spring-framework/spring-framework-reference/src/testing.xml

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<chapter id="testing">
  <title>Testing</title>

  <section id="testing-introduction">
    <title>Introduction</title>

    <para>The Spring team considers developer testing to be an absolutely
    integral part of enterprise software development. A thorough treatment of
    testing in the enterprise is beyond the scope of this chapter; rather, the
    focus here is on the value-add that the adoption of the IoC principle can
    bring to <link linkend="unit-testing">unit testing</link> and on the
    benefits that the Spring Framework provides in <link
    linkend="integration-testing">integration testing</link>.</para>
  </section>

  <section id="unit-testing">
    <title>Unit testing</title>

    <para>One of the main benefits of Dependency Injection is that your code
    should really depend far less on the container than in traditional J2EE
    development. The POJOs that make up your application should be testable in
    JUnit or TestNG tests, with objects simply instantiated using the
    <literal>new</literal> operator, <emphasis>without Spring or any other
    container</emphasis>. You can use <link linkend="mock-objects">mock
    objects</link> (in conjunction with many other valuable testing
    techniques) to test your code in isolation. If you follow the architecture
    recommendations around Spring you will find that the resulting clean
    layering and componentization of your codebase will naturally facilitate
    <emphasis>easier</emphasis> unit testing. For example, you will be able to
    test service layer objects by stubbing or mocking DAO or Repository
    interfaces, without any need to access persistent data while running unit
    tests.</para>

    <para>True unit tests typically will run extremely quickly, as there is no
    runtime infrastructure to set up, whether application server, database,
    ORM tool, or whatever. Thus emphasizing true unit tests as part of your
    development methodology will boost your productivity. The upshot of this
    is that you often do not need this section of the testing chapter to help
    you write effective <emphasis>unit</emphasis> tests for your IoC-based
    applications. For certain unit testing scenarios, however, the Spring
    Framework provides the following mock objects and testing support
    classes.</para>

    <section id="mock-objects">
      <title>Mock objects</title>

      <section id="mock-objects-jndi">
        <title>JNDI</title>

        <para>The <literal>org.springframework.mock.jndi</literal> package
        contains an implementation of the JNDI SPI, which is useful for
        setting up a simple JNDI environment for test suites or stand-alone
        applications. If, for example, JDBC <classname>DataSource</classname>s
        get bound to the same JNDI names in test code as within a J2EE
        container, both application code and configuration can be reused in
        testing scenarios without modification.</para>
      </section>

      <section id="mock-objects-servlet">
        <title>Servlet API</title>

        <para>The <literal>org.springframework.mock.web</literal> package
        contains a comprehensive set of Servlet API mock objects, targeted at
        usage with Spring's Web MVC framework, which are useful for testing
        web contexts and controllers. These mock objects are generally more
        convenient to use than dynamic mock objects (e.g., <ulink
        url="http://www.easymock.org">EasyMock</ulink>) or existing Servlet
        API mock objects (e.g., <ulink
        url="http://www.mockobjects.com">MockObjects</ulink>).</para>
      </section>

      <section id="mock-objects-portlet">
        <title>Portlet API</title>

        <para>The <literal>org.springframework.mock.web.portlet</literal>
        package contains a set of Portlet API mock objects, targeted at usage
        with Spring's Portlet MVC framework.</para>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section id="unit-testing-support-classes">
      <title>Unit testing support classes</title>

      <section id="unit-testing-utilities">
        <title>General utilities</title>

        <para>The <literal>org.springframework.test.util</literal> package
        contains <classname>ReflectionTestUtils</classname>, which is a
        collection of reflection-based utility methods for use in unit and
        integration testing scenarios in which the developer would benefit
        from being able to set a non-<literal>public</literal> field or invoke
        a non-<literal>public</literal> setter method when testing application
        code involving, for example:</para>

        <itemizedlist>
          <listitem>
            <para>ORM frameworks such as JPA and Hibernate which condone the
            usage of <literal>private</literal> or
            <literal>protected</literal> field access as opposed to
            <literal>public</literal> setter methods for properties in a
            domain entity</para>
          </listitem>

          <listitem>
            <para>Spring's support for annotations such as
            <interfacename>@Autowired</interfacename> and
            <interfacename>@Resource</interfacename> which provides dependency
            injection for <literal>private</literal> or
            <literal>protected</literal> fields, setter methods, and
            configuration methods</para>
          </listitem>
        </itemizedlist>
      </section>

      <section id="unit-testing-spring-mvc">
        <title>Spring MVC</title>

        <para>The <literal>org.springframework.test.web</literal> package
        contains <classname>ModelAndViewAssert</classname>, which can be used
        in combination with any testing framework (e.g., JUnit 4+, TestNG,
        etc.) for unit tests dealing with Spring MVC
        <classname>ModelAndView</classname> objects.</para>

        <tip>
          <title>Unit testing Spring MVC Controllers</title>

          <para>To test your Spring MVC <literal>Controller</literal>s, use
          <classname>ModelAndViewAssert</classname> combined with
          <literal>MockHttpServletRequest</literal>,
          <literal>MockHttpSession</literal>, etc. from the <link
          linkend="mock-objects-servlet"><literal>org.springframework.mock.web</literal></link>
          package.</para>
        </tip>
      </section>
    </section>
  </section>

  <section id="integration-testing">
    <title>Integration testing</title>

    <section id="integration-testing-overview">
      <title>Overview</title>

      <para>It is important to be able to perform some integration testing
      without requiring deployment to your application server or connecting to
      other enterprise infrastructure. This will enable you to test things
      such as:</para>

      <itemizedlist>
        <listitem>
          <para>The correct wiring of your Spring IoC container
          contexts.</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>Data access using JDBC or an ORM tool. This would include such
          things as the correctness of SQL statements, Hibernate queries, JPA
          entity mappings, etc.</para>
        </listitem>
      </itemizedlist>

      <para>The Spring Framework provides first class support for integration
      testing in the <filename
      class="libraryfile">org.springframework.test-VERSION.jar</filename>
      library (where <literal>VERSION</literal> is the release version). In
      this library, you will find the
      <literal>org.springframework.test</literal> package which contains
      valuable classes for integration testing using a Spring container, while
      at the same time not being reliant on an application server or other
      deployment environment. Such tests will be slower to run than unit tests
      but much faster to run than the equivalent Cactus tests or remote tests
      relying on deployment to an application server.</para>

      <para>Since Spring 2.5, unit and integration testing support is provided
      in the form of the annotation-driven <link
      linkend="testcontext-framework">Spring TestContext Framework</link>. The
      TestContext Framework is agnostic of the actual testing framework in
      use, thus allowing instrumentation of tests in various environments
      including JUnit 3.8, JUnit 4.6, TestNG, etc.</para>

      <note>
        <title>Legacy JUnit 3.8 class hierarchy is deprecated</title>

        <para>As of Spring 3.0, the legacy JUnit 3.8 base class hierarchy
        (e.g.,
        <classname>AbstractDependencyInjectionSpringContextTests</classname>,
        <classname>AbstractTransactionalDataSourceSpringContextTests</classname>,
        etc.) is officially deprecated and will be removed in a later release.
        Thus any code which depends on the legacy JUnit 3.8 support should be
        migrated to the <link linkend="testcontext-framework">Spring
        TestContext Framework</link>.</para>
      </note>
    </section>

    <section id="integration-testing-goals">
      <title>Goals</title>

      <para>The following bullet points highlight the fundamental goals of
      Spring's integration testing support:</para>

      <itemizedlist>
        <listitem>
          <para><link linkend="testing-ctx-management">Spring IoC container
          caching</link> between test execution.</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para><link linkend="testing-fixture-di">Dependency Injection of
          test fixture instances</link> (this is nice).</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para><link linkend="testing-tx">Transaction management</link>
          appropriate to integration testing (this is even nicer).</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para><link linkend="testing-support-classes">Spring-specific
          support classes</link> that are really useful when writing
          integration tests.</para>
        </listitem>
      </itemizedlist>

      <para>In the next few sections each of the above goals is discussed in
      greater detail, and at the end of each section you will find a direct
      link to implementation and configuration details pertaining to that
      particular goal.</para>

      <section id="testing-ctx-management">
        <title>Context management and caching</title>

        <para>The Spring TestContext Framework provides consistent loading of
        Spring <classname>ApplicationContext</classname>s and caching of those
        contexts. Support for the caching of loaded contexts is important,
        because if you are working on a large project, startup time may become
        an issue - not because of the overhead of Spring itself, but because
        the objects instantiated by the Spring container will themselves take
        time to instantiate. For example, a project with 50-100 Hibernate
        mapping files might take 10-20 seconds to load the mapping files, and
        incurring that cost before running every single test in every single
        test fixture will lead to slower overall test runs that could reduce
        productivity.</para>

