title: Setup database for Unit tests with Spring, Hibernate and Spring Transaction Support
body: <p>I want to test integration of dao-layer with my service-layer in a unit-test. So I need to setup some data in my database (hsql). For this setup I need an own transaction at the begining of my testcase to ensure that all my setup is really commited to database before starting my testcase.</p>
  
  <p>So here's what I want to achieve:</p>
  
  <pre><code>// NotTranactional
  public void doTest {
    // transaction begins
    setup database
    // commit transaction
  
    service.doStuff() // doStuff is annotated @Transactional(propagation=Propagation.REQUIRED)
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Here is my not working code:</p>
  
  <p>
      </p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;bean id="dataSource"
      class="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource" destroy-method="close"
      p:driverClassName="org.hsqldb.jdbcDriver"
      p:url="jdbc:hsqldb:mem:posmail" p:username="sa"
      p:password="" /&gt;
  
  &lt;bean id="sessionFactory"
      class="org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.annotation.AnnotationSessionFactoryBean"&gt;
      &lt;property name="dataSource" ref="dataSource" /&gt;
      &lt;property name="annotatedClasses"&gt;
          &lt;list&gt;        
              &lt;value&gt;de.diandan.asynch.modell.receipt.Position&lt;/value&gt;
              &lt;value&gt;de.diandan.asynch.modell.receipt.Receipt&lt;/value&gt;
          &lt;/list&gt;
      &lt;/property&gt;    
  
      &lt;property name="hibernateProperties"&gt;
          &lt;props&gt;
              &lt;prop key="hibernate.connection.useUnicode"&gt;true&lt;/prop&gt;
              &lt;prop key="hibernate.connection.characterEncoding"&gt;UTF-8&lt;/prop&gt;
              &lt;prop key="hibernate.connection.charSet"&gt;UTF-8&lt;/prop&gt;
              &lt;prop key="hibernate.dialect"&gt;org.hibernate.dialect.HSQLDialect&lt;/prop&gt;
              &lt;prop key="hibernate.show_sql"&gt;false&lt;/prop&gt;
              &lt;prop key="hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto"&gt;update&lt;/prop&gt;
              &lt;!-- Enable Hibernate's automatic session context management 
              &lt;prop key="current_session_context_class"&gt;thread&lt;/prop&gt; --&gt;
  
              &lt;!-- Disable the second-level cache  --&gt;
              &lt;prop key="cache.provider_class"&gt;org.hibernate.cache.NoCacheProvider&lt;/prop&gt;
  
              &lt;prop key="hibernate.show_sql"&gt;false&lt;/prop&gt;
  
          &lt;/props&gt;
      &lt;/property&gt;
  &lt;/bean&gt;
  
  &lt;bean id="transactionManager" 
        class="org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.HibernateTransactionManager"&gt;
      &lt;property name="sessionFactory" ref="sessionFactory"/&gt;
  &lt;/bean&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>My Testcase</p>
  
  <pre><code>@RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class)
  @ContextConfiguration(locations={"/asynchUnit.xml"})
  @DirtiesContext(classMode=ClassMode.AFTER_EACH_TEST_METHOD)
  public class ReceiptServiceTest implements ApplicationContextAware {
    @Autowired(required=true)
    private UserHome userHome;
  
    private ApplicationContext context;
  
    @Before
    @Transactional(propagation=Propagation.REQUIRED)
    public void init() throws Exception {
      User user = InitialCreator.createUser();
      userHome.persist(user);
    }
  
    @Test
    public void testDoSomething() {
      ...
    }
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Leading to this exception:</p>
  
