DDevelopment & Design

How to automate tests with Groovy 2.0, Spock and Gradle

This is the launch of the 1st blog in my life, so cheers and have a nice reading! y u no test? Couple of years ago I wasn’t a big fan of unit testing. It was obvious to me that well prepared unit tests are crucial though. I didn’t known why exactly crucial yet then. I just felt they are important. My disliking to write automation tests was mostly related to the effort necessary to prepare them. Also a spaghetti code was easily spotted in test sources. Some goodies at hand Now I know! Test are crucial to get a better design and a confidence. Confidence to improve without a hesitation. Moreover, now I have the tool to make test automation easy as Sunday morning… I’m talking about the Spock Framework. If you got here probably already know what the Spock is, so I won’t introduce it. Enough to say that Spock is an awesome unit testing tool which, thanks to Groovy AST Transformation, simplifies creation of tests greatly. An obstacle The point is, since a new major version of Groovy has been released (2.0), there is no matching version of Spock available yet. What now? Well, in a matter of fact there is such a version. It’s still under development though. It can be obtained from this Maven repository. We can of course use the Maven to build a project and run tests. But why not to go even more “groovy” way? XML is not for humans, is it? Lets use Gradle. The build file Update: at the end of the post is updated version of the build file. apply plugin: 'groovy' apply plugin: 'idea' def langLevel = 1.7 sourceCompatibility = langLevel targetCompatibility = langLevel group = 'com.tamashumi.example.testwithspock' version = '0.1' repositories { mavenLocal() mavenCentral() maven { url 'http://oss.sonatype.org/content/repositories/snapshots/' } } dependencies { groovy 'org.codehaus.groovy:groovy-all:2.0.1' testCompile 'org.spockframework:spock-core:0.7-groovy-2.0-SNAPSHOT' } idea { project { jdkName = langLevel languageLevel = langLevel } } As you can see the build.gradle file is almost self-explanatory. Groovy plugin is applied to compile groovy code. It needs groovy-all.jar – declared in version 2.0 at dependencies block just next to Spock in version 0.7. What’s most important, mentioned Maven repository URL is added at repositories block. Project structure and execution Gradle’s default project directory structure is similar to Maven’s one. Unfortunately there is no ‘create project’ task and you have to create it by hand. It’s not a big obstacle though. The structure you will create will more or less look as follows: <project root> │ ├── build.gradle └── src ├── main │ ├── groovy └── test └── groovy To build a project now you can type command gradle build or gradle test to only run tests. How about Java? You can test native Java code with Spock. Just add src/main/java directory and a following line to the build.gradle: apply plugin: 'java' This way if you don’t want or just can’t deploy Groovy compiled stuff into your production JVM for any reason, still whole goodness of testing with Spock and Groovy is at your hand. A silly-simple example Just to show that it works, here you go with a basic example. Java simple example class: public class SimpleJavaClass { public int sumAll(int... args) { int sum = 0; for (int arg : args){ sum += arg; } return sum; } } Groovy simple example class: class SimpleGroovyClass { String concatenateAll(char separator, String... args) { args.join(separator as String) } } The test, uhm… I mean the Specification: class JustASpecification extends Specification { @Unroll('Sums integers #integers into: #expectedResult') def "Can sum different amount of integers"() { given: def instance = new SimpleJavaClass() when: def result = instance.sumAll(* integers) then: result == expectedResult where: expectedResult | integers 11 | [3, 3, 5] 8 | [3, 5] 254 | [2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128] 22 | [7, 5, 6, 2, 2] } @Unroll('Concatenates strings #strings with separator "#separator" into: #expectedResult') def "Can concatenate different amount of integers with a specified separator"() { given: def instance = new SimpleGroovyClass() when: def result = instance.concatenateAll(separator, * strings) then: result == expectedResult where: expectedResult | separator | strings 'Whasup dude?' | ' ' as char | ['Whasup', 'dude?'] '2012/09/15' | '/' as char | ['2012', '09', '15'] 'nice-to-meet-you' | '-' as char | ['nice', 'to', 'meet', 'you'] } } To run tests with Gradle simply execute command gradle test. Test reports can be found at <project root>/build/reports/tests/index.html and look kind a like this. Please note that, thanks to @Unroll annotation, test is executed once per each parameters row in the ‘table’ at specification’s where: block. This isn’t a Java label, but a AST transformation magic. IDE integration Gradle’s plugin for Iintellij Idea I’ve added also Intellij Idea plugin for IDE project generation and some configuration for it (IDE’s JDK name). To generate Idea’s project files just run command: gradle idea There are available Eclipse and Netbeans plugins too, however I haven’t tested them. Idea’s one works well. Intellij Idea’s plugins for Gradle Idea itself has a light Gradle support built-in on its own. To not get confused: Gradle has plugin for Idea and Idea has plugin for Gradle. To get even more ‘pluginated’, there is also JetGradle plugin within Idea. However I haven’t found good reason for it’s existence – well, maybe excluding one. It shows dependency tree. There is a bug though – JetGradle work’s fine only for lang level 1.6. Strangely all the plugins together do not conflict each other. They even give complementary, quite useful tool set. Running tests under IDE Jest to add something sweet this is how Specification looks when run with jUnit  runner under Intellij Idea (right mouse button on JustASpecification class or whole folder of specification extending classes and select “Run …”. You’ll see a nice view like this. Building web application If you need to build Java web application and bundle it as war archive just add plugin by typing the line apply plugin: 'war' in the build.gradle file and create a directory src/main/webapp. Want to know more? If you haven’t heard about Spock or Gradle before or just curious, check the following links: Spock wiki (most important info is under SpockBasics and Interactions) Gradle user guide  What next? The last thing left is to write the real production code you are about to test. No matter will it be Groovy or Java, I leave this to your need and invention. Of course, you are welcome to post a comments here. I’ll answer or even write some more posts about the subject. Important update Spock version 0.7 has been released, so the above build file doesn’t work anymore. It’s easy to fix it though. Just remove last dash and a word SNAPSHOT from Spock dependency declaration. Other important thing is that now spock-core depends on groovy-all-2.0.5, so to avoid dependency conflict groovy dependency should be changed from version 2.0.1 to 2.0.5. Besides oss.sonata.org snapshots maven repository can be removed. No obstacles any more and the build file now looks as follows: apply plugin: 'groovy' apply plugin: 'idea' def langLevel = 1.7 sourceCompatibility = langLevel targetCompatibility = langLevel group = 'com.tamashumi.example.testwithspock' version = '0.1' repositories { mavenLocal() mavenCentral() } dependencies { groovy 'org.codehaus.groovy:groovy-all:2.0.5' testCompile 'org.spockframework:spock-core:0.7-groovy-2.0' } idea { project { jdkName = langLevel languageLevel = langLevel } }

