Overview

-Guava has @VisibleForTesting /VisibleForTesting.html) annotation is provided --Grant when it is unavoidable to increase the visibility of methods and members in order to write test code ――It serves as a mark to show that "I am increasing visibility for the test code"

Sample code

import com.google.common.annotations.VisibleForTesting;

public class Sample {

    @VisibleForTesting
    String load() {
        //abridgement
    }

}

A detailed usage example is explained in Let's break away from static methods to write unit tests # 1 Principle / Wrap method.

Benefits of granting @VisibleForTesting

It serves as a marker to show why you are increasing visibility

It can be used as a marker to show that "the visibility is increased because of the test code". Annotation alone does not have any special function, it is just a marker (called a marker annotation).

You can check for errors with static analysis

For example, one of the static analysis tools, SonarQube (https://www.sonarqube.org/), incorrectly added a member or method with @VisibleForTesting (other than the test code). There is a rule to check if it is accessed by code of another class. By using this rule, it may be possible to detect unintended behavior at an early stage.

Rule S5803: Class members annotated with @VisibleForTesting should not be accessed from production code

important point

As stated in JavaDoc, the access range is originally set to default from ** private (package). Used for ** to change to (private). If you just write unit tests, the defaults are sufficient, and changing to public or protected is a bad design.

In addition, VisibleForTesting plugin for SonarQube can be used to check if an incorrect access modifier is added.

Other `@VisibleForTesting` annotations

Some other libraries and APIs have similar annotations.

Library / API	Fully qualified class name
AssertJ	org.assertj.core.util.VisibleForTesting
Android	androidx.annotation.VisibleForTesting
Apache Flink	org.apache.flink.annotation.VisibleForTesting

What is Guava's @VisibleForTesting?