|
Last update : April 21 2002
Doc for : v1.3
About
What is Cactus ?
News
Changes
Features/Status
Goals
Roadmap/Todo
Contributors
Contributing
Cactus Users
Tested on ...
License
Downloads
Downloads
Documentation
How it works ?
Getting Started
Mock vs Container
Javadocs
FAQ
Howto Guides
Classpath Howto
Config Howto
Migration Howto
TestCase Howto
Security Howto
Ant Howto
HttpUnit Howto
Sample Howto
EJB Howto
IDE Howto
JUnitEE Howto
Support
Bug database
Mailing list
Misc.
Why the name ?
Logo Challenge
Resources
Stats
Developers
CVS
Coding Conventions
Build results
|
Introduction |
 |
You need to have a good understanding of Ant before
reading this tutorial. If you don't, I suggest you read the
Ant
User Manual first.
|
This tutorial explains how start Cactus tests from your Ant build
script (i.e. build.xml ).
The Ant tasks involved for running a Cactus test are the following :
-
Step 0 : (optional) Deploy configuration files for your
container,
-
Step 1 : Package your Cactus tests as a WAR file and
deploy it to your servlet engine webapps directory,
-
Step 2 : Start your servlet engine if it is not already
started,
-
Step 3 : Run the tests using JUnit,
-
Step 4 : Stop the servlet engine (if need be)
Cactus provides a custom Ant task (called the
runservertests task) that helps perform all these tasks.
The rest of this tutorial will explain how to write an Ant build
file (build.xml ) that performs these tasks and use
the Cactus custom Ant task.
During the remainder of this tutorial we will show examples for
Tomcat 4.0. However, the principle can be applied to any other
container. Ant Scripts for other containers can be found in the
/sample/build directory where you have unpacked the
Cactus distribution.
|
The 'runservertests' task |
This task will perform several actions, in the following order :
-
Check if a server is already started by constantly trying to
call the test URL defined by the
testURL
attribute (see the example below),
-
If a server is not started, call the Ant target defined by the
startTarget attribute (see the example below). This
target is
supposed to start your container. The runservertests
task will then constantly poll the server by calling the test URL
until the server answers back,
-
It will then call the Ant target defined by the
testTarget attribute (see the example below). This
target is
supposed to start the unit tests. This is usually implemented
by using the Ant junit task,
-
Once the tests are finished (i.e. when the
testTarget has finished executing), it will then
call the Ant target defined by the stopTarget
attribute (see the example below). This target is supposed to stop
the container. The runservertests
task will then constantly poll the server by calling the test URL
until the server stops answering, at which point it will consider
the server to be stopped. Note that the stopTarget
will only get called if the server was not already started when
the runservertests task began executing. This is to
allow keeping running servers for intensive debugging phases.
The runservertests task is generic in the sense that
you are free to implement the startTarget ,
testTarget and stopTarget as you wish and
they will get called at the right time.
Example :
<!--
========================================================================
Run Tomcat 4.0 tests
========================================================================
-->
<target name="test.tomcat.40" depends="prepare.test.tomcat.40"
if="tomcat.home.40" description="Run tests on Tomcat 4.0">
<!-- Start the servlet engine, wait for it to be started, run the
unit tests, stop the servlet engine, wait for it to be stopped.
The servlet engine is stopped if the tests fail for any reason -->
<runservertests
testURL="http://localhost:${test.port}/test/ServletRedirector?Cactus_Service=RUN_TEST"
startTarget="start.tomcat.40"
stopTarget="stop.tomcat.40"
testTarget="test"/>
</target>
|
Before you can execute the runservertests task, you
need to define it for Ant as it is not a standard Ant task. A
good place to do this is in an init target.
Example :
<!--
======================================================================
Initialize the build. Must be called by all targets
======================================================================
-->
<target name="init">
[...]
<taskdef name="runservertests" classname="org.apache.cactus.ant.RunServerTestsTask">
<classpath>
<pathelement location="${cactus.ant.jar}"/>
</classpath>
</taskdef>
[...]
</target>
|
where ${cactus.ant.jar} is an Ant property that points
to the cactus-ant.jar file found in the
lib/ directory where you unpacked the Cactus
distribution.
 |
The prepare.test.tomcat.40 target is described in
Step 0 below.
|
 |
The tomcat.home.40 is simply an Ant property that
points to the directory where Tomcat 4.0 has been installed. If this
property is not defined we don't run the tests.
|
|
Step 0: Deploy container configuration files |
There are 2 possibilities for configuring your application server :
-
You install it somewhere on your computer (or on another machine)
and you deploy your test WAR (see Step 1 below) by copying it
to the right subdirectory within it. Your WAR will then be placed
alongside with others and your webapp will use the configuration
files common to all webapps,
-
Or, you can create your own set of container configuration files,
hosted within your project, that you copy to your own deployment
subdirectory (i.e. not shared).
In the provided Cactus Ant scripts, we have decided to follow
approach 2 for the following reasons :
-
We keep the control of our project files as they are deployed
within the directory of our project and thus it is easy to
perform a clean of all generated files,
-
We do not "pollute" the installed container by dropping files
within it and we do not need to modify global configuration
files that may prevent other applications we are developing
from not running someday (because we would have made an
incompatible change),
-
We completely control our needed container configuration.
-
We can guarantee to the user who wants to try the Cactus sample
application that it will not deploy anything outside the scope of
the Sample directory. Unlike windows applications that you install
and that copies tens of DLL to shared directory, overwrite existing
files, ... :(
However, this may not be the best approach for all cases, as :
-
It is more difficult to set up as you need to understand how your
container is configured (However, we have already done the job for
you for most of the existing containers),
-
You have only a single application to run and test and have
dedicated your application server installation for it so you don't
care about putting files in there and modifying global
configuration,
-
You want to be able to deploy in production several webapps that
share the same server and thus must coexist and share common
configuration files.
