Populating Spring @Value during Unit Test

java spring junit spring-annotations
Kyle picture Kyle · Jun 27, 2013 · Viewed 250k times · Source

I'm trying to write a Unit Test for a simple bean that's used in my program to validate forms. The bean is annotated with @Component and has a class variable that is initialized using 

@Value("${this.property.value}") private String thisProperty;

I would like to write unit tests for the validation methods inside this class, however, if possible I would like to do so without utilizing the properties file. My reasoning behind this, is that if the value I'm pulling from the properties file changes, I would like that to not affect my test case. My test case is testing the code that validates the value, not the value itself.

Is there a way to use Java code inside my test class to initialize a Java class and populate the Spring @Value property inside that class then use that to test with?

I did find this How To that seems to be close, but still uses a properties file. I would rather it all be Java code.

Answer

Ralph picture Ralph · Jun 28, 2013

If possible I would try to write those test without Spring Context. If you create this class in your test without spring, then you have full control over its fields.

To set the @value field you can use Springs ReflectionTestUtils - it has a method setField to set private fields.

@see JavaDoc: ReflectionTestUtils.setField(java.lang.Object, java.lang.String, java.lang.Object)

Related questions

Spring autowired bean causes null pointer

I have a logger class that makes use of a service. Each time a new logger is created, I expect to have access to the singleton scoped logging service. I autowire the logging service into the logger however, a null …

Read More
Unable to find a @SpringBootConfiguration when doing a JpaTest

I'm new to frameworks (just passed the class) and this is my first time using Spring Boot. I'm trying to run a simple Junit test to see if my CrudRepositories are indeed working. The error I keep getting is: Unable …

Read More
Injecting @Autowired private field during testing

I have a component setup that is essentially a launcher for an application. It is configured like so: @Component public class MyLauncher { @Autowired MyService myService; //other methods } MyService is annotated with the @Service Spring annotation and is autowired into my …

Read More