How to run org.junit.runner.JUnitCore in junit-4.*.jar?

org.junit.runner.JUnitCore is the main class of the JUnit 4, which requires hamcrest-core-1.3.jar.

If you run org.junit.runner.JUnitCore without Hamcrest, you will get a NoClassDefFoundError exception:

fyicenter> java -version
java version "21.0.2" 2024-01-16 LTS

fyicenter> java -cp junit-4.13.2.jar org.junit.runner.JUnitCore
JUnit version 4.13.2

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/hamcrest/SelfDescribing
  at java.base/java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method)
  at java.base/java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:1027)
  at java.base/java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(SecureClassLoader.java:150)
  at java.base/jdk.internal.loader.BuiltinClassLoader.defineClass(BuiltinClassLoader.java:862)
  at java.base/jdk.internal.loader.BuiltinClassLoader.findClassOnClassPathOrNull(BuiltinClassLoader.java:760)
  at java.base/jdk.internal.loader.BuiltinClassLoader.loadClassOrNull(BuiltinClassLoader.java:681)
  at java.base/jdk.internal.loader.BuiltinClassLoader.loadClass(BuiltinClassLoader.java:639)
  at java.base/jdk.internal.loader.ClassLoaders$AppClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoaders.java:188)
  at java.base/java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:526)
  at org.junit.runner.Computer.getSuite(Computer.java:28)
  at org.junit.runner.Request.classes(Request.java:77)
  at org.junit.runner.JUnitCommandLineParseResult.createRequest(JUnitCommandLineParseResult.java:116)
  at org.junit.runner.JUnitCore.runMain(JUnitCore.java:77)
  at org.junit.runner.JUnitCore.main(JUnitCore.java:36)
  ... 14 more

Now download hamcrest-core-1.3.jar from Maven Hamcrest Core repository.

Then org.junit.runner.JUnitCore with hamcrest-core-1.3.jar included in the class path, you will get OK message:

(On Windows)
fyicenter> java -cp junit-4.13.2.jar;hamcrest-core-1.3.jar \ 
  org.junit.runner.JUnitCore

(On Linux or macOS)
fyicenter> java -cp junit-4.13.2.jar:hamcrest-core-1.3.jar \
  org.junit.runner.JUnitCore

JUnit version 4.13.2

Time: 0.001
OK (0 tests)

The output shows that 0 tests performed, because no test class is given.

⇒ Simple Test Program for junit-4.12.*.jar

⇐ Download and Install junit-4.13.2.jar

⇑ Using JUnit (Java Unit) 4

⇑⇑ JUnit Tutorials