Reload or refresh a Spring application context inside a test method?

Question

I need to change the Spring profiles that are active in my applicationContext within a single method of my test class, and to do so I need to run one line of code before refreshing the contest because I am using a ProfileResolver. I have tried the following:

@WebAppConfiguration
@ContextConfiguration(locations = {"/web/WEB-INF/spring.xml"})
@ActiveProfiles(resolver = BaseActiveProfilesResolverTest.class)
public class ControllerTest extends AbstractTestNGSpringContextTests {
    @Test
    public void test() throws Exception {
        codeToSetActiveProfiles(...);
        ((ConfigurableApplicationContext)this.applicationContext).refresh();
        ... tests here ...
        codeToSetActiveProfiles(... back to prior profiles ...);
        ... ideally refresh/reload the context for future tests
    }
}

But I get:

java.lang.IllegalStateException: GenericApplicationContext does not support multiple refresh attempts: just call 'refresh' once

DirtiesContext does not work for me because it is run AFTER class/method execution, not before, and I need to execute a line of code prior to running the refresh/reload anyway.

Any suggestions? I tried to have a look through the listeners/hooks that are being run, but I didn't see an obvious location to insert myself to achieve this behavior.

Answer 1

By design, programmatic refreshing of an ApplicationContext is not explicitly supported by the Spring TestContext Framework. Furthermore, it is not intended that a test method refresh a context.

Thus I would recommend that you reassess your need for a refresh and consider alternatives like placing test methods that require a different set of active profiles in a dedicated test class.

In summary, @ActiveProfiles supports declarative configuration (via value and profiles attributes) and programmatic configuration (via the resolver attribute) of the active profiles for tests, but only at the test class level (not at the method level). Another option is to implement an ApplicationContextInitializer and configure that via @ContextConfiguration(initializers=...).

The only other way to affect the ApplicationContext before it is refreshed is to implement a SmartContextLoader or extend one of the provided classes and configure it via @ContextConfiguration(loader=...). For example, AbstractGenericContextLoader.customizeContext() allows one to "customize the GenericApplicationContext created by the loader after bean definitions have been loaded into the context but before the context is refreshed."

Best regards,

Sam (author of the Spring TestContext Framework)