This is the launch of the 1st blog in my life, so cheers and have a nice reading!

y u no test?

Couple of years ago I wasn’t a big fan of unit testing. It was obvious to me that well prepared unit tests are crucial though. I didn’t known why exactly crucial yet then. I just felt they are important. My disliking to write automation tests was mostly related to the effort necessary to prepare them. Also a spaghetti code was easily spotted in test sources.

Some goodies at hand

Now I know! Test are crucial to get a better design and a confidence. Confidence to improve without a hesitation. Moreover, now I have the tool to make test automation easy as Sunday morning… I’m talking about the Spock Framework. If you got here probably already know what the Spock is, so I won’t introduce it. Enough to say that Spock is an awesome unit testing tool which, thanks to Groovy AST Transformation, simplifies creation of tests greatly.

An obstacle

The point is, since a new major version of Groovy has been released (2.0), there is no matching version of Spock available yet.

What now?

Well, in a matter of fact there is such a version. It’s still under development though. It can be obtained from this Maven repository. We can of course use the Maven to build a project and run tests. But why not to go even more “groovy” way? XML is not for humans, is it? Lets use Gradle.

The build file

Update: at the end of the post is updated version of the build file.

apply plugin: 'groovy'
apply plugin: 'idea'

def langLevel = 1.7

sourceCompatibility = langLevel
targetCompatibility = langLevel

group = 'com.tamashumi.example.testwithspock'
version = '0.1'

repositories {
    mavenLocal()
    mavenCentral()
    maven { url 'http://oss.sonatype.org/content/repositories/snapshots/' }
}

dependencies {
    groovy 'org.codehaus.groovy:groovy-all:2.0.1'
    testCompile 'org.spockframework:spock-core:0.7-groovy-2.0-SNAPSHOT'
}

idea {
    project {
        jdkName = langLevel
        languageLevel = langLevel
    }
}

 

As you can see the build.gradle file is almost self-explanatory. Groovy plugin is applied to compile groovy code. It needs groovy-all.jar – declared in version 2.0 at dependencies block just next to Spock in version 0.7. What’s most important, mentioned Maven repository URL is added at repositories block.

