Jakarta Struts Cookbook

13.7. Testing Your Actions in the Container

Problem

You want to unit test an action as it's running within your application server.

Solution

Use StrutsTestCase to create a test that can be run using the Cactus integration testing framework.

Discussion

Recipe 13.6 shows you how to test an action independently from the servlet container using StrutsTestCase (http://strutstestcase.sourceforge.net). You can use Struts-TestCase, in conjunction with the Cactus testing framework (http://jakarta.apache.org/cactus), to test Struts actions running in the servlet container. This type of testing is referred to as integration unit testing.

Integration unit testing isn't unit testing in the pure sense. Unit tests isolate the unit from outside dependencies. This makes it easier to identify the cause of errors when a test fails. However, an integrated unit test may give you a more realistic view than a non-integrated test. If you are planning on deploying your application to different application servers (or different versions of the same application server), then you'll find integration unit testing to be invaluable.

Cactus was developed to provide these types of unit tests. It was originally developed to test Enterprise JavaBeans but is equally up to the task of testing servlets, servlet filters, and JSPs. In fact, Cactus can be used to test any type of behavior that relies on a J2EE/Servlet container. However, these tests come at a cost of increased complexity and slower test performance. Using StrutsTestCase, ...