(Quick Reference)

15.2 Integration Testing - Reference Documentation

Authors: Graeme Rocher, Peter Ledbrook, Marc Palmer, Jeff Brown, Luke Daley, Burt Beckwith, Lari Hotari

Version: 3.1.1

15.2 Integration Testing

Integration tests differ from unit tests in that you have full access to the Grails environment within the test. You can create an integration test using the create-integration-test command:

$ grails create-integration-test Example

The above command will create a new integration test at the location src/integration-test/groovy/<PACKAGE>/ExampleSpec.groovy.

Grails uses the test environment for integration tests and loads the application prior to the first test run. All tests use the same application state.

Transactions

Integration tests run inside a database transaction by default, which is rolled back at the end of the each test. This means that data saved during a test is not persisted to the database (which is shared across all tests). The default generated integration test template includes the Rollback annotation:

import grails.test.mixin.integration.Integration
import grails.transaction.*
import spock.lang.*

@Integration @Rollback class artifact.nameSpec extends Specification {

...

void "test something"() { expect:"fix me" true == false } }

The Rollback annotation ensures that each test methods runs in a transaction that is rolled back. Generally this is desirable because you do not want your tests depending on order or application state.

Using Spring's Rollback annotation

In Grails 3.0 tests rely on grails.transaction.Rollback annotation to bind the session in integration tests. But with this approach the setup() and setupSpec() method in the test is run prior to the transaction starting hence you would see No Hibernate Session found error while running integration test if setup() sets up data and persists them as shown in the below sample:

import grails.test.mixin.integration.Integration
import grails.transaction.*
import spock.lang.*

@Integration @Rollback class artifact.nameSpec extends Specification {

void setup() { // Below line would throw a Hibernate session not found error new Book(name: 'Grails in Action').save(flush: true) }

void "test something"() { expect: Book.count() == 1 } }

To make sure the setup logic runs within the transaction you have to move it to be called from the method itself. Similar to usage of setupData() method shown below:

import grails.test.mixin.integration.Integration
import grails.transaction.*
import spock.lang.*

@Integration @Rollback class artifact.nameSpec extends Specification {

void setupData() { new Book(name: 'Grails in Action').save(flush: true) }

void "test something"() { given: setupData()

expect: Book.count() == 1 } }

Another approach could be to use Spring's @Rollback instead.

import grails.test.mixin.integration.Integration
import org.springframework.test.annotation.Rollback
import spock.lang.*

@Integration @Rollback class artifact.nameSpec extends Specification {

void setup() { new Book(name: 'Grails in Action').save(flush: true) }

void "test something"() { expect: Book.count() == 1 } }

It isn't possible to make grails.transaction.Rollback behave the same way as Spring's Rollback annotation because grails.transaction.Rollback transforms the byte code of the class, eliminating the need for a proxy (which Spring's version requires). This has the downside that you cannot implement it differently for different cases (as Spring does for testing).

DirtiesContext

If you do have a series of tests that will share state you can remove the Rollback and the last test in the suite should feature the DirtiesContext annotation which will shutdown the environment and restart it fresh (note that this will have an impact on test run times).

Autowiring

To obtain a reference to a bean you can use the Autowired annotation. For example:

import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.*

@Integration @Rollback class artifact.nameSpec extends Specification {

@Autowired ExampleService exampleService ...

void "Test example service"() { expect: exampleService.countExamples() == 0 } }

Testing Controllers

To integration test controllers it is recommended you use create-functional-test command to create a Geb functional test. See the following section on functional testing for more information.