How do you assert that a certain exception is thrown in JUnit 4 tests?

Question

How can I use JUnit4 idiomatically to test that some code throws an exception?

While I can certainly do something like this:

@Test
public void testFo         


        

Answer 1

Additionally to what NamShubWriter has said, make sure that:

• The ExpectedException instance is public (Related Question)
• The ExpectedException isn't instantiated in say, the @Before method. This post clearly explains all the intricacies of JUnit's order of execution.

Do not do this:

@Rule    
public ExpectedException expectedException;

@Before
public void setup()
{
    expectedException = ExpectedException.none();
}

Finally, this blog post clearly illustrates how to assert that a certain exception is thrown.