Using application properties in IBM Cúram Social Program Management JUnit tests Erika Grine (Erika.Grine@ie.ibm.com) 8 June 2015 Senior Software Engineer, IBM Cúram Social Program Management group IBM Page 1 of 11
Copyright International Business Machines Corporation 2015. US Government Users Restricted Rights Use, duplication or disclosure restricted by GSA ADP Schedule Contract with IBM Corp. Revision History Date Revision Reason for Change Author 08/06/2015 1 Initial Version Erika Grine Page 2 of 11
Contents Table of Contents Contents... 3 Overview... 4 Changing the application properties in a single JUnit test method... 4 Changing the application properties across multiple tests in the same test file... 5 JUnit framework version specific notes... 7 Other uses... 7 Conclusion... 7 Acknowledgments... 8 Resources... 8 About the author... 8 Notices... 9 Privacy Policy considerations... 10 Trademarks... 11 Page 3 of 11
Overview Some JUnit tests need to change Cúram application properties in order to test specific functionality. This needs to be done if application property governs the processing that you are testing. For example if you want to test that the task search returns no more records than the EnvVars.ENV_INBOX_MAX_TASK_LIST_SIZE which equals to 100 by default, then in order to avoid creating many tasks in JUnit test and to slow it down considerably you will need to set EnvVars.ENV_INBOX_MAX_TASK_LIST_SIZE to some small number say 4, then create 5 tasks, perform a search that should find all 5 tasks, and check that the search returned only 4 tasks, because of the task search limit. The problem with changing application properties in JUnit tests is the fact that these properties are cached by infrastructure at run time and this cache is not cleared by Cúram test infrastructure up to and including version 6.1. Changes to them will not be rolled back automatically once your JUnit test finishes as property cache will persist across JUnit tests. As a result the changed application property may affect other JUnit tests. So if you need to change an application property in Cúram JUnit test then at the end of the test you will need to revert this change back. This article shows you two ways to achieve this. 1. Changing the application properties in a single JUnit test method. 2. Changing the application properties across multiple tests in the same test file. Changing the application properties in a single JUnit test method Application properties can be changed and reverted back in the same test method. This is useful if: Only one or just a few test methods are affected, while other methods do not require application property changes; Different test methods need to change different application properties or the same application property but they need to set it to different values; Use try { finally block to implement this like in the following examples: For JUnit 4.x @Test public void dotestlimitsearchlist() throws Exception { // Save application property value. final Integer origlistsize = Configuration.getIntProperty( EnvVars.ENV_INBOX_MAX_TASK_LIST_SIZE); try { // Limit task search size to 4 Configuration.setProperty(EnvVars.ENV_INBOX_MAX_TASK_LIST_SIZE, "4"); Page 4 of 11
// Do task search here // Check/assert the results finally { // Revert the application property setting back. Configuration.setProperty(EnvVars.ENV_INBOX_MAX_TASK_LIST_SIZE, origlistsize.tostring()); For JUnit 3.x The code will look the same except the test method name must begin with test and there is no @Test annotation in front of it. public void testlimitsearchlist() throws Exception {... Here the test code: 1. Retrieved original application property value; 2. In the try block changed it to the value that suits the test; 3. Tested the functionality; 4. In the finally block reverted the change back. As finally statement will always be executed the application property value will be reverted back even if your code fails with exception, so errors/issues in your test will not impact other JUnit tests. Changing the application properties across multiple tests in the same test file If a number of tests require an application property change which is the same for all of them then the following approach may be simpler to use than the one described previously. In your test class override setupcuramservertest() and teardowncuramservertest() methods like in the following example.... // Class variable to save original property value to private Integer origlistsize; @Override protected void setupcuramservertest() { Page 5 of 11
// Call base class method. super.setupcuramservertest(); // Save application property value. origlistsize = Configuration.getIntProperty( EnvVars.ENV_INBOX_MAX_TASK_LIST_SIZE); // Limit task search size to 4 Configuration.setProperty(EnvVars.ENV_INBOX_MAX_TASK_LIST_SIZE, "4"); @Override protected void teardowncuramservertest() { if (null!= origlistsize) { // Revert the application property setting back. Configuration.setProperty(EnvVars.ENV_INBOX_MAX_TASK_LIST_SIZE, origlistsize.tostring()); // Call base class method. super.teardowncuramservertest(); Then implement your test method. For JUnit 4.x @Test public void domytest1() throws Exception { // Do task search here // Check/assert the results For JUnit 3.x public void testmytest1() throws Exception { // Do task search here // Check/assert the results Page 6 of 11
As setupcuramservertest() is called before your test method, and teardowncuramservertest() is called after it, the application property will be re-set back to its original value once your test method finishes. This processing will be done for each test method in the test class. Here the test code: 1. Retrieved original application property value in setupcuramservertest() method and saved it in in the test class variable; 2. Tested the functionality; 3. Reverted application property back in JUnit teardowncuramservertest() processing; Note that if error happens in setupcuramservertest() after some application properties are already set to custom values then these will not be re-set back to their defaults as teardowncuramservertest() method will not be called. You will need to implement your own clean-up code for these instances. JUnit framework version specific notes Code examples in this article are provided for both JUnit 3.x and JUnit 4.x frameworks. If you inherit your test classes from CuramServerTest then you can use examples provided for JUnit 3.x. JUnit 4.x runtime supports tests written for JUnit 3.x. Test methods written for JUnit 4.x can have any name, but must be annotated with @Test. Test methods written for JUnit 3 must have names that begin with test. Full description of the differences between JUnit 3.x and JUnit 4.x and their usage in Cúram testing is behind the scope of this document. Other uses The same approaches can be used to set and restore dates, if for whatever reason your test must be executed at a specific date. Also use these approaches for other tasks that require initialization and clean-up and are not part of the transaction processing. Both approaches can be used in the same test class. In order to avoid unintended effects use only one approach in the same JUnit test class for the same purpose. For example if you use try finally block to save and re-set a specific application property then you may still use set-up and teardown method override for other purposes, including saving and re-setting other application properties. Conclusion This article described two approaches how Cúram application properties can be changed and re-stored in Cúram JUnit tests. We learned how these approaches differ and when it is better Page 7 of 11
to select one over the other. Using these approaches it should be possible to write more robust JUnit test implementations for IBM Cúram SPM. Acknowledgments The author would like to thank the following members of Cúram product development team for their input, support and reviews: Caitriona Nic Lughadha, Functional Verification Test Manager. Ronan Mulvaney, Chief Architect of Cúram Social Program Management. Resources For more information on how to write JUnit tests for IBM Cúram Social Program Management please see developerworks article Write unit tests for IBM Cúram Social Program Management. For more information about IBM Cúram Social Program Management platform please see Cúram Social Program Management platform. For more information about JUnit test framework please see http://www.junit.org About the author Erika Grine Erika Grine is a senior software engineer in the IBM Cúram Social Program Management group. Currently Erika is a technical lead for Dynamic Evidence in SPM group. She has worked on the Cúram product for 14 years, and has been involved in many areas of the Cúram application development. Page 8 of 11
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