\tafter");
    }

    @Test
    public void test1() {
        System.out.println(this + "\ttest1");
    }

    @Test
    public void test2() {
        System.out.println(this + "\ttest2");
    }

    @Test
    public void test3() {
        System.out.println(this + "\ttest3");
    }
}

Which prints:

beforeClass
ExampleTest@3358fd70	before
ExampleTest@3358fd70	test1
ExampleTest@3358fd70	after
ExampleTest@6293068a	before
ExampleTest@6293068a	test2
ExampleTest@6293068a	after
ExampleTest@22928095	before
ExampleTest@22928095	test3
ExampleTest@22928095	after
afterClass

As you can see, each of the tests is executed with its own instance. What JUnit does is basically the same as this:

ExampleTest.beforeClass();

ExampleTest t1 = new ExampleTest();
t1.before();
t1.test1();
t1.after();

ExampleTest t2 = new ExampleTest();
t2.before();
t2.test2();
t2.after();

ExampleTest t3 = new ExampleTest();
t3.before();
t3.test3();
t3.after();

ExampleTest.afterClass();

The short answer is this: there is no good reason for it to be static.

In fact, making it static causes all sorts of problems if you use Junit to execute DBUnit based DAO integration tests. The static requirement interferes with dependency injection, application context access, resource handling, logging, and anything that depends on "getClass".

JUnit documentation seems scarce, but I'll guess: perhaps JUnit creates a new instance of your test class before running each test case, so the only way for your "fixture" state to persist across runs is to have it be static, which can be enforced by making sure your fixtureSetup (@BeforeClass method) is static.

It seems that JUnit creates a new instance of the test class for each test method. Try this code out

public class TestJunit
{

    int count = 0;

    @Test
    public void testInc1(){
        System.out.println(count++);
    }

    @Test
    public void testInc2(){
        System.out.println(count++);
    }

    @Test
    public void testInc3(){
        System.out.println(count++);
    }
}

The output is 0 0 0

This means that if the @BeforeClass method is not static then it will have to be executed before each test method and there would be no way to differentiate between the semantics of @Before and @BeforeClass

Though this won't answer the original question. It will answers the obvious follow up. How to create a rule that works before and after a class and before and after a test.

To achieve that you can use this pattern:

@ClassRule
public static JPAConnection jpaConnection = JPAConnection.forUITest("my-persistence-unit");

@Rule
public JPAConnection.EntityManager entityManager = jpaConnection.getEntityManager();

On before(Class) the JPAConnection creates the connection once on after(Class) it closes it.

getEntityManger returns an inner class of JPAConnection that implements jpa's EntityManager and can access the connection inside the jpaConnection. On before (test) it begins a transaction on after (test) it rolls it back again.

This isn't thread-safe but can be made to be so.

Selected code of JPAConnection.class

package com.triodos.general.junit;

import com.triodos.log.Logger;
import org.jetbrains.annotations.NotNull;
import org.junit.rules.ExternalResource;

import javax.persistence.EntityManagerFactory;
import javax.persistence.EntityTransaction;
import javax.persistence.FlushModeType;
import javax.persistence.LockModeType;
import javax.persistence.Persistence;
import javax.persistence.Query;
import javax.persistence.TypedQuery;
import javax.persistence.criteria.CriteriaBuilder;
import javax.persistence.criteria.CriteriaQuery;
import javax.persistence.metamodel.Metamodel;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;

import static com.google.common.base.Preconditions.checkState;
import static com.triodos.dbconn.DB2DriverManager.DRIVERNAME_TYPE4;
import static com.triodos.dbconn.UnitTestProperties.getDatabaseConnectionProperties;
import static com.triodos.dbconn.UnitTestProperties.getPassword;
import static com.triodos.dbconn.UnitTestProperties.getUsername;
import static java.lang.String.valueOf;
import static java.sql.Connection.TRANSACTION_READ_UNCOMMITTED;

public final class JPAConnectionExample extends ExternalResource {

  private static final Logger LOG = Logger.getLogger(JPAConnectionExample.class);

  @NotNull
  public static JPAConnectionExample forUITest(String persistenceUnitName) {
    return new JPAConnectionExample(persistenceUnitName)
        .setManualEntityManager();
  }

  private final String persistenceUnitName;
  private EntityManagerFactory entityManagerFactory;
  private javax.persistence.EntityManager jpaEntityManager = null;
  private EntityManager entityManager;

  private JPAConnectionExample(String persistenceUnitName) {
    this.persistenceUnitName = persistenceUnitName;
  }

  @NotNull
  private JPAConnectionExample setEntityManager(EntityManager entityManager) {
    this.entityManager = entityManager;
    return this;
  }

  @NotNull
  private JPAConnectionExample setManualEntityManager() {
    return setEntityManager(new RollBackAfterTestEntityManager());
  }


