Spring boot tests - Can't find test properties - spring

Question

I have a spring boot project and it works great. I now want to write tests for my application and I am running into some configuration headaches.
Spring boot created a test class for me called ApplicationTests. It's real simple and it looks like this:
#RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
#SpringBootTest
public class DuurzaamApplicationTests {
#Test
public void contextLoads() {
}
}
Now when I start the tests I get this error:
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Could not resolve placeholder 'company.upload' in value "${company.upload}"
I have a properties.yml file in the src/test/resources directory and for some reason it isn't loaded. I have tried all different kind of annotations from examples on the Internet and yet none of them work.
How can I tell spring boot tests to use an application.yml file to load the properties from?

Answer 1

We can use #TestPropertySource or #PropertySource to load the properties file.
Example:
#RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
#SpringBootTest
#TestPropertySource("classpath:properties.yml")
#ActiveProfiles("test")
public class DuurzaamApplicationTests {
#Test
public void contextLoads() {
}
}
Docs: https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/javadoc-api/org/springframework/test/context/TestPropertySource.html

Answer 2

To my surprise, when you load properties files in Spring Boot Test, .yml is not supported. It's noted in the documentation, although implicitly.
From the link above:
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/javadoc-api/org/springframework/test/context/TestPropertySource.html
Supported File Formats
Both traditional and XML-based properties file formats are supported — for example, "classpath:/com/example/test.properties" or "file:/path/to/file.xml".
.yml is not mentioned.
And, after changing my .yml to .properties and rewrite the values in xx.xx.xx=value form, the key-values pairs can be read correctly.
So strange.
EDIT:
Now I find a ticket address this issue; seems a long-known bug in Spring.
https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-framework/issues/18486

Answer 3

#PropertySource and #TestPropertySource do not work with YAML. See this.
I also tested it myself. Try creating 2 files - *.yml and *.properties and see it for yourself.
To make *.yml work most people use #SpringBootTest, but if it's not what you want and you would like to use #ContextConfiguration instead, you are in for a bit of surprise.

Answer 4

For me the above solutions did not work and any environment variables were still overriding the test properties defined in #TestPropertySource even though https://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/docs/current/reference/html/boot-features-external-config.html indicates that this source should have higher precedence than environment variables. The only solution that worked for me was to manually define a PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer bean in a test configuration class and set it with highest precedence.
This was with Spring Boot 1.5.15.RELEASE
#Configuration
#TestPropertySource(properties = "/application-test.properties")
#Slf4j
public class IntegrationTestConfiguration {
#Bean
public static PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer properties() {
PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer ppc
= new PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer();
Resource[] resources = new ClassPathResource[]
{ new ClassPathResource( "/application-test.properties" ) };
ppc.setLocations( resources );
ppc.setIgnoreUnresolvablePlaceholders( true );
ppc.setOrder( Ordered.HIGHEST_PRECEDENCE );
return ppc;
}
/// ....
#RunWith( SpringRunner.class )
#ActiveProfiles( "test" )
#Import( IntegrationTestConfiguration.class )
#SpringBootTest( webEnvironment = SpringBootTest.WebEnvironment.RANDOM_PORT )
public class MyTest {

Answer 5

I had the same error message, my problem was a application.properties in src\test\resources which was missing the new properties

Answer 6

Sometimes your application-test.properties file can't be found because it is in a subfolder off the class path.
for example this may not be found, because the file is actually not directly in the class path.
#TestPropertySource("classpath:application-test.properties")
but this will be found if the file is in the config folder off of a path in the class path
#TestPropertySource("classpath:config/application-test.properties")

Answer 7

We can use annotation of #ActiveProfiles("test") that support application-test.yml or application-test.properties