Can a Spring Bean programmatically replaced in an loaded SpringContext - spring

I want write an integration test but with one minor restriction. I got a TimeSourceBean that I want to mock out. This TimeSourceBean is used several times deep in the application. (no way to do this with reflection)
Everything is done by autowire.
I think I could load in my test an additional XML with an implementation I like to have.
see: here!
But really nice would be when I can create my mock TimeSourceBean in the test itself and register it (replace the original bean) to the context
=> so before I start the test, I create the mock and register my bean like this:
context.registerBean(timeSourceBeanMockVersion);
Any ideas if this is possible?

You can add an other bean/class that implement the same interface (hopefully you use them), and mark this other bean class as #Primary.
But then you need to make sure that this primary bean is only loaded in the test cases you need them.

Related

What is the best place in SpringBoot application to initialize business logic?

I want to initialize some business logic (e.g. send some messages to a message broker) in a Spring Boot application after context is created and beans (singletons) are initialized - what is the "most correct" place for it?
From my perspective the candidates are:
Implement ApplicationListener + listen for ContextStartedEvent
ApplicationRunner's OR CommandLineRunner's run() method
#PostConstruct of a particular bean (I don't this method, but have seen sometimes in colleagues' code - because I need to be sure all beans are created, initialized, customized, set up, etc. and I don't wanna play with beans load order)
I understand that in general, in MVC web application the place for business logic is #Service, but I need to call it immediately after the start of my application, so what's the best way to do that?
I would go with #EventListener. Like you said there are different ways to achieve this. I will give my opinion on your numbers
ApplicationListener called 3 times. No need to listen this one. This maybe usefull if you are doing something close to tomcat.
ApplicationRunner,CommandLineRunner is called after all bean initialization. This can be useful.
#PostConstruct you can get null beans if you are working with other components.
I prepared a small example to use all these in one application and print some logs but I could not put them here. spring log looks ugly here. anyway my suggestion is here if you dont have any dependency to other beans this looks nicest. if there are dependencies then you can use ApplicationListener which was the last logged in my example.