        <para>Test classes provide an array containing the resource locations
        of XML configuration metadata - typically on the classpath - used to
        configure the application. This will be the same, or nearly the same,
        as the list of configuration locations specified in
        <literal>web.xml</literal> or other deployment configuration.</para>

        <para>By default, once loaded, the configured
        <interfacename>ApplicationContext</interfacename> will be reused for
        each test. Thus the setup cost will be incurred only once (per test
        fixture), and subsequent test execution will be much faster. In the
        unlikely case that a test may 'dirty' the application context,
        requiring reloading - for example, by changing a bean definition or
        the state of an application object - Spring's testing support provides
        a mechanism to cause the test fixture to reload the configurations and
        rebuild the application context before executing the next test.</para>

        <para>See: context management and caching with the <link
        linkend="testcontext-ctx-management">TestContext
        Framework</link>.</para>
      </section>

      <section id="testing-fixture-di">
        <title>Dependency Injection of test fixtures</title>

        <para>When the TestContext framework loads your application context,
        it can optionally configure instances of your test classes via
        Dependency Injection. This provides a convenient mechanism for setting
        up test fixtures using pre-configured beans from your application
        context. A strong benefit here is that you can reuse application
        contexts across various testing scenarios (e.g., for configuring
        Spring-managed object graphs, transactional proxies,
        <classname>DataSource</classname>s, etc.), thus avoiding the need to
        duplicate complex test fixture set up for individual test
        cases.</para>

        <para>As an example, consider the scenario where we have a class,
        <classname>HibernateTitleDao</classname>, that performs data access
        logic for say, the <classname>Title</classname> domain object. We want
        to write integration tests that test all of the following
        areas:</para>

        <itemizedlist>
          <listitem>
            <para>The Spring configuration: basically, is everything related
            to the configuration of the
            <classname>HibernateTitleDao</classname> bean correct and
            present?</para>
          </listitem>

          <listitem>
            <para>The Hibernate mapping file configuration: is everything
            mapped correctly and are the correct lazy-loading settings in
            place?</para>
          </listitem>

          <listitem>
            <para>The logic of the <classname>HibernateTitleDao</classname>:
            does the configured instance of this class perform as
            anticipated?</para>
          </listitem>
        </itemizedlist>

        <para>See: dependency injection of test fixtures with the <link
        linkend="testcontext-fixture-di">TestContext Framework</link>.</para>
      </section>

      <section id="testing-tx">
        <title>Transaction management</title>

        <para>One common issue in tests that access a real database is their
        affect on the state of the persistence store. Even when you're using a
        development database, changes to the state may affect future tests.
        Also, many operations - such as inserting or modifying persistent data
        - cannot be performed (or verified) outside a transaction.</para>

        <para>The TestContext framework addresses this issue. By default, the
        framework will create and roll back a transaction for each test. You
        simply write code that can assume the existence of a transaction. If
        you call transactionally proxied objects in your tests, they will
        behave correctly, according to their transactional semantics. In
        addition, if test methods delete the contents of selected tables while
        running within a transaction, the transaction will roll back by
        default, and the database will return to its state prior to execution
        of the test. Transactional support is provided to your test class via
        a <classname>PlatformTransactionManager</classname> bean defined in
        the test's application context.</para>

        <para>If you want a transaction to commit - unusual, but occasionally
        useful when you want a particular test to populate or modify the
        database - the TestContext framework can be instructed to cause the
        transaction to commit instead of roll back via the <link
        linkend="integration-testing-annotations"><interfacename>@TransactionConfiguration</interfacename></link>
        and <link
        linkend="integration-testing-annotations"><interfacename>@Rollback</interfacename></link>
        annotations.</para>

        <para>See: transaction management with the <link
        linkend="testcontext-tx">TestContext Framework</link>.</para>
      </section>

      <section id="testing-support-classes">
        <title>Integration testing support classes</title>

        <para>The Spring TestContext Framework provides several
        <literal>abstract</literal> support classes that can simplify writing
        integration tests. These base test classes provide well defined hooks
        into the testing framework as well as convenient instance variables
        and methods, allowing access to such things as:</para>

        <itemizedlist>
          <listitem>
            <para>The <literal>ApplicationContext</literal>: useful for
            performing explicit bean lookups or testing the state of the
            context as a whole.</para>
          </listitem>

          <listitem>
            <para>A <classname>SimpleJdbcTemplate</classname>: useful for
            querying to confirm state. For example, you might query before and
            after testing application code that creates an object and persists
            it using an ORM tool, to verify that the data appears in the
            database. (Spring will ensure that the query runs in the scope of
            the same transaction.) You will need to tell your ORM tool to
            'flush' its changes for this to work correctly, for example using
            the <methodname>flush()</methodname> method on Hibernate's
            <interfacename>Session</interfacename> interface.</para>
          </listitem>
        </itemizedlist>

        <para>In addition, you may find it desirable to provide your own
        custom, application-wide superclass for integration tests that
        provides further useful instance variables and methods specific to
        your project.</para>

        <para>See: support classes for the <link
        linkend="testcontext-support-classes">TestContext
        Framework</link>.</para>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section id="integration-testing-support-jdbc">
      <title>JDBC testing support</title>

      <para>The <literal>org.springframework.test.jdbc</literal> package
      contains <classname>SimpleJdbcTestUtils</classname>, which is a
      Java-5-based collection of JDBC related utility functions intended to
      simplify standard database testing scenarios. <emphasis>Note that <link
      linkend="testcontext-support-classes-junit38"><classname>AbstractTransactionalJUnit38SpringContextTests</classname></link>,
      <link
      linkend="testcontext-support-classes-junit4"><classname>AbstractTransactionalJUnit4SpringContextTests</classname></link>,
      and <link
      linkend="testcontext-support-classes-testng"><classname>AbstractTransactionalTestNGSpringContextTests</classname></link>
      provide convenience methods which delegate to
      <classname>SimpleJdbcTestUtils</classname> internally.</emphasis></para>
    </section>

    <section id="integration-testing-annotations">
      <title>Annotations</title>

      <!-- =============================================================== -->

      <para>The Spring Framework provides the following set of
      <emphasis>Spring-specific</emphasis> annotations that you can use in
      your unit and integration tests in conjunction with the TestContext
      framework. Refer to the respective JavaDoc for further information,
      including default attribute values, etc.</para>

      <itemizedlist>
        <listitem>
          <para><emphasis
          role="bold"><interfacename>@ContextConfiguration</interfacename></emphasis></para>

          <para>Defines class-level metadata which is used to determine how to
          load and configure an
          <interfacename>ApplicationContext</interfacename>. Specifically,
          @ContextConfiguration defines the application context resource
          <literal>locations</literal> to load as well as the
          <interfacename>ContextLoader</interfacename> strategy to use for
          loading the context.</para>

          <programlisting language="java">@ContextConfiguration(locations={"example/test-context.xml"}, loader=CustomContextLoader.class)
public class CustomConfiguredApplicationContextTests {
    <lineannotation>// class body...</lineannotation>
}</programlisting>

          <para>Note: <interfacename>@ContextConfiguration</interfacename>
          provides support for <emphasis>inherited</emphasis> resource
          locations by default. See the <link
          linkend="testcontext-ctx-management">Context management and
          caching</link> section and JavaDoc for an example and further
          details.</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para><emphasis
          role="bold"><interfacename>@DirtiesContext</interfacename></emphasis></para>

          <para>The presence of this annotation on a test method indicates
          that the underlying Spring container is 'dirtied' during the
          execution of the test method, and thus must be rebuilt after the
          test method finishes execution (regardless of whether the test
          passed or not).</para>

          <programlisting language="java">@DirtiesContext
@Test
public void testProcessWhichDirtiesAppCtx() {
    <lineannotation>// some logic that results in the Spring container being dirtied</lineannotation>
}</programlisting>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para><emphasis
          role="bold"><interfacename>@TestExecutionListeners</interfacename></emphasis></para>

          <para>Defines class-level metadata for configuring which
          <interfacename>TestExecutionListener</interfacename>s should be
          registered with a <classname>TestContextManager</classname>.
          Typically, <interfacename>@TestExecutionListeners</interfacename>
          will be used in conjunction with
          <interfacename>@ContextConfiguration</interfacename>.</para>

          <programlisting language="java">@ContextConfiguration
@TestExecutionListeners({CustomTestExecutionListener.class, AnotherTestExecutionListener.class})
public class CustomTestExecutionListenerTests {
    <lineannotation>// class body...</lineannotation>
}</programlisting>

