testcontext-framework.adoc

Spring TestContext Framework

The Spring TestContext Framework (located in the org.springframework.test.context package) provides generic, annotation-driven unit and integration testing support that is agnostic of the testing framework in use. The TestContext framework also places a great deal of importance on convention over configuration, with reasonable defaults that you can override through annotation-based configuration.

In addition to generic testing infrastructure, the TestContext framework provides explicit support for JUnit 4, JUnit Jupiter (AKA JUnit 5), and TestNG. For JUnit 4 and TestNG, Spring provides abstract support classes. Furthermore, Spring provides a custom JUnit Runner and custom JUnit Rules for JUnit 4 and a custom Extension for JUnit Jupiter that let you write so-called POJO test classes. POJO test classes are not required to extend a particular class hierarchy, such as the abstract support classes.

The following section provides an overview of the internals of the TestContext framework. If you are interested only in using the framework and are not interested in extending it with your own custom listeners or custom loaders, feel free to go directly to the configuration (context management, dependency injection, transaction management), support classes, and annotation support sections.

Key Abstractions

The core of the framework consists of the TestContextManager class and the TestContext, TestExecutionListener, and SmartContextLoader interfaces. A TestContextManager is created for each test class (for example, for the execution of all test methods within a single test class in JUnit Jupiter). The TestContextManager, in turn, manages a TestContext that holds the context of the current test. The TestContextManager also updates the state of the TestContext as the test progresses and delegates to TestExecutionListener implementations, which instrument the actual test execution by providing dependency injection, managing transactions, and so on. A SmartContextLoader is responsible for loading an ApplicationContext for a given test class. See the {api-spring-framework}/test/context/package-summary.html[javadoc] and the Spring test suite for further information and examples of various implementations.

TestContext

TestContext encapsulates the context in which a test is run (agnostic of the actual testing framework in use) and provides context management and caching support for the test instance for which it is responsible. The TestContext also delegates to a SmartContextLoader to load an ApplicationContext if requested.

TestContextManager

TestContextManager is the main entry point into the Spring TestContext Framework and is responsible for managing a single TestContext and signaling events to each registered TestExecutionListener at well-defined test execution points:

• Prior to any “before class” or “before all” methods of a particular testing framework.

• Test instance post-processing.

• Prior to any “before” or “before each” methods of a particular testing framework.

• Immediately before execution of the test method but after test setup.

• Immediately after execution of the test method but before test tear down.

• After any “after” or “after each” methods of a particular testing framework.

• After any “after class” or “after all” methods of a particular testing framework.

TestExecutionListener

TestExecutionListener defines the API for reacting to test-execution events published by the TestContextManager with which the listener is registered. See TestExecutionListener Configuration.

Context Loaders

ContextLoader is a strategy interface for loading an ApplicationContext for an integration test managed by the Spring TestContext Framework. You should implement SmartContextLoader instead of this interface to provide support for component classes, active bean definition profiles, test property sources, context hierarchies, and WebApplicationContext support.

SmartContextLoader is an extension of the ContextLoader interface that supersedes the original minimal ContextLoader SPI. Specifically, a SmartContextLoader can choose to process resource locations, component classes, or context initializers. Furthermore, a SmartContextLoader can set active bean definition profiles and test property sources in the context that it loads.

Spring provides the following implementations:

• DelegatingSmartContextLoader: One of two default loaders, it delegates internally to an AnnotationConfigContextLoader, a GenericXmlContextLoader, or a GenericGroovyXmlContextLoader, depending either on the configuration declared for the test class or on the presence of default locations or default configuration classes. Groovy support is enabled only if Groovy is on the classpath.

• WebDelegatingSmartContextLoader: One of two default loaders, it delegates internally to an AnnotationConfigWebContextLoader, a GenericXmlWebContextLoader, or a GenericGroovyXmlWebContextLoader, depending either on the configuration declared for the test class or on the presence of default locations or default configuration classes. A web ContextLoader is used only if @WebAppConfiguration is present on the test class. Groovy support is enabled only if Groovy is on the classpath.

• AnnotationConfigContextLoader: Loads a standard ApplicationContext from component classes.

• AnnotationConfigWebContextLoader: Loads a WebApplicationContext from component classes.

• GenericGroovyXmlContextLoader: Loads a standard ApplicationContext from resource locations that are either Groovy scripts or XML configuration files.

• GenericGroovyXmlWebContextLoader: Loads a WebApplicationContext from resource locations that are either Groovy scripts or XML configuration files.

• GenericXmlContextLoader: Loads a standard ApplicationContext from XML resource locations.

• GenericXmlWebContextLoader: Loads a WebApplicationContext from XML resource locations.

Bootstrapping the TestContext Framework

The default configuration for the internals of the Spring TestContext Framework is sufficient for all common use cases. However, there are times when a development team or third party framework would like to change the default ContextLoader, implement a custom TestContext or ContextCache, augment the default sets of ContextCustomizerFactory and TestExecutionListener implementations, and so on. For such low-level control over how the TestContext framework operates, Spring provides a bootstrapping strategy.

TestContextBootstrapper defines the SPI for bootstrapping the TestContext framework. A TestContextBootstrapper is used by the TestContextManager to load the TestExecutionListener implementations for the current test and to build the TestContext that it manages. You can configure a custom bootstrapping strategy for a test class (or test class hierarchy) by using @BootstrapWith, either directly or as a meta-annotation. If a bootstrapper is not explicitly configured by using @BootstrapWith, either the DefaultTestContextBootstrapper or the WebTestContextBootstrapper is used, depending on the presence of @WebAppConfiguration.

Since the TestContextBootstrapper SPI is likely to change in the future (to accommodate new requirements), we strongly encourage implementers not to implement this interface directly but rather to extend AbstractTestContextBootstrapper or one of its concrete subclasses instead.

TestExecutionListener Configuration

Spring provides the following TestExecutionListener implementations that are registered by default, exactly in the following order:

• ServletTestExecutionListener: Configures Servlet API mocks for a WebApplicationContext.

• DirtiesContextBeforeModesTestExecutionListener: Handles the @DirtiesContext annotation for “before” modes.

• ApplicationEventsTestExecutionListener: Provides support for ApplicationEvents.

• DependencyInjectionTestExecutionListener: Provides dependency injection for the test instance.

• DirtiesContextTestExecutionListener: Handles the @DirtiesContext annotation for “after” modes.

• TransactionalTestExecutionListener: Provides transactional test execution with default rollback semantics.

• SqlScriptsTestExecutionListener: Runs SQL scripts configured by using the @Sql annotation.

• EventPublishingTestExecutionListener: Publishes test execution events to the test’s ApplicationContext (see Test Execution Events).

Registering TestExecutionListener Implementations

You can register TestExecutionListener implementations explicitly for a test class, its subclasses, and its nested classes by using the @TestExecutionListeners annotation. See annotation support and the javadoc for {api-spring-framework}/test/context/TestExecutionListeners.html[@TestExecutionListeners] for details and examples.

Note

Switching to default TestExecutionListener implementations If you extend a class that is annotated with @TestExecutionListeners and you need to switch to using the default set of listeners, you can annotate your class with the following. Java // Switch to default listeners @TestExecutionListeners( listeners = {}, inheritListeners = false, mergeMode = MERGE_WITH_DEFAULTS) class MyTest extends BaseTest { // class body... } Kotlin // Switch to default listeners @TestExecutionListeners( listeners = [], inheritListeners = false, mergeMode = MERGE_WITH_DEFAULTS) class MyTest : BaseTest { // class body... }

Automatic Discovery of Default TestExecutionListener Implementations

Registering TestExecutionListener implementations by using @TestExecutionListeners is suitable for custom listeners that are used in limited testing scenarios. However, it can become cumbersome if a custom listener needs to be used across an entire test suite. This issue is addressed through support for automatic discovery of default TestExecutionListener implementations through the SpringFactoriesLoader mechanism.

Specifically, the spring-test module declares all core default TestExecutionListener implementations under the org.springframework.test.context.TestExecutionListener key in its META-INF/spring.factories properties file. Third-party frameworks and developers can contribute their own TestExecutionListener implementations to the list of default listeners in the same manner through their own META-INF/spring.factories properties file.

Ordering TestExecutionListener Implementations

When the TestContext framework discovers default TestExecutionListener implementations through the aforementioned SpringFactoriesLoader mechanism, the instantiated listeners are sorted by using Spring’s AnnotationAwareOrderComparator, which honors Spring’s Ordered interface and @Order annotation for ordering. AbstractTestExecutionListener and all default TestExecutionListener implementations provided by Spring implement Ordered with appropriate values. Third-party frameworks and developers should therefore make sure that their default TestExecutionListener implementations are registered in the proper order by implementing Ordered or declaring @Order. See the javadoc for the getOrder() methods of the core default TestExecutionListener implementations for details on what values are assigned to each core listener.

Merging TestExecutionListener Implementations

If a custom TestExecutionListener is registered via @TestExecutionListeners, the default listeners are not registered. In most common testing scenarios, this effectively forces the developer to manually declare all default listeners in addition to any custom listeners. The following listing demonstrates this style of configuration:

Java

@ContextConfiguration
@TestExecutionListeners({
	MyCustomTestExecutionListener.class,
	ServletTestExecutionListener.class,
	DirtiesContextBeforeModesTestExecutionListener.class,
	DependencyInjectionTestExecutionListener.class,
	DirtiesContextTestExecutionListener.class,
	TransactionalTestExecutionListener.class,
	SqlScriptsTestExecutionListener.class
})
class MyTest {
	// class body...
}

Kotlin

@ContextConfiguration
@TestExecutionListeners(
	MyCustomTestExecutionListener::class,
	ServletTestExecutionListener::class,
	DirtiesContextBeforeModesTestExecutionListener::class,
	DependencyInjectionTestExecutionListener::class,
	DirtiesContextTestExecutionListener::class,
	TransactionalTestExecutionListener::class,
	SqlScriptsTestExecutionListener::class
)
class MyTest {
	// class body...
}

The challenge with this approach is that it requires that the developer know exactly which listeners are registered by default. Moreover, the set of default listeners can change from release to release — for example, SqlScriptsTestExecutionListener was introduced in Spring Framework 4.1, and DirtiesContextBeforeModesTestExecutionListener was introduced in Spring Framework 4.2. Furthermore, third-party frameworks like Spring Boot and Spring Security register their own default TestExecutionListener implementations by using the aforementioned automatic discovery mechanism.

To avoid having to be aware of and re-declare all default listeners, you can set the mergeMode attribute of @TestExecutionListeners to MergeMode.MERGE_WITH_DEFAULTS. MERGE_WITH_DEFAULTS indicates that locally declared listeners should be merged with the default listeners. The merging algorithm ensures that duplicates are removed from the list and that the resulting set of merged listeners is sorted according to the semantics of AnnotationAwareOrderComparator, as described in Ordering TestExecutionListener Implementations. If a listener implements Ordered or is annotated with @Order, it can influence the position in which it is merged with the defaults. Otherwise, locally declared listeners are appended to the list of default listeners when merged.

For example, if the MyCustomTestExecutionListener class in the previous example configures its order value (for example, 500) to be less than the order of the ServletTestExecutionListener (which happens to be 1000), the MyCustomTestExecutionListener can then be automatically merged with the list of defaults in front of the ServletTestExecutionListener, and the previous example could be replaced with the following:

Java

@ContextConfiguration
@TestExecutionListeners(
	listeners = MyCustomTestExecutionListener.class,
	mergeMode = MERGE_WITH_DEFAULTS
)
class MyTest {
	// class body...
}

Kotlin

@ContextConfiguration
@TestExecutionListeners(
		listeners = [MyCustomTestExecutionListener::class],
		mergeMode = MERGE_WITH_DEFAULTS
)
class MyTest {
	// class body...
}

Application Events

Since Spring Framework 5.3.3, the TestContext framework provides support for recording application events published in the ApplicationContext so that assertions can be performed against those events within tests. All events published during the execution of a single test are made available via the ApplicationEvents API which allows you to process the events as a java.util.Stream.

To use ApplicationEvents in your tests, do the following.

• Ensure that your test class is annotated or meta-annotated with [spring-testing-annotation-recordapplicationevents].

• Ensure that the ApplicationEventsTestExecutionListener is registered. Note, however, that ApplicationEventsTestExecutionListener is registered by default and only needs to be manually registered if you have custom configuration via @TestExecutionListeners that does not include the default listeners.

• Annotate a field of type ApplicationEvents with @Autowired and use that instance of ApplicationEvents in your test and lifecycle methods (such as @BeforeEach and @AfterEach methods in JUnit Jupiter).

  • When using the SpringExtension for JUnit Jupiter, you may declare a method parameter of type ApplicationEvents in a test or lifecycle method as an alternative to an @Autowired field in the test class.

The following test class uses the SpringExtension for JUnit Jupiter and AssertJ to assert the types of application events published while invoking a method in a Spring-managed component:

Java

@SpringJUnitConfig(/* ... */)
@RecordApplicationEvents // (1)
class OrderServiceTests {

	@Autowired
	OrderService orderService;

	@Autowired
	ApplicationEvents events; // (2)

	@Test
	void submitOrder() {
		// Invoke method in OrderService that publishes an event
		orderService.submitOrder(new Order(/* ... */));
		// Verify that an OrderSubmitted event was published
		long numEvents = events.stream(OrderSubmitted.class).count(); // (3)
		assertThat(numEvents).isEqualTo(1);
	}
}

1. Annotate the test class with @RecordApplicationEvents.

2. Inject the ApplicationEvents instance for the current test.

3. Use the ApplicationEvents API to count how many OrderSubmitted events were published.

Kotlin

@SpringJUnitConfig(/* ... */)
@RecordApplicationEvents // (1)
class OrderServiceTests {

	@Autowired
	lateinit var orderService: OrderService

	@Autowired
	lateinit var events: ApplicationEvents // (2)

	@Test
	fun submitOrder() {
		// Invoke method in OrderService that publishes an event
		orderService.submitOrder(Order(/* ... */))
		// Verify that an OrderSubmitted event was published
		val numEvents = events.stream(OrderSubmitted::class).count() // (3)
		assertThat(numEvents).isEqualTo(1)
	}
}

1. Annotate the test class with @RecordApplicationEvents.

2. Inject the ApplicationEvents instance for the current test.

3. Use the ApplicationEvents API to count how many OrderSubmitted events were published.

See the {api-spring-framework}/test/context/event/ApplicationEvents.html[ApplicationEvents javadoc] for further details regarding the ApplicationEvents API.

Test Execution Events

The EventPublishingTestExecutionListener introduced in Spring Framework 5.2 offers an alternative approach to implementing a custom TestExecutionListener. Components in the test’s ApplicationContext can listen to the following events published by the EventPublishingTestExecutionListener, each of which corresponds to a method in the TestExecutionListener API.

• BeforeTestClassEvent

• PrepareTestInstanceEvent

• BeforeTestMethodEvent

• BeforeTestExecutionEvent

• AfterTestExecutionEvent

• AfterTestMethodEvent

• AfterTestClassEvent

These events may be consumed for various reasons, such as resetting mock beans or tracing test execution. One advantage of consuming test execution events rather than implementing a custom TestExecutionListener is that test execution events may be consumed by any Spring bean registered in the test ApplicationContext, and such beans may benefit directly from dependency injection and other features of the ApplicationContext. In contrast, a TestExecutionListener is not a bean in the ApplicationContext.

Note

The EventPublishingTestExecutionListener is registered by default; however, it only publishes events if the ApplicationContext has already been loaded. This prevents the ApplicationContext from being loaded unnecessarily or too early. Consequently, a BeforeTestClassEvent will not be published until after the ApplicationContext has been loaded by another TestExecutionListener. For example, with the default set of TestExecutionListener implementations registered, a BeforeTestClassEvent will not be published for the first test class that uses a particular test ApplicationContext, but a BeforeTestClassEvent will be published for any subsequent test class in the same test suite that uses the same test ApplicationContext since the context will already have been loaded when subsequent test classes run (as long as the context has not been removed from the ContextCache via @DirtiesContext or the max-size eviction policy). If you wish to ensure that a BeforeTestClassEvent is always published for every test class, you need to register a TestExecutionListener that loads the ApplicationContext in the beforeTestClass callback, and that TestExecutionListener must be registered before the EventPublishingTestExecutionListener. Similarly, if @DirtiesContext is used to remove the ApplicationContext from the context cache after the last test method in a given test class, the AfterTestClassEvent will not be published for that test class.

In order to listen to test execution events, a Spring bean may choose to implement the org.springframework.context.ApplicationListener interface. Alternatively, listener methods can be annotated with @EventListener and configured to listen to one of the particular event types listed above (see Annotation-based Event Listeners). Due to the popularity of this approach, Spring provides the following dedicated @EventListener annotations to simplify registration of test execution event listeners. These annotations reside in the org.springframework.test.context.event.annotation package.

