@VisibleForTesting can be used to mark methods, fields and classes whose visibility restrictions have been relaxed more than necessary for the API
to allow for easier unit testing.
Access to such methods, fields and classes only possible thanks to this relaxed visibility is fine for test code, but it should be avoided in
production code. In production code these methods should be treated as if they are private.
Supported framework:
- Guava:
com.google.common.annotations.VisibleForTesting
- AssertJ:
org.assertj.core.util.VisibleForTesting
- Android:
androidx.annotation.VisibleForTesting
- Apache Flink:
org.apache.flink.annotation.VisibleForTesting
or any other annotation named VisibleForTesting
Noncompliant code example
/** src/main/java/MyObject.java */
@VisibleForTesting String foo;
/** src/main/java/Service.java */
new MyObject().foo; // Noncompliant, foo is accessed from production code
Compliant solution
/** src/main/java/MyObject.java */
@VisibleForTesting String foo;
/** src/test/java/MyObjectTest.java */
new MyObject().foo; // Compliant, foo is accessed from test code
