How to make @BeforeClass run prior Spring TestContext loads up?

Question

it should be piece of cake for programmers using testNG. I have this scenario

    @ContextConfiguration(locations={"customer-form-portlet.xml", "classpath:META-INF2/base-spring.xml" })
    public class BaseTestCase extends AbstractTestNGSpringContextTests {

...
        @BeforeClass
        public void setUpClass() throws Exception {

But I'd need the spring context to be load up after @BeforeClass. I I came up with overriding AbstractTestNGSpringContextTests methods :

@BeforeClass(alwaysRun = true)
protected void springTestContextBeforeTestClass() throws Exception {
    this.testContextManager.beforeTestClass();
}

@BeforeClass(alwaysRun = true, dependsOnMethods = "springTestContextBeforeTestClass")
protected void springTestContextPrepareTestInstance() throws Exception {
    this.testContextManager.prepareTestInstance(this);
}

and make my method

@BeforeClass(alwaysRun = true, dependsOnMethods = "setUpClass")
protected void springTestContextPrepareTestClass() throws Exception {
}

But then I get :

Caused by: org.testng.TestNGException: org.springframework.test.context.testng.AbstractTestNGSpringContextTests.springTestContextPrepareTestInstance() is not allowed to depend on protected void org.springframework.test.context.testng.AbstractTestNGSpringContextTests.springTestContextBeforeTestClass() throws java.lang.Exception

Make it public also doesn't help. Could please anybody mention here if it can be done in a working manner :-) I know that I could load the testContext manually, but that wouldn't be so fancy.

It works like this, but TestContextManager is not visible so I can't call prepareTestInstance() method on it :

@Override
@BeforeClass(alwaysRun = true, dependsOnMethods = "setUpClass")
public void springTestContextPrepareTestInstance() throws Exception {
}

Answer 1

Well I created custom DependencyInjectionTestExecutionListener and I have overriden injectDependencies() method and done my init code in there

@TestExecutionListeners( inheritListeners = false, listeners = {DITestExecutionListener.class, DirtiesContextTestExecutionListener.class})
@ContextConfiguration(locations= "customer-form-portlet.xml")
public class BaseTestCase extends AbstractTestNGSpringContextTests {

AND

public class DITestExecutionListener extends DependencyInjectionTestExecutionListener {


    protected void injectDependencies(final TestContext testContext) throws Exception {

        INITSTUFF();

        Object bean = testContext.getTestInstance();
        AutowireCapableBeanFactory beanFactory = testContext.getApplicationContext().getAutowireCapableBeanFactory();
        beanFactory.autowireBeanProperties(bean, AutowireCapableBeanFactory.AUTOWIRE_NO, false);
        beanFactory.initializeBean(bean, testContext.getTestClass().getName());
        testContext.removeAttribute(REINJECT_DEPENDENCIES_ATTRIBUTE);
    }