          <para>Note: <interfacename>@TestExecutionListeners</interfacename>
          provides support for <emphasis>inherited</emphasis> listeners by
          default. See the JavaDoc for an example and further details.</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para><emphasis
          role="bold"><interfacename>@TransactionConfiguration</interfacename></emphasis></para>

          <para>Defines class-level metadata for configuring transactional
          tests. Specifically, the bean name of the
          <interfacename>PlatformTransactionManager</interfacename> that is to
          be used to drive transactions can be explicitly configured if the
          bean name of the desired PlatformTransactionManager is not
          "transactionManager". In addition, the
          <literal>defaultRollback</literal> flag can optionally be changed to
          <literal>false</literal>. Typically,
          <interfacename>@TransactionConfiguration</interfacename> will be
          used in conjunction with
          <interfacename>@ContextConfiguration</interfacename>.</para>

          <programlisting language="java">@ContextConfiguration
@TransactionConfiguration(transactionManager="txMgr", defaultRollback=false)
public class CustomConfiguredTransactionalTests {
    <lineannotation>// class body...</lineannotation>
}</programlisting>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para><emphasis
          role="bold"><interfacename>@Rollback</interfacename></emphasis></para>

          <para>Indicates whether or not the transaction for the annotated
          test method should be <emphasis>rolled back</emphasis> after the
          test method has completed. If <literal>true</literal>, the
          transaction will be rolled back; otherwise, the transaction will be
          committed. Use <interfacename>@Rollback</interfacename> to override
          the default rollback flag configured at the class level.</para>

          <programlisting language="java">@Rollback(false)
@Test
public void testProcessWithoutRollback() {
    <lineannotation>// ...</lineannotation>
}</programlisting>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para><emphasis
          role="bold"><interfacename>@BeforeTransaction</interfacename></emphasis></para>

          <para>Indicates that the annotated <literal>public void</literal>
          method should be executed <emphasis>before</emphasis> a transaction
          is started for test methods configured to run within a transaction
          via the <interfacename>@Transactional</interfacename>
          annotation.</para>

          <programlisting language="java">@BeforeTransaction
public void beforeTransaction() {
    <lineannotation>// logic to be executed before a transaction is started</lineannotation>
}</programlisting>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para><emphasis
          role="bold"><interfacename>@AfterTransaction</interfacename></emphasis></para>

          <para>Indicates that the annotated <literal>public void</literal>
          method should be executed <emphasis>after</emphasis> a transaction
          has been ended for test methods configured to run within a
          transaction via the <interfacename>@Transactional</interfacename>
          annotation.</para>

          <programlisting language="java">@AfterTransaction
public void afterTransaction() {
    <lineannotation>// logic to be executed after a transaction has ended</lineannotation>
}</programlisting>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para><emphasis
          role="bold"><interfacename>@NotTransactional</interfacename></emphasis></para>

          <para>The presence of this annotation indicates that the annotated
          test method must <emphasis>not</emphasis> execute in a transactional
          context.</para>

          <programlisting language="java">@NotTransactional 
@Test
public void testProcessWithoutTransaction() {
    <lineannotation>// ...</lineannotation>
}</programlisting>
        </listitem>
      </itemizedlist>

      <!-- =============================================================== -->

      <para>The following annotations are <emphasis>only</emphasis> supported
      when used in conjunction with JUnit (i.e., with the <link
      linkend="testcontext-junit4-runner">SpringJUnit4ClassRunner</link> or
      the <link linkend="testcontext-support-classes-junit38">JUnit 3.8</link>
      and <link linkend="testcontext-support-classes-junit4">JUnit 4.6</link>
      support classes.</para>

      <itemizedlist>
        <listitem>
          <para><emphasis
          role="bold"><interfacename>@IfProfileValue</interfacename></emphasis></para>

          <para>Indicates that the annotated test is enabled for a specific
          testing environment. If the configured
          <classname>ProfileValueSource</classname> returns a matching
          <literal>value</literal> for the provided <literal>name</literal>,
          the test will be enabled. This annotation can be applied to an
          entire class or individual methods.</para>

          <programlisting language="java">@IfProfileValue(name="java.vendor", value="Sun Microsystems Inc.")
@Test
public void testProcessWhichRunsOnlyOnSunJvm() {
    <lineannotation>// some logic that should run only on Java VMs from Sun Microsystems</lineannotation>
}</programlisting>

          <para>Alternatively <interfacename>@IfProfileValue</interfacename>
          may be configured with a list of <literal>values</literal> (with
          <emphasis>OR</emphasis> semantics) to achieve TestNG-like support
          for <emphasis>test groups</emphasis> in a JUnit environment.
          Consider the following example:</para>

          <programlisting language="java">@IfProfileValue(name="test-groups", values={"unit-tests", "integration-tests"})
@Test
public void testProcessWhichRunsForUnitOrIntegrationTestGroups() {
    <lineannotation>// some logic that should run only for unit and integration test groups</lineannotation>
}</programlisting>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para><emphasis
          role="bold"><interfacename>@ProfileValueSourceConfiguration</interfacename></emphasis></para>

          <para>Class-level annotation which is used to specify what type of
          <literal>ProfileValueSource</literal> to use when retrieving
          <emphasis>profile values</emphasis> configured via the
          <interfacename>@IfProfileValue</interfacename> annotation. If
          <interfacename>@ProfileValueSourceConfiguration</interfacename> is
          not declared for a test,
          <classname>SystemProfileValueSource</classname> will be used by
          default.</para>

          <programlisting language="java">@ProfileValueSourceConfiguration(CustomProfileValueSource.class)
public class CustomProfileValueSourceTests {
    <lineannotation>// class body...</lineannotation>
}</programlisting>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para><emphasis
          role="bold"><interfacename>@ExpectedException</interfacename></emphasis></para>

          <para>Indicates that the annotated test method is expected to throw
          an exception during execution. The type of the expected exception is
          provided in the annotation, and if an instance of the exception is
          thrown during the test method execution then the test passes.
          Likewise if an instance of the exception is <emphasis>not</emphasis>
          thrown during the test method execution then the test fails.</para>

          <programlisting language="java">@ExpectedException(SomeBusinessException.class)
public void testProcessRainyDayScenario() {
    <lineannotation>// some logic that should result in an <classname>Exception</classname> being thrown</lineannotation>
}</programlisting>

          <para>Using Spring's
          <interfacename>@ExpectedException</interfacename> annotation in
          conjunction with JUnit 4's
          <interfacename>@Test(expected=...)</interfacename> configuration
          would lead to an unresolvable conflict. Developers must therefore
          choose one or the other when integrating with JUnit 4, in which case
          it is generally preferable to use the explicit JUnit 4
          configuration.</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para><emphasis
          role="bold"><interfacename>@Timed</interfacename></emphasis></para>

          <para>Indicates that the annotated test method has to finish
          execution in a specified time period (in milliseconds). If the text
          execution time takes longer than the specified time period, the test
          fails.</para>

          <para>Note that the time period includes execution of the test
          method itself, any repetitions of the test (see
          <interfacename>@Repeat</interfacename>), as well as any
          <emphasis>set up</emphasis> or <emphasis>tear down</emphasis> of the
          test fixture.</para>

          <programlisting language="java">@Timed(millis=1000)
public void testProcessWithOneSecondTimeout() {
    <lineannotation>// some logic that should not take longer than 1 second to execute</lineannotation>
}</programlisting>

          <para>Spring's <interfacename>@Timed</interfacename> annotation has
          different semantics than JUnit 4's
          <interfacename>@Test(timeout=...)</interfacename> support.
          Specifically, due to the manner in which JUnit 4 handles test
          execution timeouts (i.e., by executing the test method in a separate
          <classname>Thread</classname>),
          <interfacename>@Test(timeout=...)</interfacename> applies to
          <emphasis>each iteration</emphasis> in the case of repetitions and
          preemptively fails the test if the test takes too long. Spring's
          <interfacename>@Timed</interfacename>, on the other hand, times the
          <emphasis>total</emphasis> test execution time (including all
          repetitions) and does not preemptively fail the test but rather
          waits for the test to actually complete before failing.</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para><emphasis
          role="bold"><interfacename>@Repeat</interfacename></emphasis></para>

          <para>Indicates that the annotated test method must be executed
          repeatedly. The number of times that the test method is to be
          executed is specified in the annotation.</para>

          <para>Note that the scope of execution to be repeated includes
          execution of the test method itself as well as any <emphasis>set
          up</emphasis> or <emphasis>tear down</emphasis> of the test
          fixture.</para>

          <programlisting language="java">@Repeat(10)
@Test
public void testProcessRepeatedly() {
    <lineannotation>// ...</lineannotation>
}</programlisting>
        </listitem>
      </itemizedlist>

