This plugin aims to make developing functional tests for Grails more convenient by facilitating running your tests against an already running application. It utilises the improved functional testing support added in Grails 1.3.5 and does not work with earlier versions.
Installation/Configuration
All you have to do is install the plugin
grails install-plugin functional-test-development
How Does It Work?
The plugin installs a script, develop-functional-tests, that you can use to develop your functional tests more conveniently. It manages the process of starting your application in a test environment, then repeatedly prompting you for which tests to run against it. This means that you can make changes to your tests, and re-run them without having to wait for your application to start each time.
This is probably best illustrated by example:
$ grails develop-functional-tests
Welcome to Grails 1.3.5 - http://grails.org/
Licensed under Apache Standard License 2.0
Grails home is set to: /usr/local/grails/active
Base Directory: /Users/ld/Projects/myapp
Resolving dependencies...
Dependencies resolved in 999ms.
Running script plugins/functional-test-development-0.1/scripts/DevelopFunctionalTests.groovy
Environment set to development
Launching application with 'test run-app' ...
> Welcome to Grails 1.3.5 - http://grails.org/
> Licensed under Apache Standard License 2.0
> Grails home is set to: /usr/local/grails/active
>
> Base Directory: /Users/ld/Projects/myapp
> Resolving dependencies...
> Dependencies resolved in 987ms.
> Running script /usr/local/grails/active/scripts/RunApp.groovy
> Environment set to test
> [delete] Deleting directory /Users/ld/.grails/1.3.5/projects/myapp/tomcat
> Running Grails application..
> Server running. Browse to http://localhost:8080/myapp
-- Ready to run tests --
* Enter a test target pattern to run tests (e.g. functional: Login)
* Enter a blank line to run all functional tests
* Enter 'restart' to restart the running application
* Enter 'exit' to stop
Command: _
At this point, my application is running in a seperate process. I am in the middle of developing some tests for logging in that are called 'LoginTests'. To run them, I enter a test targetting command like I would do with grails test-app…
Command: functional: Login
Launching tests with 'test-app -baseUrl=http://localhost:8080/myapp functional: Login' ...
> Welcome to Grails 1.3.5 - http://grails.org/
> Licensed under Apache Standard License 2.0
> Grails home is set to: /usr/local/grails/active
>
> Base Directory: /Users/ld/Projects/myapp
> Resolving dependencies...
> Dependencies resolved in 889ms.
> Running script /usr/local/grails/active/scripts/TestApp.groovy
> Environment set to test
> [mkdir] Created dir: /Users/ld/Projects/myapp/target/test-reports/html
> [mkdir] Created dir: /Users/ld/Projects/myapp/target/test-reports/plain
>
> Starting functional test phase ...
> [groovyc] Compiling 1 source file to /Users/ld/Projects/myapp/target/test-classes/functional
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
> Running 1 functional test...
> Running test LoginTests...
> testLogin...FAILED
> Tests Completed in 380ms ...
> -------------------------------------------------------
> Tests passed: 0
> Tests failed: 1
> -------------------------------------------------------
> [junitreport] Processing /Users/ld/Projects/myapp/target/test-reports/TESTS-TestSuites.xml to /var/folders/25/25m7USH7FzCymqJLsj2piU+++TI/-Tmp-/null1776675137
> [junitreport] Loading stylesheet /usr/local/grails/active/lib/junit-frames.xsl
> [junitreport] Transform time: 490ms
> [junitreport] Deleting: /var/folders/25/25m7USH7FzCymqJLsj2piU+++TI/-Tmp-/null1776675137
>
> Tests FAILED - view reports in target/test-reports
-- Ready to run tests --
* Enter a test target pattern to run tests (e.g. functional: Login)
* Enter a blank line to rerun the previous tests (pattern: 'functional: Login')
* Enter 'restart' to restart the running application
* Enter 'exit' to stop
Command: _
This causes a test-app command to be launched in a separate process, but pointing to the already running application via the baseUrl argument. As of Grails 1.3.5, this instructs Grails to run the functional tests without starting up the application. This means that your tests start running quickly.
I have a failing test here. I can now open the test in my IDE or editor and fix the failing test case. I now re-run the test I ran previously by simply hitting «enter» key back in the console.
Command: «enter»
Launching tests with 'test-app -baseUrl=http://localhost:8080/myapp functional: Login' ...
