dev@glassfish.java.net

Re: supporting standalone tests in V3

From: Lloyd L Chambers <Lloyd.Chambers_at_Sun.COM>
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:26:26 -0700

Keith,

AMX is now extensible, which means that ideally the tests run with a
full server setup, so that all modules that are exposed via AMX are
tested (AMX supports all @Configured objects by any modules).

The tests require that all the config be loaded and parsed, the AMX
MBeans loaded, etc. They verify the state of the world at various
stages of tests. Not doing all of this can miss important failure
cases.

So the server should start once and only once, all the tests should be
run, then the server stopped. I don't know if that's what you meant.
But starting it once for each unit test is a non-started as far as
usefulness and finding problems.

Lloyd


On Apr 15, 2008, at 2:18 PM, Keith Babo wrote:
>
> Is there a reason why you couldn't just bootstrap a nucleus
> distribution of v3 in each unit test? If we added some basic hooks
> for the test to declare which additional modules are required, you
> could configure a runtime specifically for the test. If the test
> itself is packaged inside a bundle, you can drive some very
> sophisticated end-to-end testing.
>
> The above is pretty much how Spring DM integration tests work today
> and it's quite nice.
>
> regards,
> keith
>
> Kohsuke Kawaguchi wrote:
>> I think tests like that better live in its own directory with some
>> kind of build script --- essentially the same set up as quick look
>> test.
>> Since this is an end-to-end test, I think it's actually more
>> valuable that you can take any v3 bundle built somewhere and run
>> the tests.
>> For example, when we modify HK2, Hudson can build a custom GFv3 +
>> this bleedging edge HK2, and then it can run your tests, before the
>> rest of GFv3 even sees this new build of HK2. In this way, by the
>> time HK2 gets integrated, chances of that breaking AMX will be much
>> much less.
>> Also, if the test itself is pushed to the Maven repository, then we
>> might be able to hook up execution of tests in several other
>> places, such as during the normal build of AMX.
>> I think there's a value in having a good harness that runs end-to-
>> end test, building on top of JUnit. Its usefulness goes far beyond
>> just AMX.
>> Lloyd L Chambers wrote:
>>> I am currently trying to figure out how to port V2 AMX tests to V3.
>>>
>>> In V3, how can we support tests other than plain vanilla unit
>>> tests?
>>> - might or might not be true unit tests
>>> - might or might not be junit tests
>>> - might need special setup to execute.
>>>
>>> What I would like is formal support for compiling (and optionally
>>> executing) test code that lives other than under the test/
>>> directory.
>>>
>>> More details--
>>>
>>> In V3 we have a structure that supports unit tests--source code
>>> goes under src/main/java and test code goes under src/test/java.
>>> The build compiles both automagically--very nice!
>>>
>>> In V2 I developed a fairly large set of tests for the AMX
>>> management API. While the tests are not unit tests in the usual
>>> sense, they junit.framework.TestCase tests, and run (in V2) using
>>> the junit test framework. The tests do *end-to-end* testing from
>>> a client to a running server, and given the inherent nature of
>>> what needs to be tested, this is the best approach for this
>>> particular case; mock objects offer little value since the goal
>>> is to test the end-to-end behavior, not some isolated piece of
>>> code.
>>>
>>> So let me call these "End to End Tests" or EETs. These don't
>>> work when placed in the test/ directory, since they require a
>>> test environment with a full running server--they'll all just
>>> fail. So I can't put my test code under tests/. Annotating them
>>> with @Ignore is no good either, because they *must* be run when
>>> the right setup is in place.
>>>
>>> Unfortunately, if the test code does not live under test/, then it
>>> has to live elsewhere, along with some kind of build script.
>>> That means making that script rely on build products of the
>>> regular build, eg duplicating and maintaining knowledge found
>>> elsewhere in the build.
>>>
>>> ---
>>> Lloyd L Chambers
>>> lloyd.chambers_at_sun.com
>>> Sun Microsystems, Inc
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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---
Lloyd L Chambers
lloyd.chambers_at_sun.com
Sun Microsystems, Inc