dbunit and null values

For testing database based applications with more or less fixed schema dbunit is nice for creating test data. There are several ways of defining the data in xml and loading it into the db. With the FlatXmlDataSet it looks like

The first row defines the schema for dbunit with this format. When you have self referencing data with columns linked to the pk column it gets more complicated. Think of a growing company with locations all over the world. The hq will be the primary location and all other belong to their regional hq which belongs to the global hq. In the table is a column parent_location as fk to the id column. So the global hq has no parent and all other rows have parents. With the above sample data all rows has null as value in the parent column. DBUnit’s FlatXmlDataSet ignores all other column data in subsequential rows if they are not mentioned in the first row of a table. To avoid this behavior you must provide a dtd inline or external to define the columns:




]>

  
  
  

Now the first row has a null parent value and all others the value defined in the XML file.

plugins disappear…

Eclipse 3.3 runs with Java 1.4 but recommended is Java 5. Every customer is different for us. Not every time is Java 5 or the current Java 6 the JRE for development / production. These technical requirements are not fix for all time. So i adjust my laptop settings when i start to work for a new customer. Under Windows is the PATH environment variable responsible to define which JRE is executed when you run a java application like the eclipse ide or ANT. It contains the bin folder of the JDK/JRE. If not defined then the java.exe in %SYTEMROOT%\system32 (e.g. C:\windows\system32) check the windows registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\JavaSoft\Java Runtime Environment -> CurrentVersion (e.g. value 1.6)

For a quick check i open a dos shell via entering “cmd” in the execute textfield of windows and type “java -version”:

java version “1.4.2_16”

Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.4.2_16-b05)

Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.4.2_16-b05, mixed mode)

These recommendation for Java 5 as runtime are valid as well for the plugins. Eclipse plugins define in the META-INF/MANIFEST file which runtime is minimum required:

Bundle-RequiredExecutionEnvironment: J2SE-1.5

The plugin with such a definition will not be activated during start up if the workbench jre does not fit the requirement. So far so good. I start a new workspace. Changed the workspace path to a new folder during startup. Eclipse looks ok on the first look but after a while you miss some functions. Lucky if some error dialogs pops up. You see normally only in the error log exception stacktraces containing lines with

java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError: …

The good thing is that eclipse can be configured to work in such conditions. Eclipse has command line arguments to define the workbench jre. So you have under windows to create a new link on the desktop to the eclipse.exe. Under options of this link is the full path to the eclipse.exe. Just add after a white space e.g. the following corresponding to your environment and paths:

-vm C:\java\jdk1.6\bin\javaw.exe -vmargs -XX:MaxPermSize=128m -XX:PermSize=128m -Xmx768M -Xms768M -Dsun.lang.ClassLoader.allowArraySyntax=true

This defines the workbench vm (-vm), vm arguments (-vmargs) like memory settings (-XX…) and a system property (-Dkey=value) e.g. to work properly with the bea plugin.

With these changed settings eclipse can start all plugins as expected. Functions, perspectives,.. formerly hidden appear in the workbench. No Magic but a little bit more messages in the ide would be nice for users… In the preferences of eclipse can under Java -> Installed JRE the default JRE be defined. Each project can define under project properties -> Java compiler -> compiler compliance level e.g. 1.4. So run ant inside a dos box to compile with java 1.4 (as defined for windows), start eclipse with java 6 and compile the project inside eclipse with 1.4. Very flexible but you need to know where to put the screw driver on.

apache cxf 2.1 with spring 2, maven 2 and eclipse wtp

Apache CXF 2.1 is released. I know XFire since a long time as web service provider. CXF is a merger of XFire with celtix, which provided an enterprise service bus. The main reason for choosing XFire rather then Axis was the WS-I BP compatibility. It’s a better arguing with a commercial eai provider when your webservice is at least WS-I BP 1.0 conform. CXF is JAX-WS 2.1 compatible. You can enable Pojo services with standard annotations as web services. To try that new release out i created with eclipse web tools platform a new dynamic web project with tomcat 6 as web container. First step is to add the libs needed for CXF. Normally i would download by myself the libs and copy it in to Web-inf/lib folder. Disk space is not a problem but you can’t share such projects by mail because of the size needed for the libs. So i use maven 2 to define the needed libs. The pom.xml define the project and its dependencies. Place it in the root of the project:



	4.0.0
	de.schaeftlein.dev
	cxf-sample
	war
	
	
	0.0.1-SNAPSHOT
	
	
	
		
			org.apache.cxf
			cxf-rt-core
			2.1
		
		
			org.apache.cxf
			cxf-rt-frontend-simple
			2.1
		
		
			org.apache.cxf
			cxf-rt-frontend-jaxws
			2.1
		
		
			org.apache.cxf
			cxf-rt-databinding-aegis
			2.1
		
		
			org.apache.cxf
			cxf-rt-transports-local
			2.1
		
		
			org.apache.cxf
			cxf-rt-transports-http
			2.1
		
		
			org.apache.cxf
			cxf-rt-transports-http-jetty
			2.1
		
		
			org.apache.cxf
			cxf-rt-transports-jms
			2.1
		
		
			org.apache.cxf
			cxf-rt-management
			2.1
		
		
			org.apache.cxf
			cxf-common-utilities
			2.1
		
		
			org.mortbay.jetty
			jetty
			6.1.6
		
		
			junit
			junit
			3.8.2
			test
		
		
			org.springframework
			spring
			2.0.8
		
	
	
		
			
				maven-compiler-plugin
				
					1.6
					1.6
				
			
		
		war:install
	


So the libs are defined but nothing happened in eclipse. I use the M2 Eclipse plugin. Now i enable maven with right click on the project and choose from M2 the “Enable dependency management” entry. The plugin now download the libs into the local repository for all projects. In the eclipse build path you will find now a new library called “maven dependencies”. Eclipse WTP does not deploy out of the box this library. Inside the project configuration you will find a section called “j2ee module dependencies”. Just click the check box beside the “maven dependencies” library. Now all dependent libs are deployed as well. As controller act the CXFServlet and for spring need a listener to be defined both in the web.xml:



  cxf-sample
	
		contextConfigLocation
		WEB-INF/beans.xml
	

	
		
			org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener
		
	

	
		CXFServlet
		
			org.apache.cxf.transport.servlet.CXFServlet
		
		1
	

	
		CXFServlet
		/*
	

I use spring as main configuration tool. CXF depends on spring 2.0.8. The beans.xml imports the default cxf settings and defines the HelloWorld service:

The web service has a interface:

package demo.spring;

import javax.jws.WebService;

@WebService
public interface HelloWorld {
    String sayHi(String text);
}

and a implementation:

package demo.spring;

import javax.jws.WebService;

@WebService(endpointInterface = "demo.spring.HelloWorld")
public class HelloWorldImpl implements HelloWorld {

    public String sayHi(String text) {
        return "Hello " + text;
    }
}

If not set up a local server during creation of the project you need to go to the servers tab in eclipse. Define a new server with server type “Tomcat v6.0 Server”. If the adapter does not appear click on the link to “download additional server adapters”. Under “installed runtime” should be a tomcat 6 server. If not you have to add a new runtime. For tomcat 6 i recommend at least java 1.5 as jre. In the last step you can directly add the created project for cxf. Spring and CXF use commons logging for logging. So i provide in the classpath a simple log4j.xml to output everything interesting to std out:








	
		
			
		
	
	
		
	
	
		
		
	

Setup and implementation are now done. So i started the server inside eclipse. The console should contains lines from spring configuring cxf. To see a list of deployed web services just open a browser to http://localhost:8080/cxf-sample/services, where cxf-sample is the name of your eclipse project. You should see a list of links to the generated wsdl’s of the defined services. Copy the url to the HelloWorldImplPort in the clipboard. For testing i use the free tool soapui which will be started and installed by webstart. Choose under file the point “new wsdl project”. Give it a name and paste the url from the wsdl. Leave the tack for creating sample requests and choose ok. In the tree you see the project, the service, the operations and a request for each operation. Double Click on the only request for our service. Replace the ? with a value of your own inside the arg0 tag and hit the green run button:


   
   
      
         
         
         John Doe
      
   

You should see a response like that on right side of the request in a new window:


   
      
         Hello John Doe