If you choose solution 1, then you can simply skip this step. The
only actions to perform will be, for some containers, to edit their
configuration files to tell them about your webapp (some will
automatically pick you test WAR if you drop it in the correct
directory).
Example :
<!--
========================================================================
Prepare directories and variables for running the tests
========================================================================
-->
<target name="prepare.test.tomcat.40"
depends="check.test.tomcat.40,testwar" if="tomcat.home.40">
<echo message="tomcat.home.40 = ${tomcat.home.40}"/>
<property name="target.tomcat40.dir"
value="${target.test.dir}/tomcat40"/>
<property name="conf.tomcat40.dir" value="${conf.test.dir}/tomcat40"/>
<!-- Create work and conf directories and copy configuration files -->
<mkdir dir="${target.tomcat40.dir}/conf"/>
<mkdir dir="${target.tomcat40.dir}/work"/>
<mkdir dir="${target.tomcat40.dir}/webapps"/>
<!-- Delete some config file so that they will be copied every time -->
<delete file="${target.tomcat40.dir}/conf/server.xml"/>
<!-- Remove the auto deployed webapp so that it is redeployed every
time -->
<delete dir="${target.tomcat40.dir}/webapps/test"/>
<copy todir="${target.tomcat40.dir}/conf" filtering="on">
<fileset dir="${conf.tomcat40.dir}"/>
</copy>
<!-- Copy the Tomcat web.xml -->
<copy file="${tomcat.home.40}/conf/web.xml"
todir="${target.tomcat40.dir}/conf"/>
<!-- Copy the war file -->
<copy file="${target.test.dir}/test.war"
tofile="${target.tomcat40.dir}/webapps/test.war"/>
</target>
|
 |
The ${target.test.dir} Ant property needs to be
defined prior to calling this target and needs to be set to the
location where the tests will be deployed. It should be set to any
subdirectory of your output directory. This property will also be
used later on in step 1 to copy the test WAR file.
|
 |
The ${conf.test.dir} Ant property also needs to be
defined prior to calling this target and represent the location of
server configuration files (in the current example of Tomcat 4.0,
these are the global web.xml and
server.xml ).
|
|
Step 1: create and deploy test WAR file |
Creating a WAR file is the preferred way of deploying Cactus tests
to your servlet engine. Check the
Getting Started guide and
the example below for details on what files to include in the WAR.
Example :
<!--
========================================================================
Create a Cactus test war file for the sample application.
========================================================================
-->
<target name="testwar" depends="compile">
<!-- Create the war file -->
<war warfile="${target.test.dir}/test.war"
webxml="${conf.test.dir}/web.xml">
<classes dir="${target.classes.sample.dir}"/>
<classes dir="${target.classes.unit.dir}"/>
<!-- log_server.properties need to be in the server classpath -->
<classes dir="${conf.test.dir}">
<include name="log_server.properties"/>
<include name="cactus.properties"/>
</classes>
<lib dir="${target.lib.dir}"/>
<fileset dir="${web.dir}"/>
</war>
</target>
|
where :
-
${conf.test.dir} : directory containing configuration
files for the test,
-
${target.classes.*.dir} : directory where the java
classes have been compiled. These are the classes under test + the
test classes,
-
${target.lib.dir} : directory containing the needed jars
(junit.jar , cactus.jar , ...).
-
${web.dir} : directory containing the web files to
include in the test webapp (JSPs, HTML, ...).
 |
The compile target is used to compile all java classes
into the ${target.classes.*.dir} directory.
|
|
Step 2: Start the container |
Example :
<!--
========================================================================
Start Tomcat 4.0
========================================================================
-->
<target name="start.tomcat.40">
<java classname="org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap" fork="yes">
<jvmarg value="-Dcatalina.home=${tomcat.home.40}"/>
<jvmarg value="-Dcatalina.base=${target.tomcat40.dir}"/>
<arg value="start"/>
<classpath>
<fileset dir="${tomcat.home.40}">
<include name="bin/bootstrap.jar"/>
</fileset>
</classpath>
</java>
</target>
|
|
Step 3: Run the unit tests |
We start the unit test by calling a JUnit test runner (we use the
text runner in this example). Example :
<!--
========================================================================
Run the client JUnit test cases.
========================================================================
-->
<target name="test">
<junit printsummary="yes" haltonfailure="yes" haltonerror="yes"
fork="yes">
<classpath>
<!-- Cactus.propertie and log_client.properties need to be in
the classpath -->
<pathelement location="${target.conf.dir}"/>
<pathelement location="${target.classes.sample.dir}"/>
<pathelement location="${target.classes.unit.dir}"/>
<path refid="project.class.path"/>
</classpath>
<formatter type="plain" usefile="false"/>
<test name="org.apache.cactus.unit.TestAll"/>
<test name="org.apache.cactus.sample.TestAll"/>
</junit>
</target>
|
 |
The list of jars to include in your classpath is explained and
detailed in the Classpath
Howto guide.
|
|
Step 4: Stop the container |
Example :
<!--
========================================================================
Stop Tomcat 4.0
========================================================================
-->
<target name="stop.tomcat.40">
<java classname="org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap" fork="yes">
<jvmarg value="-Dcatalina.home=${tomcat.home.40}"/>
<jvmarg value="-Dcatalina.base=${target.tomcat40.dir}"/>
<arg value="stop"/>
<classpath>
<fileset dir="${tomcat.home.40}">
<include name="bin/bootstrap.jar"/>
</fileset>
</classpath>
</java>
</target>
|
|
|
|