  @Override
  protected void before() {
    entityManagerFactory = Persistence.createEntityManagerFactory(persistenceUnitName, createEntityManagerProperties());
    jpaEntityManager = entityManagerFactory.createEntityManager();
  }

  @Override
  protected void after() {

    if (jpaEntityManager.getTransaction().isActive()) {
      jpaEntityManager.getTransaction().rollback();
    }

    if(jpaEntityManager.isOpen()) {
      jpaEntityManager.close();
    }
    // Free for garbage collection as an instance
    // of EntityManager may be assigned to a static variable
    jpaEntityManager = null;

    entityManagerFactory.close();
    // Free for garbage collection as an instance
    // of JPAConnection may be assigned to a static variable
    entityManagerFactory = null;
  }

  private Map<String,String> createEntityManagerProperties(){
    Map<String, String> properties = new HashMap<>();
    properties.put("javax.persistence.jdbc.url", getDatabaseConnectionProperties().getURL());
    properties.put("javax.persistence.jtaDataSource", null);
    properties.put("hibernate.connection.isolation", valueOf(TRANSACTION_READ_UNCOMMITTED));
    properties.put("hibernate.connection.username", getUsername());
    properties.put("hibernate.connection.password", getPassword());
    properties.put("hibernate.connection.driver_class", DRIVERNAME_TYPE4);
    properties.put("org.hibernate.readOnly", valueOf(true));

    return properties;
  }

  @NotNull
  public EntityManager getEntityManager(){
    checkState(entityManager != null);
    return entityManager;
  }


  private final class RollBackAfterTestEntityManager extends EntityManager {

    @Override
    protected void before() throws Throwable {
      super.before();
      jpaEntityManager.getTransaction().begin();
    }

    @Override
    protected void after() {
      super.after();

      if (jpaEntityManager.getTransaction().isActive()) {
        jpaEntityManager.getTransaction().rollback();
      }
    }
  }

  public abstract class EntityManager extends ExternalResource implements javax.persistence.EntityManager {

    @Override
    protected void before() throws Throwable {
      checkState(jpaEntityManager != null, "JPAConnection was not initialized. Is it a @ClassRule? Did the test runner invoke the rule?");

      // Safety-close, if failed to close in setup
      if (jpaEntityManager.getTransaction().isActive()) {
        jpaEntityManager.getTransaction().rollback();
        LOG.error("EntityManager encountered an open transaction at the start of a test. Transaction has been closed but should have been closed in the setup method");
      }
    }

    @Override
    protected void after() {
      checkState(jpaEntityManager != null, "JPAConnection was not initialized. Is it a @ClassRule? Did the test runner invoke the rule?");
    }

    @Override
    public final void persist(Object entity) {
      jpaEntityManager.persist(entity);
    }

    @Override
    public final <T> T merge(T entity) {
      return jpaEntityManager.merge(entity);
    }

    @Override
    public final void remove(Object entity) {
      jpaEntityManager.remove(entity);
    }

    @Override
    public final <T> T find(Class<T> entityClass, Object primaryKey) {
      return jpaEntityManager.find(entityClass, primaryKey);
    }

    @Override
    public final <T> T find(Class<T> entityClass, Object primaryKey, Map<String, Object> properties) {
      return jpaEntityManager.find(entityClass, primaryKey, properties);
    }

    @Override
    public final <T> T find(Class<T> entityClass, Object primaryKey, LockModeType lockMode) {
      return jpaEntityManager.find(entityClass, primaryKey, lockMode);
    }

    @Override
    public final <T> T find(Class<T> entityClass, Object primaryKey, LockModeType lockMode, Map<String, Object> properties) {
      return jpaEntityManager.find(entityClass, primaryKey, lockMode, properties);
    }

    @Override
    public final <T> T getReference(Class<T> entityClass, Object primaryKey) {
      return jpaEntityManager.getReference(entityClass, primaryKey);
    }

    @Override
    public final void flush() {
      jpaEntityManager.flush();
    }

    @Override
    public final void setFlushMode(FlushModeType flushMode) {
      jpaEntityManager.setFlushMode(flushMode);
    }

    @Override
    public final FlushModeType getFlushMode() {
      return jpaEntityManager.getFlushMode();
    }

    @Override
    public final void lock(Object entity, LockModeType lockMode) {
      jpaEntityManager.lock(entity, lockMode);
    }

    @Override
    public final void lock(Object entity, LockModeType lockMode, Map<String, Object> properties) {
      jpaEntityManager.lock(entity, lockMode, properties);
    }

    @Override
    public final void refresh(Object entity) {
      jpaEntityManager.refresh(entity);
    }

    @Override
    public final void refresh(Object entity, Map<String, Object> properties) {
      jpaEntityManager.refresh(entity, properties);
    }

    @Override
    public final void refresh(Object entity, LockModeType lockMode) {
      jpaEntityManager.refresh(entity, lockMode);
    }

    @Override
    public final void refresh(Object entity, LockModeType lockMode, Map<String, Object> properties) {
      jpaEntityManager.refresh(entity, lockMode, properties);
    }

