JBehave-Junit-Runner throwing NullPointerException

Question

I am new to JBehave and am attempting to use the JBehave-JUnit-Runner to display test results nicely in JUnit in Eclipse Luna (on Ubuntu 12.04). I am using JBehave-JUnit-Runner 1.1.2, JUnit 4.12-beta-1 and JBehave-core 4.0-beta-9. When I right-click on my story file and 'Run as JUnit Test' all is well. However, when I put the @RunWith(JUnitReportingRunner.class) at the top of my story class as required for JBehave-JUnit-Runner, I get the following error:

java.lang.RuntimeException: java.lang.NullPointerException
at de.codecentric.jbehave.junit.monitoring.JUnitReportingRunner.run(JUnitReportingRunner.java:80)
at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit4.runner.JUnit4TestReference.run(JUnit4TestReference.java:50)
at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.TestExecution.run(TestExecution.java:38)
at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.runTests(RemoteTestRunner.java:459)
at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.runTests(RemoteTestRunner.java:675)
at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.run(RemoteTestRunner.java:382)
at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.main(RemoteTestRunner.java:192)
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
at de.codecentric.jbehave.junit.monitoring.JUnitScenarioReporter.afterStory(JUnitScenarioReporter.java:114)
at org.jbehave.core.reporters.DelegatingStoryReporter.afterStory(DelegatingStoryReporter.java:49)
at org.jbehave.core.reporters.ConcurrentStoryReporter.afterStory(ConcurrentStoryReporter.java:120)
at org.jbehave.core.embedder.PerformableTree.performBeforeOrAfterStories(PerformableTree.java:399)
at org.jbehave.core.embedder.StoryManager.performStories(StoryManager.java:102)
at org.jbehave.core.embedder.StoryManager.runStories(StoryManager.java:93)
at org.jbehave.core.embedder.StoryManager.runStoriesAsPaths(StoryManager.java:74)
at org.jbehave.core.embedder.Embedder.runStoriesAsPaths(Embedder.java:204)
at de.codecentric.jbehave.junit.monitoring.JUnitReportingRunner.run(JUnitReportingRunner.java:78)
... 6 more

Here is my utility class for testing. One method, very basic:

package org.felimar;

public abstract class StringManipulation
{
  public static boolean stringBlank(final String src)
  {
    return src.matches("^\\s*$"); //$NON-NLS-1$
  }
}

The story file for JBehave:

Utilities for managing character strings

Narrative:
In order to easily manipulate and investigate character strings
As a development team
I want to use a group of string-related utilities

Scenario:  A string contains zero or more characters
Given a source string with value <value>
Then the method should return <return>

Examples:
|value|return|
|""|true|
|" "|true|
|"Normal Non-Blank"|false|

The steps class:

package org.felimar.steps;

import static org.felimar.StringManipulation.stringBlank;

import org.felimar.StringManipulation;
import org.jbehave.core.annotations.Given;
import org.jbehave.core.annotations.Named;
import org.jbehave.core.annotations.Then;

public class StringManipulationSteps
{
  private String m_srcString;

  public String getSrcString()
  {
    return m_srcString;
  }

  @Given("a source string with value $value")
  public void givenValue(@Named("value") final String srcString)
  {
    setSrcString(srcString);
  }

  public void setSrcString(final String srcString)
  {
    m_srcString = srcString;
  }

  @Then("the method should return $value")
  public void stringBlankRtrns(@Named("value") final boolean isBlank)
  {
    if (stringBlank(getSrcString()) != isBlank)
      throw new RuntimeException("stringBlank did not determine *" +
                                getSrcString() + "* was " + isBlank);
  }
}

And finally, the story class:

package org.felimar.stories;

import static java.util.Arrays.asList;
import static org.jbehave.core.reporters.Format.CONSOLE;
import static org.jbehave.core.reporters.Format.TXT;

import java.util.List;

import org.felimar.StringManipulation;
import org.felimar.steps.StringManipulationSteps;
import org.jbehave.core.configuration.MostUsefulConfiguration;
import org.jbehave.core.junit.JUnitStories;
import org.jbehave.core.reporters.StoryReporterBuilder;
import org.jbehave.core.steps.InjectableStepsFactory;
import org.jbehave.core.steps.InstanceStepsFactory;
import org.junit.runner.RunWith;

import de.codecentric.jbehave.junit.monitoring.JUnitReportingRunner;

@RunWith(JUnitReportingRunner.class)
public class StringManipulationStories extends JUnitStories
{
  public StringManipulationStories()
  {
    super();
    super.useConfiguration(
     new MostUsefulConfiguration().useStoryReporterBuilder(
      new StoryReporterBuilder().withDefaultFormats().withFormats(
          CONSOLE, TXT)));
  }

  @Override
  public InjectableStepsFactory stepsFactory()
  {
    return new InstanceStepsFactory(configuration(),
                                   new StringManipulationSteps());
  }

  @Override
  protected List<String> storyPaths()
  {
    return asList("org/felimar/stories/StringManipulationStories.story");
  }
}

Are there any obvious errors in any of the code, or should I step back from using the beta libraries?

Answer 1

I found the problem was with the JUnit-4.12-beta-1. I had my Gradle build script set to 4.+, so I changed it to specify 4.11 and the problem disappeared. The JBehave-core 4.0-beta-9 seems to work just fine, so I left that in place.

I also experimented with using JUnitReportingRunner.recommandedControls(configuredEmbedder()); as the last line of the constructor, but it actually threw up an extra error.

My thanks to Andreas for his helpful suggestions - they were very much appreciated and ultimately helped me solve my problem.

Kind regards, Flic