junit4 - Why should Test methods in Junit be defined public?

Question

I was going through the documentation for junit tests but am unable to understand the need for defining tests as public.Could anyone share some info on this?

I read on https://github.com/junit-team/junit/blob/master/src/main/java/org/junit/Test.java

But am still not clear with the reason.

With is I meant why can't I write something as

@Test
private void testAdd(){ }

Answer 1

The JUnit framework calls your test methods from outside your test class. If your test methods are private, it won't be able to do that.