Cannot override initializer of @ContextConfiguration when using @ContextHierarchy [SPR-10997]

[spring-projects-issues]

Eric E opened SPR-10997 and commented

Overview

In the @ContextHierarchy uniqueness check, it should take into account the inherited parts; however, it currently ignores the inherited "locations" (i.e., the merged configuration). So the configuration declared in a subclass (see code examples below) appears to be non-unique.

Note that when I forgo inheritance of @ContextHierarchy entirely (comment it out of AbstractWebTests and put the complete annotation including initializers into the concrete class), then all of the tests pass.

---

Steps to Reproduce

I have these two classes, declared like so:

@ActiveProfiles(profiles={"testing"})
@ContextHierarchy({
  @ContextConfiguration(name="rootContext", locations={"classpath:app-config.xml", "classpath:database-config.xml", "classpath:security-config.xml"}),
  @ContextConfiguration(name="webContext", locations={"classpath:mvc-config.xml"})
})
@WebAppConfiguration
public abstract class AbstractWebTests extends
AbstractTransactionalJUnit4SpringContextTests {
}

public class PropertyMockingApplicationContextInitializer implements ApplicationContextInitializer<ConfigurableApplicationContext> {

    @Override
    public void initialize(ConfigurableApplicationContext applicationContext) {
        // details omitted
    }

    // details omitted
}

@ContextHierarchy({
  @ContextConfiguration(name="rootContext", inheritInitializers=false, initializers=PropertyMockingApplicationContextInitializer.class),
  @ContextConfiguration(name="webContext", inheritInitializers=false, initializers=PropertyMockingApplicationContextInitializer.class)
})
public class UserManagementIntegrationTest extends AbstractWebTests {
    // details omitted
}

What I am trying to do here is have some generic configuration in my AbstractWebTests class, and then provide some specific initialization in the concrete test classes. I thought that I would be able to just override the initializer part of the @ContextHierarchy, but have no luck so far.

Unfortunately when I do the above, I get this:

2013-10-16 12:26:20,046 ERROR [org.springframework.test.context.ContextLoaderUtils] - The @ContextConfiguration elements configured via @ContextHierarchy in test class [ca.gc.health.istop.um.UserManagementIntegrationTest] must define unique contexts to load.

---

Affects: 3.2.4

Reference URL: http://forum.spring.io/forum/spring-projects/container/724288-trouble-overriding-initializer-in-contexthierarchy-in-subclass

Sub-tasks:

• Backport "Cannot override initializer of @ContextConfiguration when using @ContextHierarchy" [SPR-11011] #15639 Backport "Cannot override initializer of @ContextConfiguration when using @ContextHierarchy"

Referenced from: commits 7658d85

[spring-projects-issues]

Sam Brannen commented

Eric E, good catch!

Indeed, this does appear to be a real bug. The intention of the uniqueness check is to ensure that a developer does not accidentally configure one or more application contexts in a hierarchy that would result in the exact same ApplicationContext be loaded at different levels in the hierarchy, since this would never make sense.

As you noticed, however, the current implementation performs the uniqueness check at a given test class level instead of against the merged configuration for all test class levels in the test class hierarchy.

So we aim to provide a solution to this in the Spring Framework 4.0 time frame.

Regards,

Sam

[spring-projects-issues]

Sam Brannen commented

Eric E,

Can anyone clarify the way this should work?

As you discovered, this does not currently work.

But how do I make this work?

As an ugly work-around, you could reference different, empty @Configuration classes for each level in the context hierarchy in the configuration declaration in the subclass. This would trick the framework into thinking that the local configuration is unique, thus avoiding the exception. Of course, this is less than ideal.

Also, I don't like the idea of repeating the initializer for each @ContextConfiguration. If there is a better way, I would appreciate any suggestions.

Initializers can currently only be declared per @ContextConfiguration annotation. Thus there is no way to avoid repeating the declaration of the initializer at this time. However, we could consider adding an initializers attribute to @ContextHierarchy in a future release. If you feel that this would be a good feature to have, please open a separate JIRA issue to request that.

Regards,

Sam

[spring-projects-issues]

Sam Brannen commented

This issue has been addressed as described in the comments for GitHub commit 7658d856ca:

Assert context uniqueness against merged config

Prior to this commit, the uniqueness check for @ContextConfiguration
attributes within a @ContextHierarchy was performed at a single test
class level instead of against the merged configuration for all test
class levels in the test class hierarchy.

This commit addresses this issue by moving the uniqueness check
algorithm from resolveContextHierarchyAttributes() to
buildContextHierarchyMap() within ContextLoaderUtils.

[spring-projects-issues]

Sam Brannen commented

Please note that this has been backported to Spring Framework 3.2.5 in conjunction with #15639.