Overriding dateCreated for testing in Grails

Question

Is there any way I can override the value of dateCreated field in my domain class without turning off auto timestamping?

I need to test controller and I ha

Answer 1

As of grails 2.5.1, getMapping() method of GrailsDomainBinder class is not static,non of the above method works as is. However, @Volt0's method works with minor tweaking. Since all of us are trying to do so to make our tests working, instead of placing it in BootStrap, I placed it in actual integration test. Here is my tweak to Volt0's method:

def disableAutoTimestamp(Class domainClass) {
    Mapping mapping = new GrailsDomainBinder().getMapping(domainClass)
    mapping.autoTimestamp = false
}

def enableAutoTimestamp(Class domainClass) {
    Mapping mapping = new GrailsDomainBinder().getMapping(domainClass)
    mapping.autoTimestamp = true
}

And simply call these methods in tests like

disableAutoTimestamp(Domain.class)
//Your DB calls
enableAutoTimestamp(Domain.class)

The above code can also be placed in src directory and can be called in tests however I placed this in actual test as there was only one class in my app where I needed this.

Answer 2

A simpler solution is to use a SQL query in your integration test to set it as you please after you initialize your object with the other values you want.

YourDomainClass.executeUpdate(
"""UPDATE YourDomainClass SET dateCreated = :date
WHERE yourColumn = :something""",
[date:yourDate, something: yourThing])

Answer 3

The easy solution is to add a mapping:

static mapping = {
    cache true
    autoTimestamp false
}

Answer 4

I couldn't get the above techniques to work, the call to GrailsDomainBinder.getMapping always returned null???

However...

You can use the fixtures plugin to set the dateCreated property on a domain instance

The initial loading will not do it...

fixture {
    // saves to db, but date is set as current date :(
    tryDate( SomeDomain, dateCreated: Date.parse( 'yyyy-MM-dd', '2011-12-25') )
}

but if you follow up with a post handler

post {
    // updates the date in the database :D
    tryDate.dateCreated = Date.parse( 'yyyy-MM-dd', '2011-12-01')
}

Relevant part of the fixtures docs here

AFAIK fixtures don't work for unit testing, although the plugin authors may add unit testing support in the future.

Answer 5

I was having a similar issue, and was able to overwrite dateCreated for my domain (in a Quartz Job test, so no @TestFor annotation on the Spec, Grails 2.1.0) by

• Using the BuildTestData plugin (which we use regularly anyway, it is fantastic)
• Double-tapping the domain instance with save(flush:true)

For reference, my test:

import grails.buildtestdata.mixin.Build
import spock.lang.Specification
import groovy.time.TimeCategory

@Build([MyDomain])
class MyJobSpec extends Specification {

    MyJob job

    def setup() {
        job = new MyJob()
    }

    void "test execute fires my service"() {
        given: 'mock service'
            MyService myService = Mock()
            job.myService = myService

        and: 'the domains required to fire the job'
            Date fortyMinutesAgo
            use(TimeCategory) {
                fortyMinutesAgo = 40.minutes.ago
            }

            MyDomain myDomain = MyDomain.build(stringProperty: 'value')
            myDomain.save(flush: true) // save once, let it write dateCreated as it pleases
            myDomain.dateCreated = fortyMinutesAgo
            myDomain.save(flush: true) // on the double tap we can now persist dateCreated changes

        when: 'job is executed'
            job.execute()

        then: 'my service should be called'
            1 * myService.someMethod()
    }
}

Answer 6

I got this working by simply setting the field. The trick was to do that after the domain object has been saved first. I assume that the dateCreated timestamp is set on save and not on object creation.

Something along these lines

class Message {
  String content
  Date dateCreated
}

// ... and in test class

def yesterday = new Date() - 1
def m = new Message( content: 'hello world' )
m.save( flush: true )
m.dateCreated = yesterday
m.save( flush: true )

Using Grails 2.3.6