  <pre><code>org.hibernate.HibernateException: No Hibernate Session bound to thread, and configuration does not allow creation of non-transactional one here
      at org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.SpringSessionContext.currentSession(SpringSessionContext.java:63)
      at org.hibernate.impl.SessionFactoryImpl.getCurrentSession(SessionFactoryImpl.java:687)
      at de.diandan.asynch.modell.GenericHome.getSession(GenericHome.java:40)
      at de.diandan.asynch.modell.GenericHome.persist(GenericHome.java:53)
      at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
      at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
      at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
      at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
      at org.springframework.aop.support.AopUtils.invokeJoinpointUsingReflection(AopUtils.java:318)
      at org.springframework.aop.framework.JdkDynamicAopProxy.invoke(JdkDynamicAopProxy.java:196)
      at $Proxy28.persist(Unknown Source)
      at de.diandan.asynch.service.ReceiptServiceTest.init(ReceiptServiceTest.java:63)
      at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
      at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
      at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
      at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
      at org.junit.runners.model.FrameworkMethod$1.runReflectiveCall(FrameworkMethod.java:44)
      at org.junit.internal.runners.model.ReflectiveCallable.run(ReflectiveCallable.java:15)
      at org.junit.runners.model.FrameworkMethod.invokeExplosively(FrameworkMethod.java:41)
      at org.junit.internal.runners.statements.RunBefores.evaluate(RunBefores.java:27)
      at org.springframework.test.context.junit4.statements.RunBeforeTestMethodCallbacks.evaluate(RunBeforeTestMethodCallbacks.java:74)
      at org.springframework.test.context.junit4.statements.RunAfterTestMethodCallbacks.evaluate(RunAfterTestMethodCallbacks.java:83)
      at org.springframework.test.context.junit4.statements.SpringRepeat.evaluate(SpringRepeat.java:72)
      at org.springframework.test.context.junit4.SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.runChild(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.java:231)
      at org.junit.runners.BlockJUnit4ClassRunner.runChild(BlockJUnit4ClassRunner.java:50)
      at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner$3.run(ParentRunner.java:193)
      at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner$1.schedule(ParentRunner.java:52)
      at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.runChildren(ParentRunner.java:191)
      at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.access$000(ParentRunner.java:42)
      at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner$2.evaluate(ParentRunner.java:184)
      at org.springframework.test.context.junit4.statements.RunBeforeTestClassCallbacks.evaluate(RunBeforeTestClassCallbacks.java:61)
      at org.springframework.test.context.junit4.statements.RunAfterTestClassCallbacks.evaluate(RunAfterTestClassCallbacks.java:71)
      at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.run(ParentRunner.java:236)
      at org.springframework.test.context.junit4.SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.run(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.java:174)
      at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit4.runner.JUnit4TestReference.run(JUnit4TestReference.java:49)
      at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.TestExecution.run(TestExecution.java:38)
      at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.runTests(RemoteTestRunner.java:467)
      at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.runTests(RemoteTestRunner.java:683)
      at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.run(RemoteTestRunner.java:390)
      at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.main(RemoteTestRunner.java:197)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I dont know whats the right way to get the transaction around setup database.</p>
  
  <p>What I tried:</p>
  
  <pre><code>@Before
  @Transactional(propagation=Propagation.REQUIRED)
  public void setup() {
    setup database
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>-> Spring seems not to start transaction in @Before-annotated methods. Beyond that, thats not what I really want, cause there are a lot merhods in my testclass which needs a slightly differnt setup, so I need several of that init-methods.</p>
  
  <pre><code>@Transactional(propagation=Propagation.REQUIRED)
  public void setup() {
    setup database
  }
  
  public void doTest {
    init();
  
    service.doStuff() // doStuff is annotated @Transactional(propagation=Propagation.REQUIRED)
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>--> init seems not to get started in transaction</p>
  
  <p>What I dont want to do:</p>
  
  <pre><code>public void doTest {
    // doing my own transaction-handling
    setup database
    // doing my own transaction-handling
  
    service.doStuff() // doStuff is annotated @Transactional(propagation=Propagation.REQUIRED)
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>--> start mixing springs transaction-handling and my own seems to get pain in the ass.</p>
  
  <pre><code>@Transactional(propagation=Propagation.REQUIRED)
  public void doTest {
    setup database
    service.doStuff()
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>--> I want to test as real as possible situation, so my service should start with a clean session and no transaction opened</p>
  
  <p>So whats the right way to setup database for my testcase?</p>