generated Controller fails generated testSave and testUpdate

Jeff Brown added a comment - 13/Nov/11 3:28 PM Wayne, Did you fill in valid request parameter values in the ThingControllerTests.poppulateValidParams(params) method and add invalid request parameter values in the testUpdate() method under the comment "//TODO: add invalid values to params object"? If you do those things, the tests should pass. If you have done those things and the test still fails, please attach a demonstrative sample app. Thanks for the help.

Jeff Brown added a comment - 13/Nov/11 5:14 PM It looks like the call to thingInstance.save(flush: true) inside the update action is returning the Thing instance when it should be returning null because of the binding failure (binding 'a string' to an int property). It may only be happening in the testing environment. We will track it down. Thanks again for the info.

Jeff Brown added a comment - 15/Nov/11 5:08 AM There are a couple of things going on here. One relates to a bug in the framework and one does not. Create a domain class as described earlier: grails-app/domain/example/Thing.groovy package example class Thing { int X = 13 static constraints = { } } Generate a controller: grails generate-controller example.Thing Update the populateValidParams and testUpdate methods per the TODO comments in the source code: test/unit/example/ThingControllerTests.groovy package example import org.junit.* import grails.test.mixin.* import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse @TestFor(ThingController) @Mock(Thing) class ThingControllerTests { def populateValidParams(params) { assert params != null // TODO: Populate valid properties like... //params[ "name" ] = 'someValidName' params['X'] = '42' } // ... void testUpdate() { // ... //TODO: add invalid values to params object params.X = 'some string' // ... } } Run the generated unit test: $ grails test-app unit: | Running 8 unit tests... 4 of 8 | Failure: testSave(example.ThingControllerTests) | Assertion failed: assert model.thingInstance != null | | | [:] null false at example.ThingControllerTests.testSave(ThingControllerTests.groovy:48) | Running 8 unit tests... 7 of 8 | Failure: testUpdate(example.ThingControllerTests) | Assertion failed: assert view == "/thing/edit" | | null false at example.ThingControllerTests.testUpdate(ThingControllerTests.groovy:126) | Completed 8 unit tests, 2 failed in 2403ms | Tests FAILED - view reports in target/test-reports Note that the testSave and testUpdate tests failed. The testUpdate test failed because of a bug in the framework and that bug is being fixed. The testSave test is failing because the test is invalid for this particular case but valid for the more typical case. test/unit/example/ThingControllerTests.groovy package example import org.junit.* import grails.test.mixin.* import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse @TestFor(ThingController) @Mock(Thing) class ThingControllerTests { // ... void testSave() { controller.save() assert response.status == HttpServletResponse.SC_METHOD_NOT_ALLOWED response.reset() request.method = 'POST' controller.save() assert model.thingInstance != null assert view == '/thing/create' response.reset() populateValidParams(params) controller.save() assert response.redirectedUrl == '/thing/show/1' assert controller.flash.message != null assert Thing.count() == 1 } // ... } The code between the first and second calls to reset() is testing what is supposed to happen if a POST request is sent to the save action without any request parameters. For most domain classes the save will fail and the create view will be rendered again. The save will fail because most domain objects are not in a valid state if no request parameters are sent to the save action. In this particular case, the only persistent property defined in the Thing class is the X property and it is given a default value of 13 so the object is valid as soon as it is created. Note that if the domain class is changed to look like this the testSave test passes: grails-app/domain/example/Thing.groovy package example class Thing { Integer X static constraints = { } } I am not suggesting that the domain class be changed just because of this test. If the original domain class makes sense for the application then delete the invalid part of the test. As I said, the testUpdate test is failing because of a bug in the framework and that is being addressed.

Wayne Stidolph added a comment - 15/Nov/11 9:30 AM Thanks for the explanation (and the fix); can I suggest you add a comment to the generated test code clarifying the broken-in-no-params assumption in testSave()? Just as an FYI, my normal design practice is to create domain objects with defaults so they are always sane, and then alter the objects as I go along. This makes my integration testing easier since I often don't have to set properties in helper objects, and I find the default example values improve my source code readability. And, I sometimes POST with no params, particularly for lightweight event tracking. So I will want to make the change in testSave() fairly often, and a generated comment in the code would help remind me

Berenger COLLOTTE added a comment - 16/Feb/12 1:55 AM Hi, thanks for the explanations, but I'm still having a problem. For example, here is my domain class: class AccessibleItem { static mapping = { table 'AccessibleItem' // version is set to false, because this isn't available by default for legacy databases version false id generator:'identity', column:'id' referencedItemClass column:'referencedItemClass' referencedItem column:'referencedItem' } Long id String referencedItemClass Long referencedItem static constraints = { id() referencedItemClass(size: 1..100, blank: false) referencedItem(max: 9999999999L) } String toString() { return "$ {referencedItem} " } } I populated the params like this: def populateValidParams(params) { assert params != null params["referencedItemClass"] = 'Carrier' params["referencedItem"] = '2' } And here is my testEdit method (as an example): void testEdit() { controller.edit() assert flash.message != null assert response.redirectedUrl == '/accessibleItem/list' populateValidParams(params) def accessibleItem = new AccessibleItem(params) assert accessibleItem.save() != null params.id = accessibleItem.id def model = controller.edit() assert model.accessibleItemInstance == accessibleItem } I still get the following error : Failure: testEdit(my.app.AccessibleItemControllerTests) java.lang.NullPointerException at com.sun.beans.TypeResolver.resolve(TypeResolver.java:321) at com.sun.beans.TypeResolver.resolve(TypeResolver.java:351) at com.sun.beans.TypeResolver.resolve(TypeResolver.java:310) at com.sun.beans.TypeResolver.resolve(TypeResolver.java:157) at com.sun.beans.TypeResolver.resolveInClass(TypeResolver.java:78) at java.beans.FeatureDescriptor.getReturnType(FeatureDescriptor.java:370) at java.beans.Introspector.getTargetEventInfo(Introspector.java:974) at java.beans.Introspector.getBeanInfo(Introspector.java:434) at java.beans.Introspector.getBeanInfo(Introspector.java:174) at grails.test.mixin.web.ControllerUnitTestMixin.mockController(ControllerUnitTestMixin.groovy:268) And not only for Edit, but also for the List, Create, Delete, Index, Update, Show, Save tests. Not any test passes in fact. I don't know what I'm doing wrong... Any help would be really appreciated. I didn't modified anything except populating the params. Thanks for your help.