Spring unit test 404\unknown url in mock mvc - spring

Question

I would like to test that when an unknown url is requested and a 404 error is generated that my web app actually redirects to the right place.
I havent been able to get this working, I think because tomcat is handling the 404 errors so the forwardedUrl is always null for the tests. I know this works in reality because if I enter some rubbish into the url my app does redirect to my custom page.
My unit test looks like:
#Test
public void testUnknownUrl() throws Exception {
mockMvc.perform(get("/url_doesnt_exist"))
.andExpect(status().isNotFound())
.andExpect(forwardedUrl("/static/error/Sorry.html"));
}
My web.xml configuration is:
<servlet>
<servlet-name>appServlet</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
<init-param>
<param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
<param-value>/WEB-INF/spring/appServlet/servlet-context.xml</param-value>
</init-param>
<load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>appServlet</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
<error-page>
<error-code>404</error-code>
<location>/static/error/Sorry.html</location>
</error-page>
The mapping for /static is defined in my spring config like:
<resources mapping="/static/**" location="/resources/" />
Ultimately I would like to mock a request to an unknown url and then check that the page being returned is /static/error/Sorry.html.
Am I doing something wrong or is this not the way to handle 404 etc in spring? The check of the forwarded url in the unit test is always null.
A slightly different question but related all the same is, at what point does the tomcat error handling get invoked over and above the spring controller advice handling?

Answer 1

I'm not sure about the configuration with the /static path in your web.xml, it shouldn't be like that depending on your dispatcher-servlet (default name) configuration; but as far as I can tell you are in the right path.
This is what I have for mine:
#WebAppConfiguration
#ActiveProfiles("development")
#RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class)
#ContextConfiguration(classes = AppConfig.class)
public class ErrorControllerTest {
#Autowired
private WebApplicationContext context;
private MockMvc mockMvc;
#Before
public void setUp() {
mockMvc = MockMvcBuilders.webAppContextSetup(context)/*.alwaysExpect(status().isOk())*/.build();
}
#Test
public void testError() throws Exception {
mockMvc.perform(get("/error").contentType(MediaType.TEXT_HTML))
.andExpect(status().isOk()) // See "alwaysExpect" above
.andExpect(view().name("error"))
.andExpect(forwardedUrl("/WEB-INF/views/error.jsp"));
}
#Test
public void testResourceNotFound() throws Exception {
mockMvc.perform(get("/resource-not-found").contentType(MediaType.TEXT_HTML))
.andExpect(status().isNotFound())
.andExpect(view().name("resource-not-found"))
.andExpect(forwardedUrl("/WEB-INF/views/resource-not-found.jsp"));
}
}
Sample project is here. I'm using JSPs but you can switch to .html just by changing the InternalResourceViewResolver configuration.

Answer 2

I am using spring 3 and after some reading around I have found out the dispatcher servlet just returns a response code without throwing an exception which I guess is why tomcat always handles this.
Removing the error page tags from web.xml results in a tomcat generic 404 page, so I think the answer to this is to upgrade to spring 4 where I can then pass an init param to the dispatcher servlet requesting it throw an error for a page not found.
I am happy to be corrected on this though as it may help my understanding.