How do I get an ApplicationContext reference in a JUnit test?

[Dave Alvarado]

Hi,

I'm using Spring 3.1.0.RELEASE and JUnit 4.8.1. I'm trying to debug some setup problems and so I'd like to list all the beans my application context is loading up. Within JUnit, how do I get a reference to the application context? I'm setting up my JUnit test like so …

@RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class)
@ContextConfiguration({ "file:src/test/resources/testApplicationContext.xml" })
public class StandardsUploadControllerTest extends AbstractCorrelationsTest {

but when I tried to list all the bean names like this

		GenericApplicationContext context = new GenericApplicationContext();
		final String[] beanNames = context.getBeanDefinitionNames();
		System.out.println("bean names:");
		for (final String beanName : beanNames) { 
			System.out.println("\tbean name:" + beanName);
		}	// for
		System.out.println("=======================");

nothing was printed out (except the lines before and after the loop).

[Bill Gorder]

OK first of all don't load the context with file rather use classpath

@ContextConfiguration({ "classpath:testApplicationContext.xml" })  

For the second bit I can't think of very many use cases where you would ever want to do something like this. Exactly what is it you are trying to test? You are going about this in the wrong way but you would have to provide me with a bit more context to provide more help.

As for why you are not seeing anything printed, it is because you are not loading things correctly.

GenericApplicationContext ctx = new GenericApplicationContext();
 XmlBeanDefinitionReader xmlReader = new XmlBeanDefinitionReader(ctx);
 xmlReader.loadBeanDefinitions(new ClassPathResource("applicationContext.xml"));
 PropertiesBeanDefinitionReader propReader = new PropertiesBeanDefinitionReader(ctx);
 propReader.loadBeanDefinitions(new ClassPathResource("otherBeans.properties"));
 ctx.refresh();

 MyBean myBean = (MyBean) ctx.getBean("myBean");

Now most of the time you would not use a GenericApplicationContext you would use a ClassPathXmlApplicationContext which is much easier to set up, but for a test case you would not use either. That is the whole point of this line

@ContextConfiguration({ "classpath:testApplicationContext.xml" })  

That line of code initializes your context for the test case. If you really want a handle to the ApplicationContext for some reason (I would say you should not) then @Autowire in ApplicationContext.

    @RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class)  
    @ContextConfiguration({ "classpath:testApplicationContext.xml" })  
    public class StandardsUploadControllerTest extends AbstractCorrelationsTest {  
          @Autowired
           private ApplicationContext applicationContext;
    }

[Dave Alvarado]

Hi, Thanks for your feedback. I was originally trying to figure out why certain beans weren't getting wired and so I wanted to see what was in the application context. The problem turned out to be something else -- a bean wasn't instantiated correctly because it couldn't get a JNDI reference.

I have followed your suggestion about using the "classpath:" instead of the "file:" directive in the context setup, though. - Dave