TestNG Before and After Annotations

Before and After annotations are mainly used to execute a certain set of code before and after the execution of test methods. These are used to basically set up some variables or configuration before the start of a test execution and then to cleanup any of these things after the test execution ends.

TestNG provides five different kinds of Before and After annotation options, each of which can be used depending upon the test requirements. The following are the different before and after options provided by TestNG:

• @BeforeSuite and @AfterSuite
• @BeforeTest and @AfterTest
• @BeforeGroups and @AfterGroups
• @BeforeClass and @AfterClass
• @BeforeMethod and @AfterMethod

Let’s try out an example containing all the preceding annotated methods and learn about when they are executed.

Running the Before and After Annotations

Create a new TestNG test having all before and after annotations. You can create this test with help of instructions given in this TestNG tutorial. Let’s see how you can select all before and after annotations.

After clicking on OK, you will get a test with all annotations. Add some print statements in all methods so that they can be tracked in which order they executed.

package com.howtodoinjava.test;

import org.testng.annotations.AfterClass;
import org.testng.annotations.AfterMethod;
import org.testng.annotations.AfterSuite;
import org.testng.annotations.AfterTest;
import org.testng.annotations.BeforeClass;
import org.testng.annotations.BeforeMethod;
import org.testng.annotations.BeforeSuite;
import org.testng.annotations.BeforeTest;
import org.testng.annotations.Test;

public class MyFirstTest {
	@Test
	public void testCase() {
	}

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

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

	@BeforeTest
	public void beforeTest() {
		System.out.println("Before Test method");
	}
	
	@AfterTest
	public void afterTest() {
		System.out.println("After Test method");
	}
	
	@BeforeClass
	public void beforeClass() {
		System.out.println("Before Class method");
	}

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

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

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

Now run above testcase as TestNG test and you will get following output in console.

[TestNG] Running:
  C:\Users\somepath\testng-customsuite.xml

Before Suite method
Before Test method
Before Class method
Before Method
After Method
After Class method
After Test method
PASSED: testCase

===============================================
    Default test
    Tests run: 1, Failures: 0, Skips: 0
===============================================

After Suite method

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

[TestNG] Time taken by org.testng.reporters.XMLReporter@177b3cd: 19 ms
[TestNG] Time taken by [FailedReporter passed=0 failed=0 skipped=0]: 0 ms
[TestNG] Time taken by org.testng.reporters.jq.Main@b8deef: 53 ms
[TestNG] Time taken by org.testng.reporters.JUnitReportReporter@10ab323: 13 ms
[TestNG] Time taken by org.testng.reporters.EmailableReporter2@5e176f: 11 ms
[TestNG] Time taken by org.testng.reporters.SuiteHTMLReporter@d1e89e: 184 ms

Congratulations, you have successfully created a test class with all kinds of Before and After annotations and executed it.

The current example only contains Before and After annotations that are present in the same class. Lets learn the execution flow when a class containing a Before and After annotation is extended by another class having another set of Before and After annotations.

Before and After annotations used in Parent and Child Classes

Let’s create two new classes BaseClass and ChildClass. Then add similar before/after annotations on both of them. Here main thing to notice is that ChildClass extends BaseClass. And Test is defined in ChildClass class.

BaseClass.java

package com.howtodoinjava.test;

import org.testng.annotations.AfterClass;
import org.testng.annotations.AfterMethod;
import org.testng.annotations.BeforeClass;
import org.testng.annotations.BeforeMethod;

public class BaseClass {

	@BeforeMethod
	public void beforeMethod() {
		System.out.println("BaseClass's Before Test method");
	}

	@AfterMethod
	public void afterMethod() {
		System.out.println("BaseClass's After Test method");
	}

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

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

ChildClass.java

package com.howtodoinjava.test;

import org.testng.annotations.AfterClass;
import org.testng.annotations.AfterMethod;
import org.testng.annotations.BeforeClass;
import org.testng.annotations.BeforeMethod;
import org.testng.annotations.Test;

public class ChildClass extends BaseClass {

	@BeforeMethod
	public void beforeChildMethod() {
		System.out.println("ChildClass's Before Test method");
	}

	@AfterMethod
	public void afterChildMethod() {
		System.out.println("ChildClass's After Test method");
	}

	@BeforeClass
	public void beforeChildClass() {
		System.out.println("ChildClass's Before Class method");
	}

	@AfterClass
	public void afterChildClass() {
		System.out.println("ChildClass's After Class method");
	}
	
	@Test
	public void testCase() {
		System.out.println("===== Executing actual test ======");
	}
}

Executing ChildClass tset will generate below output.

[TestNG] Running:
  C:\Users\somepath\testng-customsuite.xml

BaseClass's Before Class method
ChildClass's Before Class method
BaseClass's Before Test method
ChildClass's Before Test method
===== Executing actual test ======
ChildClass's After Test method
BaseClass's After Test method
ChildClass's After Class method
BaseClass's After Class method
PASSED: testCase

===============================================
    Default test
    Tests run: 1, Failures: 0, Skips: 0
===============================================

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

[TestNG] Time taken by org.testng.reporters.EmailableReporter2@1549f94: 13 ms
[TestNG] Time taken by [FailedReporter passed=0 failed=0 skipped=0]: 0 ms
[TestNG] Time taken by org.testng.reporters.XMLReporter@1bd7848: 16 ms
[TestNG] Time taken by org.testng.reporters.jq.Main@1342ba4: 52 ms
[TestNG] Time taken by org.testng.reporters.JUnitReportReporter@176e552: 12 ms
[TestNG] Time taken by org.testng.reporters.SuiteHTMLReporter@ff057f: 190 ms

As you can see, the report output of TestNG executes the parent class before annotated methods and then the child before annotated methods. After annotated methods, the child class method is executed and then the parent class.

This helps us to have a common before annotated methods across all test classes and have specific Before/After annotated methods for each test class where ever required.

Drop me a comment if you have any question for me.

Happy Learning !!