Support meta-annotation attribute overrides in the TestContext framework [SPR-11038]

[spring-projects-issues]

Dave Syer opened SPR-11038 and commented

Overview

#12483 is a nice start, but it didn't go far enough for me (I think).

Spring now supports overrides of "parent" annotation attributes (through its meta data representation utilities introduced in conjunction with #14814). The Spring TestContext Framework, however, is not yet taking advantage of this feature. So for instance you can annotate a custom annotation with @ContextConfiguration, but there's no way for the user of that annotation to provide their own context configuration locations (e.g. classes=...).

Deliverables

Support meta-annotation attribute overrides for the following annotations within the context of the TestContext framework.

1. @ContextConfiguration
2. @WebAppConfiguration
3. @ContextHierarchy
4. @ActiveProfiles
5. @DirtiesContext
6. @TestExecutionListeners
7. @IfProfileValue
8. @ProfileValueSourceConfiguration
9. @Transactional
10. @BeforeTransaction
11. @AfterTransaction
12. @TransactionConfiguration
13. @Rollback
14. @Repeat
15. @Timed

Notes

• AnnotatedElementUtils does not support overrides for the 'value' attribute of an annotation. It is therefore not possible or not feasible to support meta-annotation attribute overrides for some test-related annotations.
• Support for meta-annotation attribute overrides for @Transactional was already supported via SpringTransactionAnnotationParser.
• @BeforeTransaction and @AfterTransaction do not have attributes.
• @ContextHierarchy, @WebAppConfiguration, @Rollback, @Repeat, and @ProfileValueSourceConfiguration only have single 'value' attributes which cannot be overridden via Spring's meta-annotation attribute support.
• Although @IfProfileValue has 'values' and 'name' attributes, the typical usage scenario involves the 'value' attribute which is not supported for meta-annotation attribute overrides. Furthermore, 'name' and 'values' are so generic that it is deemed unfeasible to provide meta-annotation attribute override support for these.

---

Affects: 4.0 RC1

Issue Links:

• AnnotationUtils fails to retrieve attribute values from non-public annotations [SPR-11104] #15730 AnnotationUtils fails to retrieve attribute values from non-public annotations ("depends on")
• Allow meta-annotations to override attributes from their parent [SPR-10181] #14814 Allow meta-annotations to override attributes from their parent ("depends on")
• Document meta-annotation support in the TestContext framework [SPR-11109] #15735 Document meta-annotation support in the TestContext framework ("is depended on by")
• Provide meta-annotation support for test-related annotations [SPR-7827] #12483 Provide meta-annotation support for test-related annotations
• ContextLoader is supplied composed annotation class instead of test class for default resource detection [SPR-11455] #16081 ContextLoader is supplied composed annotation class instead of test class for default resource detection
• Support composed annotations declared on interfaces [SPR-11108] #15734 Support composed annotations declared on interfaces
• Introduce aliases for 'value' annotation attributes [SPR-11393] #16020 Introduce aliases for 'value' annotation attributes

Referenced from: commits 64f593d, c7c395d

[spring-projects-issues]

Sam Brannen commented

This has been addressed as described in the comments for GitHub commit c7c395d:

Support meta-annotation attr overrides in the TCF

Prior to this commit, the Spring TestContext Framework (TCF) supported
the use of test-related annotations as meta-annotations for composing
custom test stereotype annotations; however, attributes in custom
stereotypes could not be used to override meta-annotation attributes.

This commit addresses this by allowing attributes from the following
annotations (when used as meta-annotations) to be overridden in custom
stereotypes.

• @ContextConfiguration
• @ActiveProfiles
• @DirtiesContext
• @TransactionConfiguration
• @Timed
• @TestExecutionListeners

This support depends on functionality provided by
AnnotatedElementUtils. See the 'Notes' below for further details and
ramifications.

Notes:

• AnnotatedElementUtils does not support overrides for the 'value'
  attribute of an annotation. It is therefore not possible or not
  feasible to support meta-annotation attribute overrides for some
  test-related annotations.
• @ContextHierarchy, @WebAppConfiguration, @Rollback, @Repeat, and
  @ProfileValueSourceConfiguration define single 'value' attributes
  which cannot be overridden via Spring's meta-annotation attribute
  support.
• Although @IfProfileValue has 'values' and 'name' attributes, the
  typical usage scenario involves the 'value' attribute which is not
  supported for meta-annotation attribute overrides. Furthermore,
  'name' and 'values' are so generic that it is deemed unfeasible to
  provide meta-annotation attribute override support for these.
• @BeforeTransaction and @AfterTransaction do not define any attributes
  that can be overridden.
• Support for meta-annotation attribute overrides for @Transactional is
  provided indirectly via SpringTransactionAnnotationParser.

Implementation Details:

• MetaAnnotationUtils.AnnotationDescriptor now provides access to the
  AnnotationAttributes for the described annotation.
• MetaAnnotationUtils.AnnotationDescriptor now provides access to the
  root declaring class as well as the declaring class.
• ContextLoaderUtils now retrieves AnnotationAttributes from
  AnnotationDescriptor to look up annotation attributes for
  @ContextConfiguration and @ActiveProfiles.
• ContextConfigurationAttributes now provides a constructor to have its
  attributes sourced from an instance of AnnotationAttributes.
• ContextLoaderUtils.resolveContextHierarchyAttributes() now throws an
  IllegalStateException if no class in the class hierarchy declares
  @ContextHierarchy.
• TransactionalTestExecutionListener now uses AnnotatedElementUtils to
  look up annotation attributes for @TransactionConfiguration.
• Implemented missing unit tests for @Rollback resolution in
  TransactionalTestExecutionListener.
• SpringJUnit4ClassRunner now uses AnnotatedElementUtils to look up
  annotation attributes for @Timed.
• TestContextManager now retrieves AnnotationAttributes from
  AnnotationDescriptor to look up annotation attributes for
  @TestExecutionListeners.
• DirtiesContextTestExecutionListener now uses AnnotatedElementUtils to
  look up annotation attributes for @DirtiesContext.