Enterprise Java

Use Mockito to mock autowired fields

Dependency injection is very powerful feature of Inversion of Control containers like Spring and EJB. It is always good idea to encapsulate injected values into private fields. But encapsulation of autowired fields decreases testability.

I like the way how Mockito solved this problem  to mock autowired fields. Will explain it on example. (This blog post expects that you are little bit familiar with Mockito syntax, but it is self-descriptive enough though.)

Here is first dependency of testing module. It is Spring singleton bean. This class will be mocked in the test.
 

@Repository
public class OrderDao {
	public Order getOrder(int irderId){
		throw new UnsupportedOperationException("Fail is not mocked!");
	}
}

Here is second dependency of testing class. It is also Spring component. This class will be spied (partially mocked) in test. Its method calculatePriceForOrder will be invoked unchanged. Second method will be stubbed.

@Service
public class PriceService {
	public int getActualPrice(Item item){
		throw new UnsupportedOperationException("Fail is not mocked!");
	}

	public int calculatePriceForOrder(Order order){
		int orderPrice = 0;
		for (Item item : order.getItems()){
			orderPrice += getActualPrice(item);
		}
		return orderPrice;
	}
}

And here is class under test. It  autowires dependencies above.

@Service
public class OrderService {

	@Autowired
	private PriceService priceService;

	@Autowired
	private OrderDao orderDao;

	public int getOrderPrice(int orderId){
		Order order = orderDao.getOrder(orderId);
		return priceService.calculatePriceForOrder(order);
	}
}

Finally here is test example. It uses field level annotations:

  • @InjectMocks – Instantiates testing object instance and tries to inject fields annotated with @Mock or @Spy into private fields of testing object
  • @Mock – Creates mock instance of the field it annotates
  • @Spy – Creates spy for instance of annotated field
public class OrderServiceTest {
	private static final int TEST_ORDER_ID = 15;
	private static final int TEST_SHOES_PRICE = 2;   
	private static final int TEST_SHIRT_PRICE = 1;

	@InjectMocks
	private OrderService testingObject;

	@Spy
	private PriceService priceService;

	@Mock
	private OrderDao orderDao;

	@BeforeMethod
	public void initMocks(){
		MockitoAnnotations.initMocks(this);
	}

	@Test
	public void testGetOrderService(){
		Order order = new Order(Arrays.asList(Item.SHOES, Item.SHIRT));
		Mockito.when(orderDao.getOrder(TEST_ORDER_ID)).thenReturn(order);

		//notice different Mockito syntax for spy
		Mockito.doReturn(TEST_SHIRT_PRICE).when(priceService).getActualPrice(Item.SHIRT);
		Mockito.doReturn(TEST_SHOES_PRICE).when(priceService).getActualPrice(Item.SHOES);

		//call testing method
		int actualOrderPrice = testingObject.getOrderPrice(TEST_ORDER_ID);

		Assert.assertEquals(TEST_SHIRT_PRICE + TEST_SHOES_PRICE, actualOrderPrice);
	}
}

So what happen when you run this test:

  1. First of all TestNG framework picks up @BeforeMethod annotation and invokes initMocks method
  2. This method invokes special Mockito call (MockitoAnnotations.initMocks(this)) to initialize annotated fields. Without this call, these objects would be null. Common mistake with this approach is to forget this invocation.
  3. When all the test fields are populated with desired values, test is called.

This example doesn’t include Spring context creation and Spring’s annotations are here only as examples for usage against production code. Test itself doesn’t include  any dependency to Spring and ignores all its annotations. In fact there could be used EJB annotations instead or it can be running against plain (non IoC managed) private fields.

Developers tend to think about MockitoAnnotations.initMocks(this) call as unnecessary overhead. But it is actually very handy, because it resets testing object and re-initializes mocks. You can use it for example

  • When you have various test methods using same annotated instances to ensure that various test runs doesn’t use same recorded behavior
  • When repetitive / parametrized tests are used. For example you can include this call into test  method itself and receive spy object as test parameter (as part of test case). This ability is very sexy in conjunction to TestNG @DataProvider feature (Will explain this in different blog post).

@Spy annotated object can be created in two ways

  • Automatically by Mockito framework if there is default (non-parametrized) constructor
  • Or explicitly initialized (e.g. when there is only non-default constructor)

Testing object annotated by @InjectMocks can be also initialized explicitly.

 

Reference: Use Mockito to mock autowired fields from our JCG partner Lubos Krnac at the http://lkrnac.net/ blog.