• @BeforeTestClass

• @PrepareTestInstance

• @BeforeTestMethod

• @BeforeTestExecution

• @AfterTestExecution

• @AfterTestMethod

• @AfterTestClass

Exception Handling

By default, if a test execution event listener throws an exception while consuming an event, that exception will propagate to the underlying testing framework in use (such as JUnit or TestNG). For example, if the consumption of a BeforeTestMethodEvent results in an exception, the corresponding test method will fail as a result of the exception. In contrast, if an asynchronous test execution event listener throws an exception, the exception will not propagate to the underlying testing framework. For further details on asynchronous exception handling, consult the class-level javadoc for @EventListener.

Asynchronous Listeners

If you want a particular test execution event listener to process events asynchronously, you can use Spring’s regular @Async support. For further details, consult the class-level javadoc for @EventListener.

Context Management

Each TestContext 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 ApplicationContext. However, if a test class implements the ApplicationContextAware interface, a reference to the ApplicationContext is supplied to the test instance. Note that AbstractJUnit4SpringContextTests and AbstractTestNGSpringContextTests implement ApplicationContextAware and, therefore, provide access to the ApplicationContext automatically.

Tip

@Autowired ApplicationContext As an alternative to implementing the ApplicationContextAware interface, you can inject the application context for your test class through the @Autowired annotation on either a field or setter method, as the following example shows: Java @SpringJUnitConfig class MyTest { @Autowired // (1) ApplicationContext applicationContext; // class body... } Injecting the ApplicationContext. Kotlin @SpringJUnitConfig class MyTest { @Autowired // (1) lateinit var applicationContext: ApplicationContext // class body... } Injecting the ApplicationContext. Similarly, if your test is configured to load a WebApplicationContext, you can inject the web application context into your test, as follows: Java @SpringJUnitWebConfig // (1) class MyWebAppTest { @Autowired // (2) WebApplicationContext wac; // class body... } Configuring the WebApplicationContext. Injecting the WebApplicationContext. Kotlin @SpringJUnitWebConfig // (1) class MyWebAppTest { @Autowired // (2) lateinit var wac: WebApplicationContext // class body... } Configuring the WebApplicationContext. Injecting the WebApplicationContext. Dependency injection by using @Autowired is provided by the DependencyInjectionTestExecutionListener, which is configured by default (see Dependency Injection of Test Fixtures).

Test classes that use the TestContext framework do not need to extend any particular class or implement a specific interface to configure their application context. Instead, configuration is achieved by declaring the @ContextConfiguration annotation at the class level. If your test class does not explicitly declare application context resource locations or component classes, the configured ContextLoader determines how to load a context from a default location or default configuration classes. In addition to context resource locations and component classes, an application context can also be configured through application context initializers.

The following sections explain how to use Spring’s @ContextConfiguration annotation to configure a test ApplicationContext by using XML configuration files, Groovy scripts, component classes (typically @Configuration classes), or context initializers. Alternatively, you can implement and configure your own custom SmartContextLoader for advanced use cases.

• Context Configuration with XML resources

• Context Configuration with Groovy Scripts

• Context Configuration with Component Classes

• Mixing XML, Groovy Scripts, and Component Classes

• Context Configuration with Context Initializers

• Context Configuration Inheritance

• Context Configuration with Environment Profiles

• Context Configuration with Test Property Sources

• Context Configuration with Dynamic Property Sources

• Loading a WebApplicationContext

• Context Caching

• Context Hierarchies

Context Configuration with XML resources

To load an ApplicationContext for your tests by using XML configuration files, annotate your test class with @ContextConfiguration and configure the locations attribute with an array that contains the resource locations of XML configuration metadata. A plain or relative path (for example, context.xml) is treated as a classpath resource that is relative to the package in which the test class is defined. A path starting with a slash is treated as an absolute classpath location (for example, /org/example/config.xml). A path that represents a resource URL (i.e., a path prefixed with classpath:, file:, http:, etc.) is used as is.

Java

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension.class)
// ApplicationContext will be loaded from "/app-config.xml" and
// "/test-config.xml" in the root of the classpath
@ContextConfiguration(locations = {"/app-config.xml", "/test-config.xml"}) // (1)
class MyTest {
	// class body...
}

1. Setting the locations attribute to a list of XML files.

Kotlin

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension::class)
// ApplicationContext will be loaded from "/app-config.xml" and
// "/test-config.xml" in the root of the classpath
@ContextConfiguration(locations = ["/app-config.xml", "/test-config.xml"]) // (1)
class MyTest {
	// class body...
}

1. Setting the locations attribute to a list of XML files.

@ContextConfiguration supports an alias for the locations attribute through the standard Java value attribute. Thus, if you do not need to declare additional attributes in @ContextConfiguration, you can omit the declaration of the locations attribute name and declare the resource locations by using the shorthand format demonstrated in the following example:

Java

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension.class)
@ContextConfiguration({"/app-config.xml", "/test-config.xml"}) (1)
class MyTest {
	// class body...
}

1. Specifying XML files without using the locations attribute.

Kotlin

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension::class)
@ContextConfiguration("/app-config.xml", "/test-config.xml") // (1)
class MyTest {
	// class body...
}

1. Specifying XML files without using the locations attribute.

If you omit both the locations and the value attributes from the @ContextConfiguration annotation, the TestContext framework tries to detect a default XML resource location. Specifically, GenericXmlContextLoader and GenericXmlWebContextLoader detect a default location based on the name of the test class. If your class is named com.example.MyTest, GenericXmlContextLoader loads your application context from "classpath:com/example/MyTest-context.xml". The following example shows how to do so:

Java

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension.class)
// ApplicationContext will be loaded from
// "classpath:com/example/MyTest-context.xml"
@ContextConfiguration // (1)
class MyTest {
	// class body...
}

1. Loading configuration from the default location.

Kotlin

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension::class)
// ApplicationContext will be loaded from
// "classpath:com/example/MyTest-context.xml"
@ContextConfiguration // (1)
class MyTest {
	// class body...
}

1. Loading configuration from the default location.

Context Configuration with Groovy Scripts

To load an ApplicationContext for your tests by using Groovy scripts that use the Groovy Bean Definition DSL, you can annotate your test class with @ContextConfiguration and configure the locations or value attribute with an array that contains the resource locations of Groovy scripts. Resource lookup semantics for Groovy scripts are the same as those described for XML configuration files.

Tip	Enabling Groovy script support Support for using Groovy scripts to load an ApplicationContext in the Spring TestContext Framework is enabled automatically if Groovy is on the classpath.

The following example shows how to specify Groovy configuration files:

Java

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension.class)
// ApplicationContext will be loaded from "/AppConfig.groovy" and
// "/TestConfig.groovy" in the root of the classpath
@ContextConfiguration({"/AppConfig.groovy", "/TestConfig.Groovy"}) (1)
class MyTest {
	// class body...
}

1. Specifying the location of Groovy configuration files.

Kotlin

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension::class)
// ApplicationContext will be loaded from "/AppConfig.groovy" and
// "/TestConfig.groovy" in the root of the classpath
@ContextConfiguration("/AppConfig.groovy", "/TestConfig.Groovy") // (1)
class MyTest {
	// class body...
}

1. Specifying the location of Groovy configuration files.

If you omit both the locations and value attributes from the @ContextConfiguration annotation, the TestContext framework tries to detect a default Groovy script. Specifically, GenericGroovyXmlContextLoader and GenericGroovyXmlWebContextLoader detect a default location based on the name of the test class. If your class is named com.example.MyTest, the Groovy context loader loads your application context from "classpath:com/example/MyTestContext.groovy". The following example shows how to use the default:

Java

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension.class)
// ApplicationContext will be loaded from
// "classpath:com/example/MyTestContext.groovy"
@ContextConfiguration // (1)
class MyTest {
	// class body...
}

1. Loading configuration from the default location.

Kotlin

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension::class)
// ApplicationContext will be loaded from
// "classpath:com/example/MyTestContext.groovy"
@ContextConfiguration // (1)
class MyTest {
	// class body...
}

1. Loading configuration from the default location.

Tip

Declaring XML configuration and Groovy scripts simultaneously You can declare both XML configuration files and Groovy scripts simultaneously by using the locations or value attribute of @ContextConfiguration. If the path to a configured resource location ends with .xml, it is loaded by using an XmlBeanDefinitionReader. Otherwise, it is loaded by using a GroovyBeanDefinitionReader. The following listing shows how to combine both in an integration test: Java @ExtendWith(SpringExtension.class) // ApplicationContext will be loaded from // "/app-config.xml" and "/TestConfig.groovy" @ContextConfiguration({ "/app-config.xml", "/TestConfig.groovy" }) class MyTest { // class body... } Kotlin @ExtendWith(SpringExtension::class) // ApplicationContext will be loaded from // "/app-config.xml" and "/TestConfig.groovy" @ContextConfiguration("/app-config.xml", "/TestConfig.groovy") class MyTest { // class body... }

Context Configuration with Component Classes

To load an ApplicationContext for your tests by using component classes (see Java-based container configuration), you can annotate your test class with @ContextConfiguration and configure the classes attribute with an array that contains references to component classes. The following example shows how to do so:

Java

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension.class)
// ApplicationContext will be loaded from AppConfig and TestConfig
@ContextConfiguration(classes = {AppConfig.class, TestConfig.class}) // (1)
class MyTest {
	// class body...
}

1. Specifying component classes.

Kotlin

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension::class)
// ApplicationContext will be loaded from AppConfig and TestConfig
@ContextConfiguration(classes = [AppConfig::class, TestConfig::class]) // (1)
class MyTest {
	// class body...
}

1. Specifying component classes.

Tip

Component Classes The term “component class” can refer to any of the following: A class annotated with @Configuration. A component (that is, a class annotated with @Component, @Service, @Repository, or other stereotype annotations). A JSR-330 compliant class that is annotated with jakarta.inject annotations. Any class that contains @Bean-methods. Any other class that is intended to be registered as a Spring component (i.e., a Spring bean in the ApplicationContext), potentially taking advantage of automatic autowiring of a single constructor without the use of Spring annotations. See the javadoc of {api-spring-framework}/context/annotation/Configuration.html[@Configuration] and {api-spring-framework}/context/annotation/Bean.html[@Bean] for further information regarding the configuration and semantics of component classes, paying special attention to the discussion of @Bean Lite Mode.

If you omit the classes attribute from the @ContextConfiguration annotation, the TestContext framework tries to detect the presence of default configuration classes. Specifically, AnnotationConfigContextLoader and AnnotationConfigWebContextLoader detect all static nested classes of the test class that meet the requirements for configuration class implementations, as specified in the {api-spring-framework}/context/annotation/Configuration.html[@Configuration] javadoc. Note that the name of the configuration class is arbitrary. In addition, a test class can contain more than one static nested configuration class if desired. In the following example, the OrderServiceTest class declares a static nested configuration class named Config that is automatically used to load the ApplicationContext for the test class:

Java

@SpringJUnitConfig (1)
// ApplicationContext will be loaded from the static nested Config class
class OrderServiceTest {

	@Configuration
	static class Config {

		// this bean will be injected into the OrderServiceTest class
		@Bean
		OrderService orderService() {
			OrderService orderService = new OrderServiceImpl();
			// set properties, etc.
			return orderService;
		}
	}

	@Autowired
	OrderService orderService;

	@Test
	void testOrderService() {
		// test the orderService
	}

}

1. Loading configuration information from the nested Config class.

Kotlin

@SpringJUnitConfig (1)
// ApplicationContext will be loaded from the nested Config class
class OrderServiceTest {

	@Autowired
	lateinit var orderService: OrderService

	@Configuration
	class Config {

		// this bean will be injected into the OrderServiceTest class
		@Bean
		fun orderService(): OrderService {
			// set properties, etc.
			return OrderServiceImpl()
		}
	}

	@Test
	fun testOrderService() {
		// test the orderService
	}
}

1. Loading configuration information from the nested Config class.

Mixing XML, Groovy Scripts, and Component Classes

It may sometimes be desirable to mix XML configuration files, Groovy scripts, and component classes (typically @Configuration classes) to configure an ApplicationContext for your tests. For example, if you use XML configuration in production, you may decide that you want to use @Configuration classes to configure specific Spring-managed components for your tests, or vice versa.

Furthermore, some third-party frameworks (such as Spring Boot) provide first-class support for loading an ApplicationContext from different types of resources simultaneously (for example, XML configuration files, Groovy scripts, and @Configuration classes). The Spring Framework, historically, has not supported this for standard deployments. Consequently, most of the SmartContextLoader implementations that the Spring Framework delivers in the spring-test module support only one resource type for each test context. However, this does not mean that you cannot use both. One exception to the general rule is that the GenericGroovyXmlContextLoader and GenericGroovyXmlWebContextLoader support both XML configuration files and Groovy scripts simultaneously. Furthermore, third-party frameworks may choose to support the declaration of both locations and classes through @ContextConfiguration, and, with the standard testing support in the TestContext framework, you have the following options.

If you want to use resource locations (for example, XML or Groovy) and @Configuration classes to configure your tests, you must pick one as the entry point, and that one must include or import the other. For example, in XML or Groovy scripts, you can include @Configuration classes by using component scanning or defining them as normal Spring beans, whereas, in a @Configuration class, you can use @ImportResource to import XML configuration files or Groovy scripts. Note that this behavior is semantically equivalent to how you configure your application in production: In production configuration, you define either a set of XML or Groovy resource locations or a set of @Configuration classes from which your production ApplicationContext is loaded, but you still have the freedom to include or import the other type of configuration.

Context Configuration with Context Initializers

To configure an ApplicationContext for your tests by using context initializers, annotate your test class with @ContextConfiguration and configure the initializers attribute with an array that contains references to classes that implement ApplicationContextInitializer. The declared context initializers are then used to initialize the ConfigurableApplicationContext that is loaded for your tests. Note that the concrete ConfigurableApplicationContext type supported by each declared initializer must be compatible with the type of ApplicationContext created by the SmartContextLoader in use (typically a GenericApplicationContext). Furthermore, the order in which the initializers are invoked depends on whether they implement Spring’s Ordered interface or are annotated with Spring’s @Order annotation or the standard @Priority annotation. The following example shows how to use initializers:

Java

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension.class)
// ApplicationContext will be loaded from TestConfig
// and initialized by TestAppCtxInitializer
@ContextConfiguration(
	classes = TestConfig.class,
	initializers = TestAppCtxInitializer.class) // (1)
class MyTest {
	// class body...
}

1. Specifying configuration by using a configuration class and an initializer.

Kotlin

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension::class)
// ApplicationContext will be loaded from TestConfig
// and initialized by TestAppCtxInitializer
@ContextConfiguration(
		classes = [TestConfig::class],
		initializers = [TestAppCtxInitializer::class]) // (1)
class MyTest {
	// class body...
}

1. Specifying configuration by using a configuration class and an initializer.

You can also omit the declaration of XML configuration files, Groovy scripts, or component classes in @ContextConfiguration entirely and instead declare only ApplicationContextInitializer classes, which are then responsible for registering beans in the context — for example, by programmatically loading bean definitions from XML files or configuration classes. The following example shows how to do so:

Java

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension.class)
// ApplicationContext will be initialized by EntireAppInitializer
// which presumably registers beans in the context
@ContextConfiguration(initializers = EntireAppInitializer.class) (1)
class MyTest {
	// class body...
}

1. Specifying configuration by using only an initializer.

Kotlin

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension::class)
// ApplicationContext will be initialized by EntireAppInitializer
// which presumably registers beans in the context
@ContextConfiguration(initializers = [EntireAppInitializer::class]) // (1)
class MyTest {
	// class body...
}

1. Specifying configuration by using only an initializer.

Context Configuration Inheritance

@ContextConfiguration supports boolean inheritLocations and inheritInitializers attributes that denote whether resource locations or component classes and context initializers declared by superclasses should be inherited. The default value for both flags is true. This means that a test class inherits the resource locations or component classes as well as the context initializers declared by any superclasses. Specifically, the resource locations or component classes for a test class are appended to the list of resource locations or annotated classes declared by superclasses. Similarly, the initializers for a given test class are added to the set of initializers defined by test superclasses. Thus, subclasses have the option of extending the resource locations, component classes, or context initializers.

If the inheritLocations or inheritInitializers attribute in @ContextConfiguration is set to false, the resource locations or component classes and the context initializers, respectively, for the test class shadow and effectively replace the configuration defined by superclasses.

Note	As of Spring Framework 5.3, test configuration may also be inherited from enclosing classes. See @Nested test class configuration for details.

