Junit: overriding original class private methods

[Robert M. Gary]

I have a class that when run will call a private sendEfvent() method
that sends data to an external process. I would like to override that
behavior in testing and just report what is set to avoid the
complications, etc of having to use external processes during unit
testing.

I don't think I can just use an assertTrue() because I also want to
know how many times this private method is called (i.e. is it sending
the correct number of copies out)?

Is there a way I can cause Junit to stop the JRE from calling the true
sendEvent() method and instead call something in my test class??

-Robert

 

[Jim Korman]

I have a class that when run will call a private sendEfvent() method
that sends data to an external process. I would like to override that
behavior in testing and just report what is set to avoid the
complications, etc of having to use external processes during unit
testing.

I don't think I can just use an assertTrue() because I also want to
know how many times this private method is called (i.e. is it sending
the correct number of copies out)?

Is there a way I can cause Junit to stop the JRE from calling the true
sendEvent() method and instead call something in my test class??

-Robert

Consider using an Interface that exposes the send event behavior.
Then your sendEfvent() method calls this strategy's send method.

During testing you can set the strategy to a mock implementation that
counts data, or better yet, exposes the message so that you can then
unit test the message contents.

Jim