How to test fail conditions in TestCase?

[Phil Muldoon <pmuldoon@redhat.com>]

Hi

I've been added "expected normal" results to test cases as normal, but 
I've just started "expected fail" conditions for the test case of 
CorefileByteBuffer. I was reminded again, when writing previous tests, I 
was unsure of how to write these properly. Here is what I do now.

For a normal, expected pass situation, something like:

    CorefileByteBuffer coreBuffer = new CorefileByteBuffer(new 
File(Config.getPkgDataDir (),
                                                                    
"test-core"));

    // Set the corefile carat to memory address 0x00170000L
    coreBuffer.position(0x00170000L);
    assertEquals("Peek a byte at 0x00170000",0x7f,coreBuffer.get());
    assertEquals("Peek a byte at 0x00170001",0x45,coreBuffer.get());
    assertEquals("Peek a byte at 0x00170002",0x4c,coreBuffer.get());
    assertEquals("Peek a byte at 0x00170003",0x46,coreBuffer.get());
    assertEquals("Peek a byte at 0x00170004",0x01,coreBuffer.get());


But for an expected fail (ie an exception should be thrown or an error 
condition detected) something like:

    // Test reading at position 0. In this core file there is no
    // segment at position 0 (in our case for this bytebuffer, the
    // position within the buffer should equal the memory address access.)
    // This should always fail!

    coreBuffer.position(0);
    try
    {
      assertEquals("Peek a byte at 0x00170000",0x7f,coreBuffer.get());
    }
    catch (RuntimeException e)
    {
      return;
    }
    fail(".get() read at position 0 should have failed but didn't!");
  }
 

Is that the "right" way to do above? Is there a "right" way?

Regards

Phil