In the next example, which uses XML resource locations, the ApplicationContext for ExtendedTest is loaded from base-config.xml and extended-config.xml, in that order. Beans defined in extended-config.xml can, therefore, override (that is, replace) those defined in base-config.xml. The following example shows how one class can extend another and use both its own configuration file and the superclass’s configuration file:

Java

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension.class)
// ApplicationContext will be loaded from "/base-config.xml"
// in the root of the classpath
@ContextConfiguration("/base-config.xml") (1)
class BaseTest {
	// class body...
}

// ApplicationContext will be loaded from "/base-config.xml" and
// "/extended-config.xml" in the root of the classpath
@ContextConfiguration("/extended-config.xml") (2)
class ExtendedTest extends BaseTest {
	// class body...
}

1. Configuration file defined in the superclass.

2. Configuration file defined in the subclass.

Kotlin

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension::class)
// ApplicationContext will be loaded from "/base-config.xml"
// in the root of the classpath
@ContextConfiguration("/base-config.xml") // (1)
open class BaseTest {
	// class body...
}

// ApplicationContext will be loaded from "/base-config.xml" and
// "/extended-config.xml" in the root of the classpath
@ContextConfiguration("/extended-config.xml") // (2)
class ExtendedTest : BaseTest() {
	// class body...
}

1. Configuration file defined in the superclass.

2. Configuration file defined in the subclass.

Similarly, in the next example, which uses component classes, the ApplicationContext for ExtendedTest is loaded from the BaseConfig and ExtendedConfig classes, in that order. Beans defined in ExtendedConfig can, therefore, override (that is, replace) those defined in BaseConfig. The following example shows how one class can extend another and use both its own configuration class and the superclass’s configuration class:

Java

// ApplicationContext will be loaded from BaseConfig
@SpringJUnitConfig(BaseConfig.class) // (1)
class BaseTest {
	// class body...
}

// ApplicationContext will be loaded from BaseConfig and ExtendedConfig
@SpringJUnitConfig(ExtendedConfig.class) // (2)
class ExtendedTest extends BaseTest {
	// class body...
}

1. Configuration class defined in the superclass.

2. Configuration class defined in the subclass.

Kotlin

// ApplicationContext will be loaded from BaseConfig
@SpringJUnitConfig(BaseConfig::class) // (1)
open class BaseTest {
	// class body...
}

// ApplicationContext will be loaded from BaseConfig and ExtendedConfig
@SpringJUnitConfig(ExtendedConfig::class) // (2)
class ExtendedTest : BaseTest() {
	// class body...
}

1. Configuration class defined in the superclass.

2. Configuration class defined in the subclass.

In the next example, which uses context initializers, the ApplicationContext for ExtendedTest is initialized by using BaseInitializer and ExtendedInitializer. Note, however, that the order in which the initializers are invoked depends on whether they implement Spring’s Ordered interface or are annotated with Spring’s @Order annotation or the standard @Priority annotation. The following example shows how one class can extend another and use both its own initializer and the superclass’s initializer:

Java

// ApplicationContext will be initialized by BaseInitializer
@SpringJUnitConfig(initializers = BaseInitializer.class) // (1)
class BaseTest {
	// class body...
}

// ApplicationContext will be initialized by BaseInitializer
// and ExtendedInitializer
@SpringJUnitConfig(initializers = ExtendedInitializer.class) // (2)
class ExtendedTest extends BaseTest {
	// class body...
}

1. Initializer defined in the superclass.

2. Initializer defined in the subclass.

Kotlin

// ApplicationContext will be initialized by BaseInitializer
@SpringJUnitConfig(initializers = [BaseInitializer::class]) // (1)
open class BaseTest {
	// class body...
}

// ApplicationContext will be initialized by BaseInitializer
// and ExtendedInitializer
@SpringJUnitConfig(initializers = [ExtendedInitializer::class]) // (2)
class ExtendedTest : BaseTest() {
	// class body...
}

1. Initializer defined in the superclass.

2. Initializer defined in the subclass.

Context Configuration with Environment Profiles

The Spring Framework has first-class support for the notion of environments and profiles (AKA "bean definition profiles"), and integration tests can be configured to activate particular bean definition profiles for various testing scenarios. This is achieved by annotating a test class with the @ActiveProfiles annotation and supplying a list of profiles that should be activated when loading the ApplicationContext for the test.

Note	You can use @ActiveProfiles with any implementation of the SmartContextLoader SPI, but @ActiveProfiles is not supported with implementations of the older ContextLoader SPI.

Consider two examples with XML configuration and @Configuration classes:

<!-- app-config.xml -->
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
	xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	xmlns:jdbc="http://www.springframework.org/schema/jdbc"
	xmlns:jee="http://www.springframework.org/schema/jee"
	xsi:schemaLocation="...">

	<bean id="transferService"
			class="com.bank.service.internal.DefaultTransferService">
		<constructor-arg ref="accountRepository"/>
		<constructor-arg ref="feePolicy"/>
	</bean>

	<bean id="accountRepository"
			class="com.bank.repository.internal.JdbcAccountRepository">
		<constructor-arg ref="dataSource"/>
	</bean>

	<bean id="feePolicy"
		class="com.bank.service.internal.ZeroFeePolicy"/>

	<beans profile="dev">
		<jdbc:embedded-database id="dataSource">
			<jdbc:script
				location="classpath:com/bank/config/sql/schema.sql"/>
			<jdbc:script
				location="classpath:com/bank/config/sql/test-data.sql"/>
		</jdbc:embedded-database>
	</beans>

	<beans profile="production">
		<jee:jndi-lookup id="dataSource" jndi-name="java:comp/env/jdbc/datasource"/>
	</beans>

	<beans profile="default">
		<jdbc:embedded-database id="dataSource">
			<jdbc:script
				location="classpath:com/bank/config/sql/schema.sql"/>
		</jdbc:embedded-database>
	</beans>

</beans>

Java

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension.class)
// ApplicationContext will be loaded from "classpath:/app-config.xml"
@ContextConfiguration("/app-config.xml")
@ActiveProfiles("dev")
class TransferServiceTest {

	@Autowired
	TransferService transferService;

	@Test
	void testTransferService() {
		// test the transferService
	}
}

Kotlin

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension::class)
// ApplicationContext will be loaded from "classpath:/app-config.xml"
@ContextConfiguration("/app-config.xml")
@ActiveProfiles("dev")
class TransferServiceTest {

	@Autowired
	lateinit var transferService: TransferService

	@Test
	fun testTransferService() {
		// test the transferService
	}
}

When TransferServiceTest is run, its ApplicationContext is loaded from the app-config.xml configuration file in the root of the classpath. If you inspect app-config.xml, you can see that the accountRepository bean has a dependency on a dataSource bean. However, dataSource is not defined as a top-level bean. Instead, dataSource is defined three times: in the production profile, in the dev profile, and in the default profile.

By annotating TransferServiceTest with @ActiveProfiles("dev"), we instruct the Spring TestContext Framework to load the ApplicationContext with the active profiles set to {"dev"}. As a result, an embedded database is created and populated with test data, and the accountRepository bean is wired with a reference to the development DataSource. That is likely what we want in an integration test.

It is sometimes useful to assign beans to a default profile. Beans within the default profile are included only when no other profile is specifically activated. You can use this to define “fallback” beans to be used in the application’s default state. For example, you may explicitly provide a data source for dev and production profiles, but define an in-memory data source as a default when neither of these is active.

The following code listings demonstrate how to implement the same configuration and integration test with @Configuration classes instead of XML:

Java

@Configuration
@Profile("dev")
public class StandaloneDataConfig {

	@Bean
	public DataSource dataSource() {
		return new EmbeddedDatabaseBuilder()
			.setType(EmbeddedDatabaseType.HSQL)
			.addScript("classpath:com/bank/config/sql/schema.sql")
			.addScript("classpath:com/bank/config/sql/test-data.sql")
			.build();
	}
}

Kotlin

@Configuration
@Profile("dev")
class StandaloneDataConfig {

	@Bean
	fun dataSource(): DataSource {
		return EmbeddedDatabaseBuilder()
				.setType(EmbeddedDatabaseType.HSQL)
				.addScript("classpath:com/bank/config/sql/schema.sql")
				.addScript("classpath:com/bank/config/sql/test-data.sql")
				.build()
	}
}

Java

@Configuration
@Profile("production")
public class JndiDataConfig {

	@Bean(destroyMethod="")
	public DataSource dataSource() throws Exception {
		Context ctx = new InitialContext();
		return (DataSource) ctx.lookup("java:comp/env/jdbc/datasource");
	}
}

Kotlin

@Configuration
@Profile("production")
class JndiDataConfig {

	@Bean(destroyMethod = "")
	fun dataSource(): DataSource {
		val ctx = InitialContext()
		return ctx.lookup("java:comp/env/jdbc/datasource") as DataSource
	}
}

Java

@Configuration
@Profile("default")
public class DefaultDataConfig {

	@Bean
	public DataSource dataSource() {
		return new EmbeddedDatabaseBuilder()
			.setType(EmbeddedDatabaseType.HSQL)
			.addScript("classpath:com/bank/config/sql/schema.sql")
			.build();
	}
}

Kotlin

@Configuration
@Profile("default")
class DefaultDataConfig {

	@Bean
	fun dataSource(): DataSource {
		return EmbeddedDatabaseBuilder()
				.setType(EmbeddedDatabaseType.HSQL)
				.addScript("classpath:com/bank/config/sql/schema.sql")
				.build()
	}
}

Java

@Configuration
public class TransferServiceConfig {

	@Autowired DataSource dataSource;

	@Bean
	public TransferService transferService() {
		return new DefaultTransferService(accountRepository(), feePolicy());
	}

	@Bean
	public AccountRepository accountRepository() {
		return new JdbcAccountRepository(dataSource);
	}

	@Bean
	public FeePolicy feePolicy() {
		return new ZeroFeePolicy();
	}
}

Kotlin

@Configuration
class TransferServiceConfig {

	@Autowired
	lateinit var dataSource: DataSource

	@Bean
	fun transferService(): TransferService {
		return DefaultTransferService(accountRepository(), feePolicy())
	}

	@Bean
	fun accountRepository(): AccountRepository {
		return JdbcAccountRepository(dataSource)
	}

	@Bean
	fun feePolicy(): FeePolicy {
		return ZeroFeePolicy()
	}
}

Java

@SpringJUnitConfig({
		TransferServiceConfig.class,
		StandaloneDataConfig.class,
		JndiDataConfig.class,
		DefaultDataConfig.class})
@ActiveProfiles("dev")
class TransferServiceTest {

	@Autowired
	TransferService transferService;

	@Test
	void testTransferService() {
		// test the transferService
	}
}

Kotlin

@SpringJUnitConfig(
		TransferServiceConfig::class,
		StandaloneDataConfig::class,
		JndiDataConfig::class,
		DefaultDataConfig::class)
@ActiveProfiles("dev")
class TransferServiceTest {

	@Autowired
	lateinit var transferService: TransferService

	@Test
	fun testTransferService() {
		// test the transferService
	}
}

In this variation, we have split the XML configuration into four independent @Configuration classes:

• TransferServiceConfig: Acquires a dataSource through dependency injection by using @Autowired.

• StandaloneDataConfig: Defines a dataSource for an embedded database suitable for developer tests.

• JndiDataConfig: Defines a dataSource that is retrieved from JNDI in a production environment.

• DefaultDataConfig: Defines a dataSource for a default embedded database, in case no profile is active.

As with the XML-based configuration example, we still annotate TransferServiceTest with @ActiveProfiles("dev"), but this time we specify all four configuration classes by using the @ContextConfiguration annotation. The body of the test class itself remains completely unchanged.

It is often the case that a single set of profiles is used across multiple test classes within a given project. Thus, to avoid duplicate declarations of the @ActiveProfiles annotation, you can declare @ActiveProfiles once on a base class, and subclasses automatically inherit the @ActiveProfiles configuration from the base class. In the following example, the declaration of @ActiveProfiles (as well as other annotations) has been moved to an abstract superclass, AbstractIntegrationTest:

Note	As of Spring Framework 5.3, test configuration may also be inherited from enclosing classes. See @Nested test class configuration for details.

Java

@SpringJUnitConfig({
		TransferServiceConfig.class,
		StandaloneDataConfig.class,
		JndiDataConfig.class,
		DefaultDataConfig.class})
@ActiveProfiles("dev")
abstract class AbstractIntegrationTest {
}

Kotlin

@SpringJUnitConfig(
		TransferServiceConfig::class,
		StandaloneDataConfig::class,
		JndiDataConfig::class,
		DefaultDataConfig::class)
@ActiveProfiles("dev")
abstract class AbstractIntegrationTest {
}

Java

// "dev" profile inherited from superclass
class TransferServiceTest extends AbstractIntegrationTest {

	@Autowired
	TransferService transferService;

	@Test
	void testTransferService() {
		// test the transferService
	}
}

Kotlin

// "dev" profile inherited from superclass
class TransferServiceTest : AbstractIntegrationTest() {

	@Autowired
	lateinit var transferService: TransferService

	@Test
	fun testTransferService() {
		// test the transferService
	}
}

@ActiveProfiles also supports an inheritProfiles attribute that can be used to disable the inheritance of active profiles, as the following example shows:

Java

// "dev" profile overridden with "production"
@ActiveProfiles(profiles = "production", inheritProfiles = false)
class ProductionTransferServiceTest extends AbstractIntegrationTest {
	// test body
}

Kotlin

// "dev" profile overridden with "production"
@ActiveProfiles("production", inheritProfiles = false)
class ProductionTransferServiceTest : AbstractIntegrationTest() {
	// test body
}

Furthermore, it is sometimes necessary to resolve active profiles for tests programmatically instead of declaratively — for example, based on:

• The current operating system.

• Whether tests are being run on a continuous integration build server.

• The presence of certain environment variables.

• The presence of custom class-level annotations.

• Other concerns.

To resolve active bean definition profiles programmatically, you can implement a custom ActiveProfilesResolver and register it by using the resolver attribute of @ActiveProfiles. For further information, see the corresponding {api-spring-framework}/test/context/ActiveProfilesResolver.html[javadoc]. The following example demonstrates how to implement and register a custom OperatingSystemActiveProfilesResolver:

Java

// "dev" profile overridden programmatically via a custom resolver
@ActiveProfiles(
		resolver = OperatingSystemActiveProfilesResolver.class,
		inheritProfiles = false)
class TransferServiceTest extends AbstractIntegrationTest {
	// test body
}

Kotlin

// "dev" profile overridden programmatically via a custom resolver
@ActiveProfiles(
		resolver = OperatingSystemActiveProfilesResolver::class,
		inheritProfiles = false)
class TransferServiceTest : AbstractIntegrationTest() {
	// test body
}

Java

public class OperatingSystemActiveProfilesResolver implements ActiveProfilesResolver {

	@Override
	public String[] resolve(Class<?> testClass) {
		String profile = ...;
		// determine the value of profile based on the operating system
		return new String[] {profile};
	}
}

Kotlin

class OperatingSystemActiveProfilesResolver : ActiveProfilesResolver {

	override fun resolve(testClass: Class<*>): Array<String> {
		val profile: String = ...
		// determine the value of profile based on the operating system
		return arrayOf(profile)
	}
}

Context Configuration with Test Property Sources

The Spring Framework has first-class support for the notion of an environment with a hierarchy of property sources, and you can configure integration tests with test-specific property sources. In contrast to the @PropertySource annotation used on @Configuration classes, you can declare the @TestPropertySource annotation on a test class to declare resource locations for test properties files or inlined properties. These test property sources are added to the set of PropertySources in the Environment for the ApplicationContext loaded for the annotated integration test.

Note

You can use @TestPropertySource with any implementation of the SmartContextLoader SPI, but @TestPropertySource is not supported with implementations of the older ContextLoader SPI. Implementations of SmartContextLoader gain access to merged test property source values through the getPropertySourceLocations() and getPropertySourceProperties() methods in MergedContextConfiguration.

Declaring Test Property Sources

You can configure test properties files by using the locations or value attribute of @TestPropertySource.

Both traditional and XML-based properties file formats are supported — for example, "classpath:/com/example/test.properties" or "file:///path/to/file.xml".

Each path is interpreted as a Spring Resource. A plain path (for example, "test.properties") is treated as a classpath resource that is relative to the package in which the test class is defined. A path starting with a slash is treated as an absolute classpath resource (for example: "/org/example/test.xml"). A path that references a URL (for example, a path prefixed with classpath:, file:, or http:) is loaded by using the specified resource protocol. Resource location wildcards (such as */.properties) are not permitted: Each location must evaluate to exactly one .properties or .xml resource.

The following example uses a test properties file:

Java

@ContextConfiguration
@TestPropertySource("/test.properties") // (1)
class MyIntegrationTests {
	// class body...
}

1. Specifying a properties file with an absolute path.

Kotlin

@ContextConfiguration
@TestPropertySource("/test.properties") // (1)
class MyIntegrationTests {
	// class body...
}

1. Specifying a properties file with an absolute path.

You can configure inlined properties in the form of key-value pairs by using the properties attribute of @TestPropertySource, as shown in the next example. All key-value pairs are added to the enclosing Environment as a single test PropertySource with the highest precedence.

