Arquillian Nobles, we crown you!

Even with the first beta still on the horizon, Arquillian has already begun to transform the enterprise testing landscape, making the formerly untestable testable.

The early influence of the Arquillian project is the result of a legion of community members integrating their diverse skills to flatten the barrier to integration testing. The collaboration across projects and across communities is truly inspiring. It’s safe to say that not only is the Arquillian invasion on, it’s well ahead of its release schedule. And that’s awesome. And the growing community is the reason why.

Noble Ike, the Arquillian prince, and the core project team, would like to recognize the community members that have helped shape Arquillian during each release cycle, either through code contributions, participation or advocacy. For donating their time, effort and patience to make Arquillian a better testing framework for the benefit of the community, we award each of them the title Arquillian Noble.

The Arquillian Nobles page on the project site lists the recipients along with the contributions they made. Contributors are awarded for either a specific release, or for general support of the project. The names of the community members crowned so far are listed here (for reference):

  • Pete Muir
  • Cheyenne Weaver
  • Karel Piwko
  • David Allen
  • Andy Gibson
  • Jason Porter
  • Jesper Pedersen
  • Jean Deruelle
  • Thomas Diesler
  • Stale Pedersen
  • Nicklas Karlsson
  • Ken Gullaksen
  • Alejandro Montenegro
  • Adrian Cole
  • Paul Bakker
  • German Escobar
  • Michael Schuetz
  • Adam Warski
  • Markus Eisele
  • Cosmin Martinconi
  • John Ament
  • Stuart Douglas
  • Jordan Ganoff
  • Lincoln Baxter III
  • Mike Brock

Community members may be crowned multiple times. Once a contributor becomes a team member, subsequent contributions are not listed here (team members are noble by default).

In addition to being listed on the Arquillian Nobles page, we are working to get a crown added to each recipient’s JBoss Community profile so that it is globally visible. We’ll announce when that’s available.

The more container adapters and extensions we create, the more power we put in the hands of the developer, and the better enterprise software will become. Feature transparency FTW!

Thanks to all the Arquillian Nobles, present and future, for making Arquillian awesome and for simplifying testing to child’s play!

Arquillian documentation now in Confluence

I’m happy to announce that we have moved the Arquillian Reference Guide out of docbook format in the source tree and over to the new JBoss Documentation Confluence instance.

Arquillian Documentation Editor

The old DocBook version has been imported and with a few fixes in the imported wiki code it all seems ok.

From now on, If you find any errors in the formating or content, you can simply just fix it ~:)

Arquillian 1.0.0 Alpha 1 Released!

I’m happy to announce the first alpha release of Arquillian, an open source (ASL v2) framework for running tests in the container. If you want to read more about Arquillian’s mission and how it fits into our vision for testing at JBoss, read Pete’s companion blog entry, Testing Java EE the JBoss way.

It’s one thing to unit test your code outside of the container, but what happens when you run it inside? Does it still behave the same? How about testing against container managed resources? This is where Arquillian comes into its own.

With Arquillian it’s just as easy to write integration tests as it is to write unit tests. In fact, to minimize the burden on you, Arquillian integrates with familiar testing frameworks, allowing reuse of tools such as the JUnit/TestNG support in your favorite IDE, Maven Surefire, Ant – in fact any tool which supports TestNG or JUnit!

To show you just how simple this is, here’s an example test case setup using JUnit (we’ll get to the actual test next):

@RunWith(org.jboss.arquillian.junit.Arquillian.class)
public class TemperatureConverterTestCase {
 
    @Deployment
    public static JavaArchive createTestArchive() {
        return Archives.create("test.jar", JavaArchive.class)
            .addClasses(TemperatureConverter.class, TemperatureConverterBean.class);
    }
 
}

By using JUnit’s @RunWith annotation, you tell JUnit to use Arquillian as the test controller. Arquillian will then look for a static method marked with the @Deployment annotation, which defines your micro-deployment. In the example above, the micro-deployment contains a session bean interface and implementation, which Arquillian will deploy to the container.

Arquillian hooks into your testing frameworks lifecycle and reacts to events. On the before suite and after suite events the container is started/stopped, while on the before class and after class events your micro-deployment is deployed to/undeployed from the container.

The test case is started in the local JVM. Arquillian then overrides the normal test execution and migrates the test so that it’s executed inside the container. By the time the test framework calls your @Test annotated method, the test is running inside the container, giving us the possibility to work with container managed resources. Here’s the complete test class with JUnit @Test methods.