      <!-- =============================================================== -->

      <para>The following non-test-specific annotations are supported with
      standard semantics for all configurations of the Spring TestContext
      Framework.</para>

      <itemizedlist>
        <listitem>
          <para><emphasis
          role="bold"><interfacename>@Autowired</interfacename></emphasis></para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para><emphasis
          role="bold"><interfacename>@Qualifier</interfacename></emphasis></para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para><emphasis
          role="bold"><interfacename>@Resource</interfacename></emphasis>
          (javax.annotation) <emphasis>if JSR-250 is present</emphasis></para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para><emphasis
          role="bold"><interfacename>@PersistenceContext</interfacename></emphasis>
          (javax.persistence) <emphasis>if JPA is present</emphasis></para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para><emphasis
          role="bold"><interfacename>@PersistenceUnit</interfacename></emphasis>
          (javax.persistence) <emphasis>if JPA is present</emphasis></para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para><emphasis
          role="bold"><interfacename>@Required</interfacename></emphasis></para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para><emphasis
          role="bold"><interfacename>@Transactional</interfacename></emphasis></para>
        </listitem>
      </itemizedlist>
    </section>

    <section id="testcontext-framework">
      <title>Spring TestContext Framework</title>

      <para>The <emphasis>Spring <classname>TestContext</classname>
      Framework</emphasis> (located in the
      <literal>org.springframework.test.context</literal> package) provides
      generic, annotation-driven unit and integration testing support that is
      agnostic of the testing framework in use, for example JUnit 3.8, JUnit
      4.6, TestNG 5.8, etc. The TestContext framework also places a great deal
      of importance on <emphasis>convention over configuration</emphasis> with
      reasonable defaults that can be overridden via annotation-based
      configuration.</para>

      <para>In addition to generic testing infrastructure, the TestContext
      framework provides explicit support for JUnit 3.8, JUnit 4.6, and TestNG
      5.8 in the form of <literal>abstract</literal> support classes. For
      JUnit 4.6, the framework also provides a custom
      <interfacename>Runner</interfacename> which allows one to write test
      classes that are not required to extend a particular class
      hierarchy.</para>

      <para>The following section provides an overview of the internals of the
      TestContext framework. If you are only interested in using the framework
      and not necessarily interested in extending it with your own custom
      listeners, feel free to go directly to the configuration (<link
      linkend="testcontext-ctx-management">context management</link>, <link
      linkend="testcontext-fixture-di">dependency injection</link>, <link
      linkend="testcontext-tx">transaction management</link>), <link
      linkend="testcontext-support-classes">support classes</link>, and <link
      linkend="integration-testing-annotations">annotation support</link>
      sections.</para>

      <!-- ================================================================= -->

      <section id="testcontext-key-abstractions">
        <title>Key abstractions</title>

        <para>The core of the framework consists of the
        <classname>TestContext</classname> and
        <classname>TestContextManager</classname> classes and the
        <interfacename>TestExecutionListener</interfacename> interface. A
        <classname>TestContextManager</classname> is created on a per-test
        basis. The <classname>TestContextManager</classname> in turn manages a
        <classname>TestContext</classname> which is responsible for holding
        the context of the current test. The
        <classname>TestContextManager</classname> is also responsible for
        updating the state of the <classname>TestContext</classname> as the
        test progresses and delegating to
        <interfacename>TestExecutionListener</interfacename>s, which
        instrument the actual test execution (e.g., providing dependency
        injection, managing transactions, etc.). Consult the JavaDoc and the
        Spring test suite for further information and examples of various
        configurations.</para>

        <itemizedlist>
          <listitem>
            <para><classname>TestContext</classname>: encapsulates the context
            in which a test is executed, agnostic of the actual testing
            framework in use.</para>
          </listitem>

          <listitem>
            <para><classname>TestContextManager</classname>: the main entry
            point into the <emphasis>Spring TestContext Framework</emphasis>,
            which is responsible for managing a single
            <classname>TestContext</classname> and signaling events to all
            registered <interfacename>TestExecutionListener</interfacename>s
            at well defined test execution points: test instance preparation,
            prior to any <emphasis>before methods</emphasis> of a particular
            testing framework, and after any <emphasis>after
            methods</emphasis> of a particular testing framework.</para>
          </listitem>

          <listitem>
            <para><interfacename>TestExecutionListener</interfacename>:
            defines a <emphasis>listener</emphasis> API for reacting to test
            execution events published by the
            <classname>TestContextManager</classname> with which the listener
            is registered.</para>

            <para>Spring provides three
            <interfacename>TestExecutionListener</interfacename>
            implementations which are configured by default:
            <classname>DependencyInjectionTestExecutionListener</classname>,
            <classname>DirtiesContextTestExecutionListener</classname>, and
            <classname>TransactionalTestExecutionListener</classname>, which
            provide support for dependency injection of the test instance,
            handling of the <interfacename>@DirtiesContext</interfacename>
            annotation, and transactional test execution support with default
            rollback semantics, respectively.</para>
          </listitem>
        </itemizedlist>

        <para>The following three sections explain how to configure the
        <classname>TestContext</classname> framework via annotations and
        provide working examples of how to actually write unit and integration
        tests with the framework.</para>
      </section>

      <!-- ================================================================= -->

      <section id="testcontext-ctx-management">
        <title>Context management and caching</title>

        <para>Each <classname>TestContext</classname> provides context
        management and caching support for the test instance for which it is
        responsible. Test instances do not automatically receive access to the
        configured <classname>ApplicationContext</classname>; however, if a
        test class implements the
        <interfacename>ApplicationContextAware</interfacename> interface, a
        reference to the <classname>ApplicationContext</classname> will be
        supplied to the test instance (provided the
        <classname>DependencyInjectionTestExecutionListener</classname> has
        been configured, which is the default). Note that
        <classname>AbstractJUnit38SpringContextTests</classname>,
        <classname>AbstractJUnit4SpringContextTests</classname>, and
        <classname>AbstractTestNGSpringContextTests</classname> already
        implement <interfacename>ApplicationContextAware</interfacename> and
        therefore provide this functionality out-of-the-box.</para>

        <tip>
          <title>@Autowired ApplicationContext</title>

          <para>As an alternative to implementing the
          <interfacename>ApplicationContextAware</interfacename> interface,
          your test class can have its application context injected via the
          <interfacename>@Autowired</interfacename> annotation on either a
          field or setter method, for example:</para>

          <programlisting language="java">@RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class)
@ContextConfiguration
public class MyTest {

    <emphasis role="bold">@Autowired</emphasis>
    private ApplicationContext applicationContext;

    <lineannotation>// class body...</lineannotation>
}</programlisting>
        </tip>

        <para>In contrast to the now deprecated JUnit 3.8 legacy class
        hierarchy, test classes which use the TestContext framework do not
        need to override any <literal>protected</literal> instance methods to
        configure their application context. Rather, configuration is achieved
        merely by declaring the
        <interfacename>@ContextConfiguration</interfacename> annotation at the
        class level. If your test class does not explicitly declare any
        application context resource <literal>locations</literal>, the
        configured <interfacename>ContextLoader</interfacename> will determine
        how and whether or not to load a context from a default set of
        locations. For example, <classname>GenericXmlContextLoader</classname>
        - which is the default <interfacename>ContextLoader</interfacename> -
        will generate a default location based on the name of the test class.
        If your class is named <literal>com.example.MyTest</literal>,
        <classname>GenericXmlContextLoader</classname> will load your
        application context from
        <literal>"classpath:/com/example/MyTest-context.xml"</literal>.</para>

        <programlisting language="java">package com.example;

@RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class)
<lineannotation>// ApplicationContext will be loaded from <literal>"classpath:/com/example/MyTest-context.xml"</literal></lineannotation>
<emphasis role="bold">@ContextConfiguration</emphasis>
public class MyTest {
    <lineannotation>// class body...</lineannotation>
}</programlisting>

        <para>If the default location does not suit your needs, you are free
        to explicitly configure the <literal>locations</literal> attribute of
        <interfacename>@ContextConfiguration</interfacename> (see code listing
        below) with an array containing the resource locations of XML
        configuration metadata (assuming an XML-capable
        <interfacename>ContextLoader</interfacename> has been configured) -
        typically on the classpath - used to configure the application. This
        will be the same, or nearly the same, as the list of configuration
        locations specified in <literal>web.xml</literal> or other deployment
        configuration. As an alternative you may choose to implement and
        configure your own custom
        <interfacename>ContextLoader</interfacename>.</para>

