Hi Davor, Davor Cengija wrote: > How to unit-test taglibs, possibly without servlet container? > > I'm writing wml-related taglib for struts and my code is craving for > some unit-tests. I found tagunit but it requires servlet container, it's > executed in a jsp page etc. I'd like to have automated unit testing on > each build. > > How does Cactus fit in? I recently discovered it but haven't downloaded > it yet.
Cactus provides an "in-container" test framework, so it doesn't quite meet your requirements. However, it does provide custom ant tasks and sample scripts to automate server startup, deployment and server shutdown. The result is that the tests take longer to execute, and that you need to do a bit of configuration work, but you get a very nice framework that also makes sure your taglib works on many containers. The alternative is to use a mock/dummy-objects approach. See (for example) http://www.mockobjects.com/ for mock implementations of many servlet/jsp-related classes. This approach has the advantage of having faster-executing tests and not requiring a container to be installed. OTOH, the mock implementation itself may have bugs or behave slightly different than "real" implementations. Personally, I prefer the Cactus approach, because the "faith" in the correctness of your taglib is higher. A common problem with testing tag libraries is that you either need to execute them in a simple JSP page, or simulate the inner workings of the JSP engine (lifecycle, synchronization, etc.). For example, if you want to test how your tag deals with being reused, you need to know pretty precisely how a JSP engine would implement this, within the boundaries determined by the JSP spec. Considering the tremendous amount of subtle differences between, and bugs in, different servlet containers, the test results might be quite far from reality. I usually do unit tests by calling the taglib directly from the testcase (using Cactus), and in addition test the tags in simple JSP pages that preferrably generate XML responses that are easily "assertable" by the test code (using Cactus + HttpUnit). This latter type of test (functional) can of course only be performed against a real servlet container. -- Christopher Lenz /=/ cmlenz at gmx.de -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
