Getting Started with Mockito @Mock, @Spy, @Captor and @InjectMocks

1. Overview

In this tutorial, we’ll cover the annotations of the Mockito library – @Mock, @Spy, @Captor, and @InjectMocks.

For more Mockito goodness, have a look at the series here.

Further reading:

Mockito – Using Spies

Making good use of Spies in Mockito, and how spies are different from mocks.

Read more →

Mockito vs EasyMock vs JMockit

A quick and practical guide to understanding and comparing Java mocking libraries.

Read more →

Injecting Mockito Mocks into Spring Beans

This article will show how to use dependency injection to insert Mockito mocks into Spring Beans for unit testing.

Read more →

2. Enable Mockito Annotations

First – let’s see how to enable the use of annotations with Mockito tests.

In order for these annotations to be enabled, we’ll need to annotate the JUnit test with a runner – MockitoJUnitRunner as in the following example:

@RunWith(MockitoJUnitRunner.class)
public class MockitoAnnotationTest {
    ...
}

Alternatively, we can enable these annotations programmatically as well, by invoking MockitoAnnotations.initMocks() as in the following example:

@Before
public void init() {
    MockitoAnnotations.initMocks(this);
}

3. @Mock Annotation

The most used widely used annotation in Mockito is @Mock. We can use @Mock to create and inject mocked instances without having to call Mockito.mock manually.

In the following example – we’ll create a mocked ArrayList with the manual way without using @Mock annotation:

@Test
public void whenNotUseMockAnnotation_thenCorrect() {
    List mockList = Mockito.mock(ArrayList.class);

    mockList.add("one");
    Mockito.verify(mockList).add("one");
    assertEquals(0, mockList.size());

    Mockito.when(mockList.size()).thenReturn(100);
    assertEquals(100, mockList.size());
}

And now we’ll do the same but we’ll inject the mock using the @Mock annotation:

@Mock
List<String> mockedList;

@Test
public void whenUseMockAnnotation_thenMockIsInjected() {
    mockedList.add("one");
    Mockito.verify(mockedList).add("one");
    assertEquals(0, mockedList.size());

    Mockito.when(mockedList.size()).thenReturn(100);
    assertEquals(100, mockedList.size());
}

Note how – in both examples, we’re interacting with the mock and verifying some of these interactions – just to make sure that the mock is behaving correctly.

4. @Spy Annotation

Now – let’s see how to use @Spy annotation to spy on an existing instance.

In the following example – we create a spy of a List with the old way without using @Spy annotation:

@Test
public void whenNotUseSpyAnnotation_thenCorrect() {
    List<String> spyList = Mockito.spy(new ArrayList<String>());

    spyList.add("one");
    spyList.add("two");

    Mockito.verify(spyList).add("one");
    Mockito.verify(spyList).add("two");

    assertEquals(2, spyList.size());

    Mockito.doReturn(100).when(spyList).size();
    assertEquals(100, spyList.size());
}

Let’s now do the same – spy on the list – but do so using the @Spy annotation:

@Spy
List<String> spiedList = new ArrayList<String>();

@Test
public void whenUseSpyAnnotation_thenSpyIsInjectedCorrectly() {
    spiedList.add("one");
    spiedList.add("two");

    Mockito.verify(spiedList).add("one");
    Mockito.verify(spiedList).add("two");

    assertEquals(2, spiedList.size());

    Mockito.doReturn(100).when(spiedList).size();
    assertEquals(100, spiedList.size());
}

Note how, as before – we’re interacting with the spy here to make sure that it behaves correctly. In this example we:

  • Used the real method spiedList.add() to add elements to the spiedList.

  • Stubbed the method spiedList.size() to return 100 instead of 2 using Mockito.doReturn().

5. @Captor Annotation

Next – let’s see how to use the @Captor annotation to create an ArgumentCaptor instance.

In the following example – we create an ArgumentCaptor with the old way without using @Captor annotation:

@Test
public void whenNotUseCaptorAnnotation_thenCorrect() {
    List mockList = Mockito.mock(List.class);
    ArgumentCaptor<String> arg = ArgumentCaptor.forClass(String.class);

    mockList.add("one");
    Mockito.verify(mockList).add(arg.capture());

    assertEquals("one", arg.getValue());
}

Let’s now make use of @Captor for the same purpose – to create an ArgumentCaptor instance:

@Mock
List mockedList;

@Captor
ArgumentCaptor argCaptor;

@Test
public void whenUseCaptorAnnotation_thenTheSam() {
    mockedList.add("one");
    Mockito.verify(mockedList).add(argCaptor.capture());

    assertEquals("one", argCaptor.getValue());
}

Notice how the test becomes simpler and more readable when we take out the configuration logic.

6. @InjectMocks Annotation

Now – let’s discuss how to use @InjectMocks annotation – to inject mock fields into the tested object automatically.

In the following example – we use @InjectMocks to inject the mock wordMap into the MyDictionary dic:

@Mock
Map<String, String> wordMap;

@InjectMocks
MyDictionary dic = new MyDictionary();

@Test
public void whenUseInjectMocksAnnotation_thenCorrect() {
    Mockito.when(wordMap.get("aWord")).thenReturn("aMeaning");

    assertEquals("aMeaning", dic.getMeaning("aWord"));
}

And here is the class MyDictionary:

public class MyDictionary {
    Map<String, String> wordMap;

    public MyDictionary() {
        wordMap = new HashMap<String, String>();
    }
    public void add(final String word, final String meaning) {
        wordMap.put(word, meaning);
    }
    public String getMeaning(final String word) {
        return wordMap.get(word);
    }
}

7. Injecting a Mock into a Spy

Similar to the above test, we might want to inject a mock into a spy:

@Mock
Map<String, String> wordMap;

@Spy
MyDictionary spyDic = new MyDictionary();

However, Mockito doesn’t support injecting mocks into spies, and the following test results in an exception:

@Test
public void whenUseInjectMocksAnnotation_thenCorrect() {
    Mockito.when(wordMap.get("aWord")).thenReturn("aMeaning");

    assertEquals("aMeaning", spyDic.getMeaning("aWord"));
}

If we want to use a mock with a spy, we can manually inject the mock through a constructor:

MyDictionary(Map<String, String> wordMap) {
    this.wordMap = wordMap;
}

Instead of using the annotation, we can now create the spy manually:

@Mock
Map<String, String> wordMap;

MyDictionary spyDic;

@Before
public void init() {
    MockitoAnnotations.initMocks(this);
    spyDic = Mockito.spy(new MyDictionary(wordMap));
}

The test will now pass.

8. Running into NPE While Using Annotation __

Often, we may run into NullPointerException when we try to actually use the instance annotated with @Mockor @Spy, as in the example:

public class NPETest {

    @Mock
    List mockedList;

    @Test
    public void test() {
        Mockito.when(mockedList.size()).thenReturn(1);
    }
}

Most of the time this happens simply because we forgot to properly enable Mockito annotations.

So we have to keep in mind, that each time we want to use Mockito annotations we must take an extra step and initialize them as we already explained earlier.

9. Notes

Finally – here are some notes about Mockito annotations:

  • Use annotation to minimize repetitive mock creation code

  • Use annotation to make the test more readable

  • Use @InjectMocks to inject both @Spy and @Mock instances

10. Conclusion

In this quick tutorial, we showed the basics of annotations in the Mockito library.

The implementation of all these examples can be found over on GitHub. This is a Maven project, so it should be easy to import and run as it is.

And of course, for more Mockito goodness, have a look at the series here.

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