Tim, Yes, I agree that tests involving a database is really integration testing and not unit testing. Nevertheless it would be convenient to be able to run them without the requirement of an OSGi container. I guess the reason why I was hoping to do this is because it was easy to do in the past (with Spring/Hibernate) and I try to opt for the simplest solution.
Maybe I'll have to rethink on this matter. I agree that testing in the container gives a more reliable result. Given that the tests are easy to setup and run using Maven I guess it is preferable to do it this way.However, I'm a bit disillusioned with past experience regarding integration testing in JEE containers. In my experience it is very complex and error prone. Merely having to install, e g Weblogic on every developers workstation is a big hazzle (and in the past also a big cost). Furthermore, deploying, starting and stopping the application server really doesn't work very well at all. The result has been that developers only run a small subset of the tests since the setup is too complicated. I'll look in more detail how you handle these tests in Aries and see if I can steal some of your ideas. Thanks, /Bengt 2010/9/7 Timothy Ward <[email protected]> > > Hi Bengt, > > I would like to re-iterate that dependency injection is the best way to get > hold of an EntityManager instance (in fact it is the only way to get a > container-managed EntityManager. > > At this point I would suggest that what you should do depends on your unit > testing policy. Usually unit tests are lightweight and involve plenty of > mock objects. I would suggest that actually using OpenJPA and a database > isn't really unit testing anymore, as it's far too heavyweight. I would mock > up the EntityManager instance that I passed to my DAO bean in a unit test > environment, and validate that the right calls are made. > > If you want to to a more complex test (usually called an iTest or > integration test in Apache) that includes a database then I would strongly > recommend using the pax runner and setting up an OSGi framework. This will > give you much better validation that the code actually works in situ, and > you can use the real persistence.xml. > > Regards, > > Tim > > > ________________________________ > > Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2010 09:56:17 +0200 > > Subject: Re: Unit testing > > From: [email protected] > > To: [email protected] > > > > Thanks for your reply David, > > > > I will definitely have a look at ops4j pax-runner and how you use it in > > Aries tests. Thanks for the advice. > > > > Your advice regarding DAO testing is also relevant. I do it in a > > similar way today but had some problems with the "out-of-OSGi" solution > > interferring with my "in-OSGi" solution. By using a default constructor > > + dependency injection in OSGi and a constructor taking the entity > > manager "in-OSGi" I can probably get rid of that problem. Will look > > into it. > > > > On the same subject (if you bear with me), I forgot to ask about > > handling a data source "in-OSGi" and "out-of-OSGi" respectively. > > > > Prior to deploying my project in an OSGi container, I specified the > > JDBC properties in persistence.xml. This doesn't work very well under > > OSGi. Instead one specifies what data source service to use and then > > deploys a bundle that publishes a data source as a service. The latter > > doesn't work well when performing unit tests "out-of-OSGi". > > > > My strategy so far has been to maintain separate persistence > > descriptors for the different scenarios: A persistence.xml for the unit > > tests and a persistence-openjpa.xml for use in the container. The > > latter won't be picked up automatically outside a container but can be > > specified explicitly using Meta-Persistence in OSGi. It's not an ideal > > solution and I'm not yet sure that it will work. Is there a best > > practice in this area? > > > > Thanks, > > > > /Bengt > > > > 2010/9/7 David Jencks> > > > > On Sep 7, 2010, at 12:10 AM, Bengt Rodehav wrote: > > > >> Lots of mails from me today - just trying to get on top of things.... > >> > >> I'm investigating the best way to deploy a JPA based application in > > OSGi. I've successfully used Karaf and iPojo in combination with Camel > > before but JPA seems a bit more complicated. > >> > >> Using Aries components (jpa, transaction and blueprint) seems to > > provide the functionality I need. However, one problem for me is how to > > being able to unit test my services without having to startup a Karaf > > instance. In the past I've been using Spring/Hibernate for this > > purpose. Spring is very flexible in the sense that I can configure a > > test environment for my unit test and still being able to test services > > that uses transactions. > >> > >> In more detail, my problem is as follows: > >> > >> I have DAO objects containing persistence logic using JPA. These are > > used by my service objects that contains business logic and also > > specifies transaction requirements. I can deploy those objects in > > Karaf using Aries. However, I don't know how to unit test those > > services since they need the presence of Aries. I know that this might > > be defined as integration tests (and not unit tests) for that reason > > but I would still like a convenient way to execute these tests as part > > of my maven build and preferrably without having to deploy Karaf. Is > > that possible? > >> > >> If not, what is the recommended way (best practice) for these kind of > > tests? > > > > Use ops4j pax-runner. There are a bunch of integration tests in aries > > that use this. > >> > >> BTW it is not easy to unit test the DAO objects either since I need > > to get hold of an entity manager in completely different ways depending > > on if I'm in an OSGi environment or not. I could take some advice on > > this subject as well... > > > > If you code your DAO objects using constructor dependency injection, > > one of the arguments being the EMF, can't you inject it in > > blueprint/osgi and simply supply it as a constructor argument in unit > > tests? > > > > If you do some kind of service lookup in your DAO then you will tie it > > to whatever lookup technology you are using (service registry for osgi, > > jndi for java ee,....) > > > > hope this is relevant to what you are asking about... > > david jencks > > > >> > >> Best regards, > >> > >> /Bengt > >> > > > > > >
