# What's the strategy for marking a broken test that you expect to throw when it's not broken?
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/whats-the-strategy-for-marking-a-broken-test-that-you-expect-to-throw-when-its-not-broken/64385
**Category:** General Usage
**Tags:** testing
**Created:** [July 9, 2021, 8:08pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/whats-the-strategy-for-marking-a-broken-test-that-you-expect-to-throw-when-its-not-broken/64385 "2021-07-09T20:08:57Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@NHDaly](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/NHDaly)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2021, 8:08pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/whats-the-strategy-for-marking-a-broken-test-that-you-expect-to-throw-when-its-not-broken/64385/1 "2021-07-09T20:08:57Z")
I have a function that _should_ be throwing an exception, but currently it’s not. I want to indicate that the not-throwing behavior is broken.
I tried this, but it doesn’t work, because the `@test_throws` records its failure before the `@test_broken` gets a chance to swoop in and say “no it’s fine, that was expected”:
```julia
julia> @testset "t" begin
@test_broken @test_throws Exception 2+2 # pretend that this is supposed to throw
end
t: Test Failed at REPL[10]:2
Expression: 2 + 2
Expected: Exception
No exception thrown
Stacktrace:
[1] macro expansion
@ REPL[10]:2 [inlined]
[2] macro expansion
@ ~/builds/julia-1.6/usr/share/julia/stdlib/v1.6/Test/src/Test.jl:1151 [inlined]
[3] top-level scope
@ REPL[10]:2
Test Summary: | Fail Broken Total
t | 1 1 2
ERROR: Some tests did not pass: 0 passed, 1 failed, 0 errored, 1 broken.
```
Anyone know the supported way to do this? 🙏 thanks!
---
### Author:  [@jzr](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/jzr)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2021, 8:40pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/whats-the-strategy-for-marking-a-broken-test-that-you-expect-to-throw-when-its-not-broken/64385/2 "2021-07-09T20:40:25Z")
That feels like a bug to me, your code is the natural way to write what you want IMO.
---
### Author:  [@giordano](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/giordano)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2021, 9:10pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/whats-the-strategy-for-marking-a-broken-test-that-you-expect-to-throw-when-its-not-broken/64385/3 "2021-07-09T21:10:28Z")
> [@jzr](#):
>
> That feels like a bug to me
Why a bug? Macros are evaluated from the innermost to the outermost and `@test_throws` doesn’t return a boolean anyways, which is what `@test_broken` would need to evaluate
---
### Author:  [@jzr](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/jzr)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2021, 9:39pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/whats-the-strategy-for-marking-a-broken-test-that-you-expect-to-throw-when-its-not-broken/64385/4 "2021-07-09T21:39:37Z")
I guess I can’t speak to the original design intent, but I don’t like the noncomposability of it.
Maybe something like
```julia
julia> function throwsp(f, exceptiontype)::Bool
try
f()
catch e
if e isa exceptiontype
return true
end
end
return false
end
throwsp (generic function with 1 method)
julia> throwsp(Exception) do
div(0x1,0x0)
end
true
julia> @test_broken throwsp(Exception) do
1/0
end
Test Broken
Expression: throwsp(Exception) do
1 / 0
end
```
---
### Author:  [@NHDaly](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/NHDaly)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2021, 1:47am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/whats-the-strategy-for-marking-a-broken-test-that-you-expect-to-throw-when-its-not-broken/64385/6 "2021-07-12T01:47:13Z")
FWIW I ended up writing this, which did what I want, but it’s not very satisfactory:
```julia
@test_broken (try 2+2 catch e; e; end) isa Exception
```
I like your suggestion, @jzr.
@giordana: Yeah, I know that it shouldn’t work, but it felt like maybe it should when I wrote it. Even as I wrote it, i thought “no, this isn’t going to work,” but i don’t know what i’m supposed to write instead.
I imagined/hoped that maybe the `@test_broken` would modify the context that the `@test` was operating in, to “magically” invert its result or something, like by setting a task\_local\_storage value telling `@test` not to report its result or something.
Anyway, open to other suggestions still 🙏