    @Override
    public final void clear() {
      jpaEntityManager.clear();
    }

    @Override
    public final void detach(Object entity) {
      jpaEntityManager.detach(entity);
    }

    @Override
    public final boolean contains(Object entity) {
      return jpaEntityManager.contains(entity);
    }

    @Override
    public final LockModeType getLockMode(Object entity) {
      return jpaEntityManager.getLockMode(entity);
    }

    @Override
    public final void setProperty(String propertyName, Object value) {
      jpaEntityManager.setProperty(propertyName, value);
    }

    @Override
    public final Map<String, Object> getProperties() {
      return jpaEntityManager.getProperties();
    }

    @Override
    public final Query createQuery(String qlString) {
      return jpaEntityManager.createQuery(qlString);
    }

    @Override
    public final <T> TypedQuery<T> createQuery(CriteriaQuery<T> criteriaQuery) {
      return jpaEntityManager.createQuery(criteriaQuery);
    }

    @Override
    public final <T> TypedQuery<T> createQuery(String qlString, Class<T> resultClass) {
      return jpaEntityManager.createQuery(qlString, resultClass);
    }

    @Override
    public final Query createNamedQuery(String name) {
      return jpaEntityManager.createNamedQuery(name);
    }

    @Override
    public final <T> TypedQuery<T> createNamedQuery(String name, Class<T> resultClass) {
      return jpaEntityManager.createNamedQuery(name, resultClass);
    }

    @Override
    public final Query createNativeQuery(String sqlString) {
      return jpaEntityManager.createNativeQuery(sqlString);
    }

    @Override
    public final Query createNativeQuery(String sqlString, Class resultClass) {
      return jpaEntityManager.createNativeQuery(sqlString, resultClass);
    }

    @Override
    public final Query createNativeQuery(String sqlString, String resultSetMapping) {
      return jpaEntityManager.createNativeQuery(sqlString, resultSetMapping);
    }

    @Override
    public final void joinTransaction() {
      jpaEntityManager.joinTransaction();
    }

    @Override
    public final <T> T unwrap(Class<T> cls) {
      return jpaEntityManager.unwrap(cls);
    }

    @Override
    public final Object getDelegate() {
      return jpaEntityManager.getDelegate();
    }

    @Override
    public final void close() {
      jpaEntityManager.close();
    }

    @Override
    public final boolean isOpen() {
      return jpaEntityManager.isOpen();
    }

    @Override
    public final EntityTransaction getTransaction() {
      return jpaEntityManager.getTransaction();
    }

    @Override
    public final EntityManagerFactory getEntityManagerFactory() {
      return jpaEntityManager.getEntityManagerFactory();
    }

    @Override
    public final CriteriaBuilder getCriteriaBuilder() {
      return jpaEntityManager.getCriteriaBuilder();
    }

    @Override
    public final Metamodel getMetamodel() {
      return jpaEntityManager.getMetamodel();
    }
  }
}

there are two types of annotations:

• @BeforeClass (@AfterClass) called once per test class
• @Before (and @After) called before each test

so @BeforeClass must be declared static because it is called once. You should also consider that being static is the only way to ensure proper "state" propagation between tests (JUnit model imposes one test instance per @Test) and, since in Java only static methods can access static data... @BeforeClass and @AfterClass can be applied only to static methods.

This example test should clarify @BeforeClass vs @Before usage:

public class OrderTest {

    @BeforeClass
    public static void beforeClass() {
        System.out.println("before class");
    }

    @AfterClass
    public static void afterClass() {
        System.out.println("after class");
    }

    @Before
    public void before() {
        System.out.println("before");
    }

    @After
    public void after() {
        System.out.println("after");
    }    

    @Test
    public void test1() {
        System.out.println("test 1");
    }

    @Test
    public void test2() {
        System.out.println("test 2");
    }
}

output:

------------- Standard Output ---------------
before class
before
test 1
after
before
test 2
after
after class

As per JUnit 5, it seems the philosophy on strictly creating a new instance per test method has been somewhat loosened. They have added an annotation that will instantiate a test class only once. This annotation therefore also allows methods annotated with @BeforeAll/@AfterAll (the replacements to @BeforeClass/@AfterClass) to be non-static. So, a test class like this:

@TestInstance(Lifecycle.PER_CLASS)
class TestClass() {
    Object object;

    @BeforeAll
    void beforeAll() {
        object = new Object();
    }

    @Test
    void testOne() {
        System.out.println(object);
    }

    @Test
    void testTwo() {
        System.out.println(object);
    }
}

would print:

java.lang.Object@799d4f69
java.lang.Object@799d4f69

So, you can actually instantiate objects once per test class. Of course, this does make it your own responsibility to avoid mutating objects that are instantiated this way.

To resolve this issue just change the method

public void setUpBeforeClass 

to

public static void setUpBeforeClass()

and all that are defined in this method to static.