MockMvcBuilders should populate ServletContextAttribute WebApplicationContext.ROOT_WEB_APPLICATION_CONTEXT_ATTRIBUTE to enable view technologies use WebApplicationContextUtils.getRequiredWebApplicationContext(…) [SPR-12553]

[spring-projects-issues]

Oliver Drotbohm opened SPR-12553 and commented

Wehen setting up a MockMvc instance from a WebApplicationContext the ServletContext attribute WebApplicationContext.ROOT_WEB_APPLICATION_CONTEXT_ATTRIBUTE does not get populated. View technologies used for rendering views often lookup the ApplicationContext using WebApplicationContextUtils.getRequiredWebApplicationContext(…). That method expects the ApplicationContext to be registered under said attribute.

I currently work around the issue by manually setting the attribute:

context.getServletContext().setAttribute(WebApplicationContext.ROOT_WEB_APPLICATION_CONTEXT_ATTRIBUTE, context);

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Affects: 4.1.3

Referenced from: commits f6d2fe4, 32aafb2, 33b9bd7

[spring-projects-issues]

Rossen Stoyanchev commented

Oliver Drotbohm, I'm wondering how did you ran into this issue? The standaloneSetup has always supported setting the ServletContext attribute (see this line and the webAppContextSetup seems to be working fine in 4.1.3 due to support in the TestContext framework (i.e. there should be nothing to do on our side). I've created a [sample project|https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-framework/blob/master/spring-test/src/main/java/org/springframework/test/web/servlet/setup/StandaloneMockMvcBuilder.java#L332) that shows the root context attribute being set in both cases.

The fix for this issue actually seems to overwrite what the TestContext framework does in the webAppContextSetup case, and does so incorrectly. So as of 4.1.4 that's actually broken (see #17667). Just trying to verify the history before making any changes. But as of now it seems like we simply need to revert the fix for this ticket and close the ticket as invalid.

[spring-projects-issues]

Sam Brannen commented

Oliver was obviously instantiating a WebApplicationContext manually and not setting the ROOT_WEB_APPLICATION_CONTEXT_ATTRIBUTE in the ServletContext - which he arguably should have been doing, since he created the WebApplicationContext. :-p

See my comments in SPR-13075 for details.

Regards,

Sam

[spring-projects-issues]

Sam Brannen commented

WARNING: for anyone following this issue, the original fix for this issue introduced a breaking change that will be reverted in #17667.

However, the work done in conjunction with #17667 will introduce functionality similar to that in the fix for this issue, except that the new new fix will only be applied if the supplied WebApplicationContext does not already have the ROOT_WEB_APPLICATION_CONTEXT_ATTRIBUTE properly set in its ServletContext.

Regards,

Sam

[spring-projects-issues]

Sam Brannen commented

FYI: the aforementioned change is now available in master (i.e., for Spring 4.2 RC2) and will be backported to 4.1.7