Why is my bean null?

Question

I am trying to learn how to use applicationContext. My goal is to swap out a mock data repository for a real one when using my unit tests. I don't want to do this explicitly, I want to do this with dependency injection.

So as a simple test before I make things complicated, I'm simply trying to get a bean out of my applicationContext.xml. From what I've read, this should work:

@ContextConfiguration(locations = "/applicationContext.xml")
public class ResultsListTests {

     @Resource
     CompanyResult resultBean;

     @Test
     public void shouldAddResults() {
         assertEquals(resultBean.getCompanyName(), "Microsoft");

But my resultBean is always null. Here is my applicationContext.xml, which is located under WebContent/WEB-INF:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans>
    <bean id="resultBean" name="resultBean" class="com.trgr.cobalt.company.domain.CompanyResult">
        <property name="companyName">
            <value>Microsoft</value>
        </property>
     </bean>
</beans>

So why is my resultBean always null? What have I done incorrectly?

Answer 1

You are missing a @RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class) annotation:

@RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class)
@ContextConfiguration(locations = "/applicationContext.xml")
public class ResultsListTests {

     @Resource
     CompanyResult resultBean;

     @Test
     public void shouldAddResults() {
         assertEquals(resultBean.getCompanyName(), "Microsoft");
     }
}

BTW, in your sample, WebContent/WEB-INF is not the proper location for applicationContext.xml.

If you specify @ContextConfiguration(locations = "/applicationContext.xml") then Spring will look for applicationContext.xml at the root of the classpath, not in WebContent/WEB-INF (jUnit is 100% unaware of the fact that this is a web application).

For more information, see Spring reference documentation.