java - mock or stub for chained call

Question

protected int parseExpire(CacheContext ctx) throws AttributeDefineException {
    Method targetMethod = ctx.getTargetMethod();
    CacheEnable cacheEnable = targetMethod.getAnnotation(CacheEnable.class);
    ExpireExpr cacheExpire = targetMethod.getAnnotation(ExpireExpr.class);
    // check for duplicate setting
    if (cacheEnable.expire() != CacheAttribute.DO_NOT_EXPIRE && cacheExpire != null) {
        throw new AttributeDefineException("expire are defined both in @CacheEnable and @ExpireExpr");
    }
    // expire time defined in @CacheEnable or @ExpireExpr
    return cacheEnable.expire() != CacheAttribute.DO_NOT_EXPIRE ? cacheEnable.expire() : parseExpireExpr(cacheExpire, ctx.getArgument());
}

that is the method to test ,

Method targetMethod = ctx.getTargetMethod();
CacheEnable cacheEnable = targetMethod.getAnnotation(CacheEnable.class);

I have to mock three CacheContext,Method and CacheEnable. Is there any idea to make the test case much simpler?

Answer 1

Mockito can handle chained stubs:

Foo mock = mock(Foo.class, RETURNS_DEEP_STUBS);

// note that we're stubbing a chain of methods here: getBar().getName()
when(mock.getBar().getName()).thenReturn("deep");

// note that we're chaining method calls: getBar().getName()
assertEquals("deep", mock.getBar().getName());

AFAIK, the first method in the chain returns a mock, which is set up to return your value on the second chained method call.

Mockito's authors note that this should only be used for legacy code. A better thing to do otherwise is to push the behavior into your CacheContext and provide any information it needs to do the job itself. The amount of information you're pulling from CacheContext suggests that your class has feature envy.