TestNG Method Precedence

README.md

TestNG Annotation Precedence

This is an exploration of the precedence order for TestNG annotations so I can get a better understanding of which annotations come first.

As we can see in testOutput.log, there is a clear order to these methods (I wish they put that order more clearly in the TestNG Documentation...

The original question was "What is the difference between @BeforeMethod and @BeforeTest?" After seeing the results, it's clear that @BeforeMethod refers to each individual @Test annotated method, while @Test refers to the <test> organizational blocks in the testng.xml test suite file.

One thing that confused me is that @BeforeGroups and @AfterGroups both needed to be supplied with their groups, when I originally thought they would automatically run before all groups. It does make sense though, once I found out what was going on.

Another interesting thing is I think I found an IntelliJ TestNG integration bug where running a Groups test fails because the parallel attribute for the test suite isn't set.

TestNGPrecedence.java

import org.testng.annotations.*;

class TestNGPrecedence {

    @BeforeSuite
    public void beforeSuite() {
        System.out.println("Before Suite");
    }

    @AfterSuite
    public void afterSuite() {
        System.out.println("After Suite");
    }

    @BeforeTest
    public void beforeTest() {
        System.out.println("Before Test");
    }

    @AfterTest
    public void afterTest() {
        System.out.println("After Test");
    }

    @BeforeGroups(groups = { "grouptest" })
    public void beforeGroups() {
        System.out.println("Before Groups");
    }

    @AfterGroups(groups = { "grouptest" })
    public void afterGroups() {
        System.out.println("After Groups");
    }

    @BeforeClass
    public void beforeClass() {
        System.out.println("Before Class");
    }

    @AfterClass
    public void afterClass() {
        System.out.println("After Class");
    }

    @BeforeMethod
    public void beforeMethod() {
        System.out.println("Before Method");
    }

    @AfterMethod
    public void afterMethod() {
        System.out.println("After Method");
    }

    @Test
    public void test1() {
        System.out.println("\nTest1: This is a test.\n");
    }

    @Test(groups = {"grouptest"})
    public void test2() {
        System.out.println("\nTest2: This is another test (with group \"grouptest\").\n");
    }

    @Test
    public void test3() {
        System.out.println("\nTest3: This is the last test.\n");
    }
}

testOutput.log

Before Suite
Before Test
Before Class
Before Method

Test1: This is a test.

After Method
Before Groups
Before Method

Test2: This is another test (with group "grouptest").

After Method
After Groups
Before Method

Test3: This is the last test.

After Method
After Class
After Test
After Suite

===============================================
Default Suite
Total tests run: 3, Failures: 0, Skips: 0
===============================================