Grails 1.1 Testing - Unit, Integration & Functional

Unit Testing - Overviewunit tests enable testing small bits of code in isolationGrails does NOT inject any surrounding infrastructure (ie. no dynamic GORM methods, database, Spring resources, bootstrap, ServletContext, etc)©2009 - 2Paths Solutions Ltd. (www.2paths.com)7/17/09

Unit Testing - Benefitsfind problems sooner -> you can test your code before all it's dependencies are created/availableenables safer refactoring (of individual classes)faster to run than integration & functional teststhere isn't a big speed gap early in the project (PLAID: unit ~ 10s, integration ~ 30)but it grows as the system gets biggermakes TDD less painful -> breaks problem into smaller piecesprovides form of API documentation & spec©2009 - 2Paths Solutions Ltd. (www.2paths.com)7/17/09

Unit Testing - Drawbacksmore code to maintain & debug -> often as buggy as code under test (if written by same person :)sometimes you have to mock a LOT of stuff before you can write your little testdoesn't catch bugs at the integration or UI layers -> can create false sense of security©2009 - 2Paths Solutions Ltd. (www.2paths.com)7/17/09

Unit Testing – GrailsUnitTestCaseOverviewextends GroovyTestCase to add Grails-specific mocking and make testing more convenient for Grails usersmocking is test-specific and doesn't leak from one test to anotheravoids having to do a lot of MetaClass hacking (and forgetting to teardown your metaclass hacking :)©2009 - 2Paths Solutions Ltd. (www.2paths.com)7/17/09

Unit Testing – GrailsUnitTestCasemethodsmockFor(class, loose = false)mockDomain(class, testInstances[ ])mockForConstraintsTests(class, testInstances[ ])mockLogging(class, enableDebug = false)Code samples: http://grails.org/doc/1.1.1/guide/9.%20Testing.html#9.1%20Unit%20Testing©2009 - 2Paths Solutions Ltd. (www.2paths.com)7/17/09

Unit Testing – GrailsUnitTestCasemockFor(class, loose = false)generic mocker for mocking methods of any classreturns a control object (not the actual mock)loose - false == strict mocking (sequence of expected method calls matters), true == loose (sequence doesn't matter)methods - you can mock instance or static methodsdemands - your expectations of the mockrange - number of times a method is expected to be called (default === 1)closure - mock implementation of the methodstrictControl.createMock() - returns an actual mock objectstrictControl.verify() - verifies that all demands were actually met©2009 - 2Paths Solutions Ltd. (www.2paths.com)7/17/09

Unit Testing – GrailsUnitTestCasemockDomain(class, testInstances[ ])mocks all methods (instance, static & dynamic) on a domain classtestInstances- a list of domain class instances which replaces and acts as the "database”you can call save(), findBy*(), validate(), etc on an instance of a mocked domain classinheritance can be tricky!assume you have ParentClass, ChildA, ChildBif you mock ParentClass and pass a collection of instances containing ChildA and/or ChildB objects to the MockDomain() method, you must ensure that you have already mocked each type of ChildX class in the instance collection. This is needed even if you NEVER call a dynamic method on any child class (such as ChildClass.list()).always mock a child class BEFORE mocking its parent, otherwise you may get "Method Not Found" exceptions when calling dynamic methods on the childnew addition to Grailsstill some bugs / missing featurescheck Grails' JIRA & mailing lists if experiencing wierdbehaviour©2009 - 2Paths Solutions Ltd. (www.2paths.com)7/17/09

Unit Testing – GrailsUnitTestCaseother methods…mockForConstraintsTests(class, testInstances[ ])Stripped-down version of mockDomain that allows for assertions to validate domain class constraintsTakes the pain out of testing domain class constraintsmockLogging(class, enableDebug = false)Adds a mock "log" property to a class. Any messages passed to the mock logger are echoed to the console.©2009 - 2Paths Solutions Ltd. (www.2paths.com)7/17/09

Unit Testing – ControllerUnitTestCaseextends GrailsUnitTestCase to add mocks for:all dynamic properties & methods Grails injects into controllers (render, redirect, model, etc)all HTTP objects available to controllers (request, response, session, params, flash, etc)command object (if needed)provides an implicit "controller" property which contains all the above mocks (no need to def the controller yourself in your test class)don't forget to mock your Domain objects as needed if the controller action you call expects a database©2009 - 2Paths Solutions Ltd. (www.2paths.com)7/17/09

Unit Testing – Other Unit TestsTagLibUnitTestCaseextends GrailsUnitTestCase to add mocks for dynamic properties & methods a TagLibexpectsdbUnitextends jUnit to allow you to test that your DB is in the expected stateprevents subsequent tests from failing due to a previous test leaving the database "dirty"©2009 - 2Paths Solutions Ltd. (www.2paths.com)7/17/09

Integration Testing - Overviewused to test that an entire module or sub-system consisting of multiple classes is working correctly (in isolation)one level below a functional test as integration tests do not test the entire stackGrails injects all the surrounding infrastructure such as data sources & Spring beanspretty straightforward to implement since there's generally no mocking involvedwhere to use integration tests??? we'll come back to this in a few mins :)©2009 - 2Paths Solutions Ltd. (www.2paths.com)7/17/09

Integration Testing - Benefitstests the real interactions between individual piecesfinds more complex bugs that unit tests can't findfaster to run than functional tests (usually)makes large-scale refactoring saferfind bugs sooner -> doesn't require other system modules to be built©2009 - 2Paths Solutions Ltd. (www.2paths.com)7/17/09

