How do I load RSL libraries during unit tests with flexunit using gradlefx?

Question

I am migrating our flex applications to being build with gradle. So far, things have been going well, except unit testing.

root build.gradle

description='Parent project for flex applications'

buildscript {
    repositories {
        mavenCentral()
        mavenLocal()
    }

    dependencies {
        classpath group: 'org.gradlefx', name: 'gradlefx', version: '0.6'
    }
}

allprojects {
    group='com.mycompany.flex'
    version='0.0.1-SNAPSHOT'

    repositories {
        mavenCentral()
        mavenLocal()
    }
}

subprojects {
    apply plugin: 'gradlefx'

    dependencies {
        flexSDK group: 'org.apache', name: 'apache-flex-sdk', version: '4.1.0A', ext: 'zip' 

        //unit test libraries
        test group: 'org.hamcrest', name: 'hamcrest-as3-flex', version: '1.1.3', ext: 'swc'

        test group: 'org.flexunit', name: 'flexunit-tasks', version: '4.1.0-8', ext: 'jar'
        test group: 'org.flexunit', name: 'flexunit-flex', version: '4.1.0-8', ext: 'swc'
        test group: 'org.flexunit', name: 'flexunit-cilistener', version: '4.1.0-8', ext: 'swc'     
    }


    flexUnit { 
        command="C:/Windows/System32/Macromed/Flash/flashplayer_11_sa_debug.exe"
    }
}

problematic project build.gradle

description='module_MyModule'
type = 'swf'

dependencies {
    rsl project(':library_common')

    external group: 'flexlib', name: 'flexlib', version: '2.5', ext: 'swc'

    merged group: 'com.esri.ags', name: 'agslib', version: '2.5-2011-11-30', ext: 'swc'
    merged group: 'org.robotlegs', name: 'robotlegs-framework', version: '1.5.2', ext: 'swc'
    merged group: 'org.alivepdf', name: 'alivepdf', version: '0.1.5RCfeb2010', ext: 'swc'
}

Compiling works with no problem, gradle test results in the following output:

:module_MyModule:test
[ant:flexunit] Compiling test classes: [com.mycompany.MyModelTest]
[ant:null] Loading configuration file C:\Users\PGreen\.gradle\gradleFx\sdks\56bb8970d35ada5a72c3596118157aa694a7e83e\frameworks\flex-config.xml
:module_MyModule:test FAILED

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* What went wrong:
Execution failed for task ':module_MyModule:test'.
> Compilation failed:
C:\development\flexworkspaces\gradle\module_MyModule\src\main\actionscript\com\mycompany\MyModel.as(11): col: 22 Error: The definition of base class BaseModel was not found.

      public class MyModel extends BaseModel
                                   ^


* Try:
Run with --stacktrace option to get the stack trace. Run with --info or --debug option to get more log output.

BUILD FAILED

Total time: 14.006 secs

The base class BaseModel is defined in project ':library_common'. If I change the configuration from rsl to merged, everything works fine. So the problem seems to be related to the flash player not knowing where to look for ':library_common' when it tries to load it at runtime. How do I specify this? In my search I have found similar problems with maven using the flexmojos plugin, but overall no solutions.

Answer 1

At this moment the compilation of the unit test application is being delegated to the ANT task that comes with FlexUnit (I assume unit testing with FlexMojos works in a similar way). Unfortunately it is this task that doesn't seem to handle a few situations very well.

We have other issues which have the same root cause; for instance "It's not possible to keep metadata when running FlexUnit tests".
We have a solution in the pipeline, but it requires us to rewrite the test task so that GradleFx compiles the test application and passes the resulting swf to FlexUnit instead of having FlexUnit doing the compilation. As you may have guessed this will not be fixed overnight.

In the meantime I can only offer you a suggestion, one that I haven't tested: perhaps it might be possible to put your RSL in the test scope on top of the rsl scope, by adding this to your build script:

test project(':library_common')