To start snapshot testing in Java or any JVM language, all you need is to add a single dependency.


Installation  

Requirements  

Selfie snapshot testing works with the following JVM test runners:

Disk snapshots can be used with any JVM language, but inline literal snapshots only work if the test code is written in:

  • java (8+ is okay, but 15+ is recommended)
  • kotlin
  • groovy
  • scala

Adding support for other languages is straightforward, PRs are welcome!

Maven  

If you're using Maven, add the following dependency to your pom.xml file:

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.diffplug.selfie</groupId>
    <artifactId>selfie-runner-junit5</artifactId>
    <version>${ver_SELFIE}</version>
    <scope>test</scope>
</dependency>

Replace ver_SELFIE with the latest available version of selfie.

Gradle  

For Gradle users, add this to your build.gradle file:

dependencies {
  // ... other dependencies
  testImplementation "com.diffplug.selfie:selfie-runner-junit5:$ver_SELFIE"
}
test {
  useJUnitPlatform()
  environment project.properties.subMap(["selfie"]) // optional, see "Overwrite everything" below
  inputs.files(fileTree("src/test") { // optional, improves up-to-date checking
    include "**/*.ss"
  })
}

or this to build.gradle.kts:

dependencies {
  testImplementation("com.diffplug.selfie:selfie-runner-junit5:${project.properties["ver_SELFIE"]}")
}
tasks.test {
  useJUnitPlatform()
  environment(properties.filter { it.key == "selfie" }) // optional, see "Overwrite everything" below
  inputs.files(fileTree("src/test") { // optional, improves up-to-date checking
    include("**/*.ss")
  })
}

Replace ver_SELFIE with the latest available version of selfie.


Quickstart  

If you haven't seen the GIF on our GitHub, you might want to watch that first (give us a ⭐ while you're at it 😉).

Let's say we have the following test code:

expectSelfie(List.of(1, 2, 3).toString()).toBe_TODO();

If you run this test, selfie will rewrite your sourcecode to be this:

expectSelfie(List.of(1, 2, 3).toString()).toBe("[1, 2, 3]");

Now, let's change the code to this:

expectSelfie("oops").toBe("[1, 2, 3]");

When we run the test, we will get a failure, and the failure message will be:

Snapshot mismatch
- update this snapshot by adding `_TODO` to the function name
- update all snapshots in this file by adding `//selfieonce` or `//SELFIEWRITE`

As you can see, we have three options:

  • replace toBe with toBe_TODO (you can leave or remove the "[1, 2, 3]", makes no difference)
    • rewrites only this one snapshot, and selfie will remove the _TODO
  • put //selfieonce anywhere in the file
    • rewrites all snapshots in the file, and selfie will remove //selfieonce after it has done so
  • put //SELFIEWRITE anywhere in that file
    • rewrites all snapshots in the file until you remove //SELFIEWRITE yourself

Disk  

To store a snapshot on disk, swap toBe for toMatchDisk:

expectSelfie(List.of(1, 2, 3).toString()).toMatchDisk_TODO();

This will create a file called SomethingOrOther.ss in the same directory as your test. It will also rewrite the test source to:

expectSelfie(List.of(1, 2, 3).toString()).toMatchDisk();

Just like inline literal snapshots, you can use _TODO, //selfieonce, and //SELFIEWRITE to control how the snapshots are written and updated. You don't have to use _TODO if you have the //selfieonce or //SELFIEWRITE comments in your file.

If you want the disk snapshots to live in a different folder, set snapshotFolderName using SelfieSettings.


CI  

The nice thing about //SELFIEWRITE is that all of your snapshots will update on every run, which makes it easy to explore — like multiassert on steroids. The bad thing about //SELFIEWRITE is that all of the tests always pass, even if the snapshots actually change on every run.

For example, you might have a realtime timestamp or a random port number embedded in a snapshot. Randomness and realtime cannot be present in a repeatable assertion, and you might not realize that a tiny part of a large snapshot is changing while you're in //SELFIEWRITE mode.

For this reason, it is critical that a CI server should always run in readonly mode. No action is needed on your part, selfie automatically puts itself into readonly mode if the CI=true environment variable is present, which is true for all popular CI systems.

When in readonly mode, selfie not only refuses to update any snapshots, it also fails the build if _TODO, //selfieonce, or //SELFIEWRITE are present in the sourcecode, even if the snapshots were correct. Writing snapshots is a strictly private affair 😏.


Overwrite everything  

Selfie has three modes:

  • interactive, the default mode, which we discussed in the quickstart
  • readonly, the default mode if CI=true, where no snapshots can be written
  • overwrite, where every snapshot is overwritten, regardless of whether it is _TODO or not

To set the mode, you set the selfie or SELFIE environment variable or system property to either interactive, readonly, or overwrite. But in the vast majority of cases, it's best to leave it alone and let the defaults do their thing.

[MAVEN]
user@machine repo % mvn test -Dselfie=overwrite

[GRADLE (only works if you followed the install instructions)]
user@machine repo % ./gradlew test -Pselfie=overwrite

In Gradle, you can also go to ~/.gradle/gradle.properties and add selfie=overwrite. Now snapshots will always overwrite on your machine (for every test task which was setup properly).

test {
  environment project.properties.subMap(["selfie"]) // build.gradle
  environment(properties.filter { it.key == "selfie" }) // build.gradle.kts
}

Beyond toString  

All of the examples so far have asserted on Strings. You can also do inline literal assertions on primitive values, and disk assertions on byte arrays:

expectSelfie(10/4).toBe(2);
expectSelfie((10/4) == 2).toBe(true);
expectSelfie(TimeUnit.DAYS.toMillis(365*1_000_000L)).toBe(31_536_000_000_000_000L);
expectSelfie(new byte[100]).toMatchDisk();

But the real power of selfie is asserting on arbitrary objects using facets, which are covered in the advanced section.


Reference  

Full API documentation is available at kdoc.selfie.dev. For details on threading, see threading details.

  • .toBe_TODO() or .toBe_TODO(argumentIsIgnored)
    • creates or updates an inline literal snapshot
  • .toMatchDisk_TODO()
    • creates or updates a disk snapshot
  • //selfieonce
    • all snapshots in the file will be updated, whether they are _TODO or not
    • selfie will remove the comment after the snapshots have updated
  • //SELFIEWRITE
    • all snapshots in the file will be updated, whether they are _TODO or not
    • selfie will not remove the comment after the snapshots have updated
  • mode is set by the SELFIE environment variable or system property
    • interactive, default
    • readonly, default if CI environment variable is true
    • overwrite, all snapshots can be overwritten
  • Camera and Lens are covered in the advanced section.

Pull requests to improve the landing page and documentation are greatly appreciated, you can find the source code here.