Handling Exception

Definition:

It occurs when developers do not use language constructs to handle exceptions, which may vary from JUnit versions. For example, JUnit4 provides the @Rule and @Test expected annotations, while JUnit5 provides the assertThrows method to verify the exception raised by a method.

Consequences:

This can lead to inconsistent test results and obscure the actual behavior of the code under test, making it difficult to identify and resolve potential issues.

Detection:

#. Identify try/catch blocks. Peruma et al. (2019) state that the Exception Handling test smell occurs when a test method contains either a throw statement or catch statement. #. Identify @Rule annotation. The @Rule annotation checks whether a test method throws an exception through the ExpectedException rule. That annotation does not require the developer to customize the exception handling or throw an exception to pass or fail the test.

Refactorings:

• Replace try/catch block with @Test expected annotation

• Replace the try/catch, @Test expected and @Rule annotations with the assertThrows method