The supported syntax for key-value pairs is the same as the syntax defined for entries in a Java properties file:

• key=value

• key:value

• key value

The following example sets two inlined properties:

Java

@ContextConfiguration
@TestPropertySource(properties = {"timezone = GMT", "port: 4242"}) // (1)
class MyIntegrationTests {
	// class body...
}

1. Setting two properties by using two variations of the key-value syntax.

Kotlin

@ContextConfiguration
@TestPropertySource(properties = ["timezone = GMT", "port: 4242"]) // (1)
class MyIntegrationTests {
	// class body...
}

1. Setting two properties by using two variations of the key-value syntax.

Note

As of Spring Framework 5.2, @TestPropertySource can be used as repeatable annotation. That means that you can have multiple declarations of @TestPropertySource on a single test class, with the locations and properties from later @TestPropertySource annotations overriding those from previous @TestPropertySource annotations. In addition, you may declare multiple composed annotations on a test class that are each meta-annotated with @TestPropertySource, and all of those @TestPropertySource declarations will contribute to your test property sources. Directly present @TestPropertySource annotations always take precedence over meta-present @TestPropertySource annotations. In other words, locations and properties from a directly present @TestPropertySource annotation will override the locations and properties from a @TestPropertySource annotation used as a meta-annotation.

Default Properties File Detection

If @TestPropertySource is declared as an empty annotation (that is, without explicit values for the locations or properties attributes), an attempt is made to detect a default properties file relative to the class that declared the annotation. For example, if the annotated test class is com.example.MyTest, the corresponding default properties file is classpath:com/example/MyTest.properties. If the default cannot be detected, an IllegalStateException is thrown.

Precedence

Test properties have higher precedence than those defined in the operating system’s environment, Java system properties, or property sources added by the application declaratively by using @PropertySource or programmatically. Thus, test properties can be used to selectively override properties loaded from system and application property sources. Furthermore, inlined properties have higher precedence than properties loaded from resource locations. Note, however, that properties registered via @DynamicPropertySource have higher precedence than those loaded via @TestPropertySource.

In the next example, the timezone and port properties and any properties defined in "/test.properties" override any properties of the same name that are defined in system and application property sources. Furthermore, if the "/test.properties" file defines entries for the timezone and port properties those are overridden by the inlined properties declared by using the properties attribute. The following example shows how to specify properties both in a file and inline:

Java

@ContextConfiguration
@TestPropertySource(
	locations = "/test.properties",
	properties = {"timezone = GMT", "port: 4242"}
)
class MyIntegrationTests {
	// class body...
}

Kotlin

@ContextConfiguration
@TestPropertySource("/test.properties",
		properties = ["timezone = GMT", "port: 4242"]
)
class MyIntegrationTests {
	// class body...
}

Inheriting and Overriding Test Property Sources

@TestPropertySource supports boolean inheritLocations and inheritProperties attributes that denote whether resource locations for properties files and inlined properties declared by superclasses should be inherited. The default value for both flags is true. This means that a test class inherits the locations and inlined properties declared by any superclasses. Specifically, the locations and inlined properties for a test class are appended to the locations and inlined properties declared by superclasses. Thus, subclasses have the option of extending the locations and inlined properties. Note that properties that appear later shadow (that is, override) properties of the same name that appear earlier. In addition, the aforementioned precedence rules apply for inherited test property sources as well.

If the inheritLocations or inheritProperties attribute in @TestPropertySource is set to false, the locations or inlined properties, respectively, for the test class shadow and effectively replace the configuration defined by superclasses.

Note	As of Spring Framework 5.3, test configuration may also be inherited from enclosing classes. See @Nested test class configuration for details.

In the next example, the ApplicationContext for BaseTest is loaded by using only the base.properties file as a test property source. In contrast, the ApplicationContext for ExtendedTest is loaded by using the base.properties and extended.properties files as test property source locations. The following example shows how to define properties in both a subclass and its superclass by using properties files:

Java

@TestPropertySource("base.properties")
@ContextConfiguration
class BaseTest {
	// ...
}

@TestPropertySource("extended.properties")
@ContextConfiguration
class ExtendedTest extends BaseTest {
	// ...
}

Kotlin

@TestPropertySource("base.properties")
@ContextConfiguration
open class BaseTest {
	// ...
}

@TestPropertySource("extended.properties")
@ContextConfiguration
class ExtendedTest : BaseTest() {
	// ...
}

In the next example, the ApplicationContext for BaseTest is loaded by using only the inlined key1 property. In contrast, the ApplicationContext for ExtendedTest is loaded by using the inlined key1 and key2 properties. The following example shows how to define properties in both a subclass and its superclass by using inline properties:

Java

@TestPropertySource(properties = "key1 = value1")
@ContextConfiguration
class BaseTest {
	// ...
}

@TestPropertySource(properties = "key2 = value2")
@ContextConfiguration
class ExtendedTest extends BaseTest {
	// ...
}

Kotlin

@TestPropertySource(properties = ["key1 = value1"])
@ContextConfiguration
open class BaseTest {
	// ...
}

@TestPropertySource(properties = ["key2 = value2"])
@ContextConfiguration
class ExtendedTest : BaseTest() {
	// ...
}

Context Configuration with Dynamic Property Sources

As of Spring Framework 5.2.5, the TestContext framework provides support for dynamic properties via the @DynamicPropertySource annotation. This annotation can be used in integration tests that need to add properties with dynamic values to the set of PropertySources in the Environment for the ApplicationContext loaded for the integration test.

Note

The @DynamicPropertySource annotation and its supporting infrastructure were originally designed to allow properties from Testcontainers based tests to be exposed easily to Spring integration tests. However, this feature may also be used with any form of external resource whose lifecycle is maintained outside the test’s ApplicationContext.

In contrast to the @TestPropertySource annotation that is applied at the class level, @DynamicPropertySource must be applied to a static method that accepts a single DynamicPropertyRegistry argument which is used to add name-value pairs to the Environment. Values are dynamic and provided via a Supplier which is only invoked when the property is resolved. Typically, method references are used to supply values, as can be seen in the following example which uses the Testcontainers project to manage a Redis container outside of the Spring ApplicationContext. The IP address and port of the managed Redis container are made available to components within the test’s ApplicationContext via the redis.host and redis.port properties. These properties can be accessed via Spring’s Environment abstraction or injected directly into Spring-managed components – for example, via @Value("${redis.host}") and @Value("${redis.port}"), respectively.

Tip

If you use @DynamicPropertySource in a base class and discover that tests in subclasses fail because the dynamic properties change between subclasses, you may need to annotate your base class with @DirtiesContext to ensure that each subclass gets its own ApplicationContext with the correct dynamic properties.

Java

@SpringJUnitConfig(/* ... */)
@Testcontainers
class ExampleIntegrationTests {

	@Container
	static RedisContainer redis = new RedisContainer();

	@DynamicPropertySource
	static void redisProperties(DynamicPropertyRegistry registry) {
		registry.add("redis.host", redis::getHost);
		registry.add("redis.port", redis::getMappedPort);
	}

	// tests ...

}

Kotlin

@SpringJUnitConfig(/* ... */)
@Testcontainers
class ExampleIntegrationTests {

	companion object {

		@Container
		@JvmStatic
		val redis: RedisContainer = RedisContainer()

		@DynamicPropertySource
		@JvmStatic
		fun redisProperties(registry: DynamicPropertyRegistry) {
			registry.add("redis.host", redis::getHost)
			registry.add("redis.port", redis::getMappedPort)
		}
	}

	// tests ...

}

Precedence

Dynamic properties have higher precedence than those loaded from @TestPropertySource, the operating system’s environment, Java system properties, or property sources added by the application declaratively by using @PropertySource or programmatically. Thus, dynamic properties can be used to selectively override properties loaded via @TestPropertySource, system property sources, and application property sources.

Loading a WebApplicationContext

To instruct the TestContext framework to load a WebApplicationContext instead of a standard ApplicationContext, you can annotate the respective test class with @WebAppConfiguration.

The presence of @WebAppConfiguration on your test class instructs the TestContext framework (TCF) that a WebApplicationContext (WAC) should be loaded for your integration tests. In the background, the TCF makes sure that a MockServletContext is created and supplied to your test’s WAC. By default, the base resource path for your MockServletContext is set to src/main/webapp. This is interpreted as a path relative to the root of your JVM (normally the path to your project). If you are familiar with the directory structure of a web application in a Maven project, you know that src/main/webapp is the default location for the root of your WAR. If you need to override this default, you can provide an alternate path to the @WebAppConfiguration annotation (for example, @WebAppConfiguration("src/test/webapp")). If you wish to reference a base resource path from the classpath instead of the file system, you can use Spring’s classpath: prefix.

Note that Spring’s testing support for WebApplicationContext implementations is on par with its support for standard ApplicationContext implementations. When testing with a WebApplicationContext, you are free to declare XML configuration files, Groovy scripts, or @Configuration classes by using @ContextConfiguration. You are also free to use any other test annotations, such as @ActiveProfiles, @TestExecutionListeners, @Sql, @Rollback, and others.

The remaining examples in this section show some of the various configuration options for loading a WebApplicationContext. The following example shows the TestContext framework’s support for convention over configuration:

Java

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension.class)

// defaults to "file:src/main/webapp"
@WebAppConfiguration

// detects "WacTests-context.xml" in the same package
// or static nested @Configuration classes
@ContextConfiguration
class WacTests {
	//...
}

Kotlin

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension::class)

// defaults to "file:src/main/webapp"
@WebAppConfiguration

// detects "WacTests-context.xml" in the same package
// or static nested @Configuration classes
@ContextConfiguration
class WacTests {
	//...
}

If you annotate a test class with @WebAppConfiguration without specifying a resource base path, the resource path effectively defaults to file:src/main/webapp. Similarly, if you declare @ContextConfiguration without specifying resource locations, component classes, or context initializers, Spring tries to detect the presence of your configuration by using conventions (that is, WacTests-context.xml in the same package as the WacTests class or static nested @Configuration classes).

The following example shows how to explicitly declare a resource base path with @WebAppConfiguration and an XML resource location with @ContextConfiguration:

Java

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension.class)

// file system resource
@WebAppConfiguration("webapp")

// classpath resource
@ContextConfiguration("/spring/test-servlet-config.xml")
class WacTests {
	//...
}

Kotlin

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension::class)

// file system resource
@WebAppConfiguration("webapp")

// classpath resource
@ContextConfiguration("/spring/test-servlet-config.xml")
class WacTests {
	//...
}

The important thing to note here is the different semantics for paths with these two annotations. By default, @WebAppConfiguration resource paths are file system based, whereas @ContextConfiguration resource locations are classpath based.

The following example shows that we can override the default resource semantics for both annotations by specifying a Spring resource prefix:

Java

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension.class)

// classpath resource
@WebAppConfiguration("classpath:test-web-resources")

// file system resource
@ContextConfiguration("file:src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/servlet-config.xml")
class WacTests {
	//...
}

Kotlin

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension::class)

// classpath resource
@WebAppConfiguration("classpath:test-web-resources")

// file system resource
@ContextConfiguration("file:src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/servlet-config.xml")
class WacTests {
	//...
}

Contrast the comments in this example with the previous example.

Working with Web Mocks

To provide comprehensive web testing support, the TestContext framework has a ServletTestExecutionListener that is enabled by default. When testing against a WebApplicationContext, this TestExecutionListener sets up default thread-local state by using Spring Web’s RequestContextHolder before each test method and creates a MockHttpServletRequest, a MockHttpServletResponse, and a ServletWebRequest based on the base resource path configured with @WebAppConfiguration. ServletTestExecutionListener also ensures that the MockHttpServletResponse and ServletWebRequest can be injected into the test instance, and, once the test is complete, it cleans up thread-local state.

Once you have a WebApplicationContext loaded for your test, you might find that you need to interact with the web mocks — for example, to set up your test fixture or to perform assertions after invoking your web component. The following example shows which mocks can be autowired into your test instance. Note that the WebApplicationContext and MockServletContext are both cached across the test suite, whereas the other mocks are managed per test method by the ServletTestExecutionListener.

Java

@SpringJUnitWebConfig
class WacTests {

	@Autowired
	WebApplicationContext wac; // cached

	@Autowired
	MockServletContext servletContext; // cached

	@Autowired
	MockHttpSession session;

	@Autowired
	MockHttpServletRequest request;

	@Autowired
	MockHttpServletResponse response;

	@Autowired
	ServletWebRequest webRequest;

	//...
}

Kotlin

@SpringJUnitWebConfig
class WacTests {

	@Autowired
	lateinit var wac: WebApplicationContext // cached

	@Autowired
	lateinit var servletContext: MockServletContext // cached

	@Autowired
	lateinit var session: MockHttpSession

	@Autowired
	lateinit var request: MockHttpServletRequest

	@Autowired
	lateinit var response: MockHttpServletResponse

	@Autowired
	lateinit var webRequest: ServletWebRequest

	//...
}

Context Caching

Once the TestContext framework loads an ApplicationContext (or WebApplicationContext) for a test, that context is cached and reused for all subsequent tests that declare the same unique context configuration within the same test suite. To understand how caching works, it is important to understand what is meant by “unique” and “test suite.”

An ApplicationContext can be uniquely identified by the combination of configuration parameters that is used to load it. Consequently, the unique combination of configuration parameters is used to generate a key under which the context is cached. The TestContext framework uses the following configuration parameters to build the context cache key:

• locations (from @ContextConfiguration)

• classes (from @ContextConfiguration)

• contextInitializerClasses (from @ContextConfiguration)

• contextCustomizers (from ContextCustomizerFactory) – this includes @DynamicPropertySource methods as well as various features from Spring Boot’s testing support such as @MockBean and @SpyBean.

• contextLoader (from @ContextConfiguration)

• parent (from @ContextHierarchy)

• activeProfiles (from @ActiveProfiles)

• propertySourceLocations (from @TestPropertySource)

• propertySourceProperties (from @TestPropertySource)

• resourceBasePath (from @WebAppConfiguration)

For example, if TestClassA specifies {"app-config.xml", "test-config.xml"} for the locations (or value) attribute of @ContextConfiguration, the TestContext framework loads the corresponding ApplicationContext and stores it in a static context cache under a key that is based solely on those locations. So, if TestClassB also defines {"app-config.xml", "test-config.xml"} for its locations (either explicitly or implicitly through inheritance) but does not define @WebAppConfiguration, a different ContextLoader, different active profiles, different context initializers, different test property sources, or a different parent context, then the same ApplicationContext is shared by both test classes. This means that the setup cost for loading an application context is incurred only once (per test suite), and subsequent test execution is much faster.

Note

Test suites and forked processes The Spring TestContext framework stores application contexts in a static cache. This means that the context is literally stored in a static variable. In other words, if tests run in separate processes, the static cache is cleared between each test execution, which effectively disables the caching mechanism. To benefit from the caching mechanism, all tests must run within the same process or test suite. This can be achieved by executing all tests as a group within an IDE. Similarly, when executing tests with a build framework such as Ant, Maven, or Gradle, it is important to make sure that the build framework does not fork between tests. For example, if the forkMode for the Maven Surefire plug-in is set to always or pertest, the TestContext framework cannot cache application contexts between test classes, and the build process runs significantly more slowly as a result.

The size of the context cache is bounded with a default maximum size of 32. Whenever the maximum size is reached, a least recently used (LRU) eviction policy is used to evict and close stale contexts. You can configure the maximum size from the command line or a build script by setting a JVM system property named spring.test.context.cache.maxSize. As an alternative, you can set the same property via the SpringProperties mechanism.

Since having a large number of application contexts loaded within a given test suite can cause the suite to take an unnecessarily long time to run, it is often beneficial to know exactly how many contexts have been loaded and cached. To view the statistics for the underlying context cache, you can set the log level for the org.springframework.test.context.cache logging category to DEBUG.

In the unlikely case that a test corrupts the application context and requires reloading (for example, by modifying a bean definition or the state of an application object), you can annotate your test class or test method with @DirtiesContext (see the discussion of @DirtiesContext in Spring Testing Annotations). This instructs Spring to remove the context from the cache and rebuild the application context before running the next test that requires the same application context. Note that support for the @DirtiesContext annotation is provided by the DirtiesContextBeforeModesTestExecutionListener and the DirtiesContextTestExecutionListener, which are enabled by default.

Note

ApplicationContext lifecycle and console logging When you need to debug a test executed with the Spring TestContext Framework, it can be useful to analyze the console output (that is, output to the SYSOUT and SYSERR streams). Some build tools and IDEs are able to associate console output with a given test; however, some console output cannot be easily associated with a given test. With regard to console logging triggered by the Spring Framework itself or by components registered in the ApplicationContext, it is important to understand the lifecycle of an ApplicationContext that has been loaded by the Spring TestContext Framework within a test suite. The ApplicationContext for a test is typically loaded when an instance of the test class is being prepared — for example, to perform dependency injection into @Autowired fields of the test instance. This means that any console logging triggered during the initialization of the ApplicationContext typically cannot be associated with an individual test method. However, if the context is closed immediately before the execution of a test method according to [spring-testing-annotation-dirtiescontext] semantics, a new instance of the context will be loaded just prior to execution of the test method. In the latter scenario, an IDE or build tool may potentially associate console logging with the individual test method. The ApplicationContext for a test can be closed via one of the following scenarios. The context is closed according to @DirtiesContext semantics. The context is closed because it has been automatically evicted from the cache according to the LRU eviction policy. The context is closed via a JVM shutdown hook when the JVM for the test suite terminates. If the context is closed according to @DirtiesContext semantics after a particular test method, an IDE or build tool may potentially associate console logging with the individual test method. If the context is closed according to @DirtiesContext semantics after a test class, any console logging triggered during the shutdown of the ApplicationContext cannot be associated with an individual test method. Similarly, any console logging triggered during the shutdown phase via a JVM shutdown hook cannot be associated with an individual test method. When a Spring ApplicationContext is closed via a JVM shutdown hook, callbacks executed during the shutdown phase are executed on a thread named SpringContextShutdownHook. So, if you wish to disable console logging triggered when the ApplicationContext is closed via a JVM shutdown hook, you may be able to register a custom filter with your logging framework that allows you to ignore any logging initiated by that thread.

