Spring DAO Test Fails - says "requires JUnit 4.12 or higher"

Question

I'm trying to write a DAO test using Spring. When I run the test, it errors out with the following stack trace below. I don't know why I am getting an error when I believe I am including the proper version of JUnit.

java.lang.ExceptionInInitializerError
    at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.java:62)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:45)
    at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Constructor.java:423)
    at org.junit.internal.builders.AnnotatedBuilder.buildRunner(AnnotatedBuilder.java:31)
    at org.junit.internal.builders.AnnotatedBuilder.runnerForClass(AnnotatedBuilder.java:24)
    at org.junit.runners.model.RunnerBuilder.safeRunnerForClass(RunnerBuilder.java:57)
    at org.junit.internal.builders.AllDefaultPossibilitiesBuilder.runnerForClass(AllDefaultPossibilitiesBuilder.java:29)
    at org.junit.runners.model.RunnerBuilder.safeRunnerForClass(RunnerBuilder.java:57)
    at org.junit.internal.requests.ClassRequest.getRunner(ClassRequest.java:24)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit4.runner.JUnit4TestLoader.createUnfilteredTest(JUnit4TestLoader.java:84)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit4.runner.JUnit4TestLoader.createTest(JUnit4TestLoader.java:70)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit4.runner.JUnit4TestLoader.loadTests(JUnit4TestLoader.java:43)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.runTests(RemoteTestRunner.java:444)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.runTests(RemoteTestRunner.java:678)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.run(RemoteTestRunner.java:382)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.main(RemoteTestRunner.java:192)
Caused by: java.lang.IllegalStateException: SpringJUnit4ClassRunner requires JUnit 4.12 or higher.
    at org.springframework.test.context.junit4.SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.<clinit>(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.java:102)
    ... 17 more

What I don't understand is that in my pom.xml, I am including JUnit 4.9 (I checked the resolved dependency for JUnit, and it also indicates 4.9):

<dependencies>
    <!-- Spring -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-context</artifactId>
        <version>${org.springframework-version}</version>
        <exclusions>
            <!-- Exclude Commons Logging in favor of SLF4j -->
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>commons-logging</groupId>
                <artifactId>commons-logging</artifactId>
             </exclusion>
        </exclusions>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
        <version>${org.springframework-version}</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-jdbc</artifactId>
        <version>${org.springframework-version}</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-test</artifactId>
        <version>${org.springframework-version}</version>
        <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>

    <!-- AspectJ -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.aspectj</groupId>
        <artifactId>aspectjrt</artifactId>
        <version>${org.aspectj-version}</version>
    </dependency>   

    <!-- Logging -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
        <artifactId>slf4j-api</artifactId>
        <version>${org.slf4j-version}</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
        <artifactId>jcl-over-slf4j</artifactId>
        <version>${org.slf4j-version}</version>
        <scope>runtime</scope>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
        <artifactId>slf4j-log4j12</artifactId>
        <version>${org.slf4j-version}</version>
        <scope>runtime</scope>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>log4j</groupId>
        <artifactId>log4j</artifactId>
        <version>1.2.15</version>
        <exclusions>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>javax.mail</groupId>
                <artifactId>mail</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>javax.jms</groupId>
                <artifactId>jms</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>com.sun.jdmk</groupId>
                <artifactId>jmxtools</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>com.sun.jmx</groupId>
                <artifactId>jmxri</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
        </exclusions>
        <scope>runtime</scope>
    </dependency>

    <!-- @Inject -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.inject</groupId>
        <artifactId>javax.inject</artifactId>
        <version>1</version>
    </dependency>

    <!-- Servlet -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
        <artifactId>servlet-api</artifactId>
        <version>2.5</version>
        <scope>provided</scope>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.servlet.jsp</groupId>
        <artifactId>jsp-api</artifactId>
        <version>2.1</version>
        <scope>provided</scope>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
        <artifactId>jstl</artifactId>
        <version>1.2</version>
    </dependency>

    <!-- Test -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>junit</groupId>
        <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
        <version>4.9</version>
        <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>    
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.mockito</groupId>
        <artifactId>mockito-core</artifactId>
        <version>1.9.5</version>
        <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>

    <!-- Database -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>mysql</groupId>
        <artifactId>mysql-connector-java</artifactId>
        <version>5.1.21</version>
    </dependency>

</dependencies>

Here are the relevant Java files:

@RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class)
@ContextConfiguration(classes = {TestDatabaseConfig.class, PersonDao.class})
@Transactional
public class PersonDaoTest {

    @Autowired
    IPersonDao personDao;

    Person expectedPerson;

    @Before
    public void setUp() {

        expectedPerson = new PersonBuilder()
                .firstName("Elvis")
                .lastName("Presley")
                .build();
    }

    @Test
    public void getAll() {

        personDao.insert(expectedPerson);

        List<Person> actualPersons = personDao.getAll();

        assertNotNull(actualPersons);
        assertEquals(1, actualPersons.size());
    }

    @After
    public void tearDown() {

    }
}

And the configuration:

@Configuration
public class TestDatabaseConfig {

    @Bean
    public DataSource dataSource() {

        DriverManagerDataSource dataSource = new DriverManagerDataSource();

        dataSource.setDriverClassName("com.mysql.jdbc.Driver");
        dataSource.setUrl("jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/springWeb_test");
        dataSource.setUsername("springweb");
        dataSource.setPassword("springweb");

        return dataSource;
    }

    @Bean
    public JdbcTemplate jdbcTemplate() {

        JdbcTemplate jdbcTemplate = new JdbcTemplate();
        jdbcTemplate.setDataSource(dataSource());

        return jdbcTemplate;
    }
}

Solution 1

<!-- Test -->
<dependency>
    <groupId>junit</groupId>
    <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
    <version>4.9</version>
    <scope>test</scope>
</dependency> 

Your jUnit version is 4.9. You need to update it to 4.12 or above like this:

<!-- Test -->
<dependency>
    <groupId>junit</groupId>
    <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
    <version>4.12</version>
    <scope>test</scope>
</dependency> 

Solution 2

This is the class SpringJUnit4ClassRunner source code:

public class SpringJUnit4ClassRunner extends BlockJUnit4ClassRunner {

private static final Log logger = LogFactory.getLog(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class);

private static final Method withRulesMethod;

static {
    if (!ClassUtils.isPresent("org.junit.internal.Throwables", SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class.getClassLoader())) {
        throw new IllegalStateException("SpringJUnit4ClassRunner requires JUnit 4.12 or higher.");
    }

    withRulesMethod = ReflectionUtils.findMethod(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class, "withRules",
            FrameworkMethod.class, Object.class, Statement.class);
    if (withRulesMethod == null) {
        throw new IllegalStateException("SpringJUnit4ClassRunner requires JUnit 4.12 or higher.");
    }
    ReflectionUtils.makeAccessible(withRulesMethod);
}...

So just upgrade the junit version

Comments

[Scott Stella]

I agree @hishammuddin-sani that this fixes the problem, but the message states that I can use 4.12 or higher...4.9 should work!

[hishammuddin-sani]

4.12 is higher than 4.9 as in 4.9, 4.10, 4.11, 4.12

[Scott Stella]

Oh, ok, you are right. I thought 4.9 was higher than 4.12. The version naming is a bit confusing. Thanks for the help!

[devinbost]

I'm still getting this error even after updating my POM file to use version 4.12. Any ideas?