Project structure and execution

Gradle’s default project directory structure is similar to Maven’s one. Unfortunately there is no ‘create project’ task and you have to create it by hand. It’s not a big obstacle though. The structure you will create will more or less look as follows:

<project root>
│
├── build.gradle
└── src
    ├── main
    │   └── groovy
    └── test
        └── groovy

To build a project now you can type command gradle build or gradle test to only run tests.

How about Java?

You can test native Java code with Spock. Just add src/main/java directory and a following line to the build.gradle:

apply plugin: ‘java’

apply plugin: 'java'

This way if you don’t want or just can’t deploy Groovy compiled stuff into your production JVM for any reason, still whole goodness of testing with Spock and Groovy is at your hand.

A silly-simple example

Just to show that it works, here you go with a basic example.

Java simple example class:

public class SimpleJavaClass {

    public int sumAll(int...args) {
        int sum = 0;
        for (int arg: args) {
            sum += arg;
        }
        return sum;
    }
}

Groovy simple example class:

class SimpleGroovyClass {

    String concatenateAll(char separator, String...args) {
        args.join(separator as String)
    }
}

The test, uhm… I mean the Specification:

class JustASpecification extends Specification {

    @Unroll('Sums integers #integers into: #expectedResult')
    def "Can sum different amount of integers"() {
        given:
            def instance = new SimpleJavaClass()
        when:
            def result = instance.sumAll( * integers)
        then:
            result == expectedResult

        where:
            expectedResult | integers

        11 | [3, 3, 5]
        8 | [3, 5]
        254 | [2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128]
        22 | [7, 5, 6, 2, 2]
    }

    @Unroll('Concatenates strings #strings with separator "#separator" into: #expectedResult')
    def "Can concatenate different amount of integers with a specified separator"() {
        given:
            def instance = new SimpleGroovyClass()

        when:
            def result = instance.concatenateAll(separator, * strings)

        then:
            result == expectedResult
        where:
            expectedResult | separator | strings

        'Whasup dude?' | ' '
        as char | ['Whasup', 'dude?']
        '2012/09/15' | '/'
        as char | ['2012', '09', '15']
        'nice-to-meet-you' | '-'
        as char | ['nice', 'to', 'meet', 'you']
    }
}

 

To run tests with Gradle simply execute command gradle test. Test reports can be found at <project root>/build/reports/tests/index.html and look kind a like this.

Please note that, thanks to @Unroll annotation, test is executed once per each parameters row in the ‘table’ at specification’s where: block. This isn’t a Java label, but a AST transformation magic.

IDE integration

Gradle’s plugin for Iintellij Idea

I’ve added also Intellij Idea plugin for IDE project generation and some configuration for it (IDE’s JDK name). To generate Idea’s project files just run command: gradle idea There are available Eclipse and Netbeans plugins too, however I haven’t tested them. Idea’s one works well.

Intellij Idea’s plugins for Gradle

Idea itself has a light Gradle support built-in on its own. To not get confused: Gradle has plugin for Idea and Idea has plugin for Gradle. To get even more ‘pluginated’, there is also JetGradle plugin within Idea. However I haven’t found good reason for it’s existence – well, maybe excluding one. It shows dependency tree. There is a bug though – JetGradle work’s fine only for lang level 1.6. Strangely all the plugins together do not conflict each other. They even give complementary, quite useful tool set.

Running tests under IDE

Jest to add something sweet this is how Specification looks when run with jUnit  runner under Intellij Idea (right mouse button on JustASpecification class or whole folder of specification extending classes and select “Run …”. You’ll see a nice view like this.

Building web application

If you need to build Java web application and bundle it as war archive just add plugin by typing the line

apply plugin: 'war'

in the build.gradle file and create a directory src/main/webapp.

Want to know more?

If you haven’t heard about Spock or Gradle before or just curious, check the following links:

What next?

The last thing left is to write the real production code you are about to test. No matter will it be Groovy or Java, I leave this to your need and invention. Of course, you are welcome to post a comments here. I’ll answer or even write some more posts about the subject.

Important update

Spock version 0.7 has been released, so the above build file doesn’t work anymore. It’s easy to fix it though. Just remove last dash and a word SNAPSHOT from Spock dependency declaration. Other important thing is that now spock-core depends on groovy-all-2.0.5, so to avoid dependency conflict groovy dependency should be changed from version 2.0.1 to 2.0.5.
Besides oss.sonata.org snapshots maven repository can be removed. No obstacles any more and the build file now looks as follows:

apply plugin: 'groovy'

apply plugin: 'idea'

def langLevel = 1.7

sourceCompatibility = langLevel

targetCompatibility = langLevel

group = 'com.tamashumi.example.testwithspock'

version = '0.1'

repositories {
    mavenLocal()
    mavenCentral()
}

dependencies {
    groovy 'org.codehaus.groovy:groovy-all:2.0.5'
    testCompile 'org.spockframework:spock-core:0.7-groovy-2.0'
}

idea {
    project {
        jdkName = langLevel
        languageLevel = langLevel

    }
}

 

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DDevelopment & Design

Atom Feeds with Spring MVC

How to add feeds (Atom) to your web application with just two classes?
How about Spring MVC?