Context Hierarchies

When writing integration tests that rely on a loaded Spring ApplicationContext, it is often sufficient to test against a single context. However, there are times when it is beneficial or even necessary to test against a hierarchy of ApplicationContext instances. For example, if you are developing a Spring MVC web application, you typically have a root WebApplicationContext loaded by Spring’s ContextLoaderListener and a child WebApplicationContext loaded by Spring’s DispatcherServlet. This results in a parent-child context hierarchy where shared components and infrastructure configuration are declared in the root context and consumed in the child context by web-specific components. Another use case can be found in Spring Batch applications, where you often have a parent context that provides configuration for shared batch infrastructure and a child context for the configuration of a specific batch job.

You can write integration tests that use context hierarchies by declaring context configuration with the @ContextHierarchy annotation, either on an individual test class or within a test class hierarchy. If a context hierarchy is declared on multiple classes within a test class hierarchy, you can also merge or override the context configuration for a specific, named level in the context hierarchy. When merging configuration for a given level in the hierarchy, the configuration resource type (that is, XML configuration files or component classes) must be consistent. Otherwise, it is perfectly acceptable to have different levels in a context hierarchy configured using different resource types.

The remaining JUnit Jupiter based examples in this section show common configuration scenarios for integration tests that require the use of context hierarchies.

Single test class with context hierarchy

ControllerIntegrationTests represents a typical integration testing scenario for a Spring MVC web application by declaring a context hierarchy that consists of two levels, one for the root WebApplicationContext (loaded by using the TestAppConfig @Configuration class) and one for the dispatcher servlet WebApplicationContext (loaded by using the WebConfig @Configuration class). The WebApplicationContext that is autowired into the test instance is the one for the child context (that is, the lowest context in the hierarchy). The following listing shows this configuration scenario:

Java

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension.class)
@WebAppConfiguration
@ContextHierarchy({
	@ContextConfiguration(classes = TestAppConfig.class),
	@ContextConfiguration(classes = WebConfig.class)
})
class ControllerIntegrationTests {

	@Autowired
	WebApplicationContext wac;

	// ...
}

Kotlin

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension::class)
@WebAppConfiguration
@ContextHierarchy(
	ContextConfiguration(classes = [TestAppConfig::class]),
	ContextConfiguration(classes = [WebConfig::class]))
class ControllerIntegrationTests {

	@Autowired
	lateinit var wac: WebApplicationContext

	// ...
}

Class hierarchy with implicit parent context

The test classes in this example define a context hierarchy within a test class hierarchy. AbstractWebTests declares the configuration for a root WebApplicationContext in a Spring-powered web application. Note, however, that AbstractWebTests does not declare @ContextHierarchy. Consequently, subclasses of AbstractWebTests can optionally participate in a context hierarchy or follow the standard semantics for @ContextConfiguration. SoapWebServiceTests and RestWebServiceTests both extend AbstractWebTests and define a context hierarchy by using @ContextHierarchy. The result is that three application contexts are loaded (one for each declaration of @ContextConfiguration), and the application context loaded based on the configuration in AbstractWebTests is set as the parent context for each of the contexts loaded for the concrete subclasses. The following listing shows this configuration scenario:

Java

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension.class)
@WebAppConfiguration
@ContextConfiguration("file:src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml")
public abstract class AbstractWebTests {}

@ContextHierarchy(@ContextConfiguration("/spring/soap-ws-config.xml"))
public class SoapWebServiceTests extends AbstractWebTests {}

@ContextHierarchy(@ContextConfiguration("/spring/rest-ws-config.xml"))
public class RestWebServiceTests extends AbstractWebTests {}

Kotlin

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension::class)
@WebAppConfiguration
@ContextConfiguration("file:src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml")
abstract class AbstractWebTests

@ContextHierarchy(ContextConfiguration("/spring/soap-ws-config.xml"))
class SoapWebServiceTests : AbstractWebTests()

@ContextHierarchy(ContextConfiguration("/spring/rest-ws-config.xml"))
class RestWebServiceTests : AbstractWebTests()

Class hierarchy with merged context hierarchy configuration

The classes in this example show the use of named hierarchy levels in order to merge the configuration for specific levels in a context hierarchy. BaseTests defines two levels in the hierarchy, parent and child. ExtendedTests extends BaseTests and instructs the Spring TestContext Framework to merge the context configuration for the child hierarchy level, by ensuring that the names declared in the name attribute in @ContextConfiguration are both child. The result is that three application contexts are loaded: one for /app-config.xml, one for /user-config.xml, and one for {"/user-config.xml", "/order-config.xml"}. As with the previous example, the application context loaded from /app-config.xml is set as the parent context for the contexts loaded from /user-config.xml and {"/user-config.xml", "/order-config.xml"}. The following listing shows this configuration scenario:

Java

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension.class)
@ContextHierarchy({
	@ContextConfiguration(name = "parent", locations = "/app-config.xml"),
	@ContextConfiguration(name = "child", locations = "/user-config.xml")
})
class BaseTests {}

@ContextHierarchy(
	@ContextConfiguration(name = "child", locations = "/order-config.xml")
)
class ExtendedTests extends BaseTests {}

Kotlin

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension::class)
@ContextHierarchy(
	ContextConfiguration(name = "parent", locations = ["/app-config.xml"]),
	ContextConfiguration(name = "child", locations = ["/user-config.xml"]))
open class BaseTests {}

@ContextHierarchy(
	ContextConfiguration(name = "child", locations = ["/order-config.xml"])
)
class ExtendedTests : BaseTests() {}

Class hierarchy with overridden context hierarchy configuration

In contrast to the previous example, this example demonstrates how to override the configuration for a given named level in a context hierarchy by setting the inheritLocations flag in @ContextConfiguration to false. Consequently, the application context for ExtendedTests is loaded only from /test-user-config.xml and has its parent set to the context loaded from /app-config.xml. The following listing shows this configuration scenario:

Java

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension.class)
@ContextHierarchy({
	@ContextConfiguration(name = "parent", locations = "/app-config.xml"),
	@ContextConfiguration(name = "child", locations = "/user-config.xml")
})
class BaseTests {}

@ContextHierarchy(
	@ContextConfiguration(
		name = "child",
		locations = "/test-user-config.xml",
		inheritLocations = false
))
class ExtendedTests extends BaseTests {}

Kotlin

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension::class)
@ContextHierarchy(
	ContextConfiguration(name = "parent", locations = ["/app-config.xml"]),
	ContextConfiguration(name = "child", locations = ["/user-config.xml"]))
open class BaseTests {}

@ContextHierarchy(
		ContextConfiguration(
				name = "child",
				locations = ["/test-user-config.xml"],
				inheritLocations = false
		))
class ExtendedTests : BaseTests() {}

Note

Dirtying a context within a context hierarchy If you use @DirtiesContext in a test whose context is configured as part of a context hierarchy, you can use the hierarchyMode flag to control how the context cache is cleared. For further details, see the discussion of @DirtiesContext in Spring Testing Annotations and the {api-spring-framework}/test/annotation/DirtiesContext.html[@DirtiesContext] javadoc.

Dependency Injection of Test Fixtures

When you use the DependencyInjectionTestExecutionListener (which is configured by default), the dependencies of your test instances are injected from beans in the application context that you configured with @ContextConfiguration or related annotations. You may use setter injection, field injection, or both, depending on which annotations you choose and whether you place them on setter methods or fields. If you are using JUnit Jupiter you may also optionally use constructor injection (see Dependency Injection with SpringExtension). For consistency with Spring’s annotation-based injection support, you may also use Spring’s @Autowired annotation or the @Inject annotation from JSR-330 for field and setter injection.

Tip	For testing frameworks other than JUnit Jupiter, the TestContext framework does not participate in instantiation of the test class. Thus, the use of @Autowired or @Inject for constructors has no effect for test classes.

Note

Although field injection is discouraged in production code, field injection is actually quite natural in test code. The rationale for the difference is that you will never instantiate your test class directly. Consequently, there is no need to be able to invoke a public constructor or setter method on your test class.

Because @Autowired is used to perform autowiring by type, 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 @Autowired in conjunction with @Qualifier. You can also choose to use @Inject in conjunction with @Named. Alternatively, if your test class has access to its ApplicationContext, you can perform an explicit lookup by using (for example) a call to applicationContext.getBean("titleRepository", TitleRepository.class).

If you do not want dependency injection applied to your test instances, do not annotate fields or setter methods with @Autowired or @Inject. Alternatively, you can disable dependency injection altogether by explicitly configuring your class with @TestExecutionListeners and omitting DependencyInjectionTestExecutionListener.class from the list of listeners.

Consider the scenario of testing a HibernateTitleRepository class, as outlined in the Goals section. The next two code listings demonstrate the use of @Autowired on fields and setter methods. The application context configuration is presented after all sample code listings.

Note

The dependency injection behavior in the following code listings is not specific to JUnit Jupiter. The same DI techniques can be used in conjunction with any supported testing framework. The following examples make calls to static assertion methods, such as assertNotNull(), but without prepending the call with Assertions. In such cases, assume that the method was properly imported through an import static declaration that is not shown in the example.

The first code listing shows a JUnit Jupiter based implementation of the test class that uses @Autowired for field injection:

Java

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension.class)
// specifies the Spring configuration to load for this test fixture
@ContextConfiguration("repository-config.xml")
class HibernateTitleRepositoryTests {

	// this instance will be dependency injected by type
	@Autowired
	HibernateTitleRepository titleRepository;

	@Test
	void findById() {
		Title title = titleRepository.findById(new Long(10));
		assertNotNull(title);
	}
}

Kotlin

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension::class)
// specifies the Spring configuration to load for this test fixture
@ContextConfiguration("repository-config.xml")
class HibernateTitleRepositoryTests {

	// this instance will be dependency injected by type
	@Autowired
	lateinit var titleRepository: HibernateTitleRepository

	@Test
	fun findById() {
		val title = titleRepository.findById(10)
		assertNotNull(title)
	}
}

Alternatively, you can configure the class to use @Autowired for setter injection, as follows:

Java

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension.class)
// specifies the Spring configuration to load for this test fixture
@ContextConfiguration("repository-config.xml")
class HibernateTitleRepositoryTests {

	// this instance will be dependency injected by type
	HibernateTitleRepository titleRepository;

	@Autowired
	void setTitleRepository(HibernateTitleRepository titleRepository) {
		this.titleRepository = titleRepository;
	}

	@Test
	void findById() {
		Title title = titleRepository.findById(new Long(10));
		assertNotNull(title);
	}
}

Kotlin

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension::class)
// specifies the Spring configuration to load for this test fixture
@ContextConfiguration("repository-config.xml")
class HibernateTitleRepositoryTests {

	// this instance will be dependency injected by type
	lateinit var titleRepository: HibernateTitleRepository

	@Autowired
	fun setTitleRepository(titleRepository: HibernateTitleRepository) {
		this.titleRepository = titleRepository
	}

	@Test
	fun findById() {
		val title = titleRepository.findById(10)
		assertNotNull(title)
	}
}

The preceding code listings use the same XML context file referenced by the @ContextConfiguration annotation (that is, repository-config.xml). The following shows this configuration:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<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
		https://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd">

	<!-- this bean will be injected into the HibernateTitleRepositoryTests class -->
	<bean id="titleRepository" class="com.foo.repository.hibernate.HibernateTitleRepository">
		<property name="sessionFactory" ref="sessionFactory"/>
	</bean>

	<bean id="sessionFactory" class="org.springframework.orm.hibernate5.LocalSessionFactoryBean">
		<!-- configuration elided for brevity -->
	</bean>

</beans>

Note

If you are extending from a Spring-provided test base class that happens to use @Autowired on one of its setter methods, you might have multiple beans of the affected type defined in your application context (for example, multiple DataSource beans). In such a case, you can override the setter method and use the @Qualifier annotation to indicate a specific target bean, as follows (but make sure to delegate to the overridden method in the superclass as well): Java // ... @Autowired @Override public void setDataSource(@Qualifier("myDataSource") DataSource dataSource) { super.setDataSource(dataSource); } // ... Kotlin // ... @Autowired override fun setDataSource(@Qualifier("myDataSource") dataSource: DataSource) { super.setDataSource(dataSource) } // ... The specified qualifier value indicates the specific DataSource bean to inject, narrowing the set of type matches to a specific bean. Its value is matched against <qualifier> declarations within the corresponding <bean> definitions. The bean name is used as a fallback qualifier value, so you can effectively also point to a specific bean by name there (as shown earlier, assuming that myDataSource is the bean id).

Testing Request- and Session-scoped Beans

Spring has supported Request- and session-scoped beans since the early years, and you can test your request-scoped and session-scoped beans by following these steps:

• Ensure that a WebApplicationContext is loaded for your test by annotating your test class with @WebAppConfiguration.

• Inject the mock request or session into your test instance and prepare your test fixture as appropriate.

• Invoke your web component that you retrieved from the configured WebApplicationContext (with dependency injection).

• Perform assertions against the mocks.

The next code snippet shows the XML configuration for a login use case. Note that the userService bean has a dependency on a request-scoped loginAction bean. Also, the LoginAction is instantiated by using SpEL expressions that retrieve the username and password from the current HTTP request. In our test, we want to configure these request parameters through the mock managed by the TestContext framework. The following listing shows the configuration for this use case:

Request-scoped bean configuration

<beans>

	<bean id="userService" class="com.example.SimpleUserService"
			c:loginAction-ref="loginAction"/>

	<bean id="loginAction" class="com.example.LoginAction"
			c:username="#{request.getParameter('user')}"
			c:password="#{request.getParameter('pswd')}"
			scope="request">
		<aop:scoped-proxy/>
	</bean>

</beans>

In RequestScopedBeanTests, we inject both the UserService (that is, the subject under test) and the MockHttpServletRequest into our test instance. Within our requestScope() test method, we set up our test fixture by setting request parameters in the provided MockHttpServletRequest. When the loginUser() method is invoked on our userService, we are assured that the user service has access to the request-scoped loginAction for the current MockHttpServletRequest (that is, the one in which we just set parameters). We can then perform assertions against the results based on the known inputs for the username and password. The following listing shows how to do so:

Java

@SpringJUnitWebConfig
class RequestScopedBeanTests {

	@Autowired UserService userService;
	@Autowired MockHttpServletRequest request;

	@Test
	void requestScope() {
		request.setParameter("user", "enigma");
		request.setParameter("pswd", "$pr!ng");

		LoginResults results = userService.loginUser();
		// assert results
	}
}

Kotlin

@SpringJUnitWebConfig
class RequestScopedBeanTests {

	@Autowired lateinit var userService: UserService
	@Autowired lateinit var request: MockHttpServletRequest

	@Test
	fun requestScope() {
		request.setParameter("user", "enigma")
		request.setParameter("pswd", "\$pr!ng")

		val results = userService.loginUser()
		// assert results
	}
}

The following code snippet is similar to the one we saw earlier for a request-scoped bean. However, this time, the userService bean has a dependency on a session-scoped userPreferences bean. Note that the UserPreferences bean is instantiated by using a SpEL expression that retrieves the theme from the current HTTP session. In our test, we need to configure a theme in the mock session managed by the TestContext framework. The following example shows how to do so:

Session-scoped bean configuration

<beans>

	<bean id="userService" class="com.example.SimpleUserService"
			c:userPreferences-ref="userPreferences" />

	<bean id="userPreferences" class="com.example.UserPreferences"
			c:theme="#{session.getAttribute('theme')}"
			scope="session">
		<aop:scoped-proxy/>
	</bean>

</beans>

In SessionScopedBeanTests, we inject the UserService and the MockHttpSession into our test instance. Within our sessionScope() test method, we set up our test fixture by setting the expected theme attribute in the provided MockHttpSession. When the processUserPreferences() method is invoked on our userService, we are assured that the user service has access to the session-scoped userPreferences for the current MockHttpSession, and we can perform assertions against the results based on the configured theme. The following example shows how to do so:

Java

@SpringJUnitWebConfig
class SessionScopedBeanTests {

	@Autowired UserService userService;
	@Autowired MockHttpSession session;

	@Test
	void sessionScope() throws Exception {
		session.setAttribute("theme", "blue");

		Results results = userService.processUserPreferences();
		// assert results
	}
}

Kotlin

@SpringJUnitWebConfig
class SessionScopedBeanTests {

	@Autowired lateinit var userService: UserService
	@Autowired lateinit var session: MockHttpSession

	@Test
	fun sessionScope() {
		session.setAttribute("theme", "blue")

		val results = userService.processUserPreferences()
		// assert results
	}
}

Transaction Management

In the TestContext framework, transactions are managed by the TransactionalTestExecutionListener, which is configured by default, even if you do not explicitly declare @TestExecutionListeners on your test class. To enable support for transactions, however, you must configure a PlatformTransactionManager bean in the ApplicationContext that is loaded with @ContextConfiguration semantics (further details are provided later). In addition, you must declare Spring’s @Transactional annotation either at the class or the method level for your tests.