> Welcome to Grails 1.3.5 - http://grails.org/
> Licensed under Apache Standard License 2.0
> Grails home is set to: /usr/local/grails/active
>
> Base Directory: /Users/ld/Projects/myapp
> Resolving dependencies...
> Dependencies resolved in 1033ms.
> Running script /usr/local/grails/active/scripts/TestApp.groovy
> Environment set to test
> [mkdir] Created dir: /Users/ld/Projects/myapp/target/test-reports/html
> [mkdir] Created dir: /Users/ld/Projects/myapp/target/test-reports/plain
>
> Starting functional test phase ...
> [groovyc] Compiling 1 source file to /Users/ld/Projects/myapp/target/test-classes/functional
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
> Running 1 functional test...
> Running test LoginTests...PASSED
> Tests Completed in 424ms ...
> -------------------------------------------------------
> Tests passed: 1
> Tests failed: 0
> -------------------------------------------------------
> [junitreport] Processing /Users/ld/Projects/myapp/target/test-reports/TESTS-TestSuites.xml to /var/folders/25/25m7USH7FzCymqJLsj2piU+++TI/-Tmp-/null1747694731
> [junitreport] Loading stylesheet /usr/local/grails/active/lib/junit-frames.xsl
> [junitreport] Transform time: 480ms
> [junitreport] Deleting: /var/folders/25/25m7USH7FzCymqJLsj2piU+++TI/-Tmp-/null1747694731
>
> Tests PASSED - view reports in target/test-reports
-- Ready to run tests --
* Enter a test target pattern to run tests (e.g. functional: Login)
* Enter a blank line to rerun the previous tests (pattern: 'functional: Login')
* Enter 'restart' to restart the running application
* Enter 'exit' to stop
Command: _
So we were able to develop/fix the test without having to incur the cost of the Grails app starting. This will save you time.
At this point we can enter another targetting pattern to run some different tests if need be.
Restarting the app
If you make changes to the application, they won't be reflected without a restart. This is because the test environment does not implement reloading like the development environment.
To restart the application, you simply enter restart into the command prompt.
Command: restart
restarting app ...
Launching application with 'test run-app' ...
> Welcome to Grails 1.3.5 - http://grails.org/
> Licensed under Apache Standard License 2.0
> Grails home is set to: /usr/local/grails/active
>
> Base Directory: /Users/ld/Projects/myapp
> Resolving dependencies...
> Dependencies resolved in 967ms.
> Running script /usr/local/grails/active/scripts/RunApp.groovy
> Environment set to test
> [delete] Deleting directory /Users/ld/.grails/1.3.5/projects/myapp/tomcat
> Running Grails application..
> Server running. Browse to http://localhost:8080/myapp
-- Ready to run tests --
* Enter a test target pattern to run tests (e.g. functional: Login)
* Enter a blank line to rerun the previous tests (pattern: 'functional: Login')
* Enter 'restart' to restart the running application
* Enter 'exit' to stop
Command:
About Your Tests
When your tests are run against a “remote” application in this fashion, you cannot use dependency injection or GORM (to create/modify domain data). A compelling solution to this problem is to use the remote-control plugin that allows you to run commands inside remote applications. Using this approach, you can still easily create domain data or fiddle with beans in the application you are testing.
The remote-control plugin also works when you are running your tests 'inline' (i.e. in the same JVM as the application under test).
Testing against a WAR or with HTTPS
Any arguments passed to the develop-functional-tests script are passed to the run-app invocation used to start your application. So if you want to test against a built WAR, you can do:
grails develop-functional-tests -war
For https support, you can do:
grails develop-functional-tests -https
If you restart the app (by entering the restart command), the same args are used. To change the args you need to exit the script and invoke it again.
Setting properties for running and testing
You may want to specify properties for either the run-app or test-app processes. Normally when setting properties for grails commands the properties MUST come before command name, for example…
grails -Dserver.port=8090 run-app
When using develop-functional-tests, the properties targeted for the run-app process MUST come after the develop-functional-script task name, and must be specified with the “-P” prefix (instead of “-D”), for example…
grails develop-functional-tests -Pserver.port=8090
The normal -D prefix cannot be used due to a bug with Grails' command line parser.
To specify any properties for the testing process, simply enter them at the command prompt while running the script:
Command: -Dsome.property=foo SomeTest
Running with a different environment
To start the run-app process with an environment other than “test”, specify the “grails.env” system property…
grails develop-functional-tests -Pgrails.env=customenv