Managing database connections for unit tests

Question

I have a series of unit test classes that use various connections to a database. Every test class uses two methods with the JUnit annotations BeforeClass and AfterClass to start and stop the database connections like so:

public class AccountTest
{
 private static DatabaseConnection _adminConnection;
 private static DatabaseConnection _salesUserConnection;
 private static DatabaseConnection _salesManagerConnection;
 private static DatabaseConnection _financeUserConnection;
 private static DatabaseHelper _helper;
 private static ArrayList<DatabaseConnection> _connections = new ArrayList<>();
 @BeforeClass
 public static void CreateTestEnvironment()
 {
 _helper = new DatabaseHelper();
 _adminConnection = _helper.DoLogin(SessionType.Administrator);
 _salesUserConnection = _helper.DoLogin(SessionType.SalesUser);
 _salesManagerConnection = _helper.DoLogin(SessionType.SalesManager);
 _financeUserConnection = _helper.DoLogin(SessionType.FinanceUser);
 _connections.add(_adminConnection);
 _connections.add(_salesUserConnection);
 _connections.add(_salesManagerConnection);
 _connections.add(_financeUserConnection);
 }
 @AfterClass
 public static void DestroyTestEnvironment()
 {
 for(DatabaseConnection connection: _connections)
 {
 _helper.DoLogout(connection);
 }
 }
}

I would then pass the connection to my helper object in a test like this for example:

@Test
public void AdministratorCanCreateAccount()
{
 Account account = new Account();
 account = _helper.CreateObject(account, _adminConnection);
 Assert.assertNotNull(account.getId());
}

The login/logout process in CreateTesEnvironment and DestroyTestEnvironment is duplicated throughout many different test classes, with some classes having more connections than others.

How could I manage the connections in a better way so that I'm not just copying and pasting the same BeforeClass and AfterClass code every time but keep them easily accessible to the unit tests?

• Timothy Truckle: Is your intention really doing unit testing or do you do integration testing using a 'JUnit'
• Meridian: Yes, you're correct it's more integration testing using JUnit in this instance.

Answer 1

Did you tried to move this logic to the helper itself ? It can receive a varargs of SessionType to connect and keep them until you tell him to destroy them. It can maintains a Map<SessionType, DatabaseConnection> to give access to them.

/* WARN; This is not production ready. Validation and exceptions handling 
 * is missing and the "destroy" method can be improved.
 */
public class DatabasesHelper {
 private final Map<SessionType, DatabaseConnection> connections = new HashMap<>();
 public void prepare(SessionType... sessions) {
 for(SessionType session : sessions) {
 connections.put(session, this.DoLogin(session));
 } 
 }
 public void destroy() {
 for(SessionType session : sessions) {
 this.DoLogout(connections.get(session));
 } 
 sessions.clear();
 }
}

Please note that your methods names does not follow the Java, naming conventions. You should use lowerCamelCase for them.