Here are my assumptions:
  • you are using Spring framework
  • you have some entity, say “News”, that you want to publish in your feeds
  • your "News" entity has creationDate, title, and shortDescription
  • you have some repository/dao, say "NewsRepository", that will return the news from your database
  • you want to write as little as possible
  • you don't want to format Atom (xml) by hand
You actually do NOT need to use Spring MVC in your application already. If you do, skip to step 3.


Step 1: add Spring MVC dependency to your application
With maven that will be: 
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
    <version>3.1.0.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>

Step 2: add Spring MVC DispatcherServlet
With web.xml that would be: 
<servlet>
    <servlet-name>dispatcher</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
    <init-param>
        <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
        <param-value>classpath:spring-mvc.xml</param-value>
    </init-param>
    <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>dispatcher</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>/feed</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
Notice, I set the url-pattern to “/feed” which means I don't want Spring MVC to handle any other urls in my app (I'm using a different web framework for the rest of the app). I also give it a brand new contextConfigLocation, where only the mvc configuration is kept.

Remember that, when you add a DispatcherServlet to an app that already has Spring (from ContextLoaderListener for example), your context is inherited from the global one, so you should not create beans that exist there again, or include xml that defines them. Watch out for Spring context getting up twice, and refer to spring or servlet documentation to understand what's happaning.

Step 3. add ROME – a library to handle Atom format
With maven that is: 
<dependency>
    <groupId>net.java.dev.rome</groupId>
    <artifactId>rome</artifactId>
    <version>1.0.0</version>
</dependency>

Step 4. write your very simple controller 
@Controller
public class FeedController {
    static final String LAST_UPDATE_VIEW_KEY = "lastUpdate";
    static final String NEWS_VIEW_KEY = "news";
    private NewsRepository newsRepository;
    private String viewName;

    protected FeedController() {} //required by cglib

    public FeedController(NewsRepository newsRepository, String viewName) {
        notNull(newsRepository); hasText(viewName);
        this.newsRepository = newsRepository;
        this.viewName = viewName;
    }

    @RequestMapping(value = "/feed", method = RequestMethod.GET)        
    @Transactional
    public ModelAndView feed() {
        ModelAndView modelAndView = new ModelAndView();
        modelAndView.setViewName(viewName);
        List<News> news = newsRepository.fetchPublished();
        modelAndView.addObject(NEWS_VIEW_KEY, news);
        modelAndView.addObject(LAST_UPDATE_VIEW_KEY, getCreationDateOfTheLast(news));
        return modelAndView;
    }

    private Date getCreationDateOfTheLast(List<News> news) {
        if(news.size() > 0) {
            return news.get(0).getCreationDate();
        }
        return new Date(0);
    }
}
And here's a test for it, in case you want to copy&paste (who doesn't?):
@RunWith(MockitoJUnitRunner.class)
public class FeedControllerShould {
    @Mock private NewsRepository newsRepository;
    private Date FORMER_ENTRY_CREATION_DATE = new Date(1);
    private Date LATTER_ENTRY_CREATION_DATE = new Date(2);
    private ArrayList<News> newsList;
    private FeedController feedController;

    @Before
    public void prepareNewsList() {
        News news1 = new News().title("title1").creationDate(FORMER_ENTRY_CREATION_DATE);
        News news2 = new News().title("title2").creationDate(LATTER_ENTRY_CREATION_DATE);
        newsList = newArrayList(news2, news1);
    }

    @Before
    public void prepareFeedController() {
        feedController = new FeedController(newsRepository, "viewName");
    }

    @Test
    public void returnViewWithNews() {
        //given
        given(newsRepository.fetchPublished()).willReturn(newsList);
        
        //when
        ModelAndView modelAndView = feedController.feed();
        
        //then
        assertThat(modelAndView.getModel())
                .includes(entry(FeedController.NEWS_VIEW_KEY, newsList));
    }

    @Test
    public void returnViewWithLastUpdateTime() {
        //given
        given(newsRepository.fetchPublished()).willReturn(newsList);

