RE: Using cactus with junit tests and ant on existing and running container.

[Simon Gibbs <en...@simongibbs.co.uk>]

Hi Erez, I have been following this thread as I have had similar issues,
so I will see if I can make some useful suggestions.

On Thu, 2004-01-15 at 16:05, Erez Nahir wrote:
> > Oh ok. I thought you wanted to automate the whole process. 

> I do want very much but it's a very complicated project developed over 6
> remote sites and its 3rd release so we cant get it all in one, for now I can
> only try to automate the test itself :-(.

I'm surprised this is relevant. Are you not using CVS? You should be
able to build and run from anywhere with equal ease. Also you should
really have a dev server for your project and not be constrained by
using a shared server instance. I'm guessing you have encountered office
politics :-)

> > Simply use the <junit> task as you've done.
> But than it doesn't started in the Tomcat VM but in my VM isn't it?

That is entirely true. The point is that many of your tests may not need
to run inside the Tomcat JVM. Cactus is not needed for that type of
test.

> The NCDFE is really not relevant here IMHO.

I agree it looks like the NCDFE is caused by the tests running outside
the Tomcat JVM when you need them to be on the inside. I got this too.

> The process as it is done today is as follows:
> 1. Build generate the project image;
> 2. Build generate project-test image;
> 3. Developers install the project.
> 4. Developers install the project-test (now all the Cactus specific stuff is
> added but we can live with it because we run also external tests on project
> image without project-test install);

This is fine, but you can automate 3 and 4. I ended up using the <get>
task to call the Tomcat manager and trigger the reloading of my wars.
BTW I would try to use a WAR, the unpacked-war format is a tomcat
feature - not part of the standard.

The app manager documentation is here:
http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/tomcat-4.0-doc/manager-howto.html I'm
not sure if its available on 3.0 though  <shrug>.

> 5. Developers open a browser and use index.html with the links.
> 6. Upon clicking on specific link, the relevant test case is started and
> generate the known junit report (but only for this test).
> 
> Now, what I'm looking for is to improve steps number 5 and 6 (in addition I
> can add stuff to step 4), such that I'll be able to run either a single url
> call that will generate the xmls (and than I'll generate the report with
> <junitreport> ant's task), or do ant call with cactus to run all the test
> cases as if they are on the real VM.
> 

There are a couple of ways to improve this. First would be to simply use 
<get> to trigger all the tests from the build file and download the 
results as you want them. Alternatively you can bundle the tests together 
into a TestSuite which can then be invoked in one step either from the 
browser or Ant.

Good luck

-- 
Simon Gibbs <en...@simongibbs.co.uk>
http://www.simongibbs.co.uk
07866 741 461 / 33 / BA15 1TB