Grails Mocks: Decoupling Validation from Controller - unit-testing

Question

I have a several grails controllers that I generated and modified slightly. I'm working with the generated unit tests and getting them to pass, but I think I'm doing it the hard way. This is what I have.
package edu.liberty.swiper
import grails.test.mixin.*
import org.junit.*
#TestFor(AttendanceController)
#Mock([Attendance, Location, Reason, Person, LocCapMode, GuestContactMode, UserAccount])
class AttendanceControllerTests {
def location
def reason
void setUp() {
def capMode = new LocCapMode(description: "loc cap mode", username: "testuser").save(failOnError: true)
def guestMode = new GuestContactMode(description: "Guest Contact Mode", username: "testuser").save(failOnError: true)
location = new Location(description: "foo", locCapMode: capMode, username: "testuser", guestContactMode: guestMode).save(failOnError: true)
reason = new Reason(description: "test reason", username: "testuser").save(failOnError: true)
def person = new Person(firstName: "John", lastName: "Smith", lid: "L12345678", mi: "Q", pidm: 12345).save(failOnError: true)
def userAccount = new UserAccount(pidm: 12345, username: "testuser").save(failOnError:true)
}
def populateValidParams(params) {
assert params != null
params.personId = '12345'
params.username = "testuser"
params["location.id"] = location.id
params["reason.id"] = reason.id
params.timeIn = new Date()
}
void testIndex() {
...
}
void testList() {
...
}
void testCreate() {
...
}
void testSave() {
controller.save()
assert model.attendanceInstance != null
assert view == '/attendance/create'
response.reset()
populateValidParams(params)
controller.save()
assert response.redirectedUrl == '/attendance/show/1'
assert controller.flash.message != null
assert Attendance.count() == 1
}
void testEdit() {
...
}
...
What I'm hoping for is the ability to dynamically mock domain object, i.e. expect(Attendance.save()).andReturn(null) or expect(Attendance.save()).andReturn(testAttendance), so that I don't have to create the web of associated objects in my setUp method that are necessary to validate the domain object that is being manipulated by the controller.
Am I just looking at this all wrong? It seems like I should be able to decouple the controller logic from the validation logic., so that I can just tell the mock to tell the controller that validation passed or failed. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

I don't think there is a way to tell the mock that the validation of a certain object that is handled by a controller passed or failed but I might be wrong. But as I understand it your main concern is the creation of the web of associated objects right?
Without knowing what your controller looks like I would guess that you are getting needed domain objects in your controller by ID (e.g. Location) and load a Person by pidm and so on.
To simplify the creation of needed domain objects you could use .save(validate: false).
Your setUp method could look like this:
location = new Location().save(validate: false)
reason = new Reason().save(validate: false)
If you only need objects with valid IDs this would be sufficient.
new Person(pidm: 12345).save(validate: false)
new UserAccount(username: "testuser").save(validate: false)
Set certain fields to be able to use a finder like UserAccount.findByUserName().
So if your controller does something like
location = Location.get(params["location.id"])
reason = Reason.get(params["reason.id"])
userAccount = UserAccount.findByUserName(params.username)
...
new Attendance(location: location, reason: reason, userAccount: userAccount, ...)
the aforementioned lines should be satisfactory for your setUp method.
.save(validate: false) is very useful to just set values that are really needed in your test. I hope I got the whole thing right and I could be of help.

Answer 2

When mocking for unit tests, you don't have to have a complete object graph with every required value to test a single domain. For example, you could have something like this..
def department = new Department(name: "Accounting").save(validate: false)
def user = new User(username: "gdboling", department: department).save()
Assuming the only 2 required fields for User are username and department, but department might have many other fields that would fail validation, this will still work if all you really need to test is User.
You still have to specify them in #Mock, you just don't have to populate every bloody field. :)