        <programlisting language="java">@RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class)
<lineannotation>// ApplicationContext will be loaded from <literal>"/applicationContext.xml"</literal> and <literal>"/applicationContext-test.xml"</literal></lineannotation>
<lineannotation>// in the root of the classpath</lineannotation>
<emphasis role="bold">@ContextConfiguration({"/applicationContext.xml", "/applicationContext-test.xml"})</emphasis>
public class MyTest {
    <lineannotation>// class body...</lineannotation>
}</programlisting>

        <para><interfacename>@ContextConfiguration</interfacename> supports an
        alias for the <literal>locations</literal> attribute via the standard
        <literal>value</literal> attribute. Thus, if you do not need to
        configure a custom <interfacename>ContextLoader</interfacename>, you
        can omit the declaration of the <literal>locations</literal> attribute
        name and declare the resource locations using the shorthand format
        demonstrated in the following example.
        <interfacename>@ContextConfiguration</interfacename> also supports a
        boolean <literal>inheritLocations</literal> attribute which denotes
        whether or not resource locations from superclasses should be
        <emphasis>inherited</emphasis>. The default value is
        <literal>true</literal>, which means that an annotated class will
        <emphasis>inherit</emphasis> the resource locations defined by an
        annotated superclass. Specifically, the resource locations for an
        annotated class will be appended to the list of resource locations
        defined by an annotated superclass. Thus, subclasses have the option
        of <emphasis>extending</emphasis> the list of resource locations. In
        the following example, the
        <interfacename>ApplicationContext</interfacename> for
        <classname>ExtendedTest</classname> will be loaded from
        "/base-context.xml" <emphasis role="bold">and</emphasis>
        "/extended-context.xml", in that order. Beans defined in
        "/extended-context.xml" may therefore override those defined in
        "/base-context.xml".</para>

        <programlisting language="java">@RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class)
<lineannotation>// ApplicationContext will be loaded from <literal>"/base-context.xml"</literal> in the root of the classpath</lineannotation>
<emphasis role="bold">@ContextConfiguration("/base-context.xml")</emphasis>
public class BaseTest {
    <lineannotation>// class body...</lineannotation>
}

<lineannotation>// ApplicationContext will be loaded from <literal>"/base-context.xml"</literal> and <literal>"/extended-context.xml"</literal></lineannotation>
<lineannotation>// in the root of the classpath</lineannotation>
<emphasis role="bold">@ContextConfiguration("/extended-context.xml")</emphasis>
public class ExtendedTest extends BaseTest {
    <lineannotation>// class body...</lineannotation>
}</programlisting>

        <para>If <literal>inheritLocations</literal> is set to
        <literal>false</literal>, the resource locations for the annotated
        class will <emphasis>shadow</emphasis> and effectively replace any
        resource locations defined by a superclass.</para>

        <para>By default, once loaded, the configured
        <interfacename>ApplicationContext</interfacename> will be reused for
        each test. Thus the setup cost will be incurred only once (per test
        fixture), and subsequent test execution will be much faster. In the
        unlikely case that a test may <emphasis>dirty</emphasis> the
        application context, requiring reloading - for example, by changing a
        bean definition or the state of an application object - you may
        annotate your test method with
        <interfacename>@DirtiesContext</interfacename> (assuming
        <classname>DirtiesContextTestExecutionListener</classname> has been
        configured, which is the default) to cause the test fixture to reload
        the configurations and rebuild the application context before
        executing the next test.</para>
      </section>

      <!-- ================================================================= -->

      <section id="testcontext-fixture-di">
        <title>Dependency Injection of test fixtures</title>

        <para>When you configure the
        <classname>DependencyInjectionTestExecutionListener</classname> -
        which is configured by default - via the
        <interfacename>@TestExecutionListeners</interfacename> annotation, the
        dependencies of your test instances will be
        <emphasis>injected</emphasis> from beans in the application context
        you configured via
        <interfacename>@ContextConfiguration</interfacename> by Setter
        Injection, Field Injection, or both, depending on which annotations
        you choose and whether you place them on setter methods or fields. For
        consistency with the annotation support introduced in Spring 2.5, you
        may choose either Spring's <interfacename>@Autowired</interfacename>
        annotation or the <interfacename>@Resource</interfacename> annotation
        from JSR 250. The semantics for both are consistent throughout the
        Spring Framework. For example, if you prefer <link
        linkend="beans-factory-autowire"><emphasis>autowiring by
        type</emphasis></link>, annotate your setter methods or fields with
        <interfacename>@Autowired</interfacename>. On the other hand, if you
        prefer to have your dependencies injected <emphasis>by
        name</emphasis>, annotate your setter methods or fields with
        <interfacename>@Resource</interfacename>.</para>

        <tip>
          <para>The TestContext framework does not instrument the manner in
          which a test instance is instantiated. Thus the use of
          <interfacename>@Autowired</interfacename> for constructors has no
          effect for test classes.</para>
        </tip>

        <para>Since <interfacename>@Autowired</interfacename> performs <link
        linkend="beans-factory-autowire"><emphasis>autowiring by
        type</emphasis></link>, if you have multiple bean definitions of the
        same type, you cannot rely on this approach for those particular
        beans. In that case, you can use
        <interfacename>@Resource</interfacename> for injection <emphasis>by
        name</emphasis>. Alternatively, if your test class has access to its
        <classname>ApplicationContext</classname>, you can perform an explicit
        lookup using (for example) a call to
        <methodname>applicationContext.getBean("titleDao")</methodname>. A
        third option is to use <interfacename>@Autowired</interfacename> in
        conjunction with <interfacename>@Qualifier</interfacename>.</para>

        <para>If you don't want dependency injection applied to your test
        instances, simply don't annotate any fields or setter methods with
        <interfacename>@Autowired</interfacename> or
        <interfacename>@Resource</interfacename>. Alternatively, you can
        disable dependency injection altogether by explicitly configuring your
        class with <interfacename>@TestExecutionListeners</interfacename> and
        omitting
        <literal>DependencyInjectionTestExecutionListener.class</literal> from
        the list of listeners.</para>

        <para>Consider the scenario where we have a class,
        <classname>HibernateTitleDao</classname> (as outlined in the <link
        linkend="testing-fixture-di">Goals</link> section). First, let's look
        at a JUnit 4.6 based implementation of the test class itself which
        uses <interfacename>@Autowired</interfacename> for field injection (we
        will look at the application context configuration after all sample
        code listings). <emphasis>Note: The dependency injection behavior in
        the following code listings is not in any way specific to JUnit 4.6.
        The same DI techniques can be used in conjunction with any testing
        framework.</emphasis></para>

        <programlisting language="java">@RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class)
<lineannotation>// specifies the Spring configuration to load for this test fixture</lineannotation>
<emphasis role="bold">@ContextConfiguration("daos.xml")</emphasis>
public final class HibernateTitleDaoTests {

    <lineannotation>// this instance will be dependency injected <emphasis
              role="bold">by type</emphasis></lineannotation>
    <emphasis role="bold">@Autowired</emphasis>    
    private HibernateTitleDao titleDao;

    public void testLoadTitle() throws Exception {
        Title title = this.titleDao.loadTitle(new Long(10));
        assertNotNull(title);
    }
}</programlisting>

        <!-- =============================================================== -->

        <para>Alternatively, we can configure the class to use
        <interfacename>@Autowired</interfacename> for setter injection.</para>

        <programlisting language="java">@RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class)
<lineannotation>// specifies the Spring configuration to load for this test fixture</lineannotation>
<emphasis role="bold">@ContextConfiguration("daos.xml")</emphasis>
public final class HibernateTitleDaoTests {

    <lineannotation>// this instance will be dependency injected <emphasis
              role="bold">by type</emphasis></lineannotation>
    private HibernateTitleDao titleDao;

    <emphasis role="bold">@Autowired</emphasis>
    public void setTitleDao(HibernateTitleDao titleDao) {
        this.titleDao = titleDao;
    }

    public void testLoadTitle() throws Exception {
        Title title = this.titleDao.loadTitle(new Long(10));
        assertNotNull(title);
    }
}</programlisting>

        <!-- =============================================================== -->

        <para>Now let's take a look at an example using
        <interfacename>@Resource</interfacename> for field injection.</para>

        <programlisting language="java">@RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class)
<lineannotation>// specifies the Spring configuration to load for this test fixture</lineannotation>
<emphasis role="bold">@ContextConfiguration("daos.xml")</emphasis>
public final class HibernateTitleDaoTests {

    <lineannotation>// this instance will be dependency injected <emphasis
              role="bold">by name</emphasis></lineannotation>
    <emphasis role="bold">@Resource</emphasis>
    private HibernateTitleDao titleDao;

    public void testLoadTitle() throws Exception {
        Title title = this.titleDao.loadTitle(new Long(10));
        assertNotNull(title);
    }
}</programlisting>

