Testing Kotlin with Spock Part 2 – Enum with instance method

The enum class with instance method in Kotlin is quite similar to its Java version, but they are look a bit different in the bytecode. Let’s see the difference by writing some tests using Spock.What do we want to test?Let’s see the code that we want to…

Testing Kotlin with Spock Part 2 – Enum instance method

The enum class with instance method in Kotlin is quite similar to its Java version, but they are look a bit different in the bytecode. Let’s see the difference by writing some tests using Spock.

What do we want to test?

Let’s see the code that we want to test:

enum class EnumWithInstanceMethod {
    PLUS {
        override fun sign(): String = "+"
    },
    MINUS {
        override fun sign(): String = "-"
    };

    abstract fun sign(): String
}

Obviously, it can be written in a better way (e. g. using enum instance variable), but this example shows the case we want to test in the simplest way.

How to test it with Spock?

The simplest test (that does not work)

First, we can write the test like we would do it with a Java enum:

def "should use enum method like in java"() {
    expect:
        EnumWithInstanceMethod.MINUS.sign() == '-'
}

The test fails:

Condition failed with Exception:

EnumWithInstanceMethod.MINUS.sign() == '-'
                             |
                             groovy.lang.MissingMethodException: No signature of method: static com.github.alien11689.testingkotlinwithspock.EnumWithInstanceMethod$MINUS.sign() is applicable for argument types: () values: []
                             Possible solutions: sign(), sign(), is(java.lang.Object), find(), with(groovy.lang.Closure), find(groovy.lang.Closure)


    at com.github.alien11689.testingkotlinwithspock.EnumWithInstanceMethodTest.should use enum method like in java(EnumWithInstanceMethodTest.groovy:11)
Caused by: groovy.lang.MissingMethodException: No signature of method: static com.github.alien11689.testingkotlinwithspock.EnumWithInstanceMethod$MINUS.sign() is applicable for argument types: () values: []
Possible solutions: sign(), sign(), is(java.lang.Object), find(), with(groovy.lang.Closure), find(groovy.lang.Closure)
    ... 1 more

Interesting… Why is Groovy telling us that we are trying to call a static method? Maybe we are not using the enum instance but something else?. Let’s create a test where we pass the enum instance to method:

static String consume(EnumWithInstanceMethod e) {
    return e.sign()
}
def "should pass enum as parameter"() {
    expect: consume(EnumWithInstanceMethod.MINUS) == '-'
}

Error message:

Condition failed with Exception:

consume(EnumWithInstanceMethod.MINUS) == '-'
|
groovy.lang.MissingMethodException: No signature of method: static com.github.alien11689.testingkotlinwithspock.EnumWithInstanceMethodTest.consume() is applicable for argument types: (java.lang.Class) values: [class com.github.alien11689.testingkotlinwithspock.EnumWithInstanceMethod$MINUS]
Possible solutions: consume(com.github.alien11689.testingkotlinwithspock.EnumWithInstanceMethod)


    at com.github.alien11689.testingkotlinwithspock.EnumWithInstanceMethodTest.should pass enum as parameter(EnumWithInstanceMethodTest.groovy:29)
Caused by: groovy.lang.MissingMethodException: No signature of method: static com.github.alien11689.testingkotlinwithspock.EnumWithInstanceMethodTest.consume() is applicable for argument types: (java.lang.Class) values: [class com.github.alien11689.testingkotlinwithspock.EnumWithInstanceMethod$MINUS]
Possible solutions: consume(com.github.alien11689.testingkotlinwithspock.EnumWithInstanceMethod)
    ... 1 more

Now we see that we passed the class com.github.alien11689.testingkotlinwithspock.EnumWithInstanceMethod$MINUS, not the enum instance.

But it works in Java…

Analogous code in JUnit works perfectly and the test passes:

@Test
public void shouldReturnSign() {
    assertEquals("-", EnumWithInstanceMethod.MINUS.sign());
}

Java can access Kotlin’s instance method without problems, so maybe something is wrong with Groovy…

But the Java enum with instance method, e. g.

public enum EnumWithInstanceMethodInJava {
    PLUS {
        public String sign() {
            return "+";
        }
    },
    MINUS {
        public String sign() {
            return "-";
        }
    };

    public abstract String sign();
}

works correctly in the Spock test:

def "should use enum method"() {
    expect:
        EnumWithInstanceMethodInJava.MINUS.sign() == '-'
}

What’s the difference?

We can spot the difference just by looking at the compiled classes:

$ tree build/classes/main/
build/classes/main/
└── com
    └── github
        └── alien11689
            └── testingkotlinwithspock
                ├── AdultValidator.class
                ├── EnumWithInstanceMethod.class
                ├── EnumWithInstanceMethodInJava$1.class
                ├── EnumWithInstanceMethodInJava$2.class
                ├── EnumWithInstanceMethodInJava.class
                ├── EnumWithInstanceMethod$MINUS.class
                ├── EnumWithInstanceMethod$PLUS.class
                ├── Error.class
                ├── Ok.class
                ├── ValidationStatus.class
                └── Validator.class

Java generates anonymous classes (EnumWithInstanceMethodInJava$1 and EnumWithInstanceMethodInJava$2) for the enum instances, but Kotlin names those classes after the enum instances names (EnumWithInstanceMethod$MINUS and EnumWithInstanceMethod$PLUS).