Test-managed Transactions

Test-managed transactions are transactions that are managed declaratively by using the TransactionalTestExecutionListener or programmatically by using TestTransaction (described later). You should not confuse such transactions with Spring-managed transactions (those managed directly by Spring within the ApplicationContext loaded for tests) or application-managed transactions (those managed programmatically within application code that is invoked by tests). Spring-managed and application-managed transactions typically participate in test-managed transactions. However, you should use caution if Spring-managed or application-managed transactions are configured with any propagation type other than REQUIRED or SUPPORTS (see the discussion on transaction propagation for details).

Warning

Preemptive timeouts and test-managed transactions Caution must be taken when using any form of preemptive timeouts from a testing framework in conjunction with Spring’s test-managed transactions. Specifically, Spring’s testing support binds transaction state to the current thread (via a java.lang.ThreadLocal variable) before the current test method is invoked. If a testing framework invokes the current test method in a new thread in order to support a preemptive timeout, any actions performed within the current test method will not be invoked within the test-managed transaction. Consequently, the result of any such actions will not be rolled back with the test-managed transaction. On the contrary, such actions will be committed to the persistent store — for example, a relational database — even though the test-managed transaction is properly rolled back by Spring. Situations in which this can occur include but are not limited to the following. JUnit 4’s @Test(timeout = …​) support and TimeOut rule JUnit Jupiter’s assertTimeoutPreemptively(…​) methods in the org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions class TestNG’s @Test(timeOut = …​) support

Enabling and Disabling Transactions

Annotating a test method with @Transactional causes the test to be run within a transaction that is, by default, automatically rolled back after completion of the test. If a test class is annotated with @Transactional, each test method within that class hierarchy runs within a transaction. Test methods that are not annotated with @Transactional (at the class or method level) are not run within a transaction. Note that @Transactional is not supported on test lifecycle methods — for example, methods annotated with JUnit Jupiter’s @BeforeAll, @BeforeEach, etc. Furthermore, tests that are annotated with @Transactional but have the propagation attribute set to NOT_SUPPORTED or NEVER are not run within a transaction.

Table 1. @Transactional attribute support

Attribute	Supported for test-managed transactions
value and transactionManager	yes
propagation	only Propagation.NOT_SUPPORTED and Propagation.NEVER are supported
isolation	no
timeout	no
readOnly	no
rollbackFor and rollbackForClassName	no: use TestTransaction.flagForRollback() instead
noRollbackFor and noRollbackForClassName	no: use TestTransaction.flagForCommit() instead

Tip

Method-level lifecycle methods — for example, methods annotated with JUnit Jupiter’s @BeforeEach or @AfterEach — are run within a test-managed transaction. On the other hand, suite-level and class-level lifecycle methods — for example, methods annotated with JUnit Jupiter’s @BeforeAll or @AfterAll and methods annotated with TestNG’s @BeforeSuite, @AfterSuite, @BeforeClass, or @AfterClass — are not run within a test-managed transaction. If you need to run code in a suite-level or class-level lifecycle method within a transaction, you may wish to inject a corresponding PlatformTransactionManager into your test class and then use that with a TransactionTemplate for programmatic transaction management.

Note that AbstractTransactionalJUnit4SpringContextTests and AbstractTransactionalTestNGSpringContextTests are preconfigured for transactional support at the class level.

The following example demonstrates a common scenario for writing an integration test for a Hibernate-based UserRepository:

Java

@SpringJUnitConfig(TestConfig.class)
@Transactional
class HibernateUserRepositoryTests {

	@Autowired
	HibernateUserRepository repository;

	@Autowired
	SessionFactory sessionFactory;

	JdbcTemplate jdbcTemplate;

	@Autowired
	void setDataSource(DataSource dataSource) {
		this.jdbcTemplate = new JdbcTemplate(dataSource);
	}

	@Test
	void createUser() {
		// track initial state in test database:
		final int count = countRowsInTable("user");

		User user = new User(...);
		repository.save(user);

		// Manual flush is required to avoid false positive in test
		sessionFactory.getCurrentSession().flush();
		assertNumUsers(count + 1);
	}

	private int countRowsInTable(String tableName) {
		return JdbcTestUtils.countRowsInTable(this.jdbcTemplate, tableName);
	}

	private void assertNumUsers(int expected) {
		assertEquals("Number of rows in the [user] table.", expected, countRowsInTable("user"));
	}
}

Kotlin

@SpringJUnitConfig(TestConfig::class)
@Transactional
class HibernateUserRepositoryTests {

	@Autowired
	lateinit var repository: HibernateUserRepository

	@Autowired
	lateinit var sessionFactory: SessionFactory

	lateinit var jdbcTemplate: JdbcTemplate

	@Autowired
	fun setDataSource(dataSource: DataSource) {
		this.jdbcTemplate = JdbcTemplate(dataSource)
	}

	@Test
	fun createUser() {
		// track initial state in test database:
		val count = countRowsInTable("user")

		val user = User()
		repository.save(user)

		// Manual flush is required to avoid false positive in test
		sessionFactory.getCurrentSession().flush()
		assertNumUsers(count + 1)
	}

	private fun countRowsInTable(tableName: String): Int {
		return JdbcTestUtils.countRowsInTable(jdbcTemplate, tableName)
	}

	private fun assertNumUsers(expected: Int) {
		assertEquals("Number of rows in the [user] table.", expected, countRowsInTable("user"))
	}
}

As explained in Transaction Rollback and Commit Behavior, there is no need to clean up the database after the createUser() method runs, since any changes made to the database are automatically rolled back by the TransactionalTestExecutionListener.

Transaction Rollback and Commit Behavior

By default, test transactions will be automatically rolled back after completion of the test; however, transactional commit and rollback behavior can be configured declaratively via the @Commit and @Rollback annotations. See the corresponding entries in the annotation support section for further details.

Programmatic Transaction Management

You can interact with test-managed transactions programmatically by using the static methods in TestTransaction. For example, you can use TestTransaction within test methods, before methods, and after methods to start or end the current test-managed transaction or to configure the current test-managed transaction for rollback or commit. Support for TestTransaction is automatically available whenever the TransactionalTestExecutionListener is enabled.

The following example demonstrates some of the features of TestTransaction. See the javadoc for {api-spring-framework}/test/context/transaction/TestTransaction.html[TestTransaction] for further details.

Java

@ContextConfiguration(classes = TestConfig.class)
public class ProgrammaticTransactionManagementTests extends
		AbstractTransactionalJUnit4SpringContextTests {

	@Test
	public void transactionalTest() {
		// assert initial state in test database:
		assertNumUsers(2);

		deleteFromTables("user");

		// changes to the database will be committed!
		TestTransaction.flagForCommit();
		TestTransaction.end();
		assertFalse(TestTransaction.isActive());
		assertNumUsers(0);

		TestTransaction.start();
		// perform other actions against the database that will
		// be automatically rolled back after the test completes...
	}

	protected void assertNumUsers(int expected) {
		assertEquals("Number of rows in the [user] table.", expected, countRowsInTable("user"));
	}
}

Kotlin

@ContextConfiguration(classes = [TestConfig::class])
class ProgrammaticTransactionManagementTests : AbstractTransactionalJUnit4SpringContextTests() {

	@Test
	fun transactionalTest() {
		// assert initial state in test database:
		assertNumUsers(2)

		deleteFromTables("user")

		// changes to the database will be committed!
		TestTransaction.flagForCommit()
		TestTransaction.end()
		assertFalse(TestTransaction.isActive())
		assertNumUsers(0)

		TestTransaction.start()
		// perform other actions against the database that will
		// be automatically rolled back after the test completes...
	}

	protected fun assertNumUsers(expected: Int) {
		assertEquals("Number of rows in the [user] table.", expected, countRowsInTable("user"))
	}
}

Running Code Outside of a Transaction

Occasionally, you may need to run certain code before or after a transactional test method but outside the transactional context — for example, to verify the initial database state prior to running your test or to verify expected transactional commit behavior after your test runs (if the test was configured to commit the transaction). TransactionalTestExecutionListener supports the @BeforeTransaction and @AfterTransaction annotations for exactly such scenarios. You can annotate any void method in a test class or any void default method in a test interface with one of these annotations, and the TransactionalTestExecutionListener ensures that your before transaction method or after transaction method runs at the appropriate time.

Tip

Any before methods (such as methods annotated with JUnit Jupiter’s @BeforeEach) and any after methods (such as methods annotated with JUnit Jupiter’s @AfterEach) are run within a transaction. In addition, methods annotated with @BeforeTransaction or @AfterTransaction are not run for test methods that are not configured to run within a transaction.

Configuring a Transaction Manager

TransactionalTestExecutionListener expects a PlatformTransactionManager bean to be defined in the Spring ApplicationContext for the test. If there are multiple instances of PlatformTransactionManager within the test’s ApplicationContext, you can declare a qualifier by using @Transactional("myTxMgr") or @Transactional(transactionManager = "myTxMgr"), or TransactionManagementConfigurer can be implemented by an @Configuration class. Consult the {api-spring-framework}/test/context/transaction/TestContextTransactionUtils.html#retrieveTransactionManager-org.springframework.test.context.TestContext-java.lang.String-[javadoc for TestContextTransactionUtils.retrieveTransactionManager()] for details on the algorithm used to look up a transaction manager in the test’s ApplicationContext.

Demonstration of All Transaction-related Annotations

The following JUnit Jupiter based example displays a fictitious integration testing scenario that highlights all transaction-related annotations. The example is not intended to demonstrate best practices but rather to demonstrate how these annotations can be used. See the annotation support section for further information and configuration examples. Transaction management for @Sql contains an additional example that uses @Sql for declarative SQL script execution with default transaction rollback semantics. The following example shows the relevant annotations:

Java

@SpringJUnitConfig
@Transactional(transactionManager = "txMgr")
@Commit
class FictitiousTransactionalTest {

	@BeforeTransaction
	void verifyInitialDatabaseState() {
		// logic to verify the initial state before a transaction is started
	}

	@BeforeEach
	void setUpTestDataWithinTransaction() {
		// set up test data within the transaction
	}

	@Test
	// overrides the class-level @Commit setting
	@Rollback
	void modifyDatabaseWithinTransaction() {
		// logic which uses the test data and modifies database state
	}

	@AfterEach
	void tearDownWithinTransaction() {
		// run "tear down" logic within the transaction
	}

	@AfterTransaction
	void verifyFinalDatabaseState() {
		// logic to verify the final state after transaction has rolled back
	}

}

Kotlin

@SpringJUnitConfig
@Transactional(transactionManager = "txMgr")
@Commit
class FictitiousTransactionalTest {

	@BeforeTransaction
	fun verifyInitialDatabaseState() {
		// logic to verify the initial state before a transaction is started
	}

	@BeforeEach
	fun setUpTestDataWithinTransaction() {
		// set up test data within the transaction
	}

	@Test
	// overrides the class-level @Commit setting
	@Rollback
	fun modifyDatabaseWithinTransaction() {
		// logic which uses the test data and modifies database state
	}

	@AfterEach
	fun tearDownWithinTransaction() {
		// run "tear down" logic within the transaction
	}

	@AfterTransaction
	fun verifyFinalDatabaseState() {
		// logic to verify the final state after transaction has rolled back
	}

}

Note

Avoid false positives when testing ORM code When you test application code that manipulates the state of a Hibernate session or JPA persistence context, make sure to flush the underlying unit of work within test methods that run that code. Failing to flush the underlying unit of work can produce false positives: Your test passes, but the same code throws an exception in a live, production environment. Note that this applies to any ORM framework that maintains an in-memory unit of work. In the following Hibernate-based example test case, one method demonstrates a false positive, and the other method correctly exposes the results of flushing the session: Java // ... @Autowired SessionFactory sessionFactory; @Transactional @Test // no expected exception! public void falsePositive() { updateEntityInHibernateSession(); // False positive: an exception will be thrown once the Hibernate // Session is finally flushed (i.e., in production code) } @Transactional @Test(expected = ...) public void updateWithSessionFlush() { updateEntityInHibernateSession(); // Manual flush is required to avoid false positive in test sessionFactory.getCurrentSession().flush(); } // ... Kotlin // ... @Autowired lateinit var sessionFactory: SessionFactory @Transactional @Test // no expected exception! fun falsePositive() { updateEntityInHibernateSession() // False positive: an exception will be thrown once the Hibernate // Session is finally flushed (i.e., in production code) } @Transactional @Test(expected = ...) fun updateWithSessionFlush() { updateEntityInHibernateSession() // Manual flush is required to avoid false positive in test sessionFactory.getCurrentSession().flush() } // ... The following example shows matching methods for JPA: Java // ... @PersistenceContext EntityManager entityManager; @Transactional @Test // no expected exception! public void falsePositive() { updateEntityInJpaPersistenceContext(); // False positive: an exception will be thrown once the JPA // EntityManager is finally flushed (i.e., in production code) } @Transactional @Test(expected = ...) public void updateWithEntityManagerFlush() { updateEntityInJpaPersistenceContext(); // Manual flush is required to avoid false positive in test entityManager.flush(); } // ... Kotlin // ... @PersistenceContext lateinit var entityManager:EntityManager @Transactional @Test // no expected exception! fun falsePositive() { updateEntityInJpaPersistenceContext() // False positive: an exception will be thrown once the JPA // EntityManager is finally flushed (i.e., in production code) } @Transactional @Test(expected = ...) void updateWithEntityManagerFlush() { updateEntityInJpaPersistenceContext() // Manual flush is required to avoid false positive in test entityManager.flush() } // ...

Note

Testing ORM entity lifecycle callbacks Similar to the note about avoiding false positives when testing ORM code, if your application makes use of entity lifecycle callbacks (also known as entity listeners), make sure to flush the underlying unit of work within test methods that run that code. Failing to flush or clear the underlying unit of work can result in certain lifecycle callbacks not being invoked. For example, when using JPA, @PostPersist, @PreUpdate, and @PostUpdate callbacks will not be called unless entityManager.flush() is invoked after an entity has been saved or updated. Similarly, if an entity is already attached to the current unit of work (associated with the current persistence context), an attempt to reload the entity will not result in a @PostLoad callback unless entityManager.clear() is invoked before the attempt to reload the entity. The following example shows how to flush the EntityManager to ensure that @PostPersist callbacks are invoked when an entity is persisted. An entity listener with a @PostPersist callback method has been registered for the Person entity used in the example. Java // ... @Autowired JpaPersonRepository repo; @PersistenceContext EntityManager entityManager; @Transactional @Test void savePerson() { // EntityManager#persist(...) results in @PrePersist but not @PostPersist repo.save(new Person("Jane")); // Manual flush is required for @PostPersist callback to be invoked entityManager.flush(); // Test code that relies on the @PostPersist callback // having been invoked... } // ... Kotlin // ... @Autowired lateinit var repo: JpaPersonRepository @PersistenceContext lateinit var entityManager: EntityManager @Transactional @Test fun savePerson() { // EntityManager#persist(...) results in @PrePersist but not @PostPersist repo.save(Person("Jane")) // Manual flush is required for @PostPersist callback to be invoked entityManager.flush() // Test code that relies on the @PostPersist callback // having been invoked... } // ... See JpaEntityListenerTests in the Spring Framework test suite for working examples using all JPA lifecycle callbacks.

Executing SQL Scripts

When writing integration tests against a relational database, it is often beneficial to run SQL scripts to modify the database schema or insert test data into tables. The spring-jdbc module provides support for initializing an embedded or existing database by executing SQL scripts when the Spring ApplicationContext is loaded. See Embedded database support and Testing data access logic with an embedded database for details.

Although it is very useful to initialize a database for testing once when the ApplicationContext is loaded, sometimes it is essential to be able to modify the database during integration tests. The following sections explain how to run SQL scripts programmatically and declaratively during integration tests.

Executing SQL scripts programmatically

Spring provides the following options for executing SQL scripts programmatically within integration test methods.

• org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.init.ScriptUtils

• org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.init.ResourceDatabasePopulator

• org.springframework.test.context.junit4.AbstractTransactionalJUnit4SpringContextTests

• org.springframework.test.context.testng.AbstractTransactionalTestNGSpringContextTests

ScriptUtils provides a collection of static utility methods for working with SQL scripts and is mainly intended for internal use within the framework. However, if you require full control over how SQL scripts are parsed and run, ScriptUtils may suit your needs better than some of the other alternatives described later. See the {api-spring-framework}/jdbc/datasource/init/ScriptUtils.html[javadoc] for individual methods in ScriptUtils for further details.

