What's the difference between failure and error in JUnit?

Question

I\'m running JUnit tests on a large code base, and I\'ve been realizing that sometimes I get \"Errors\" while other times I get \"Failures\". What\'s the difference?

Answer 1

Below test explains the difference between Test Error vs Test failure.

I have commented the line which throws test error and test failure.

    @Test
    public void testErrorVsTestFailure() {

        final String sampleString = null;

        assertEquals('j', sampleString.charAt(0) );
        //above line throws test error as you are trying to access charAt() method on null reference

        assertEquals(sampleString, "jacob");
        //above line throws Test failure as the actual value-a null , is not equal to expected value-string "jacob"
        }

So Junit shows test error whenever you get an exception , and test failure when your expected result value doesn't match your actual value