How to unit test controllers that use springSecurityService?

Question

I have a user class like such:

class User {
    transient springSecurityService
    String displayName
    String password
<snip>
    protected void encodePassword() {
        password = springSecurityService.encodePassword(password)
    }
}

And a UserController. I'm trying to write unit tests for the UserController however I'm getting this error for save, update and delete tests:

java.lang.NullPointerException: Cannot invoke method encodePassword() on null object

What do I have to set up in the way of mocking to get this to work?

I have tried many combinations of mocking code such as the following, but I am at a loss.

defineBeans {
    springSecurityService(SpringSecurityService)
}

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

I personally don't like adding logic to production code to help satisfy a test. Sometimes you have to make a decision on what's best to do. Couple of options...

1. The above answer will work, but as I stated I personally wouldn't prefer
2. Don't unit test. Write all of your tests that run into this situation as integration tests.
3. Mock it out with a fake service.

If this code (or code that runs into the same problem) is sprinkled throughout your application then you'd probably want to figure out a way to mock out these calls in your unit tests for all test cases so you're not duplicating your setup efforts everywhere. An easy way to mock this out is with metaClassing.

@Test
public void something() {
   def user = ...
   def springSecurityService = new Object()
   springSecurityService.metaClass.encodePassword = {String password -> "ENCODED_PASSWORD"}
   user.springSecurityService = springSecurityService
   ...
}

Now when the springSecurityService.encodePassword gets invoked it should return "ENCODED_PASSWORD". I also create an Object instead of instantiating a new SpringSecurityService because if you instantiate an actual service then you may end up calling actual methods on that service unexpectedly and unknowingly and having your tests pass for the wrong reasons. I'd rather get a no such method error than a passing test that shouldn't be passing.