        <!-- =============================================================== -->

        <para>Finally, here is an example using
        <interfacename>@Resource</interfacename> for setter injection.</para>

        <programlisting language="java">@RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class)
<lineannotation>// specifies the Spring configuration to load for this test fixture</lineannotation>
<emphasis role="bold">@ContextConfiguration("daos.xml")</emphasis>
public final class HibernateTitleDaoTests {

    <lineannotation>// this instance will be dependency injected <emphasis
              role="bold">by name</emphasis></lineannotation>
    private HibernateTitleDao titleDao;
    
    <emphasis role="bold">@Resource</emphasis>
    public void setTitleDao(HibernateTitleDao titleDao) {
        this.titleDao = titleDao;
    }

    public void testLoadTitle() throws Exception {
        Title title = this.titleDao.loadTitle(new Long(10));
        assertNotNull(title);
    }
}</programlisting>

        <!-- =============================================================== -->

        <para>The above code listings use the same XML context file referenced
        by the <interfacename>@ContextConfiguration</interfacename> annotation
        (i.e., <literal>"daos.xml"</literal>) which looks like this:</para>

        <programlisting language="xml">&lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
&lt;beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans" 
       xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
       xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans 
           http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd"&gt;

    <lineannotation>&lt;!-- this bean will be injected into the <classname>HibernateTitleDaoTests</classname> class --&gt;</lineannotation>
    &lt;bean id="<emphasis role="bold">titleDao</emphasis>" class="<emphasis
            role="bold">com.foo.dao.hibernate.HibernateTitleDao</emphasis>"&gt;
        &lt;property name="sessionFactory" ref="sessionFactory"/&gt;
    &lt;/bean&gt;
    
    &lt;bean id="sessionFactory" class="org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.LocalSessionFactoryBean"&gt;
        <lineannotation>&lt;!-- dependencies elided for clarity --&gt;</lineannotation>
    &lt;/bean&gt;

&lt;/beans&gt;</programlisting>

        <note>
          <para>If you are extending from a Spring-provided test base class
          that happens to use <interfacename>@Autowired</interfacename> on one
          of its setters methods, you might have multiple beans of the
          affected type defined in your application context: e.g. multiple
          <interfacename>DataSource</interfacename> beans. In such a case, you
          may override the setter and use the
          <interfacename>@Qualifier</interfacename> annotation to indicate a
          specific target bean as follows:</para>

          <programlisting language="java">...
    @Override @Autowired
    public void setDataSource(<emphasis role="bold">@Qualifier("myDataSource")</emphasis> DataSource dataSource) {
        super.setDataSource(dataSource);
    }
...</programlisting>

          <para>The specified qualifier value indicates the specific
          <interfacename>DataSource</interfacename> bean to inject, narrowing
          the set of type matches to a specific bean. Its value is matched
          against <literal>&lt;qualifier&gt;</literal> declarations within the
          corresponding <literal>&lt;bean&gt;</literal> definitions. The bean
          name is used as a fallback qualifier value, so you may effectively
          also point to a specific bean by name there (as shown above,
          assuming that "myDataSource" is the bean id). If there is only one
          <interfacename>DataSource</interfacename> bean to begin with, then
          the qualifier will simply not have any effect - independent from the
          bean name of that single matching bean.</para>

          <para>Alternatively, consider using the
          <interfacename>@Resource</interfacename> annotation on such an
          overridden setter methods, defining the target bean name explicitly
          - with no type matching semantics. Note that this always points to a
          bean with that specific name, no matter whether there is one or more
          beans of the given type.</para>

          <programlisting language="java">...
    @Override <emphasis role="bold">@Resource("myDataSource")</emphasis>
    public void setDataSource(DataSource dataSource) {
        super.setDataSource(dataSource);
    }
...</programlisting>
        </note>
      </section>

      <!-- ================================================================= -->

      <section id="testcontext-tx">
        <title>Transaction management</title>

        <para>In the TestContext framework, transactions are managed by the
        <classname>TransactionalTestExecutionListener</classname>, which is
        configured via the
        <interfacename>@TestExecutionListeners</interfacename> annotation by
        default, even if you do not explicitly declare
        <interfacename>@TestExecutionListeners</interfacename> on your test
        class. To enable support for transactions, however, you must provide a
        <classname>PlatformTransactionManager</classname> bean in the
        application context loaded via
        <interfacename>@ContextConfiguration</interfacename> semantics. In
        addition, you must declare
        <interfacename>@Transactional</interfacename> either at the class or
        method level.</para>

        <para>For class-level transaction configuration (i.e., setting the
        bean name for the transaction manager and the default rollback flag),
        see the <interfacename>@TransactionConfiguration</interfacename> entry
        in the <link linkend="integration-testing-annotations">annotation
        support</link> section.</para>

        <para>There are several options for configuring transactions for
        individual test methods. If transactions are not enabled for the
        entire test class, methods may be explicitly annotated with
        <interfacename>@Transactional</interfacename>. Similarly, if
        transactions <emphasis>are</emphasis> enabled for the entire test
        class, methods may be explicitly flagged not to run within a
        transaction by annotating them with
        <interfacename>@NotTransactional</interfacename>. To control whether
        or not a transaction should commit for a particular test method, you
        may use the <interfacename>@Rollback</interfacename> annotation to
        override the class-level default rollback setting.</para>

        <para><emphasis>Note that <link
        linkend="testcontext-support-classes-junit38"><classname>AbstractTransactionalJUnit38SpringContextTests</classname></link>,
        <link
        linkend="testcontext-support-classes-junit4"><classname>AbstractTransactionalJUnit4SpringContextTests</classname></link>,
        and <link
        linkend="testcontext-support-classes-testng"><classname>AbstractTransactionalTestNGSpringContextTests</classname></link>
        are pre-configured for transactional support at the class level.
        </emphasis></para>

        <para>You will occasionally find that you need to execute certain code
        before or after a transactional test method but outside the
        transactional context, for example to verify the initial database
        state prior to execution of your test or to verify expected
        transactional commit behavior after test execution (e.g., if the test
        was configured not to roll back the transaction).
        <classname>TransactionalTestExecutionListener</classname> supports the
        <interfacename>@BeforeTransaction</interfacename> and
        <interfacename>@AfterTransaction</interfacename> annotations exactly
        for such scenarios. Simply annotate any <literal>public void</literal>
        method in your test class with one of these annotations, and the
        <classname>TransactionalTestExecutionListener</classname> will ensure
        that your <emphasis>before transaction method</emphasis> or
        <emphasis>after transaction method</emphasis> is executed at the
        appropriate time.</para>

        <tip>
          <para>Any <emphasis>before methods</emphasis> (e.g., methods
          annotated with JUnit 4's @Before) and any <emphasis>after
          methods</emphasis> (e.g., methods annotated with JUnit 4's @After)
          will be executed <emphasis role="bold">within</emphasis> a
          transaction. In addition, methods annotated with
          <interfacename>@BeforeTransaction</interfacename> or
          <interfacename>@AfterTransaction</interfacename> will naturally not
          be executed for tests annotated with
          <interfacename>@NotTransactional</interfacename>.</para>
        </tip>

        <para>The following JUnit 4 based example displays a fictitious
        integration testing scenario highlighting several of the
        transaction-related annotations. Consult the <link
        linkend="integration-testing-annotations">annotation support</link>
        section of the reference manual for further information and
        configuration examples.</para>

        <programlisting language="java">@RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class)
@ContextConfiguration
<emphasis role="bold">@TransactionConfiguration(transactionManager="txMgr", defaultRollback=false)</emphasis>
<emphasis role="bold">@Transactional</emphasis>
public class FictitiousTransactionalTest {

    <emphasis role="bold">@BeforeTransaction</emphasis>
    public void verifyInitialDatabaseState() {
        <lineannotation>// logic to verify the initial state before a transaction is started</lineannotation>
    }

    @Before
    public void setUpTestDataWithinTransaction() {
        <lineannotation>// set up test data within the transaction</lineannotation>
    }

    @Test
    <lineannotation>// overrides the class-level defaultRollback setting</lineannotation>
    <emphasis role="bold">@Rollback(true)</emphasis>
    public void modifyDatabaseWithinTransaction() {
        <lineannotation>// logic which uses the test data and modifies database state</lineannotation>
    }

    @After
    public void tearDownWithinTransaction() {
        <lineannotation>// execute "tear down" logic within the transaction</lineannotation>
    }

    <emphasis role="bold">@AfterTransaction</emphasis>
    public void verifyFinalDatabaseState() {
        <lineannotation>// logic to verify the final state after transaction has rolled back</lineannotation>
    }