Lubos Krnac

Lubos is a Java/JavaScript developer/Tech Lead and Automation enthusiast. His religion is to constantly improve his developments skills and learn new approaches. He believes TDD drives better design and nicely decoupled code. Past experience includes C++, Assembler and C#.
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Marcin Grzejszczak
Marcin Grzejszczak
10 years ago

Hi! For TestNG this code will work only if you have a single test method. If you have a second test method then you need to manually reset the mocks, otherwise their behaviour will be memorized. Check – https://code.google.com/p/mockito/issues/detail?id=304

Lubos Krnac
10 years ago

Hi Marcin, I created additional tests to verify if some behaviour would be memorized: Created additional two tests: @wong wong(priority=1) public void dummyTest1(){ System.out.println(“dummyTest1”); Order order = new Order(Arrays.asList(Item.SHOES, Item.SHIRT)); Mockito.when(orderDao.getOrder(TEST_ORDER_ID)).thenReturn(order); int actualOrderPrice = testingObject.getOrderPrice(TEST_ORDER_ID); Assert.assertEquals(TEST_SHIRT_PRICE + TEST_SHOES_PRICE, actualOrderPrice); } @wong wong(priority=2) public void dummyTest2(){ System.out.println(“dummyTest2”); int actualOrderPrice = testingObject.getOrderPrice(TEST_ORDER_ID); Assert.assertEquals(TEST_SHIRT_PRICE + TEST_SHOES_PRICE, actualOrderPrice); } It’s obvious that if behaviour would be reused from original test, both would pass. But they failed because the behaviour was reset. FAILED: dummyTest1 java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException: Fail is not mocked! at net.lkrnac.testingexamples.mockautowired.PriceService.getActualPrice(PriceService.java:8) at net.lkrnac.testingexamples.mockautowired.OrderService.getOrderPrice(OrderService.java:17) at net.lkrnac.testingexamples.mockautowired.OrderServiceTest.dummyTest1(OrderServiceTest.java:60) FAILED: dummyTest2 java.lang.NullPointerException at net.lkrnac.testingexamples.mockautowired.PriceService.calculatePriceForOrder(PriceService.java:13) at net.lkrnac.testingexamples.mockautowired.OrderService.getOrderPrice(OrderService.java:17) at net.lkrnac.testingexamples.mockautowired.OrderServiceTest.dummyTest2(OrderServiceTest.java:67) I… Read more »

Lubos Krnac
10 years ago

Forgot to mention in previous reply:
This example uses TestNG 6.8.7 and Mockito 1.9.5

Marcin Grzejszczak
Marcin Grzejszczak
10 years ago
Reply to  Lubos Krnac

The code won’t work if you have constructor injection in OrderService (I don’t know why but I thought that you have one ;) ): OrderService: public class OrderService { private final PriceService priceService; private final OrderDao orderDao; public OrderService(PriceService priceService, OrderDao orderDao) { this.priceService = priceService; this.orderDao = orderDao; } public int getOrderPrice(int orderId){ Order order = orderDao.getOrder(orderId); return priceService.calculatePriceForOrder(order); } } Now add verification of execution of orderDao: Mockito.verify(orderDao, times(1)).getOrder(TEST_ORDER_ID); so the test will look like this: @wong wong(invocationCount = 2) public void testGetOrderService(){ Order order = new Order(Arrays.asList(Item.SHOES, Item.SHIRT)); Mockito.when(orderDao.getOrder(TEST_ORDER_ID)).thenReturn(order); //notice different Mockito syntax for spy Mockito.doReturn(TEST_SHIRT_PRICE).when(priceService).getActualPrice(Item.SHIRT); Mockito.doReturn(TEST_SHOES_PRICE).when(priceService).getActualPrice(Item.SHOES);… Read more »

Lubos Krnac
10 years ago

Ok. This example was about mocking field injections.
If you are using constructor injection (which should be preferred way how to do dependency injection), you don’t have to use @InjectMocks/@Spy/@Mock annotations at all.
You can create testing object via constructor and pass in mocks/spies created by Mockito.mock/Mockito.spy calls.
This is the way how I am testing constructor injection and it’s probably reason why I didn’t experience problems you are pointing out.

In my opinion @InjectMocks/@Spy/@Mock are handy only for field injections. They are doing reflection magic to inject mocks/spies into private fields.

Lubos Krnac
10 years ago

Ok. This example was about mocking field injections.
If you are using constructor injection (which should be preferred way how to do dependency injection), you don’t have to use @InjectMocks/@Spy/@Mock annotations at all.
You can create testing object via constructor and pass in mocks/spies created by Mockito.mock/Mockito.spy calls.
This is the way how I am testing constructor injection and it’s probably reason why I didn’t experience problems you are pointing out.

In my opinion @InjectMocks/@Spy/@Mock are handy only for field injections. They are doing reflection magic to inject mocks/spies into private fields.

Marcin Grzejszczak
Marcin Grzejszczak
10 years ago
Reply to  Lubos Krnac

I disagree – Of course you can do it manually but that’s the idea behind automatization that you don’t do it manually. Anyway as for your example – of course you were right in terms of field injection so sorry for the comment ;)

Lubos Krnac
10 years ago

Please don’t apologize for the comments.

Manual approach is (in my opinion) much more readable for people who are not familiar with @InjectMocks/@Spy/@Mock features. I don’t see any benefit using these annotations for constructor injection.

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