How to load DBUnit test data once per case with Spring Test

Spring Test helpfully rolls back any changes made to the database within a test method. This means that it is not necessary to take the time to delete/reload the test data before each test method.

But if you use the @BeforeClass Junit annotation, then that forces the data loader to be static. A question that is explored here: Why must jUnit's fixtureSetup be static?

If the data initialization method is static, so must the data connection methods and the data source..and on and on...forcing everything to be static...which won't work. At which point, I ask - what good is Spring Test's ability to rollback changes when you have to delete/reload the test data anyway for every test??!?!

One approach that works is to create a "data initialiser" class, add it to a test Spring application context that also has your data source, and wire this application context into your tests. This relies on the fact that Spring caches the application context between test invocations.

For example, a test superclass:

@RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class)
@ContextConfiguration(locations={"classpath:test-application-context.xml"})
@Transactional
public abstract class DataLoadingTest {
    @Autowired
    protected DatabaseInitialiser databaseInitialiser;
}

With test-application-context.xml:

<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
       xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
       xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd">
    <bean id="dataSource" .../>

    <bean class="DatabaseInitialiser">
        <property name="dataSource" ref="dataSource"/>
    </bean>
</beans>

And

public class DatabaseInitialiser extends JdbcDaoSupport {
    @PostConstruct
    public void load() {
        // Initialise your database here: create schema, use DBUnit to load data, etc.
    }
}

In this example:

• all tests that rely on the database extend DataLoadingTest;
• Spring initialises the application context upon first test invocation;
• this calls DatabaseInitialiser.load(), via the @PostConstruct annotation;
• Spring keeps the application context in a cache;
• further test invocations wire in the DatabaseInitialiser from the application context, which is already cached;
• tests are transactional, and roll back at the end to the initial data set.

Likewise, DatabaseInitialiser can have a method annotated @PostDestroy to perform any rollback necessary at the end of the whole test run.