How to test private methods?

Testing private methods. When and how?

October 20, 2023 1 min read 168 words testing tdd software-design clean-code

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This is a question that I have encountered with some frequency for a long time. So I thought I would put together my thoughts on the subject here.

Short answer#

Never.

Long answer#

Never ever.

What if…?#

If you really want to test a private method, consider extracting that private method logic into a separate class, and write a unit test for that class’ behavior.

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For this one, I was inspired by Fran Iglesias’ original post.