ResourceDatabasePopulator provides an object-based API for programmatically populating, initializing, or cleaning up a database by using SQL scripts defined in external resources. ResourceDatabasePopulator provides options for configuring the character encoding, statement separator, comment delimiters, and error handling flags used when parsing and running the scripts. Each of the configuration options has a reasonable default value. See the {api-spring-framework}/jdbc/datasource/init/ResourceDatabasePopulator.html[javadoc] for details on default values. To run the scripts configured in a ResourceDatabasePopulator, you can invoke either the populate(Connection) method to run the populator against a java.sql.Connection or the execute(DataSource) method to run the populator against a javax.sql.DataSource. The following example specifies SQL scripts for a test schema and test data, sets the statement separator to @@, and run the scripts against a DataSource:

Java

@Test
void databaseTest() {
	ResourceDatabasePopulator populator = new ResourceDatabasePopulator();
	populator.addScripts(
			new ClassPathResource("test-schema.sql"),
			new ClassPathResource("test-data.sql"));
	populator.setSeparator("@@");
	populator.execute(this.dataSource);
	// run code that uses the test schema and data
}

Kotlin

@Test
fun databaseTest() {
	val populator = ResourceDatabasePopulator()
	populator.addScripts(
			ClassPathResource("test-schema.sql"),
			ClassPathResource("test-data.sql"))
	populator.setSeparator("@@")
	populator.execute(dataSource)
	// run code that uses the test schema and data
}

Note that ResourceDatabasePopulator internally delegates to ScriptUtils for parsing and running SQL scripts. Similarly, the executeSqlScript(..) methods in AbstractTransactionalJUnit4SpringContextTests and AbstractTransactionalTestNGSpringContextTests internally use a ResourceDatabasePopulator to run SQL scripts. See the Javadoc for the various executeSqlScript(..) methods for further details.

Executing SQL scripts declaratively with @Sql

In addition to the aforementioned mechanisms for running SQL scripts programmatically, you can declaratively configure SQL scripts in the Spring TestContext Framework. Specifically, you can declare the @Sql annotation on a test class or test method to configure individual SQL statements or the resource paths to SQL scripts that should be run against a given database before or after an integration test method. Support for @Sql is provided by the SqlScriptsTestExecutionListener, which is enabled by default.

Note	Method-level @Sql declarations override class-level declarations by default. As of Spring Framework 5.2, however, this behavior may be configured per test class or per test method via @SqlMergeMode. See Merging and Overriding Configuration with @SqlMergeMode for further details.

Path Resource Semantics

Each path is interpreted as a Spring Resource. A plain path (for example, "schema.sql") is treated as a classpath resource that is relative to the package in which the test class is defined. A path starting with a slash is treated as an absolute classpath resource (for example, "/org/example/schema.sql"). A path that references a URL (for example, a path prefixed with classpath:, file:, http:) is loaded by using the specified resource protocol.

The following example shows how to use @Sql at the class level and at the method level within a JUnit Jupiter based integration test class:

Java

@SpringJUnitConfig
@Sql("/test-schema.sql")
class DatabaseTests {

	@Test
	void emptySchemaTest() {
		// run code that uses the test schema without any test data
	}

	@Test
	@Sql({"/test-schema.sql", "/test-user-data.sql"})
	void userTest() {
		// run code that uses the test schema and test data
	}
}

Kotlin

@SpringJUnitConfig
@Sql("/test-schema.sql")
class DatabaseTests {

	@Test
	fun emptySchemaTest() {
		// run code that uses the test schema without any test data
	}

	@Test
	@Sql("/test-schema.sql", "/test-user-data.sql")
	fun userTest() {
		// run code that uses the test schema and test data
	}
}

Default Script Detection

If no SQL scripts or statements are specified, an attempt is made to detect a default script, depending on where @Sql is declared. If a default cannot be detected, an IllegalStateException is thrown.

• Class-level declaration: If the annotated test class is com.example.MyTest, the corresponding default script is classpath:com/example/MyTest.sql.

• Method-level declaration: If the annotated test method is named testMethod() and is defined in the class com.example.MyTest, the corresponding default script is classpath:com/example/MyTest.testMethod.sql.

Declaring Multiple @Sql Sets

If you need to configure multiple sets of SQL scripts for a given test class or test method but with different syntax configuration, different error handling rules, or different execution phases per set, you can declare multiple instances of @Sql. With Java 8, you can use @Sql as a repeatable annotation. Otherwise, you can use the @SqlGroup annotation as an explicit container for declaring multiple instances of @Sql.

The following example shows how to use @Sql as a repeatable annotation with Java 8:

Java

@Test
@Sql(scripts = "/test-schema.sql", config = @SqlConfig(commentPrefix = "`"))
@Sql("/test-user-data.sql")
void userTest() {
	// run code that uses the test schema and test data
}

Kotlin

// Repeatable annotations with non-SOURCE retention are not yet supported by Kotlin

In the scenario presented in the preceding example, the test-schema.sql script uses a different syntax for single-line comments.

The following example is identical to the preceding example, except that the @Sql declarations are grouped together within @SqlGroup. With Java 8 and above, the use of @SqlGroup is optional, but you may need to use @SqlGroup for compatibility with other JVM languages such as Kotlin.

Java

@Test
@SqlGroup({
	@Sql(scripts = "/test-schema.sql", config = @SqlConfig(commentPrefix = "`")),
	@Sql("/test-user-data.sql")
)}
void userTest() {
	// run code that uses the test schema and test data
}

Kotlin

@Test
@SqlGroup(
	Sql("/test-schema.sql", config = SqlConfig(commentPrefix = "`")),
	Sql("/test-user-data.sql"))
fun userTest() {
	// Run code that uses the test schema and test data
}

Script Execution Phases

By default, SQL scripts are run before the corresponding test method. However, if you need to run a particular set of scripts after the test method (for example, to clean up database state), you can use the executionPhase attribute in @Sql, as the following example shows:

Java

@Test
@Sql(
	scripts = "create-test-data.sql",
	config = @SqlConfig(transactionMode = ISOLATED)
)
@Sql(
	scripts = "delete-test-data.sql",
	config = @SqlConfig(transactionMode = ISOLATED),
	executionPhase = AFTER_TEST_METHOD
)
void userTest() {
	// run code that needs the test data to be committed
	// to the database outside of the test's transaction
}

Kotlin

@Test
@SqlGroup(
	Sql("create-test-data.sql",
		config = SqlConfig(transactionMode = ISOLATED)),
	Sql("delete-test-data.sql",
		config = SqlConfig(transactionMode = ISOLATED),
		executionPhase = AFTER_TEST_METHOD))
fun userTest() {
	// run code that needs the test data to be committed
	// to the database outside of the test's transaction
}

Note that ISOLATED and AFTER_TEST_METHOD are statically imported from Sql.TransactionMode and Sql.ExecutionPhase, respectively.

Script Configuration with @SqlConfig

You can configure script parsing and error handling by using the @SqlConfig annotation. When declared as a class-level annotation on an integration test class, @SqlConfig serves as global configuration for all SQL scripts within the test class hierarchy. When declared directly by using the config attribute of the @Sql annotation, @SqlConfig serves as local configuration for the SQL scripts declared within the enclosing @Sql annotation. Every attribute in @SqlConfig has an implicit default value, which is documented in the javadoc of the corresponding attribute. Due to the rules defined for annotation attributes in the Java Language Specification, it is, unfortunately, not possible to assign a value of null to an annotation attribute. Thus, in order to support overrides of inherited global configuration, @SqlConfig attributes have an explicit default value of either "" (for Strings), {} (for arrays), or DEFAULT (for enumerations). This approach lets local declarations of @SqlConfig selectively override individual attributes from global declarations of @SqlConfig by providing a value other than "", {}, or DEFAULT. Global @SqlConfig attributes are inherited whenever local @SqlConfig attributes do not supply an explicit value other than "", {}, or DEFAULT. Explicit local configuration, therefore, overrides global configuration.

The configuration options provided by @Sql and @SqlConfig are equivalent to those supported by ScriptUtils and ResourceDatabasePopulator but are a superset of those provided by the <jdbc:initialize-database/> XML namespace element. See the javadoc of individual attributes in {api-spring-framework}/test/context/jdbc/Sql.html[@Sql] and {api-spring-framework}/test/context/jdbc/SqlConfig.html[@SqlConfig] for details.

Transaction management for @Sql

By default, the SqlScriptsTestExecutionListener infers the desired transaction semantics for scripts configured by using @Sql. Specifically, SQL scripts are run without a transaction, within an existing Spring-managed transaction (for example, a transaction managed by the TransactionalTestExecutionListener for a test annotated with @Transactional), or within an isolated transaction, depending on the configured value of the transactionMode attribute in @SqlConfig and the presence of a PlatformTransactionManager in the test’s ApplicationContext. As a bare minimum, however, a javax.sql.DataSource must be present in the test’s ApplicationContext.

If the algorithms used by SqlScriptsTestExecutionListener to detect a DataSource and PlatformTransactionManager and infer the transaction semantics do not suit your needs, you can specify explicit names by setting the dataSource and transactionManager attributes of @SqlConfig. Furthermore, you can control the transaction propagation behavior by setting the transactionMode attribute of @SqlConfig (for example, whether scripts should be run in an isolated transaction). Although a thorough discussion of all supported options for transaction management with @Sql is beyond the scope of this reference manual, the javadoc for {api-spring-framework}/test/context/jdbc/SqlConfig.html[@SqlConfig] and {api-spring-framework}/test/context/jdbc/SqlScriptsTestExecutionListener.html[SqlScriptsTestExecutionListener] provide detailed information, and the following example shows a typical testing scenario that uses JUnit Jupiter and transactional tests with @Sql:

Java

@SpringJUnitConfig(TestDatabaseConfig.class)
@Transactional
class TransactionalSqlScriptsTests {

	final JdbcTemplate jdbcTemplate;

	@Autowired
	TransactionalSqlScriptsTests(DataSource dataSource) {
		this.jdbcTemplate = new JdbcTemplate(dataSource);
	}

	@Test
	@Sql("/test-data.sql")
	void usersTest() {
		// verify state in test database:
		assertNumUsers(2);
		// run code that uses the test data...
	}

	int countRowsInTable(String tableName) {
		return JdbcTestUtils.countRowsInTable(this.jdbcTemplate, tableName);
	}

	void assertNumUsers(int expected) {
		assertEquals(expected, countRowsInTable("user"),
			"Number of rows in the [user] table.");
	}
}

Kotlin

@SpringJUnitConfig(TestDatabaseConfig::class)
@Transactional
class TransactionalSqlScriptsTests @Autowired constructor(dataSource: DataSource) {

	val jdbcTemplate: JdbcTemplate = JdbcTemplate(dataSource)

	@Test
	@Sql("/test-data.sql")
	fun usersTest() {
		// verify state in test database:
		assertNumUsers(2)
		// run code that uses the test data...
	}

	fun countRowsInTable(tableName: String): Int {
		return JdbcTestUtils.countRowsInTable(jdbcTemplate, tableName)
	}

	fun assertNumUsers(expected: Int) {
		assertEquals(expected, countRowsInTable("user"),
				"Number of rows in the [user] table.")
	}
}

Note that there is no need to clean up the database after the usersTest() method is run, since any changes made to the database (either within the test method or within the /test-data.sql script) are automatically rolled back by the TransactionalTestExecutionListener (see transaction management for details).

Merging and Overriding Configuration with @SqlMergeMode

As of Spring Framework 5.2, it is possible to merge method-level @Sql declarations with class-level declarations. For example, this allows you to provide the configuration for a database schema or some common test data once per test class and then provide additional, use case specific test data per test method. To enable @Sql merging, annotate either your test class or test method with @SqlMergeMode(MERGE). To disable merging for a specific test method (or specific test subclass), you can switch back to the default mode via @SqlMergeMode(OVERRIDE). Consult the @SqlMergeMode annotation documentation section for examples and further details.

Parallel Test Execution

Spring Framework 5.0 introduced basic support for executing tests in parallel within a single JVM when using the Spring TestContext Framework. In general, this means that most test classes or test methods can be run in parallel without any changes to test code or configuration.

Tip	For details on how to set up parallel test execution, see the documentation for your testing framework, build tool, or IDE.

Keep in mind that the introduction of concurrency into your test suite can result in unexpected side effects, strange runtime behavior, and tests that fail intermittently or seemingly randomly. The Spring Team therefore provides the following general guidelines for when not to run tests in parallel.

Do not run tests in parallel if the tests:

• Use Spring Framework’s @DirtiesContext support.

• Use Spring Boot’s @MockBean or @SpyBean support.

• Use JUnit 4’s @FixMethodOrder support or any testing framework feature that is designed to ensure that test methods run in a particular order. Note, however, that this does not apply if entire test classes are run in parallel.

• Change the state of shared services or systems such as a database, message broker, filesystem, and others. This applies to both embedded and external systems.

Tip

If parallel test execution fails with an exception stating that the ApplicationContext for the current test is no longer active, this typically means that the ApplicationContext was removed from the ContextCache in a different thread. This may be due to the use of @DirtiesContext or due to automatic eviction from the ContextCache. If @DirtiesContext is the culprit, you either need to find a way to avoid using @DirtiesContext or exclude such tests from parallel execution. If the maximum size of the ContextCache has been exceeded, you can increase the maximum size of the cache. See the discussion on context caching for details.

Warning

Parallel test execution in the Spring TestContext Framework is only possible if the underlying TestContext implementation provides a copy constructor, as explained in the javadoc for {api-spring-framework}/test/context/TestContext.html[TestContext]. The DefaultTestContext used in Spring provides such a constructor. However, if you use a third-party library that provides a custom TestContext implementation, you need to verify that it is suitable for parallel test execution.

TestContext Framework Support Classes

This section describes the various classes that support the Spring TestContext Framework.

Spring JUnit 4 Runner

The Spring TestContext Framework offers full integration with JUnit 4 through a custom runner (supported on JUnit 4.12 or higher). By annotating test classes with @RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class) or the shorter @RunWith(SpringRunner.class) variant, developers can implement standard JUnit 4-based 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, and so on. If you want to use the Spring TestContext Framework with an alternative runner (such as JUnit 4’s Parameterized runner) or third-party runners (such as the MockitoJUnitRunner), you can, optionally, use Spring’s support for JUnit rules instead.

The following code listing shows the minimal requirements for configuring a test class to run with the custom Spring Runner:

Java

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
@TestExecutionListeners({})
public class SimpleTest {

	@Test
	public void testMethod() {
		// test logic...
	}
}

Kotlin

@RunWith(SpringRunner::class)
@TestExecutionListeners
class SimpleTest {

	@Test
	fun testMethod() {
		// test logic...
	}
}

In the preceding example, @TestExecutionListeners is configured with an empty list, to disable the default listeners, which otherwise would require an ApplicationContext to be configured through @ContextConfiguration.

Spring JUnit 4 Rules

The org.springframework.test.context.junit4.rules package provides the following JUnit 4 rules (supported on JUnit 4.12 or higher):

• SpringClassRule

• SpringMethodRule

SpringClassRule is a JUnit TestRule that supports class-level features of the Spring TestContext Framework, whereas SpringMethodRule is a JUnit MethodRule that supports instance-level and method-level features of the Spring TestContext Framework.

In contrast to the SpringRunner, Spring’s rule-based JUnit support has the advantage of being independent of any org.junit.runner.Runner implementation and can, therefore, be combined with existing alternative runners (such as JUnit 4’s Parameterized) or third-party runners (such as the MockitoJUnitRunner).

To support the full functionality of the TestContext framework, you must combine a SpringClassRule with a SpringMethodRule. The following example shows the proper way to declare these rules in an integration test:

Java

// Optionally specify a non-Spring Runner via @RunWith(...)
@ContextConfiguration
public class IntegrationTest {

	@ClassRule
	public static final SpringClassRule springClassRule = new SpringClassRule();

	@Rule
	public final SpringMethodRule springMethodRule = new SpringMethodRule();

	@Test
	public void testMethod() {
		// test logic...
	}
}

Kotlin

// Optionally specify a non-Spring Runner via @RunWith(...)
@ContextConfiguration
class IntegrationTest {

	@Rule
	val springMethodRule = SpringMethodRule()

	@Test
	fun testMethod() {
		// test logic...
	}

	companion object {
		@ClassRule
		val springClassRule = SpringClassRule()
	}
}

JUnit 4 Support Classes

The org.springframework.test.context.junit4 package provides the following support classes for JUnit 4-based test cases (supported on JUnit 4.12 or higher):

• AbstractJUnit4SpringContextTests

• AbstractTransactionalJUnit4SpringContextTests

AbstractJUnit4SpringContextTests is an abstract base test class that integrates the Spring TestContext Framework with explicit ApplicationContext testing support in a JUnit 4 environment. When you extend AbstractJUnit4SpringContextTests, you can access a protected applicationContext instance variable that you can use to perform explicit bean lookups or to test the state of the context as a whole.