Integration Testing - Drawbacksperhaps overused by lazy testers who don't feel like mocking :)requires more code to be written than unit testsdoesn't find system-level or inter-module bugsvalue is debatable if you have good functional tests & good unit tests.©2009 - 2Paths Solutions Ltd. (www.2paths.com)7/17/09

Functional Testing - Benefitsfinds complex system-level and inter-module bugsfinds UI bugscan be written by non-techies (depends on tool used)provides "done when" acceptance criteria for the customerprovides a form of user documentationmakes large-scale refactoring safer©2009 - 2Paths Solutions Ltd. (www.2paths.com)7/17/09

Functional Testing - Drawbacksvery slow to execute HTTP level testsoften more cumbersome to write than other types of testsoften brittle and can require a lot of maintenance (especially if tied to UI)Usually hard to write until UI is available (and stable)©2009 - 2Paths Solutions Ltd. (www.2paths.com)7/17/09

Functional Testing - ToolsCanooWebTest& Grails Functional TestingBoth wrap HtmlUnit which provides a Java API that mocks a web browserCanooWebTestwrapper for WebTest's XML syntaxand therefore constrained by the underlying XML syntaxGrails Functional Testingpure-groovy solutionmore flexible, but newer & therefore fewer features than WebTest©2009 - 2Paths Solutions Ltd. (www.2paths.com)7/17/09

Functional Testing - WebTesttest organization & re-usegrouping steps with ant.groupcalling methods from other testsGroovy stepnotation uses 3 double-quotes as Groovy code delimeter (“””)accessing HtmlUnit for fine-grained test controlparameter passing between app context & WebTest contextAJAX testing w/ sleep()©2009 - 2Paths Solutions Ltd. (www.2paths.com)7/17/09

Functional Testing – WebTestgrouping steps with ant.groupif your test has dozens of steps, it gets hard to read the reportgrouping steps with ant.group rolls them up to 1 line in the test report, which can be easily expanded/collapsed:ant.group(description: “verify bank account info”) { invoke “someController/someAction”verifyText “some text”verifyText “more text”}©2009 - 2Paths Solutions Ltd. (www.2paths.com)7/17/09

Functional Testing – WebTestcalling methods from other testsInstead of copying & pasting the same methods from one test to another, you can call a method in another test by passing it your AntBuilder instance (ant) as a param. This ensures the test steps are executed using the calling test’s AntBuilder.====== in CallingTestClass() ====def otherTestClass = new OtherTestClass()otherTestClass.someMethod(ant)====== in OtherTestClass() =====def someMethod(AntBuilderab) {ab.invoke“someController/someAction”ab.verifyText“some text”}©2009 - 2Paths Solutions Ltd. (www.2paths.com)7/17/09

Functional Testing – WebTestGroovy stepIf you need to execute arbitrary Groovy code in your test, use WebTest’sgroovy step.Keep in mind that this groovy step won’t have access to any Groovy variables defined in your test (such as method params)…it only has access to the properties in the AntBuilder context.So you need to pass any needed params to the AntBuilder before entering your groovy step. Then you can retrieve them from the AntBuilder from within your step.The following example involves:Storing Groovy variables into AntBuilder propertiesRetrieving AntBuilder properties for use in the Groovy stepCalling some HtmlUnit methods which aren’t available in WebTest for fine-grained test controlPausing the test for 2 seconds (very useful with AJAX tests to give the server time to respond©2009 - 2Paths Solutions Ltd. (www.2paths.com)7/17/09

Functional Testing – WebTestGroovy steptest method with Groovy step to test AJAX autocomplete form input:def setAJAXInputField(elementId, elementValue, AntBuilderab) {ab.storeProperty(property: 'elementId', value: elementId)ab.storeProperty(property: 'elementValue', value: elementValue)ab.groovy ""” def elementId = step.webtestProperties.elementId def elementValue = step.webtestProperties.elementValue def document = step.context.currentResponse.documentElementdef element = document.getHtmlElementById(elementId)element.focus()element.type(elementValue) Thread.sleep(2000)“””}©2009 - 2Paths Solutions Ltd. (www.2paths.com)7/17/09

Putting It All Together - Running teststest-app -> all teststest-app -unit -> all unit teststest-app -integration -> all integration teststest-app -unit AnnualReportAssignmentHandler-> 2 unit tests & all integration teststest-app AnnualReportAssignmentHandlerWorkflowManagerService-> 2 unit tests & 1 integration testrun-webtest-> runs all tests using new server instancerun-webtest -nostart-> runs all tests using existing Tomcat instance (much faster!!!)run-webtestClassNameTestName-> run TestName using existing Tomcat instance©2009 - 2Paths Solutions Ltd. (www.2paths.com)7/17/09

Putting It All Together - SummaryUnit testing - taglibs, controllers, services, domain classes (including contraints), other delegates & "helpers", even your data (dbUnit)Integration testingnow that Grails 1.1 supports unit testing of controllers with ControllerUnitTestCase, that seems to be the preferred way of testing them (rather than using integration tests).This makes sense since controllers should not be doing the heavy lifting in a Grails app.The same holds true for TagLib testing with TagLibUnitTestCase.this leaves Services as the most valuable thing to cover with integration tests (but only after you’ve written unit tests for them )Functional testing - smoke tests, acceptance tests, regression testsManual testing by humans - look & feel, anything not covered above©2009 - 2Paths Solutions Ltd. (www.2paths.com)7/17/09

Grails 1.1 Testing - Unit, Integration & Functional

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Grails 1.1 Testing - Unit, Integration & Functional