JUnit testing with simulated user input

I am trying to create some JUnit tests for a method that requires user input. The method under test looks somewhat like the following method:

public static int testUserInput() {
    Scanner keyboard = new Scanner(System.in);
    System.out.println("Give a number between 1 and 10");
    int input = keyboard.nextInt();

    while (input < 1 || input > 10) {
        System.out.println("Wrong number, try again.");
        input = keyboard.nextInt();
    }

    return input;
}

Is there a possible way to automatically pass the program an int instead of me or someone else doing this manually in the JUnit test method? Like simulating the user input?

Thanks in advance.

You can replace System.in with you own stream by calling System.setIn(InputStream in). InputStream can be a byte array:

InputStream sysInBackup = System.in; // backup System.in to restore it later
ByteArrayInputStream in = new ByteArrayInputStream("My string".getBytes());
System.setIn(in);

// do your thing

// optionally, reset System.in to its original
System.setIn(sysInBackup);

Different approach can be make this method more testable by passing IN and OUT as parameters:

public static int testUserInput(InputStream in,PrintStream out) {
    Scanner keyboard = new Scanner(in);
    out.println("Give a number between 1 and 10");
    int input = keyboard.nextInt();

    while (input < 1 || input > 10) {
        out.println("Wrong number, try again.");
        input = keyboard.nextInt();
    }

    return input;
}

To test drive your code, you should create a wrapper for system input/output functions. You can do this using dependency injection, giving us a class that can ask for new integers:

public static class IntegerAsker {
    private final Scanner scanner;
    private final PrintStream out;

    public IntegerAsker(InputStream in, PrintStream out) {
        scanner = new Scanner(in);
        this.out = out;
    }

    public int ask(String message) {
        out.println(message);
        return scanner.nextInt();
    }
}

Then you can create tests for your function, using a mock framework (I use Mockito):

@Test
public void getsIntegerWhenWithinBoundsOfOneToTen() throws Exception {
    IntegerAsker asker = mock(IntegerAsker.class);
    when(asker.ask(anyString())).thenReturn(3);

    assertEquals(getBoundIntegerFromUser(asker), 3);
}

@Test
public void asksForNewIntegerWhenOutsideBoundsOfOneToTen() throws Exception {
    IntegerAsker asker = mock(IntegerAsker.class);
    when(asker.ask("Give a number between 1 and 10")).thenReturn(99);
    when(asker.ask("Wrong number, try again.")).thenReturn(3);

    getBoundIntegerFromUser(asker);

    verify(asker).ask("Wrong number, try again.");
}

Then write your function that passes the tests. The function is much cleaner since you can remove the asking/getting integer duplication and the actual system calls are encapsulated.

public static void main(String[] args) {
    getBoundIntegerFromUser(new IntegerAsker(System.in, System.out));
}

public static int getBoundIntegerFromUser(IntegerAsker asker) {
    int input = asker.ask("Give a number between 1 and 10");
    while (input < 1 || input > 10)
        input = asker.ask("Wrong number, try again.");
    return input;
}

This may seem like overkill for your small example, but if you are building a larger application developing like this can payoff rather quickly.

One common way to test similar code would be to extract a method that takes in a Scanner and a PrintWriter, similar to this StackOverflow answer, and test that:

public void processUserInput() {
  processUserInput(new Scanner(System.in), System.out);
}

/** For testing. Package-private if possible. */
public void processUserInput(Scanner scanner, PrintWriter output) {
  output.println("Give a number between 1 and 10");
  int input = scanner.nextInt();

  while (input < 1 || input > 10) {
    output.println("Wrong number, try again.");
    input = scanner.nextInt();
  }

  return input;
}

Do note that you won't be able to read your output until the end, and you'll have to specify all of your input up front:

@Test
public void shouldProcessUserInput() {
  StringWriter output = new StringWriter();
  String input = "11\n"       // "Wrong number, try again."
               + "10\n";

  assertEquals(10, systemUnderTest.processUserInput(
      new Scanner(input), new PrintWriter(output)));

  assertThat(output.toString(), contains("Wrong number, try again.")););
}

Of course, rather than creating an overload method, you could also keep the "scanner" and "output" as mutable fields in your system under test. I tend to like keeping classes as stateless as possible, but that's not a very big concession if it matters to you or your coworkers/instructor.

You might also choose to put your test code in the same Java package as the code under test (even if it's in a different source folder), which allows you to relax the visibility of the two parameter overload to be package-private.

I managed to find a simpler way. However, you have to use external library System.rules by @Stefan Birkner

I just took the example provided there, I think it couldn't have gotten more simpler:

import java.util.Scanner;

public class Summarize {
  public static int sumOfNumbersFromSystemIn() {
    Scanner scanner = new Scanner(System.in);
    int firstSummand = scanner.nextInt();
    int secondSummand = scanner.nextInt();
    return firstSummand + secondSummand;
  }
}

Test

import static org.junit.Assert.*;
import static org.junit.contrib.java.lang.system.TextFromStandardInputStream.*;

import org.junit.Rule;
import org.junit.Test;
import org.junit.contrib.java.lang.system.TextFromStandardInputStream;

public class SummarizeTest {
  @Rule
  public final TextFromStandardInputStream systemInMock
    = emptyStandardInputStream();

  @Test
  public void summarizesTwoNumbers() {
    systemInMock.provideLines("1", "2");
    assertEquals(3, Summarize.sumOfNumbersFromSystemIn());
  }
}

The problem however in my case my second input has spaces and this makes the whole input stream null!