@RunWith(org.jboss.arquillian.junit.Arquillian.class)
public class TemperatureConverterTestCase {
 
    @Deployment
    public static JavaArchive createTestArchive() {
        return Archives.create("test.jar", JavaArchive.class)
            .addClasses(TemperatureConverter.class, TemperatureConverterBean.class);
    }
 
    @EJB
    TemperatureConverter converter;
 
    @Test
    public void shouldConvertToCelsius() {
        Assert.assertEquals(converter.convertToCelsius(32d), 0d);
        Assert.assertEquals(converter.convertToCelsius(212d), 100d);
    }
 
    @Test
    public void shouldConvertToFarenheit() {
        Assert.assertEquals(converter.convertToFarenheit(0d), 32d);
        Assert.assertEquals(converter.convertToFarenheit(100d), 212d);
    }
}

Note how we can use @EJB to inject the session bean from our deployment into the test case for use in our test method – neat!

The Arquillian TestEnricher SPI supports all the injection annotations from Java EE 6:

  • @EJB
  • @Resource
  • @PersistenceContext
  • @Inject

Since there are no container specific code/configuration in this example test case, it’s portable. That means it can be run in GlassFish, JBoss AS or OpenEJB, or all three! The choice is yours.

I want to learn more, where should I go from here?

You can follow up with some in depth usage scenarios and tests described in these articles:

We also have reference documentation which walks you through the examples from Arquillian, and shows you how to create your own Arquillian test suite. You might also find the Javadoc useful (API, SPI), especially if you plan on adding support for another container. You can also check out the forums and more articles can be found on our community site. If your interested in chatting to us, please drop by #arquillian on irc.freenode.net

So, what’s next?

Some of the things you can expect from Arquillian in the future are:

  • Local run mode — Sometimes, you don’t want to run the test case inside the container itself. A local run mode will be added; a mode where your test controls the deployment but is not deployed as a part of it. This will give you the chance to run a test against, for example, JSF pages or RMI (testing for those nasty Non-Serializable / SessionClosed exceptions).
  • Multiple deployments controlled by same test — Sometimes your micro-deployment is not enough to test on its own and you want to package other components as part of the same deployment. For example, you need to test the interaction between two Web applications.
  • Support for method argument injection — In the first alpha we only support field injection. In alpha 2 we will be extending the TestEnricher SPI to include support for method argument injection:
@Test
public void shouldWithdrawFromAccount(@EJB AccountManager manager)
        throws Exception {
    ...
}
  • Test method interceptors – Another planned enricher SPI is a test method interceptor. With this we can add support for transactions:
@Test
@TransactionAttribute(TransactionAttributeType.REQUIRES_NEW)
public void shouldWithdrawFromAccount(@EJB AccountManager manager)
        throws Exception {
    ...
}
  • Convention over configuration – The micro-deployments should be as easy as possible to create, so adding support for common conventions should help speed up the test development. For example we can automatically add all classes in the same package as the test class to the deployment
  • Arquillian controlled resources – Sometimes the container requires container specific configuration e.g, java.naming.* parameters needed to create an InitialContext. If the test case has to explicitly deal with this, it places the burden for container portability back on the test case author. Arquillian will provide an extension point to add Arquillian created/managed resources:
// auto creation of InitialContext based on running container, remote or local.
@ArquillianResource
InitialContext context;
// auto creation of URL to a deployed Servlet, including http port/ip etc.
@ArquillianResource(MyServlet.class)
URL myServletURL;
// the bundle context of a deployed osgi bundle
@ArquillianResource
BundleContext context;
  • Support for more containers – We will plan to support more containers! Currently we have planned: GlassFish 3 (as a remote container), Jetty, Tomcat, Resin, Felix OSGI. (Hey Spring guys, you’re welcome to join in too!)
  • Third party integrations – In the spirit of ease of development, we integrate with existing test frameworks as much as possible, but we are always keen to learn of new frameworks we can integrate with. We already plan to support Selenium for example.
  • Support for other build tools – Arquillian Alpha1 comes with Maven support. In upcoming releases, we will distribute builds targeted toward other build tools like Ant and Gradle (that shout out is for our resident Gradle expert, Jason Porter).
  • A project page, logo and artwork – All good things must look good. That’s why the JBoss.org design team is hard at work putting together artwork for the Arquillian project page. Stay tuned!

Where can I see Arquillian in use?

Arquillian is a new framework, but it’s going to be put right to work as the workhorse to test all the Seam 3 modules. It will also be our recommended solution for testing your Seam application. (We’d love to see the community try it out for testing Seam 2 applications). We’ll also replace the current core of the JSR-299 CDI TCK with Arquillian, likely for the 1.1 version of the TCK. (To provide a little history, Arquillian originated from the JBoss Test Harness that was developed by Pete Muir as the foundation of the CDI TCK).

