How to populate database only once before @Test methods in spring test?

Question

My next problem testing spring service layer with junit4 is: How to call script that populates database only once before all @Test methods: I want to execute this once befor

Answer 1

Building on Alfredos answer, this is a way to inject database information without calling the embedded database's default script. For instance, this may be useful when you want to automagically build the DDL for you - at least in tests.

@RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class)
@ContextConfiguration({"/applicationContext.xml"})
public class TestClass {

    @Autowired
    private ApplicationContext ctx;

    private JdbcTemplate template;

    @Autowired
    public void setDataSource(DataSource dataSource) {
       template = new JdbcTemplate(dataSource);
    }

    private static boolean isInitialized = false;

    @Before
    public void runOnce() {
        if (isInitialized) return;
        System.out.println("Initializing database");

        String script = "classpath:script.sql"; 
        Resource resource = ctx.getResource(script);
        JdbcTestUtils.executeSqlScript(template, resource, true);            
        isInitialized = true;
    }
}

This way, the runOnce() method is called once and only once for the test run. If you make isInitialized an instance field (non-static), the method will be called before every test. This way you can drop/repopulate the tables, if necessary, before every test run.

Note that this is still a rather quick-and-dirty solution and the sensible way to handle the database is in accordance with Ralph's answer.