    @Test
    <emphasis role="bold">@NotTransactional</emphasis>
    public void performNonDatabaseRelatedAction() {
        <lineannotation>// logic which does not modify database state</lineannotation>
    }
}</programlisting>
      </section>

      <!-- ================================================================= -->

      <section id="testcontext-support-classes">
        <title>TestContext support classes</title>

        <section id="testcontext-support-classes-junit38">
          <title>JUnit 3.8 support classes</title>

          <para>The
          <literal>org.springframework.test.context.junit38</literal> package
          provides support classes for JUnit 3.8 based test cases.</para>

          <itemizedlist>
            <listitem>
              <para><classname>AbstractJUnit38SpringContextTests</classname>:</para>

              <para>Abstract <classname>TestCase</classname> which integrates
              the <emphasis>Spring TestContext Framework</emphasis> with
              explicit <classname>ApplicationContext</classname> testing
              support in a JUnit 3.8 environment. When you extend the
              <classname>AbstractJUnit38SpringContextTests</classname> class
              you will have access to the following
              <literal>protected</literal> instance variables:</para>

              <itemizedlist>
                <listitem>
                  <para><literal>applicationContext</literal>: use this to
                  perform explicit bean lookups or to test the state of the
                  context as a whole.</para>
                </listitem>
              </itemizedlist>
            </listitem>

            <listitem>
              <para><classname>AbstractTransactionalJUnit38SpringContextTests</classname>:</para>

              <para>Abstract <emphasis>transactional</emphasis> extension of
              <classname>AbstractJUnit38SpringContextTests</classname> that
              also adds some convenience functionality for JDBC access.
              Expects a <classname>javax.sql.DataSource</classname> bean and a
              <interfacename>PlatformTransactionManager</interfacename> bean
              to be defined in the <classname>ApplicationContext</classname>.
              When you extend the
              <classname>AbstractTransactionalJUnit38SpringContextTests</classname>
              class you will have access to the following
              <literal>protected</literal> instance variables:</para>

              <itemizedlist>
                <listitem>
                  <para><literal>applicationContext</literal>: inherited from
                  the <classname>AbstractJUnit38SpringContextTests</classname>
                  superclass. Use this to perform explicit bean lookups or to
                  test the state of the context as a whole.</para>
                </listitem>

                <listitem>
                  <para><literal>simpleJdbcTemplate</literal>: useful for
                  querying to confirm state. For example, you might query
                  before and after testing application code that creates an
                  object and persists it using an ORM tool, to verify that the
                  data appears in the database. (Spring will ensure that the
                  query runs in the scope of the same transaction.) You will
                  need to tell your ORM tool to 'flush' its changes for this
                  to work correctly, for example using the
                  <methodname>flush()</methodname> method on Hibernate's
                  <classname>Session</classname> interface.</para>
                </listitem>
              </itemizedlist>
            </listitem>
          </itemizedlist>
        </section>

        <section id="testcontext-support-classes-junit4">
          <title>JUnit 4.6 support classes</title>

          <para>The <literal>org.springframework.test.context.junit4</literal>
          package provides support classes for JUnit 4.6 based test
          cases.</para>

          <itemizedlist>
            <listitem>
              <para><classname>AbstractJUnit4SpringContextTests</classname>:</para>

              <para>Abstract base test class which integrates the
              <emphasis>Spring TestContext Framework</emphasis> with explicit
              <classname>ApplicationContext</classname> testing support in a
              JUnit 4.6 environment.</para>

              <para>When you extend
              <classname>AbstractJUnit4SpringContextTests</classname> you will
              have access to the following <literal>protected</literal>
              instance variables:</para>

              <itemizedlist>
                <listitem>
                  <para><literal>applicationContext</literal>: use this to
                  perform explicit bean lookups or to test the state of the
                  context as a whole.</para>
                </listitem>
              </itemizedlist>
            </listitem>

            <listitem>
              <para><classname>AbstractTransactionalJUnit4SpringContextTests</classname>:</para>

              <para>Abstract <emphasis>transactional</emphasis> extension of
              <classname>AbstractJUnit4SpringContextTests</classname> that
              also adds some convenience functionality for JDBC access.
              Expects a <classname>javax.sql.DataSource</classname> bean and a
              <interfacename>PlatformTransactionManager</interfacename> bean
              to be defined in the
              <classname>ApplicationContext</classname>.</para>

              <para>When you extend
              <classname>AbstractTransactionalJUnit4SpringContextTests</classname>
              you will have access to the following
              <literal>protected</literal> instance variables:</para>

              <itemizedlist>
                <listitem>
                  <para><literal>applicationContext</literal>: inherited from
                  the <classname>AbstractJUnit4SpringContextTests</classname>
                  superclass. Use this to perform explicit bean lookups or to
                  test the state of the context as a whole.</para>
                </listitem>

                <listitem>
                  <para><literal>simpleJdbcTemplate</literal>: useful for
                  querying to confirm state. For example, you might query
                  before and after testing application code that creates an
                  object and persists it using an ORM tool, to verify that the
                  data appears in the database. (Spring will ensure that the
                  query runs in the scope of the same transaction.) You will
                  need to tell your ORM tool to 'flush' its changes for this
                  to work correctly, for example using the
                  <methodname>flush()</methodname> method on Hibernate's
                  <classname>Session</classname> interface.</para>
                </listitem>
              </itemizedlist>
            </listitem>
          </itemizedlist>

          <tip>
            <para>These classes serve only as a convenience for extension. If
            you do not wish for your test classes to be tied to a
            Spring-specific class hierarchy - for example, if you wish to
            directly extend the class you are testing - you may configure your
            own custom test classes by using
            <interfacename>@RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class)</interfacename>,
            <interfacename>@ContextConfiguration</interfacename>,
            <interfacename>@TestExecutionListeners</interfacename>,
            etc.</para>
          </tip>
        </section>

        <section id="testcontext-junit4-runner">
          <title>Custom JUnit 4.6 Runner</title>

          <para>The <emphasis>Spring TestContext Framework</emphasis> offers
          full integration with JUnit 4.6 via a custom runner. By annotating
          test classes with
          <literal>@Runwith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class)</literal>,
          developers can implement standard JUnit 4.6 unit and integration
          tests and simultaneously reap the benefits of the TestContext
          framework such as support for loading application contexts,
          dependency injection of test instances, transactional test method
          execution, etc. The following code listing displays the minimal
          requirements for configuring a test class to run with the custom
          Spring Runner. <emphasis>Note that
          <interfacename>@TestExecutionListeners</interfacename> has been
          configured with an empty list in order to disable the default
          listeners, which would otherwise require that an
          <interfacename>ApplicationContext</interfacename> be configured via
          <interfacename>@ContextConfiguration</interfacename>.</emphasis></para>

          <programlisting language="java">@RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class)
@TestExecutionListeners({})
public class SimpleTest {

    @Test
    public void testMethod() {
        <lineannotation>// execute test logic...</lineannotation>
    }
}</programlisting>
        </section>

        <section id="testcontext-support-classes-testng">
          <title>TestNG support classes</title>

          <para>The <literal>org.springframework.test.context.testng</literal>
          package provides support classes for TestNG based test cases.</para>

          <itemizedlist>
            <listitem>
              <para><classname>AbstractTestNGSpringContextTests</classname>:</para>

              <para>Abstract base test class which integrates the
              <emphasis>Spring TestContext Framework</emphasis> with explicit
              <classname>ApplicationContext</classname> testing support in a
              TestNG environment.</para>

              <para>When you extend
              <classname>AbstractTestNGSpringContextTests</classname> you will
              have access to the following <literal>protected</literal>
              instance variables:</para>

              <itemizedlist>
                <listitem>
                  <para><literal>applicationContext</literal>: use this to
                  perform explicit bean lookups or to test the state of the
                  context as a whole.</para>
                </listitem>
              </itemizedlist>
            </listitem>

            <listitem>
              <para><classname>AbstractTransactionalTestNGSpringContextTests</classname>:</para>

              <para>Abstract <emphasis>transactional</emphasis> extension of
              <classname>AbstractTestNGSpringContextTests</classname> that
              adds some convenience functionality for JDBC access. Expects a
              <classname>javax.sql.DataSource</classname> bean and a
              <interfacename>PlatformTransactionManager</interfacename> bean
              to be defined in the
              <classname>ApplicationContext</classname>.</para>

              <para>When you extend
              <classname>AbstractTransactionalTestNGSpringContextTests</classname>
              you will have access to the following
              <literal>protected</literal> instance variables:</para>

              <itemizedlist>
                <listitem>
                  <para><literal>applicationContext</literal>: inherited from
                  the <classname>AbstractTestNGSpringContextTests</classname>
                  superclass. Use this to perform explicit bean lookups or to
                  test the state of the context as a whole.</para>
                </listitem>

