Cactus is an in-container unit testing framework that allows testing of J2EE components by running tests inside a container. It avoids the drawbacks of mocking approaches, which don't test interactions with the container. Cactus tests are written by extending test case classes and implementing test methods. It works by starting the container and deploying the application and tests. Required jars include cactus, junit, and jars for HTTP client and HTML parsing. Spring also provides an alternative for integration testing without a full container deployment.

1. CACTUS
In-Container Unit
Testing Framework

2. Unit Testing J2EE Components
 Components interact with their container
 Container services are only available when
the container running
 JUnit is not designed to “run inside a
container”

3. Drawbacks of Mocking Approach
 You don’t test interactions with container and
with other components
 You may have too many mock objects to set
up and train
 You usually must know exactly how the API
being mocked behaves
 Even though they all implement same API, all
containers don’t behave in the same way

4. Integration Unit Testing

5. Running Cactus Tests

6. How to Write Cactus Tests?
 Create a test class that extends one of Cactus
test cases, depending on what you are testing:
– ServletTestCase
– FilterTestCase
– JspTestCase
 Write your testXXX() methods
 (optional) Write beginXXX(...) and endXXX(...)
methods

7. How Cactus Works?

9. Required Jars to Make Run Cactus
 cactus.jar
 junit.jar
 httpclient.jar
 httpunit.jar
 nekohtml.jar
 aspectjrt.jar
 commons-logging.jar
 cactus-ant.jar

10. Drawbacks of In-Container Testing
 Longer Execution Time
– Container startup time
– Database initialization and setup time
 Configuration Complexity
– Packaging and deployment of application and test
code

11. Integration Testing with Spring
 Alternative to Cactus in-container testing
 Performed without deployment to application
server
 Correct wiring of your Spring contexts
 Testing DAO implementation classes

12. Integration Testing with Spring
 org.springframework.test package
– Context caching.
– Dependency Injection for test classes.
– Transaction management appropriate to
tests.
– Inherited instance variables useful for
testing.

13. Spring Test Classes
AbstractSpringContext
Tests
AbstractDependencyInjection
SpringContextTests
AbstractTransactionalSpringContextTests
AbstractTransactionalDataSourceSpringContextTests

14. References
 Jakarta Cactus Homepage : http://
jakarta.apache.org/cactus/
 JUnit In Action by Vincent Massol with Ted Husted
 Spring Framework 1.2-rc2 API Documentation
 Spring Framework Reference Documentation :
http://www.springframework.org/docs/reference/testin
g.html

15. Contact
 Kenan Sevindik
– E-mail : ksevindik@gmail.com
– Blog : http://jroller.com/page/ksevindik