If you have any thoughts on these ideas, or would like to suggest some new avenues we should explore, please contact us on the Arquillian Dev forum.

And, what’s open source with out the community?!

A big thanks to the Arquillian and ShrinkWrap community for helping out on this release by being early adopters, joining in on community meetings, general discussions and writing blogs, articles and patches. In alphabetical order: Dan Allen, Steven Boscarine, German Escobar, Jordan Ganoff, Ken Gullaksen, Pete Muir, Jason Porter and Andrew Lee Rubinger. You guys rock!

[ Issues | Javadoc: API, SPI | Reference Guide | Release Notes | Maven artifacts ]

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Testing Java EE the JBoss way

Recently, we’ve been working hard on a solution to improve the testability of Java EE, and particularly JBoss AS. I’m pleased to say that a critical piece of puzzle, Arqullian, is now available. Congratulations to Aslak and the Arquillian team for releasing the first alpha of Arquillian! You can read more about Arquillian’s mission, and our plans for Java EE testing below; alternatively, there are some quick links at the bottom if you want to dive right in.

The mission of the Arquillian project is to provide a simple test harness that developers can use to produce a broad range of integration tests for their Java applications (most likely enterprise applications). A test case may be executed within the container, deployed alongside the code under test, or by coordinating with the container, acting as a client to the deployed code.

Arquillian defines two styles of container, remote and embedded. A remote container resides in a separate JVM from the test runner. Its lifecycle may be managed by Arquillian, or Arquillian may bind to a container that is already started. An embedded container resides in the same JVM and is mostly likely managed by Arquillian. Containers can be further classified by their capabilities. Examples include a fully compliant Java EE application server (e.g., GlassFish, JBoss AS, Embedded GlassFish), a Servlet container (e.g., Tomcat, Jetty) and a bean container (e.g., Weld SE). Arquillian ensures that the container used for testing is pluggable, so the developer is not locked into a proprietary testing environment.

Arquillian seeks to minimize the burden on the developer to carry out integration testing by handling all aspects of test execution, including:

  • managing the lifecycle of the container (start/stop),
  • bundling the test class with dependent classes and resources into a deployable archive,
  • enhancing the test class (e.g., resolving @Inject, @EJB and @Resource injections),
  • deploying the archive to test (deploy/undeploy) and
  • capturing results and failures.

To avoid introducing unnecessary complexity into the developer’s build environment, Arquillian integrates transparently with familiar testing frameworks (e.g., JUnit 4, TestNG 5), allowing tests to be launched using existing IDE, Ant and Maven test plugins without any add-ons.

The Arquillian Mission Statement

The first alpha release of Arquillian gives us support for JBoss AS (remote deployments), GlassFish (embedded deployments), Weld SE (embedded deployments) and OpenEJB (embedded deployments). You can also inject beans and component (using @Resource or @Inject) into test cases.

We’ll be adding supported containers in future releases – if you want to see your favorite container on the list, join our community and we can show you how to add support for it. We also plan to add more convention over configuration, meaning you’ll only need to specify a single deployment and reuse it in all your test cases. Aslak has written more about future ideas in a follow-up blog entry announcing the 1.0.0 Alpha 1 release. In that entry he also provides some examples of how to use Arquillian.

We’re strong believers in writing tests, and writing tests which actually test your business logic in the environment it will finally run in, rather than introducing mocked out objects (which may behave differently). While unit testing is important to ensure the correctness of your logic, it does not ensure the correctness of two objects which interact with each other.

With the help of the ShrinkWrap project, Arquillian gives you the ability to create micro-deployments around your tests. Micro-deployments are contained sub-sections of your application logic. This gives you the ability to do lower level integration testing on a lower level then normal integration. It is up to you at what level you want to test!

We also know you need a convenient way to run your test quickly, and that is why we are getting JBoss Embedded AS in shape. Embedded AS offers the potential to bootstrap JBoss AS inside the same JVM when you run your test, making it super easy to debug the test. Unfortunately, Embedded AS support didn’t make this release (we made a decision to release what we have now, rather than delay), but we will push this out to you as soon as it’s ready.

Testing your components and services gets you a long way, but you’ll nearly always want to test your presentation tier as well. And that’s where frameworks like JSFUnit and Selenium come in – they allow you to exercise the work flows your user will use. Support for both these frameworks is planned, as well as for Mock JSF Objects.

If you like what you’ve heard so far, but are worried that Arquillian requires build script wizardry to use, let us surprise you again! Being able to run any of these tests from within the IDE is a key goal of Arquillian — and the key to a rapid development cycle. Arquillian requires no build wizardry! So check out the documentation and give it a try today!

[ Issues | Javadoc: API, SPI | Reference Guide | Release Notes ]

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