In a previous blog post we have seen the IgnoreIf extension. There is also a counterpart: the Requires extension. If we apply this extension to a feature method or specification class than the method or whole class is executed when the condition for the @Requires annotation is true. If the condition is false the method or specification is not executed. As a value for the @Requires annotation we must specify a closure. In the closure Spock adds some properties we can use for our conditions:

• jvm can be used to check a Java version or compatibility.
• sys returns the Java system properties.
• env used to access environment variables.
• os can be used to check for operating system names.
• javaVersion has the Java version as BigDecimal, eg. 1.8.

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If we need to add a Java system property or change the value of a Java system property inside our specification, then the change is kept as long as the JVM is running. We can make sure that changes to Java system properties are restored after a feature method has run. Spock offers the RestoreSystemProperties extension that saves the current Java system properties before a method is run and restores the values after the method is finished. We use the extension with the @RestoreSystemProperties annotation. The annotation can be applied at specification level or per feature method.

In the following example we see that changes to the Java system properties in the first method are undone again in the second method:

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As a Spring developer we know how to load a resource in a Service. The prefixes of classpath: and file: are commonly used. But what if we want to load resources from a different location like a database table RESOURCE, with our own prefix db:? The Spring Framework provides some default built-in resource implementations, which can be found in the chapter Resources in the Spring Framework Reference Guide. The URL is prefixed and handled by the corresponding ResourceLoader (JavaDoc). If we want to load a resource from a database table RESOURCE we have to create our own ResourceLoader which triggers on the prefix db:.

Let's create an interface which describes the action of getting a resource based on the resourceName.

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Spcok has a lot of nice extensions we can use in our specifications. The AutoCleanup extension makes sure the close() method of an object is called each time a feature method is finished. We could invoke the close() method also from the cleanup method in our specification, but with the @AutoCleanup annotation it is easier and immediately shows our intention. If the object we apply the annotation to doesn't have a close() method to invoke we can specify the method name as the value for the annotation. Finally we can set the attribute quiet to true if we don't want to see any exceptions that are raised when the close() method (or custom method name, that is specified) is invoked.

In the following example code we have a specification that is testing the WatchService implementation. The implementation also implements the Closeable interface, which means we can use the close() method to cleanup the object properly. We also have a custom class WorkDir with a delete() method that needs to be invoked.

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Spock is able to change the execution order of test methods in a specification. We can tell Spock to re-run failing methods before successful methods. And if we have multiple failing or successful tests, than first run the fastest methods, followed by the slower methods. This way when we re-run the specification we immediately see the failing methods and could stop the execution and fix the errors. We must set the property optimizeRunOrder in the runner configuration of the Spock configuration file. A Spock configuration file with the name SpockConfig.groovy can be placed in the classpath of our test execution or in our USER_HOME/.spock directory. We can also use the Java system property spock.configuration and assign the filename of our Spock configuration file.

In the following example we have a specification with different methods that can be successful or fail and have different durations when executed:

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When we execute a Gradle test task in IntelliJ IDEA the IDE test runner is used. This means we can get a nice overview of all tests that have run. If a test is successful we get a green light, otherwise it is red in case of an error or orange in case of a failure. Gradle also generates a nice HTML report when we run the test task. It is placed in the directory build/reports/tests/. IntelliJ IDEA has a button which opens this report when we click on it. The following screenshot shows the button with the tooltip that opens a Gradle test report:

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In a previous post we saw how can use the Spock configuration file to include or exclude specifications based on annotations. Instead of using annotations we can also use classes to include or exclude specifications. For example we could have a base specification class DatabaseSpecification. Other specifications dealing with databases extend this class. To include all these specifications we use the DatabaseSpecification as value for the include property for the test runner configuration.

Because Java (and Groovy) doesn't support real multiple inheritance this might be a problem if we already have specifications that extends a base class, but the base class cannot be used as filter for the include and exclude runner configuration. Luckily we can also use an interface as the value for the inclusion or exclusion. So we could simple create a marker interface and implement this interface for these specifications we want to include or exclude from the test execution.

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One of the lesser known and documented features of Spock if the external Spock configuration file. In this file we can for example specify which specifications to include or exclude from a test run. We can specify a class name (for example a base specification class, like DatabaseSpec) or an annotation. In this post we see how to use annotations to have some specifications run and others not.

The external Spock configuration file is actually a Groovy script file. We must specify a runner method with a closure argument where we configure basically the test runner. To include specification classes or methods with a certain annotation applied to them we configure the include property of the test runner. To exclude a class or method we use the exclude property. Because the configuration file is a Groovy script we can use everything Groovy has to offer, like conditional statements, println statements and more.

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Logback is a SLF4J API implementation for logging messages in Java and Groovy. We can configure Logback with a Groovy configuration file. The file is a Groovy script and allows for a nice an clean way (no XML) to configure Logback. If we want to show the logging configuration and see how Logback is configured we must add a StatusListener implementation in our configuration. The StatusListener implementation prints out the configuration when our application starts. Logback provides a StatusListener for outputting the information to system out or system error streams (OnConsoleStatusListener and OnErrorConsoleStatusListener). If we want to disable any status messages we use the NopStatusListener class.

In the following example configuration file we define the status listener with the statusListener method. We use the OnConsoleStatusListener in our example:

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When we use Logback as SLF4J API implementation in our code we can have our logging output send to our console. By default the standard output is used to display the logging output. We can alter the configuration and have the logging output for the console send to standard error. This can be useful when we use a framework that uses the standard output for communication and we still want to see logging from our application on the console. We set the property target for the ConsoleAppender to the value System.err instead of the default System.out. The following sample Logback configuration in Groovy send the logging output to the console and standard error:

appender("SystemErr", ConsoleAppender) {
    // Enable coloured output.
    withJansi = true

    encoder(PatternLayoutEncoder) {
        pattern = "%blue(%-5level) %green(%logger{35}) - %msg %n"
    }

    // Redirect output to the System.err.
    target = 'System.err'

}

root(DEBUG, ["SystemErr"])

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