Convenience factory for stubs

A stub(Class) factory method on the Mockito class would be a convenient way to create stub-only objects:

List stub = stub(List.class);

Such a factory method improves the clarity of test code by succinctly communicating the test author’s intent for the test-double.

[fioan89]

As a follow up, can the issue be re-opened and have the discussion flow continue?

[fioan89]

Please reconsider this issue. As this blog post from Martin Fowler points out, it’s very important to make a clear distinction between mocks and stubs. Even though at a first glance the difference between them is not that significant - stubs are mocks but you can't verify them - from a testing theory point of view the difference is significantly huge. One enables behavioural testing (i.e mocks) and the other enables state testing. Two different styles of testing with deep implications.

Having a clean stub(...) API will actually encourage people to think more careful about what kind of testing they want to do and what should be actually used.

I’ve seen numerous people, including myself, using the mock(...) API as a stub - no verify assertions done. Believe it or not, most people ignore the MockSettings parameter, or they don’t look deep enough to what that interface provides.

I would like to argue that since mockito cared to provide a convenience factory for spies (Martin Fowler’s blog post considers them as stubs that also record some information based on how they were called) the stub method should also be provided for better readability, encourage correctness code, ease of use and finding.