Starting an H2 Database Server from Maven?

Question

Suppose I want to create and use an H2 database for my integration tests.

Maven has a command to run tests: mvn test.

Is there a way to tell maven t

Answer 1

Since H2 doesn't provide Maven plugin you should start it using maven-antrun-plugin. Write code for start and stop h2 engine in ant task and call it when your integration test starts and stop.

See details on http://docs.codehaus.org/display/MAVENUSER/Maven+and+Integration+Testing

Answer 2

I was able to get it to work without using an external server just by adding the dependency to H2 via Maven and then using this bean:

<bean id="dataSource" class="org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.DriverManagerDataSource">
    <property name="driverClassName" value="org.h2.Driver"/>
    <property name="url" value="jdbc:h2:file:h2\db"/>
    <property name="username" value="sa"/>
    <property name="password" value=""/>        
</bean>

Then again, this required that I use a file-based DB instead of in-memory. But it does the trick.

Answer 3

In my project, for unit testing, I asked Spring to handle this database creation and initialization. As stated in the H2 documentation, you can create a bean for that:

<bean id = "org.h2.tools.Server"
    class="org.h2.tools.Server"
    factory-method="createTcpServer"
    init-method="start"
    destroy-method="stop">
    <constructor-arg value="-tcp,-tcpAllowOthers,true,-tcpPort,8043" />
</bean>

You simply need to start the Spring context with this configuration when you start your unit tests.