In this tutorial, we will show you how to run a junit test in Ant build.

1. Run a unit test

<target name="junit" depends="compile">
    <junit printsummary="yes" haltonfailure="no">
	<!-- Project classpath, must include junit.jar -->
	<classpath refid="test.path" />
	<!-- test class -->
	<classpath location="${test.classes.dir}" />
	<test name="com.mkyong.test.TestMessage" 
		haltonfailure="no" todir="${report.dir}">
		<formatter type="plain" />
		<formatter type="xml" />
	</test>
  </junit>
</target>

2. Run a batch of unit test

<target name="junit" depends="compile">
  <junit printsummary="yes" haltonfailure="no">
	<!--
		<classpath location="lib/junit-4.11.jar" />
		<classpath location="lib/hamcrest-core-1.3.jar" />
	-->
	<classpath refid="test.path" />
	<classpath location="${test.classes.dir}" />
	<formatter type="xml" />
	<formatter type="plain" />
	<batchtest fork="yes" todir="${report.dir}">
		<fileset dir="${test.dir}">
			<include name="**/*Test*.java" />
		</fileset>
	</batchtest>
  </junit>
</target>

3. Example

A web application example to show you how to run a junit test.

3.1 Return a message

package com.mkyong.message;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Component;
@Component
public class MessageGenerator {
	public String getWelcomeMessage() {
		return "welcome"; 

3.2 Two junit test cases to test above class.

package com.mkyong.test;
import static org.junit.Assert.assertEquals;
import org.junit.Test;
import com.mkyong.message.MessageGenerator;
public class TestMessage {
	@Test
	public void test_welcome_message() {
		MessageGenerator obj = new MessageGenerator();
		assertEquals("welcome", obj.getWelcomeMessage());

package com.mkyong.test;
import static org.junit.Assert.assertEquals;
import org.junit.Test;
import com.mkyong.message.MessageGenerator;
public class TestMessage2 {
	@Test
	public void test_welcome_message_2() {
		MessageGenerator obj = new MessageGenerator();
		assertEquals("welcome", obj.getWelcomeMessage());

3.3 Use ivy to get the project dependencies, and declared the project scope.

<ivy-module version="2.0">
	<info organisation="org.apache" module="WebProject" />
	<configurations>
        <conf name="compile" description="Required to compile application"/>
        <conf name="runtime" description="Additional run-time dependencies" extends="compile"/>
        <conf name="test"    description="Required for test only" extends="runtime"/>
    </configurations>
	<dependencies>
		<dependency org="junit" name="junit" rev="4.11" conf="test->default" />
	</dependencies>
</ivy-module>

3.4 Run unit test

<project xmlns:ivy="antlib:org.apache.ivy.ant" 
	name="HelloProject" default="main" basedir=".">
	<description>
		Running junit Test 
	</description>
	<!-- Project Structure -->
	<property name="jdk.version" value="1.7" />
	<property name="projectName" value="WebProject" />
	<property name="src.dir" location="src" />
	<property name="test.dir" location="src" />
	<property name="report.dir" location="report" />
	<property name="web.dir" value="war" />
	<property name="web.classes.dir" location="${web.dir}/WEB-INF/classes" />
	<!-- ivy start -->
	<target name="resolve" description="retrieve dependencies with ivy">
		<echo message="Getting dependencies..." />
		<ivy:retrieve />
		<ivy:cachepath pathid="compile.path" conf="compile" />
		<ivy:cachepath pathid="runtime.path" conf="runtime" />
		<ivy:cachepath pathid="test.path" conf="test" />
	</target>
	<!-- Compile Java source from ${src.dir} and output it to ${web.classes.dir} -->
	<target name="compile" depends="init, resolve" description="compile source code">
		<mkdir dir="${web.classes.dir}" />
		<javac destdir="${web.classes.dir}" source="${jdk.version}" 
			target="${jdk.version}" debug="true" 
                        includeantruntime="false" classpathref="compile.path">
			<src path="${src.dir}" />
		</javac>
	</target>
	<!-- Run jUnit -->
	<target name="junit" depends="compile">
	  <junit printsummary="yes" haltonfailure="no">
		<classpath refid="test.path" />
		<classpath location="${web.classes.dir}" />
		<formatter type="xml" />
		<batchtest fork="yes" todir="${report.dir}">
			<fileset dir="${test.dir}">
				<include name="**/*Test*.java" />
			</fileset>
		</batchtest>
	  </junit>
	</target>
	<!-- Create folders -->
	<target name="init">
		<mkdir dir="${src.dir}" />
		<mkdir dir="${web.classes.dir}" />
		<mkdir dir="${report.dir}" />
	</target>
	<!-- Delete folders -->
	<target name="clean" description="clean up">
		<delete dir="${web.classes.dir}" />
		<delete dir="${report.dir}" />
	</target>
	<target name="main" depends="junit" />
</project>
Run it
<pre><code class="language-bash">
$ ant junit

Done.

References

1. Ant - junit task