Why is my import of the containsString method not working?

Question

I've written the simple Java script below in order to learn more about TDD, IntelliJ and Java itself.

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

import org.junit.Before;
import org.junit.Test;

import static org.hamcrest.CoreMatchers.containsString;
import static org.hamcrest.CoreMatchers.is;
import static org.junit.Assert.assertThat;
import static org.junit.matchers.JUnitMatchers.both;

public class JUnit_Dummy {

  private StringJoiner joiner;
  private List<String> strings;

  @Before
  public void setUp() throws Exception {
    strings = new ArrayList<String>();
    joiner = new StringJoiner();
  }
....

  @Test
  public void shouldContainBothStringsWhenListIsTwoStrings() {
    strings.add("one");
    strings.add("two");
    assertThat(joiner.join(strings),
        both(containsString("A")).
            and(containsString("B")));
  }

}
_____________

import java.util.List;

public class StringJoiner {
  public String join(List<String> strings) {
    if(strings.size() > 0) {
      return (strings.get(0);
    }
    return "";
  }
}

I'm trying to use the "containsString" method inside an assertion, but IntelliJ keeps telling me that it "cannot resolve method 'containsString(java.lang.String)". This despite the fact that the jUnit docs (http://junit.sourceforge.net/javadoc/org/junit/matchers/JUnitMatchers.html#containsString(java.lang.String)) tell me that this method does accept a String parameter.

I've tried swapping out various import statements, including the following:

import static org.hamcrest.Matcher.containsString;
import static org.hamcrest.Matcher.*;
import static org.hamcrest.CoreMatchers.*;

The best that I get is a greyed-out import statement telling me that the import statement is unused. Not sure what the problem is, any help would be appreciated.

UPDATE:

Here is the exact compiler error:

java: cannot find symbol
  symbol:   method containsString(java.lang.String)
  location: class JUnit_Dummy

Answer 1

I thought I had tried every worthwhile import statement already, but this one did the trick:

import static org.junit.matchers.JUnitMatchers.*;

Answer 2

I faced the same issue with a Spring Boot app. Seems like this is a dependency ordering issue.. one of the dependencies mentioned in pom.xml before the "spring-boot-starter-test" artifact was overriding the hamcrest version.

So all I did was change the order (moved this dependency up):

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
        <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>

I'm using Spring Boot 1.5.7.RELEASE.

Answer 3

We are supposed to use containsString method of hamcrest library.

My suggestion would be to stick to Junit 4 and import hamcrest library 1.3 in your build path. This would do the trick.

This will allow you to access other features of hamcrest library as well.

The solution can also be found by adding the required static imports manually. Or you can configure the required static imports in favorites tab of eclipse.

Answer 4

try this instead

import static org.hamcrest.CoreMatchers.*;