Test Smell: Unnecessary Test Code

Expect the exceptions

The test code that comprises testSearch() doesn’t expect any exceptions to be thrown. It contains a number of assertions against positive facts. If the test code throws an exception, a try/catch block catches it, spews a stack trace onto System.out, and explicitly fails the test.

In other words, exceptions are unexpected by this test method.

If our tests expect an exception to be thrown because we’ve explicitly designed the test to prepare for them, then we can simply let the exceptions fly.

Don’t worry, JUnit traps any exceptions that explode out of our test. JUnit marks a test that throws an exception as an error and displays the stack trace in its output. The explicit try/catch block adds no additional value.

try/catch removal

In the following code, remove the try/catch block and modify the signature of testSearch() to indicate that it can throw an IOException.

• Remove the try statement from line 14.
• Replace line 13 with:

public void testSearch() throws IOException {

• Remove the catch block from lines 46-49.
• Now run the test.