How does it tie into the problem with Groovy? Groovy does not need the .class when accessing class in code, so when we try to access EnumWithInstanceMethod.MINUS, Groovy converts it to EnumWithInstanceMethod.MINUS.class, not the instance of the enum. The same problem does not occur in Java code since there is no EnumWithInstanceMethodInJava$MINUS class.

Solution

Knowing the difference, we can solve the problem of accessing Kotlin’s enum instance in our Groovy code.

The first solution is accessing the enum instance with valueOf method:

def "should use enum method working"() {
    expect:
        EnumWithInstanceMethod.valueOf('MINUS').sign() == '-'
}

 

The second way is to tell Groovy explicitly that we want to access the static field which is the instance of enum:

def "should use enum method"() {
    expect:
        EnumWithInstanceMethod.@MINUS.sign() == '-'
}

You can choose either solution depending on style of your code and your preferences.

Show me the code

Code is available here.

You May Also Like

Grails session timeout without XML

This article shows clean, non hacky way of configuring featureful event listeners for Grails application servlet context. Feat. HttpSessionListener as a Spring bean example with session timeout depending on whether user account is premium or not.

Common approaches

Speaking of session timeout config in Grails, a default approach is to install templates with a command. This way we got direct access to web.xml file. Also more unnecessary files are created. Despite that unnecessary files are unnecessary, we should also remember some other common knowledge: XML is not for humans.

Another, a bit more hacky, way is to create mysterious scripts/_Events.groovy file. Inside of which, by using not less enigmatic closure: eventWebXmlEnd = { filename -> ... }we can parse and hack into web.xml with a help of XmlSlurper.
Even though lot of Grails plugins do it similar way, still it’s not really straightforward, is it? Besides, where’s the IDE support? Hello!?

Examples of both above ways can be seen on StackOverflow.

Simpler and cleaner way

By adding just a single line to the already generated init closure we have it done:
class BootStrap {

def init = { servletContext ->
servletContext.addListener(OurListenerClass)
}
}

Allrighty, this is enough to avoid XML. Sweets are served after the main course though :)

Listener as a Spring bean

Let us assume we have a requirement. Set a longer session timeout for premium user account.
Users are authenticated upon session creation through SSO.

To easy meet the requirements just instantiate the CustomTimeoutSessionListener as Spring bean at resources.groovy. We also going to need some source of the user custom session timeout. Let say a ConfigService.
beans = {    
customTimeoutSessionListener(CustomTimeoutSessionListener) {
configService = ref('configService')
}
}

With such approach BootStrap.groovy has to by slightly modified. To keep control on listener instantation, instead of passing listener class type, Spring bean is injected by Grails and the instance passed:
class BootStrap {

def customTimeoutSessionListener

def init = { servletContext ->
servletContext.addListener(customTimeoutSessionListener)
}
}

An example CustomTimeoutSessionListener implementation can look like:
import javax.servlet.http.HttpSessionEvent    
import javax.servlet.http.HttpSessionListener
import your.app.ConfigService

class CustomTimeoutSessionListener implements HttpSessionListener {

ConfigService configService

@Override
void sessionCreated(HttpSessionEvent httpSessionEvent) {
httpSessionEvent.session.maxInactiveInterval = configService.sessionTimeoutSeconds
}

@Override
void sessionDestroyed(HttpSessionEvent httpSessionEvent) { /* nothing to implement */ }
}
Having at hand all power of the Spring IoC this is surely a good place to load some persisted user’s account stuff into the session or to notify any other adequate bean about user presence.

Wait, what about the user context?

Honest answer is: that depends on your case. Yet here’s an example of getSessionTimeoutMinutes() implementation using Spring Security:
import org.springframework.security.core.context.SecurityContextHolder    

class ConfigService {

static final int 3H = 3 * 60 * 60
static final int QUARTER = 15 * 60

int getSessionTimeoutSeconds() {

String username = SecurityContextHolder.context?.authentication?.principal
def account = Account.findByUsername(username)

return account?.premium ? 3H : QUARTER
}
}
This example is simplified. Does not contain much of defensive programming. Just an assumption that principal is already set and is a String - unique username. Thanks to Grails convention our ConfigService is transactional so the Account domain class can use GORM dynamic finder.
OK, config fetching implementation details are out of scope here anyway. You can get, load, fetch, obtain from wherever you like to. Domain persistence, principal object, role config, external file and so on...

Any gotchas?

There is one. When running grails test command, servletContext comes as some mocked class instance without addListener method. Thus we going to have a MissingMethodException when running tests :(

Solution is typical:
def init = { servletContext ->
if (Environment.current != Environment.TEST) {
servletContext.addListener(customTimeoutSessionListener)
}
}
An unnecessary obstacle if you ask me. Should I submit a Jira issue about that?

TL;DR

Just implement a HttpSessionListener. Create a Spring bean of the listener. Inject it into BootStrap.groovy and call servletContext.addListener(injectedListener).