Does JUnit support properties files for tests?

Question

I have JUnit tests that need to run in various different staging environments. Each of the environments have different login credentials or other aspects that are specific to that environment. My plan is to pass an environment variable into the VM to indicate which environment to use. Then use that var to read from a properties file.

Does JUnit have any build in capabilities to read a .properties file?

Answer 1

It is usually preferred to use class path relative files for unit test properties, so they can run without worrying about file paths. The path may be different on your dev box, or the build server, or where ever. This will also work from ant, maven, eclipse without changes.

private Properties props = new Properties();  InputStream is = ClassLoader.getSystemResourceAsStream("unittest.properties"); try {   props.load(is); } catch (IOException e) {  // Handle exception here } 

putting the "unittest.properties" file at the root of the classpath.

Answer 2

java has built in capabilities to read a .properties file and JUnit has built in capabilities to run setup code before executing a test suite.

java reading properties:

Properties p = new Properties(); p.load(new FileReader(new File("config.properties"))); 

junit startup documentation

put those 2 together and you should have what you need.