                <listitem>
                  <para><literal>simpleJdbcTemplate</literal>: useful for
                  querying to confirm state. For example, you might query
                  before and after testing application code that creates an
                  object and persists it using an ORM tool, to verify that the
                  data appears in the database. (Spring will ensure that the
                  query runs in the scope of the same transaction.) You will
                  need to tell your ORM tool to 'flush' its changes for this
                  to work correctly, for example using the
                  <methodname>flush()</methodname> method on Hibernate's
                  <classname>Session</classname> interface.</para>
                </listitem>
              </itemizedlist>
            </listitem>
          </itemizedlist>

          <tip>
            <para>These classes serve only as a convenience for extension. If
            you do not wish for your test classes to be tied to a
            Spring-specific class hierarchy - for example, if you wish to
            directly extend the class you are testing - you may configure your
            own custom test classes by using
            <interfacename>@ContextConfiguration</interfacename>,
            <interfacename>@TestExecutionListeners</interfacename>, etc. and
            by manually instrumenting your test class with a
            <classname>TestContextManager</classname>. See the source code of
            <classname>AbstractTestNGSpringContextTests</classname> for an
            example of how to instrument your test class.</para>
          </tip>
        </section>
      </section>

      <!-- ================================================================= -->
    </section>

    <!-- === PetClinic Example ================================================= -->

    <section id="testing-examples-petclinic">
      <title>PetClinic example</title>

      <para>The PetClinic sample application included with the full Spring
      distribution illustrates several features of the <emphasis>Spring
      TestContext Framework</emphasis> in a JUnit 4.6 environment. Most test
      functionality is included in the
      <classname>AbstractClinicTests</classname>, for which a partial listing
      is shown below:</para>

      <programlisting language="java"><emphasis role="bold">@ContextConfiguration</emphasis>
public abstract class AbstractClinicTests <emphasis role="bold">extends AbstractTransactionalJUnit4SpringContextTests</emphasis> {

    <emphasis role="bold">@Autowired</emphasis>
    protected Clinic clinic;

    @Test
    public void getVets() {
        Collection&lt;Vet&gt; vets = this.clinic.getVets();
        assertEquals("JDBC query must show the same number of vets",
            <emphasis role="bold">super.countRowsInTable("VETS")</emphasis>, vets.size());
        Vet v1 = EntityUtils.getById(vets, Vet.class, 2);
        assertEquals("Leary", v1.getLastName());
        assertEquals(1, v1.getNrOfSpecialties());
        assertEquals("radiology", (v1.getSpecialties().get(0)).getName());
        <lineannotation>// ...</lineannotation>
    }

    <lineannotation>// ...</lineannotation>
}</programlisting>

      <para>Notes:</para>

      <itemizedlist>
        <listitem>
          <para>This test case extends the
          <classname>AbstractTransactionalJUnit4SpringContextTests</classname>
          class, from which it inherits configuration for Dependency Injection
          (via the
          <classname>DependencyInjectionTestExecutionListener</classname>) and
          transactional behavior (via the
          <classname>TransactionalTestExecutionListener</classname>).</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>The <literal>clinic</literal> instance variable - the
          application object being tested - is set by Dependency Injection via
          <interfacename>@Autowired</interfacename> semantics.</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>The <methodname>testGetVets()</methodname> method illustrates
          how the inherited <methodname>countRowsInTable()</methodname> method
          can be used to easily verify the number of rows in a given table,
          thus testing correct behavior of the application code being tested.
          This allows for stronger tests and lessens dependency on the exact
          test data. For example, you can add additional rows in the database
          without breaking tests.</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>Like many integration tests using a database, most of the
          tests in <classname>AbstractClinicTests</classname> depend on a
          minimum amount of data already in the database before the test cases
          run. You might, however, choose to populate the database in your
          test cases also - again, within the same transaction.</para>
        </listitem>
      </itemizedlist>

      <para>The PetClinic application supports three data access technologies
      - JDBC, Hibernate, and JPA. By declaring
      <interfacename>@ContextConfiguration</interfacename> without any
      specific resource locations, the
      <classname>AbstractClinicTests</classname> class will have its
      application context loaded from the default location,
      <literal>"AbstractClinicTests-context.xml"</literal>, which declares a
      common <classname>DataSource</classname>. Subclasses specify additional
      context locations which must declare a
      <interfacename>PlatformTransactionManager</interfacename> and a concrete
      implementation of <interfacename>Clinic</interfacename>.</para>

      <para>For example, the Hibernate implementation of the PetClinic tests
      contains the following implementation. Note that for this example,
      <classname>HibernateClinicTests</classname> does not contain a single
      line of code: we only need to declare
      <interfacename>@ContextConfiguration</interfacename>, and the tests are
      inherited from <classname>AbstractClinicTests</classname>. Since
      <interfacename>@ContextConfiguration</interfacename> is declared without
      any specific resource locations, the <emphasis>Spring TestContext
      Framework</emphasis> will load an application context from all the beans
      defined in <literal>"AbstractClinicTests-context.xml"</literal> (i.e.,
      the inherited locations) and
      <literal>"HibernateClinicTests-context.xml"</literal>, with
      <literal>"HibernateClinicTests-context.xml"</literal> possibly
      overriding beans defined in
      <literal>"AbstractClinicTests-context.xml"</literal>.</para>

      <programlisting language="java"><emphasis role="bold">@ContextConfiguration</emphasis>
public class HibernateClinicTests extends AbstractClinicTests { }
</programlisting>

      <para>As you can see in the PetClinic application, the Spring
      configuration is split across multiple files. As is typical of large
      scale applications, configuration locations will often be specified in a
      common base class for all application-specific integration tests. Such a
      base class may also add useful instance variables - populated by
      Dependency Injection, naturally - such as a
      <classname>HibernateTemplate</classname>, in the case of an application
      using Hibernate.</para>

      <para>As far as possible, you should have exactly the same Spring
      configuration files in your integration tests as in the deployed
      environment. One likely point of difference concerns database connection
      pooling and transaction infrastructure. If you are deploying to a
      full-blown application server, you will probably use its connection pool
      (available through JNDI) and JTA implementation. Thus in production you
      will use a <classname>JndiObjectFactoryBean</classname> /
      <literal>&lt;jee:jndi-lookup&gt;</literal> for the
      <classname>DataSource</classname> and
      <classname>JtaTransactionManager</classname>. JNDI and JTA will not be
      available in out-of-container integration tests, so you should use a
      combination like the Commons DBCP <classname>BasicDataSource</classname>
      and <classname>DataSourceTransactionManager</classname> or
      <classname>HibernateTransactionManager</classname> for them. You can
      factor out this variant behavior into a single XML file, having the
      choice between application server and 'local' configuration separated
      from all other configuration, which will not vary between the test and
      production environments. In addition, it is advisable to use properties
      files for connection settings: see the PetClinic application for an
      example.</para>
    </section>

    <!-- ======================================================================= -->
  </section>

  <section id="testing-resources">
    <title>Further Resources</title>

    <para>This section contains links to further resources about testing in
    general.</para>

    <itemizedlist>
      <listitem>
        <para><ulink url="http://www.junit.org/">JUnit</ulink>: the Spring
        Framework's unit and integration test suite is written using JUnit 3.8
        and JUnit 4.6 as the testing framework.</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para><ulink url="http://testng.org/">TestNG</ulink>: a testing
        framework inspired by JUnit 3.8 with added support for Java 5
        annotations, test groups, data-driven testing, distributed testing,
        etc.</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para><ulink
        url="http://www.mockobjects.com/">MockObjects.com</ulink>: a website
        dedicated to mock objects, a technique for improving the design of
        code within Test-Driven Development.</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para><ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mock_Object">"Mock
        Objects"</ulink>: article at Wikipedia.</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para><ulink url="http://www.easymock.org/">EasyMock</ulink>: the
        Spring Framework uses EasyMock extensively in its test suite.</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para><ulink url="http://www.jmock.org/">JMock</ulink>: a library that
        supports test-driven development of Java code with mock
        objects.</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para><ulink url="http://mockito.org/">Mockito</ulink>: a Java mock
        library based on the <ulink url="http://xunitpatterns.com/Test%20Spy.html">test spy</ulink>
        pattern.</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para><ulink url="http://dbunit.sourceforge.net/">DbUnit</ulink>: a
        JUnit extension (also usable with Ant and Maven) targeted for
        database-driven projects that, among other things, puts your database
        into a known state between test runs.</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para><ulink url="http://grinder.sourceforge.net/">Grinder</ulink>: a
        Java load testing framework.</para>
      </listitem>
    </itemizedlist>
  </section>
</chapter>