Replace spring bean in one context with mock version from another context

Question

I\'m writing an integration test where an application context xml is initialized during startup. There are several test methods in the test class which make use of a specifi

Answer 1

You can :

• use the Profile annotation if you have spring 3.1.
• use the Primary annotation
• use qualifiers
• wire the bean yourself in the spring context

and i'm sure there are even more options.

Answer 2

There is not a clear way to replace a a bean in a refreshed ApplicationContext unless you close it and refresh it again.

To emulate it, the common approach is to use a Proxy of the bean that you want to replace and change the target at runtime.

You can do it easily using the framework aop support classes:

<bean id="realBean" class="RealClass" />
<bean id="mockBean" class="MockClass" />
<bean id="targetSource" class="org.springframework.aop.target.HotSwappableTargetSource">
    <constructor-arg ref="realBean" />
</bean>

<bean id="bean" class="org.springframework.aop.framework.ProxyFactoryBean">
    <property name="targetSource" ref="targetSource" />
</bean>

 

@Test
public void testWithMockBean() {
Object real = targetSource.swap(mock);
....
// do your test work
...
targetSource.swap(real);

}

Answer 3

Create a testApplicationContext with

<beans>
    <import resource="classpath*:appContext.xml" />
    <bean id="mockbeanOfX" class=....../>
</beans>

and then load this test application context in your testcase. Now you can get the mock bean from the application context and pass it whereever needed.