Spring Context Test With Just One Bean

What's the recommended way to run a spring boot test where only the one subject under test is configured in the context.
If I annotate the test with
#RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
#SpringBootTest(properties = "spring.profiles.active=test")
#ContextConfiguration(classes = MyTestBean.class)
Then it seems to work - the test passes, the context starts quickly and seems to only contain the bean that I want. However, this seems like an incorrect use of the #ContextConfiguration(classes = MyTestBean.class) annotation. If I understand correctly the class that I reference is supposed to be a Configuration class, not a regular spring service bean or component for example.
Is that right? Or is this indeed a valid way to achieve this goal? I know there are more complex examples like org.springframework.boot.test.autoconfigure.json.JsonTest which use #TypeExcludeFilters(JsonExcludeFilter.class) to control the context - but this seems overkill for my use case. I just want a context with my one bean.
Clarification
I know that I can just construct the one bean I am testing as a POJO without a spring context test and remove the three annotations above. But in my precise use case I am actually reliant on some of the configuration applied to the context by settings in the application-test.properties file - which is why I've made this a Spring Boot test with a profile set. From my perspective this isn't a plain unit test of a single class in isolation of the spring context configuration - the test is reliant on certain configuration being applied (which is currently provided by the spring boot app properties). I can indeed just test the components as a POJO by creating a new instance outside of a spring context, I'm using constructor injection making the providing of necessary dependencies simple but the test does rely on things like the log level (the test actually makes assertions on certain logs being produced) which requires that the log level is set correctly (which is currently being done via logging.level.com.example=DEBUG in a properties file which sets up the spring context).
For starters, reading the documentation first (e.g., the JavaDoc linked below in this answer) is a recommend best practice since it already answers your question.
If I understand correctly the class that I reference is supposed to be
a Configuration class, not a regular spring service bean or
component for example.
Is that right?
No, that's not completely correct.
Classes provided to #ContextConfiguration are typically #Configuration classes, but that is not required.
Here is an excerpt from the JavaDoc for #ContextConfiguration:
Annotated Classes
The term annotated class can refer to any of the following.
A class annotated with #Configuration
A component (i.e., a class annotated with #Component, #Service, #Repository, etc.)
A JSR-330 compliant class that is annotated with javax.inject annotations
Any other class that contains #Bean-methods
Thus you can pass any "annotated class" to #ContextConfiguration.
Or is this indeed a valid way to achieve this goal?
It is in fact a valid way to achieve that goal; however, it is also a bit unusual to load an ApplicationContext that contains a single user bean.
Regards,
Sam (author of the Spring TestContext Framework)
It is definitely a reasonable and normal thing to only test a single class in a unit test.
There is no problem including just one single bean in your test context. Really, a #Configuration is (typically) just a collection of beans. You could hypothetically create a #Configuration class just with MyTestBean, but that would really be unnecessary, as you can accomplish doing the same thing listing your contextual beans with #ContextConfiguration#classes.
However, I do want to point out that for only testing a single bean in a true unit test, best practice ideally leans towards setting up the bean via the constructor and testing the class that way. This is a key reason why the Spring guys recommend using constructor vs. property injection. See the section entitled Constructor-based or setter-based DI of this article, Oliver Gierke's comment (i.e. head of Spring Data project), and google for more information. This is probably the reason you're getting a weird feeling about setting up the context for the one bean!
You can also use ApplicationContextRunner to create your context using a test configuration of your choice (even with one bean if you like, but as other people have already mentioned for one bean it's more reasonable to use the constructor the classical way without using any spring magic).
What I like this way of testing is the fact that test run very fast since you don't load all the context. This method is best used when the tested bean doesn't have any Autowired dependencies otherwise it's more convenient to use #SpringBootTest.
Below is an example that illustrates the way you can use it to achieve your goal:
class MyTest {
#Test
void test_configuration_should_contains_my_bean() {
new ApplicationContextRunner()
.withUserConfiguration(TestConfiguration.class)
.run(context -> {
assertThat(context.getBean(MyTestBean.class)).isNotNull();
});
}
#Configuraiton
public static class TestConfiguration {
#Bean
public MyTestBean myTestBean(){
new MyTestBean();
}
}
}

Does ComponentScan order matter?

I'm setting up a very small Spring/REST/JPA project with Boot, using annotations.
I'm getting some Bean not found errors in my REST controller class that has an Autowired repository variable, when I move my JPA repository class out to a different package, and calling componentscan on its package. However, everything was working fine when all my files(5 total) were in the same package.
So I was wondering, however unlikely, if the component scan order matters? For example, if a class is AutoWiring some beans from a package that has not been 'component scanned' yet, will that cause a Bean not found error?
No, Spring loads all configuration information, from files and annotations and the environment when appropriate. It then creates beans (instances of classes) according to a dependency tree that it calculates in memory. In order to do this it has to have a good idea of the entire configuration at startup. The whole model derived from all the aggregated configuration information is called the Application Context.
In modern versions of spring the application context is flexible at runtime and so it's not quite the case that all the configuration is necessarily known up front, but the configuration that is flexible is limited in scope and must be planned for carefully.
Maybe you need to share some code. When you move that stuff, you also need to tell Spring where they went. My guess would be you haven't defined #EntityScan and #EnableJpaRepositories (which default to the location of #EnableAutoConfiguration).
There could be several problems:
You moved your class out of the some package where you have #ComponentScan without arguments. That basically means that components are scan only in this package and its children. Thus, moved class are not scanned and there is no bean to wire.
Wrong package name in #ComponentScan args.
The order isn't matter at all. There is an #Order annotation, but it's purpose is more about loading multiple implementations of sth in a different order.
At first Bean Definitions are created and they have nothing to do with wiring. Then via bean post processors, autowired beans are injected. Since there were no bean definition. There is nothing to inject.
In a well structured program it doesn't, because first each bean gets instantiated, then autowired and then you can actually use them.
However there could be situations where the order does matter and I had an issue figuring out what was going on. So this is an example where it would matter:
You have some Repository that you want to fill with data initially, call it SetupData component.
Then you use #PostConstruct to save the default objects.
You have some component that this Repository depends on but isn't managed by Spring, for example a #Converter.
And that #Converter depends on some other component which you would statically inject.
In this case #PostConstruct methods will be executed before the components into your #Converter get autowired which will result in an exception.
Relying on ComponentScan order is a bad habit, because it's not intuitive especially when you are working with multiple people who may not know about. Or there might be such dependencies that you can't fix the code by changing the scan order.
The best solution in this case was using a task executor service that takes care of running initialization functions.