AbstractTransactionalJUnit4SpringContextTests is an abstract transactional extension of AbstractJUnit4SpringContextTests that adds some convenience functionality for JDBC access. This class expects a javax.sql.DataSource bean and a PlatformTransactionManager bean to be defined in the ApplicationContext. When you extend AbstractTransactionalJUnit4SpringContextTests, you can access a protected jdbcTemplate instance variable that you can use to run SQL statements to query the database. You can use such queries to confirm database state both before and after running database-related application code, and Spring ensures that such queries run in the scope of the same transaction as the application code. When used in conjunction with an ORM tool, be sure to avoid false positives. As mentioned in [integration-testing-support-jdbc], AbstractTransactionalJUnit4SpringContextTests also provides convenience methods that delegate to methods in JdbcTestUtils by using the aforementioned jdbcTemplate. Furthermore, AbstractTransactionalJUnit4SpringContextTests provides an executeSqlScript(..) method for running SQL scripts against the configured DataSource.

Tip	These classes are a convenience for extension. If you do not want your test classes to be tied to a Spring-specific class hierarchy, you can configure your own custom test classes by using @RunWith(SpringRunner.class) or Spring’s JUnit rules.

SpringExtension for JUnit Jupiter

The Spring TestContext Framework offers full integration with the JUnit Jupiter testing framework, introduced in JUnit 5. By annotating test classes with @ExtendWith(SpringExtension.class), you can implement standard JUnit Jupiter-based 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, and so on.

Furthermore, thanks to the rich extension API in JUnit Jupiter, Spring provides the following features above and beyond the feature set that Spring supports for JUnit 4 and TestNG:

• Dependency injection for test constructors, test methods, and test lifecycle callback methods. See Dependency Injection with SpringExtension for further details.

• Powerful support for conditional test execution based on SpEL expressions, environment variables, system properties, and so on. See the documentation for @EnabledIf and @DisabledIf in [integration-testing-annotations-junit-jupiter] for further details and examples.

• Custom composed annotations that combine annotations from Spring and JUnit Jupiter. See the @TransactionalDevTestConfig and @TransactionalIntegrationTest examples in [integration-testing-annotations-meta] for further details.

The following code listing shows how to configure a test class to use the SpringExtension in conjunction with @ContextConfiguration:

Java

// Instructs JUnit Jupiter to extend the test with Spring support.
@ExtendWith(SpringExtension.class)
// Instructs Spring to load an ApplicationContext from TestConfig.class
@ContextConfiguration(classes = TestConfig.class)
class SimpleTests {

	@Test
	void testMethod() {
		// test logic...
	}
}

Kotlin

// Instructs JUnit Jupiter to extend the test with Spring support.
@ExtendWith(SpringExtension::class)
// Instructs Spring to load an ApplicationContext from TestConfig::class
@ContextConfiguration(classes = [TestConfig::class])
class SimpleTests {

	@Test
	fun testMethod() {
		// test logic...
	}
}

Since you can also use annotations in JUnit 5 as meta-annotations, Spring provides the @SpringJUnitConfig and @SpringJUnitWebConfig composed annotations to simplify the configuration of the test ApplicationContext and JUnit Jupiter.

The following example uses @SpringJUnitConfig to reduce the amount of configuration used in the previous example:

Java

// Instructs Spring to register the SpringExtension with JUnit
// Jupiter and load an ApplicationContext from TestConfig.class
@SpringJUnitConfig(TestConfig.class)
class SimpleTests {

	@Test
	void testMethod() {
		// test logic...
	}
}

Kotlin

// Instructs Spring to register the SpringExtension with JUnit
// Jupiter and load an ApplicationContext from TestConfig.class
@SpringJUnitConfig(TestConfig::class)
class SimpleTests {

	@Test
	fun testMethod() {
		// test logic...
	}
}

Similarly, the following example uses @SpringJUnitWebConfig to create a WebApplicationContext for use with JUnit Jupiter:

Java

// Instructs Spring to register the SpringExtension with JUnit
// Jupiter and load a WebApplicationContext from TestWebConfig.class
@SpringJUnitWebConfig(TestWebConfig.class)
class SimpleWebTests {

	@Test
	void testMethod() {
		// test logic...
	}
}

Kotlin

// Instructs Spring to register the SpringExtension with JUnit
// Jupiter and load a WebApplicationContext from TestWebConfig::class
@SpringJUnitWebConfig(TestWebConfig::class)
class SimpleWebTests {

	@Test
	fun testMethod() {
		// test logic...
	}
}

See the documentation for @SpringJUnitConfig and @SpringJUnitWebConfig in [integration-testing-annotations-junit-jupiter] for further details.

Dependency Injection with SpringExtension

SpringExtension implements the ParameterResolver extension API from JUnit Jupiter, which lets Spring provide dependency injection for test constructors, test methods, and test lifecycle callback methods.

Specifically, SpringExtension can inject dependencies from the test’s ApplicationContext into test constructors and methods that are annotated with @BeforeAll, @AfterAll, @BeforeEach, @AfterEach, @Test, @RepeatedTest, @ParameterizedTest, and others.

Constructor Injection

If a specific parameter in a constructor for a JUnit Jupiter test class is of type ApplicationContext (or a sub-type thereof) or is annotated or meta-annotated with @Autowired, @Qualifier, or @Value, Spring injects the value for that specific parameter with the corresponding bean or value from the test’s ApplicationContext.

Spring can also be configured to autowire all arguments for a test class constructor if the constructor is considered to be autowirable. A constructor is considered to be autowirable if one of the following conditions is met (in order of precedence).

• The constructor is annotated with @Autowired.

• @TestConstructor is present or meta-present on the test class with the autowireMode attribute set to ALL.

• The default test constructor autowire mode has been changed to ALL.

See [integration-testing-annotations-testconstructor] for details on the use of @TestConstructor and how to change the global test constructor autowire mode.

Warning

If the constructor for a test class is considered to be autowirable, Spring assumes the responsibility for resolving arguments for all parameters in the constructor. Consequently, no other ParameterResolver registered with JUnit Jupiter can resolve parameters for such a constructor.

Warning

Constructor injection for test classes must not be used in conjunction with JUnit Jupiter’s @TestInstance(PER_CLASS) support if @DirtiesContext is used to close the test’s ApplicationContext before or after test methods. The reason is that @TestInstance(PER_CLASS) instructs JUnit Jupiter to cache the test instance between test method invocations. Consequently, the test instance will retain references to beans that were originally injected from an ApplicationContext that has been subsequently closed. Since the constructor for the test class will only be invoked once in such scenarios, dependency injection will not occur again, and subsequent tests will interact with beans from the closed ApplicationContext which may result in errors. To use @DirtiesContext with "before test method" or "after test method" modes in conjunction with @TestInstance(PER_CLASS), one must configure dependencies from Spring to be supplied via field or setter injection so that they can be re-injected between test method invocations.

In the following example, Spring injects the OrderService bean from the ApplicationContext loaded from TestConfig.class into the OrderServiceIntegrationTests constructor.

Java

@SpringJUnitConfig(TestConfig.class)
class OrderServiceIntegrationTests {

	private final OrderService orderService;

	@Autowired
	OrderServiceIntegrationTests(OrderService orderService) {
		this.orderService = orderService;
	}

	// tests that use the injected OrderService
}

Kotlin

@SpringJUnitConfig(TestConfig::class)
class OrderServiceIntegrationTests @Autowired constructor(private val orderService: OrderService){
	// tests that use the injected OrderService
}

Note that this feature lets test dependencies be final and therefore immutable.

If the spring.test.constructor.autowire.mode property is to all (see [integration-testing-annotations-testconstructor]), we can omit the declaration of @Autowired on the constructor in the previous example, resulting in the following.

Java

@SpringJUnitConfig(TestConfig.class)
class OrderServiceIntegrationTests {

	private final OrderService orderService;

	OrderServiceIntegrationTests(OrderService orderService) {
		this.orderService = orderService;
	}

	// tests that use the injected OrderService
}

Kotlin

@SpringJUnitConfig(TestConfig::class)
class OrderServiceIntegrationTests(val orderService:OrderService) {
	// tests that use the injected OrderService
}

Method Injection

If a parameter in a JUnit Jupiter test method or test lifecycle callback method is of type ApplicationContext (or a sub-type thereof) or is annotated or meta-annotated with @Autowired, @Qualifier, or @Value, Spring injects the value for that specific parameter with the corresponding bean from the test’s ApplicationContext.

In the following example, Spring injects the OrderService from the ApplicationContext loaded from TestConfig.class into the deleteOrder() test method:

Java

@SpringJUnitConfig(TestConfig.class)
class OrderServiceIntegrationTests {

	@Test
	void deleteOrder(@Autowired OrderService orderService) {
		// use orderService from the test's ApplicationContext
	}
}

Kotlin

@SpringJUnitConfig(TestConfig::class)
class OrderServiceIntegrationTests {

	@Test
	fun deleteOrder(@Autowired orderService: OrderService) {
		// use orderService from the test's ApplicationContext
	}
}

Due to the robustness of the ParameterResolver support in JUnit Jupiter, you can also have multiple dependencies injected into a single method, not only from Spring but also from JUnit Jupiter itself or other third-party extensions.

The following example shows how to have both Spring and JUnit Jupiter inject dependencies into the placeOrderRepeatedly() test method simultaneously.

Java

@SpringJUnitConfig(TestConfig.class)
class OrderServiceIntegrationTests {

	@RepeatedTest(10)
	void placeOrderRepeatedly(RepetitionInfo repetitionInfo,
			@Autowired OrderService orderService) {

		// use orderService from the test's ApplicationContext
		// and repetitionInfo from JUnit Jupiter
	}
}

Kotlin

@SpringJUnitConfig(TestConfig::class)
class OrderServiceIntegrationTests {

	@RepeatedTest(10)
	fun placeOrderRepeatedly(repetitionInfo:RepetitionInfo, @Autowired orderService:OrderService) {

		// use orderService from the test's ApplicationContext
		// and repetitionInfo from JUnit Jupiter
	}
}

Note that the use of @RepeatedTest from JUnit Jupiter lets the test method gain access to the RepetitionInfo.

@Nested test class configuration

The Spring TestContext Framework has supported the use of test-related annotations on @Nested test classes in JUnit Jupiter since Spring Framework 5.0; however, until Spring Framework 5.3 class-level test configuration annotations were not inherited from enclosing classes like they are from superclasses.

Spring Framework 5.3 introduces first-class support for inheriting test class configuration from enclosing classes, and such configuration will be inherited by default. To change from the default INHERIT mode to OVERRIDE mode, you may annotate an individual @Nested test class with @NestedTestConfiguration(EnclosingConfiguration.OVERRIDE). An explicit @NestedTestConfiguration declaration will apply to the annotated test class as well as any of its subclasses and nested classes. Thus, you may annotate a top-level test class with @NestedTestConfiguration, and that will apply to all of its nested test classes recursively.

In order to allow development teams to change the default to OVERRIDE – for example, for compatibility with Spring Framework 5.0 through 5.2 – the default mode can be changed globally via a JVM system property or a spring.properties file in the root of the classpath. See the "Changing the default enclosing configuration inheritance mode" note for details.

Although the following "Hello World" example is very simplistic, it shows how to declare common configuration on a top-level class that is inherited by its @Nested test classes. In this particular example, only the TestConfig configuration class is inherited. Each nested test class provides its own set of active profiles, resulting in a distinct ApplicationContext for each nested test class (see Context Caching for details). Consult the list of supported annotations to see which annotations can be inherited in @Nested test classes.

Java

@SpringJUnitConfig(TestConfig.class)
class GreetingServiceTests {

	@Nested
	@ActiveProfiles("lang_en")
	class EnglishGreetings {

		@Test
		void hello(@Autowired GreetingService service) {
			assertThat(service.greetWorld()).isEqualTo("Hello World");
		}
	}

	@Nested
	@ActiveProfiles("lang_de")
	class GermanGreetings {

		@Test
		void hello(@Autowired GreetingService service) {
			assertThat(service.greetWorld()).isEqualTo("Hallo Welt");
		}
	}
}

Kotlin

@SpringJUnitConfig(TestConfig::class)
class GreetingServiceTests {

	@Nested
	@ActiveProfiles("lang_en")
	inner class EnglishGreetings {

		@Test
		fun hello(@Autowired service:GreetingService) {
			assertThat(service.greetWorld()).isEqualTo("Hello World")
		}
	}

	@Nested
	@ActiveProfiles("lang_de")
	inner class GermanGreetings {

		@Test
		fun hello(@Autowired service:GreetingService) {
			assertThat(service.greetWorld()).isEqualTo("Hallo Welt")
		}
	}
}

TestNG Support Classes

The org.springframework.test.context.testng package provides the following support classes for TestNG based test cases:

• AbstractTestNGSpringContextTests

• AbstractTransactionalTestNGSpringContextTests

AbstractTestNGSpringContextTests is an abstract base test class that integrates the Spring TestContext Framework with explicit ApplicationContext testing support in a TestNG environment. When you extend AbstractTestNGSpringContextTests, you can access a protected applicationContext instance variable that you can use to perform explicit bean lookups or to test the state of the context as a whole.

AbstractTransactionalTestNGSpringContextTests is an abstract transactional extension of AbstractTestNGSpringContextTests that adds some convenience functionality for JDBC access. This class expects a javax.sql.DataSource bean and a PlatformTransactionManager bean to be defined in the ApplicationContext. When you extend AbstractTransactionalTestNGSpringContextTests, you can access a protected jdbcTemplate instance variable that you can use to run SQL statements to query the database. You can use such queries to confirm database state both before and after running database-related application code, and Spring ensures that such queries run in the scope of the same transaction as the application code. When used in conjunction with an ORM tool, be sure to avoid false positives. As mentioned in [integration-testing-support-jdbc], AbstractTransactionalTestNGSpringContextTests also provides convenience methods that delegate to methods in JdbcTestUtils by using the aforementioned jdbcTemplate. Furthermore, AbstractTransactionalTestNGSpringContextTests provides an executeSqlScript(..) method for running SQL scripts against the configured DataSource.

Tip

These classes are a convenience for extension. If you do not want your test classes to be tied to a Spring-specific class hierarchy, you can configure your own custom test classes by using @ContextConfiguration, @TestExecutionListeners, and so on and by manually instrumenting your test class with a TestContextManager. See the source code of AbstractTestNGSpringContextTests for an example of how to instrument your test class.

Ahead of Time Support for Tests

This chapter covers Spring’s Ahead of Time (AOT) support for integration tests using the Spring TestContext Framework.

The testing support extends Spring’s core AOT support with the following features.

• Build-time detection of all integration tests in the current project that use the TestContext framework to load an ApplicationContext.

  • Provides explicit support for test classes based on JUnit Jupiter and JUnit 4 as well as implicit support for TestNG and other testing frameworks that use Spring’s core testing annotations — as long as the tests are run using a JUnit Platform TestEngine that is registered for the current project.

• Build-time AOT processing: each unique test ApplicationContext in the current project will be refreshed for AOT processing.

• Runtime AOT support: when executing in AOT runtime mode, a Spring integration test will use an AOT-optimized ApplicationContext that participates transparently with the context cache.

Warning

The @ContextHierarchy annotation is currently not supported in AOT mode.

To provide test-specific runtime hints for use within a GraalVM native image, you have the following options.

• Implement a custom {api-spring-framework}/test/context/aot/TestRuntimeHintsRegistrar.html[TestRuntimeHintsRegistrar] and register it globally via META-INF/spring/aot.factories.

• Implement a custom {api-spring-framework}/aot/hint/RuntimeHintsRegistrar.html[RuntimeHintsRegistrar] and register it globally via META-INF/spring/aot.factories or locally on a test class via {api-spring-framework}/context/annotation/ImportRuntimeHints.html[@ImportRuntimeHints].

• Annotate a test class with {api-spring-framework}/aot/hint/annotation/Reflective.html[@Reflective] or {api-spring-framework}/aot/hint/annotation/RegisterReflectionForBinding.html[@RegisterReflectionForBinding].

• See Runtime Hints for details on Spring’s core runtime hints and annotation support.

Tip	The TestRuntimeHintsRegistrar API serves as a companion to the core RuntimeHintsRegistrar API. If you need to register global hints for testing support that are not specific to particular test classes, favor implementing RuntimeHintsRegistrar over the test-specific API.

If you implement a custom ContextLoader, it must implement {api-spring-framework}/test/context/aot/AotContextLoader.html[AotContextLoader] in order to provide AOT build-time processing and AOT runtime execution support. Note, however, that all context loader implementations provided by the Spring Framework and Spring Boot already implement AotContextLoader.

If you implement a custom TestExecutionListener, it must implement {api-spring-framework}/test/context/aot/AotTestExecutionListener.html[AotTestExecutionListener] in order to participate in AOT processing. See the SqlScriptsTestExecutionListener in the spring-test module for an example.