What's the appropriate way to test code that uses MySQL-specific queries internally

Question

I am collecting data and store this data in a MySQL database using Java. Additionally, I use Maven for building the project, TestNG as a test framework, and Spring-Jdbc for accessing the database. I've implemented a DAO layer that encapsulates the access to the database. Besides adding data using the DAO classes I want to execute some queries which aggregate the data and store the results in some other tables (like materialized views).

Now, I would like to write some testcases which check whether the DAO classes are working as they should. Therefore, I thought of using an in-memory database which will be populated with some test data. Since I am also using MySQL-specific SQL queries for aggregating data, I went into some trouble:

1. Firstly, I've thought of simply using the embedded-database functionality provided by Spring-Jdbc to instantiate an embedded database. I've decided to use the H2 implementation. There I ran into trouble because of the aggregation queries, which are using MySQL-specific content (e.g. time-manipulation functions like DATE()). Another disadvantage of this approach is that I need to maintain two ddl files - the actual ddl file defining the tables in MySQL (here I define the encoding and add comments to tables and columns, both features are MySQL-specific); and the test ddl file that defines the same tables but without comments etc. since H2 does not support comments.
2. I've found a description for using MySQL as an embedded database which I can use within the test cases (http://literatitech.blogspot.de/2011/04/embedded-mysql-server-for-junit-testing.html). That sounded really promising to me. Unfortunately, it didn't worked: A MissingResourceExcpetion occurred "Resource '5-0-21/Linux-amd64/mysqld' not found". It seems that the driver is not able to find the database daemon on my local machine. But I don't know what I have to look for to find a solution for that issue.

Now, I am a little bit stuck and I am wondering if I should have created the architecture differently. Do someone has some tips how I should setup an appropriate system? I have two other options in mind:

1. Instead of using an embedded database, I'll go with a native MySQL instance and setup a database that is only used for the testcases. This options sounds slow. Actually, I might want to setup a CI server later on and I thought that using an embedded database would be more appropriate since the test run faster.
2. I erase all the MySQL-specific stuff out of the SQL queries and use H2 as an embedded database for testing. If this option is the right choice, I would need to find another way to test the SQL queries that aggregates the data into materialized views.
3. Or is there a 3rd option which I don't have in mind?

I would appreciate any hints.

Thanks, XComp

Answer 1

I've created Maven plugin exactly for this purpose: jcabi-mysql-maven-plugin. It starts a local MySQL server on pre-integration-test phase and shuts it down on post-integration-test.

Answer 2

If it is not possible to get the in-memory MySQL database to work I suggest using the H2 database for the "simple" tests and a dedicated MySQL instance to test MySQL-specific queries.

Additionally, the tests for the real MySQL database can be configured as integration tests in a separate maven profile so that they are not part of the regular maven build. On the CI server you can create an additional job that runs the MySQL tests periodically, e.g. daily or every few hours. With such a setup you can keep and test your product-specific queries while your regular build will not slow down. You can also run a normal build even if the test database is not available.

There is a nice maven plugin for integration tests called maven-failsafe-plugin. It provides pre- and post- integration test steps that can be used to setup the test data before the tests and to cleanup the database after the tests.