Scenario when we may be needing #Configurable in spring?

I have question about the need of using #configurable. I have gone through the blog that explains how to use #configurable. But the question that comes to my mind is, what can be the scenario when we need to use #configurable. I can think of two scenarios where it can be useful
In a legacy project, when we are already making any bean with new operator and we want to make it spring managed.
In a new project, we want to enforce that even if developer makes the bean with new operator, still it is spring managed.
Otherwise for new beans we can always declare them in applicationContext.xml and I do not see any need to declare them #configurable.
Please let me know if above understanding is correct or if I am missing something.
UPDATE:- Basically as per my understanding configurable is generally used to inject dependency when creating the object with new operator. But why would i be creating the object with new operator when i am using spring
#Configurable annotation is meant for injecting dependencies in domain-driven applications. That means, in such applications, the domain objects interact with each other to perform a certain operation.
Take the following example:
In an invoicing application, the Invoice class provides a constructor to create it, then it has methods to validate, and finally persist it. Now, to persist the invoice, you need a DAO implementation available within the invoice. This is a dependency you would like to be injected or located. With Spring's #Configurable, whenever an invoice is created using the new operator, the appropriate DAO implementation will get injected and can be used for all persist operations.
I had a more realtime scenario where I used #Configurable annotation as described here.

How to call a method after bean initialization is complete?

I have a use case where I need to call a (non-static) method in the bean only-once at the ApplicationContext load up. Is it ok, if I use MethodInvokingFactoryBean for this? Or we have a some better solution?
As a side note, I use ConfigContextLoaderListener to load the Application Context in web application. And want, that if bean 'A' is instantiated just call methodA() once.
How can this be done nicely?
To expand on the #PostConstruct suggestion in other answers, this really is the best solution, in my opinion.
It keeps your code decoupled from the Spring API (#PostConstruct is in javax.*)
It explicitly annotates your init method as something that needs to be called to initialize the bean
You don't need to remember to add the init-method attribute to your spring bean definition, spring will automatically call the method (assuming you register the annotation-config option somewhere else in the context, anyway).
You can use something like:
<beans>
<bean id="myBean" class="..." init-method="init"/>
</beans>
This will call the "init" method when the bean is instantiated.
There are three different approaches to consider, as described in the reference
Use init-method attribute
Pros:
Does not require bean to implement an interface.
Cons:
No immediate indication in source code that this method is required after construction to ensure the bean is correctly configured.
Implement InitializingBean
Pros:
No need to specify init-method, or turn on component scanning / annotation processing.
Appropriate for beans supplied with a library, where we don't want the application using this library to concern itself with bean lifecycle.
Cons:
More invasive than the init-method approach.
Use JSR-250 #PostConstruct lifecyle annotation
Pros:
Useful when using component scanning to autodetect beans.
Makes it clearer that a specific method is to be used for initialisation. Intent is closer to the code.
Cons:
Initialisation no longer centrally specified in configuration.
You must remember to turn on annotation processing (which can sometimes be forgotten)
Have you tried implementing InitializingBean? It sounds like exactly what you're after.
The downside is that your bean becomes Spring-aware, but in most applications that's not so bad.
You could deploy a custom BeanPostProcessor in your application context to do it. Or if you don't mind implementing a Spring interface in your bean, you could use the InitializingBean interface or the "init-method" directive (same link).
To further clear any confusion about the two approach i.e use of
#PostConstruct and
init-method="init"
From personal experience, I realized that using (1) only works in a servlet container, while (2) works in any environment, even in desktop applications. So, if you would be using Spring in a standalone application, you would have to use (2) to carry out that "call this method after initialization.

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