        //when
        ModelAndView modelAndView = feedController.feed();

        //then
        assertThat(modelAndView.getModel())
                .includes(entry(FeedController.LAST_UPDATE_VIEW_KEY, LATTER_ENTRY_CREATION_DATE));
    }

    @Test
    public void returnTheBeginningOfTimeAsLastUpdateInViewWhenListIsEmpty() {
        //given
        given(newsRepository.fetchPublished()).willReturn(new ArrayList<News>());

        //when
        ModelAndView modelAndView = feedController.feed();

        //then
        assertThat(modelAndView.getModel())
                .includes(entry(FeedController.LAST_UPDATE_VIEW_KEY, new Date(0)));
    }
}
Notice: here, I'm using fest-assert and mockito. The dependencies are: 
<dependency>
 <groupId>org.easytesting</groupId>
 <artifactId>fest-assert</artifactId>
 <version>1.4</version>
 <scope>test</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
 <groupId>org.mockito</groupId>
 <artifactId>mockito-all</artifactId>
 <version>1.8.5</version>
 <scope>test</scope>
</dependency>

Step 5. write your very simple view
Here's where all the magic formatting happens. Be sure to take a look at all the methods of Entry class, as there is quite a lot you may want to use/fill.
import org.springframework.web.servlet.view.feed.AbstractAtomFeedView;
[...]

public class AtomFeedView extends AbstractAtomFeedView {
    private String feedId = "tag:yourFantastiSiteName";
    private String title = "yourFantastiSiteName: news";
    private String newsAbsoluteUrl = "http://yourfanstasticsiteUrl.com/news/"; 

    @Override
    protected void buildFeedMetadata(Map<String, Object> model, Feed feed, HttpServletRequest request) {
        feed.setId(feedId);
        feed.setTitle(title);
        setUpdatedIfNeeded(model, feed);
    }

    private void setUpdatedIfNeeded(Map<String, Object> model, Feed feed) {
        @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
        Date lastUpdate = (Date)model.get(FeedController.LAST_UPDATE_VIEW_KEY);
        if (feed.getUpdated() == null || lastUpdate != null || lastUpdate.compareTo(feed.getUpdated()) > 0) {
            feed.setUpdated(lastUpdate);
        }
    }

    @Override
    protected List<Entry> buildFeedEntries(Map<String, Object> model, HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws Exception {
        @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
        List<News> newsList = (List<News>)model.get(FeedController.NEWS_VIEW_KEY);
        List<Entry> entries = new ArrayList<Entry>();
        for (News news : newsList) {
            addEntry(entries, news);
        }
        return entries;
    }

    private void addEntry(List<Entry> entries, News news) {
        Entry entry = new Entry();
        entry.setId(feedId + ", " + news.getId());
        entry.setTitle(news.getTitle());
        entry.setUpdated(news.getCreationDate());
        entry = setSummary(news, entry);
        entry = setLink(news, entry);
        entries.add(entry);
    }

    private Entry setSummary(News news, Entry entry) {
        Content summary = new Content();
        summary.setValue(news.getShortDescription());
        entry.setSummary(summary);
        return entry;
    }

    private Entry setLink(News news, Entry entry) {
        Link link = new Link();
        link.setType("text/html");
        link.setHref(newsAbsoluteUrl + news.getId()); //because I have a different controller to show news at http://yourfanstasticsiteUrl.com/news/ID
        entry.setAlternateLinks(newArrayList(link));
        return entry;
    }

}

Step 6. add your classes to your Spring context
I'm using xml approach. because I'm old and I love xml. No, seriously, I use xml because I may want to declare FeedController a few times with different views (RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0, etc.).

So this is the forementioned spring-mvc.xml

<?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 http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd">

    <bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.ContentNegotiatingViewResolver">
        <property name="mediaTypes">
            <map>
                <entry key="atom" value="application/atom+xml"/>
                <entry key="html" value="text/html"/>
            </map>
        </property>
        <property name="viewResolvers">
            <list>
                <bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.BeanNameViewResolver"/>
            </list>
        </property>
    </bean>

    <bean class="eu.margiel.pages.confitura.feed.FeedController">
        <constructor-arg index="0" ref="newsRepository"/>
        <constructor-arg index="1" value="atomFeedView"/>
    </bean>

    <bean id="atomFeedView" class="eu.margiel.pages.confitura.feed.AtomFeedView"/>
</beans>

And you are done.

I've been asked a few times before to put all the working code in some public repo, so this time it's the other way around. I've describe things that I had already published, and you can grab the commit from the bitbucket.

Hope that helps.