TestNG showing as test passed even if assertion fails

Question

I use below Java code to check if test fails

@Test
public void myMethod(){
..
..
Assert.assertEquals(condition1,condition2);
}catch(AssertionError e){
e.printStackTrace();
}

Even if condition1 and condition2 are not equal, testNG showing

===============================================
Default suite
Total tests run: 1, Failures: 0, Skips: 0
===============================================

in the eclipse console. In my understanding the test should fail and failure count should be 1

Answer 1

Just stop catching AssertionError exceptions and you will see your tests failing as expected.

Why this so? When an assertion evaluates to false:

assertEquals(3, 5);
assertThat(3, is(equalTo(5)));
assert 3 == 5;

in all those cases it throws AssertionError exception. Any exception thrown in the test terminates the test, unless it is caught. So in your case, if you catch the exception, then your test is not terminated and considered as passed. A test execution framework (TestNG, JUnit, etc.) has simply no knowledge that any assertion failed.

However, if your test throws an exception, whether it is AssertionError or other exception, the test execution framework will consider your test as failed (with one small exception to SkipException that the test execution framework will mark your test as skipped).

You haven't explained why you catch AssertionError in your test. But if you care about printing the stacktrace of AssertionError, your test execution framework will do it for you automatically after failing the test. So printing it explicitly in your test is not necessary.

Answer 2

Its because you are catching the exception, your assertion is surrounded with try catch block, so your testcase gets pass.

Update your catch block as below.

catch(AssertionError e){
e.printStackTrace();
throw e;
}

OR

catch(AssertionError e){
    e.printStackTrace();
    Assert.fail();
    }

This will throw the exception and your testcase will be failed.