@IfProfileValue vs @ActiveProfiles in the context of Spring test

Question

I am in reference to Spring test and the following annotations:

• @IfProfileValue
• @ActiveProfiles

I currently use @ActiveProfiles in my application and I recently discovered the existence of the @IfProfileValue annotation which seems to provide similar functionnality.

Can someone please explain what the differences are between those two annotations perhaps by providing usage examples that would contrast the two?

Answer 1

As stated in the Javadoc, @IfProfileValue is used to indicate that a test is enabled for a specific testing profile or environment.

Whereas, @ActiveProfiles is used to declare which active bean definition profiles should be used when loading an ApplicationContext for test classes.

In other words, you use @IfProfileValue to control whether a test class or test method will be executed or skipped, and you use @ActiveProfiles to set the active bean definition profiles that will be used to load the ApplicationContext for your test.

Please note that @IfProfileValue was introduced in Spring Framework 2.0, long before the notion of bean definition profiles, and @ActiveProfiles was first introduced in Spring Framework 3.1.

Both annotations contain the term profile, but they are actually completely unrelated!

The term profile is perhaps misleading when considering the semantics for @IfProfileValue. The key is to think about test groups (like those in TestNG) instead of profiles. See the examples in the JavaDoc for @IfProfileValue. Here's an excerpt:

@IfProfileValue(name = "test-groups", values = { "unit-tests", "integration-tests" })
public void testWhichRunsForUnitOrIntegrationTestGroups() {
    // ...
}

The above test method would be executed if you set the test-groups system property (e.g., -Dtest-groups=unit-tests or -Dtest-groups=integration-tests).

The Context configuration with environment profiles section of the Testing chapter in the Spring Reference manual provides detailed examples of how to use @ActiveProfiles.

Regards,

Sam (author of the Spring TestContext Framework)