Play Framework 2 Tutorial: Testing

How to test Play Framework routes, controllers and views

This post, part three of the Play Framework tutorial series, I'm going to touch on the basics of testing. Three areas will be covered here:

1. Testing Routes
2. Testing Controllers
3. Testing Views

This is by no means a comprehensive guide for testing but is aimed at folks just beginning to use the Play Framework. The Play Framework includes and uses JUnit by default.

Running tests

To run tests just run play test from your project root or simply test from the Play shell.

Testing Routes

package routes;

import org.junit.Test;
import play.mvc.Result;

import static org.fest.assertions.Assertions.assertThat;
import static play.test.Helpers.GET;
import static play.test.Helpers.fakeRequest;
import static play.test.Helpers.routeAndCall;

public class IndexRouteTest {

    @Test
    public void rootRoute() {
        Result result = routeAndCall(fakeRequest(GET, "/"));
        assertThat(result).isNotNull();
    }

    @Test
    public void badRoute() {
        Result result = routeAndCall(fakeRequest(GET, "/bad"));
        assertThat(result).isNull();
    }
}

Testing Controllers

package controllers;

import org.junit.Test;
import org.openqa.selenium.htmlunit.HtmlUnitDriver;
import play.libs.F;
import play.libs.WS;
import play.mvc.Result;
import play.test.TestBrowser;

import static org.fest.assertions.Assertions.assertThat;
import static play.mvc.Http.Status.OK;
import static play.test.Helpers.callAction;
import static play.test.Helpers.charset;
import static play.test.Helpers.contentAsString;
import static play.test.Helpers.contentType;
import static play.test.Helpers.fakeApplication;
import static play.test.Helpers.running;
import static play.test.Helpers.status;
import static play.test.Helpers.testServer;

public class ApplicationControllerTest {

    @Test
    public void callIndex() {
        Result result = callAction(controllers.routes.ref.Application.index());
        assertThat(status(result)).isEqualTo(OK);
        assertThat(contentType(result)).isEqualTo("text/html");
        assertThat(charset(result)).isEqualTo("utf-8");
        assertThat(contentAsString(result)).contains("hello, world");
    }

    @Test
    public void testIndexWithFakeApp() {
        running(fakeApplication(), new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                // todo test model finder
            }
        });
    }

    @Test
    public void testIndexWithTestServerRunnable() {
        running(testServer(3333), new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                assertThat(
                        WS.url("http://localhost:3333").get().get().getStatus()
                ).isEqualTo(OK);
            }
        });
    }

    @Test
    public void runInBrowser() {
        running(testServer(3333), HtmlUnitDriver.class, new F.Callback() {
            public void invoke(TestBrowser browser) {
                browser.goTo("http://localhost:3333");
                assertThat(browser.$("body").getTexts().get(0)).isEqualTo("hello, world");
            }
        });
    }
}

Testing Views

package views;

import org.junit.Test;
import play.mvc.Content;

import static org.fest.assertions.Assertions.assertThat;
import static play.test.Helpers.contentAsString;
import static play.test.Helpers.contentType;

public class IndexViewTest {

    @Test
    public void indexTemplate() {
        Content html = views.html.index.render("test");
        assertThat(contentType(html)).isEqualTo("text/html");
        assertThat(contentAsString(html)).contains("test");
    }
}

Play Framework Jobs