Are you playing around with the shiny new 3.1 EJB API?

Using Maven for your Java projects?

Need an easy way to write and execute tests for your EJBs that depends on an Java Application Server?

No problem using Maven Archetypes, the Maven EJB Plugin and the GlassFish embedded Application Container..

For the following tutorial we’re going to need an installation of Maven and of course – the Java Development Kit!

• Java Development Kit (JDK) 6
• Maven >=2
• A text editor or IDE of choice

We want to make our life as easy as possible and there is an interesting archetype for ejb-components available: org.codehaus.mojo.archetypes:ejb-javaee6 ..

• At first we’re creating a new project using Maven Archetypes (choose “ejb-javaee6” and EJB version 1.3 !!) using your IDE with a Maven plugin installed or via console like this

  mvn archetype:generate
  [INFO] Generating project in Interactive mode
  [INFO] No archetype defined. Using maven-archetype-quickstart (org.apache.maven.archetypes:maven-archetype-quickstart:1.0)
  Choose archetype:
  [..]
  242: remote -> ejb-javaee6 (Archetype for an EJB package using Java EE 6.)
  [..]
  Choose a number: 98: 242
  Choose version:
  1: 1.0
  2: 1.0.1
  3: 1.0.2
  4: 1.1
  5: 1.2
  6: 1.3
  Choose a number: 6: 6
  [.. etc ..]

• Now we just need to add the dependency for the embedded GlassFish server and the Java repository to our  pom.xml. It is important to add the dependency for glassfish-embedded-all as the first dependency to the list (-> Troubleshooting)!
• Finally our pom.xml should look like this one

  <project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
   xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
   <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
   <groupId>com.hascode.tutorial</groupId>
   <artifactId>ejb-tutorial</artifactId>
   <version>0.0.1</version>
   <packaging>ejb</packaging>
   <name>hasCode.com ejb-tutorial EJB</name>
   
   <properties>
     <endorsed.dir>${project.build.directory}/endorsed</endorsed.dir>
     <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
   </properties>
   
   <dependencies>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>org.glassfish.extras</groupId>
       <artifactId>glassfish-embedded-all</artifactId>
       <version>3.0</version>
       <scope>test</scope>
     </dependency>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>junit</groupId>
       <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
       <version>4.8.1</version>
       <scope>test</scope>
     </dependency>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>javax</groupId>
       <artifactId>javaee-api</artifactId>
       <version>6.0</version>
       <scope>provided</scope>
     </dependency>
   </dependencies>
   
   <build>
     <plugins>
       <plugin>
         <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
         <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
         <version>2.3.2</version>
         <configuration>
           <source>1.6</source>
           <target>1.6</target>
           <compilerArguments>
             <endorseddirs>${endorsed.dir}</endorseddirs>
           </compilerArguments>
         </configuration>
       </plugin>
       <plugin>
         <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
         <artifactId>maven-ejb-plugin</artifactId>
         <version>2.3</version>
         <configuration>
           <ejbVersion>3.1</ejbVersion>
         </configuration>
       </plugin>
       <plugin>
         <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
         <artifactId>maven-dependency-plugin</artifactId>
         <version>2.1</version>
         <executions>
           <execution>
             <phase>validate</phase>
             <goals>
               <goal>copy</goal>
             </goals>
             <configuration>
               <outputDirectory>${endorsed.dir}</outputDirectory>
               <silent>true</silent>
               <artifactItems>
                 <artifactItem>
                   <groupId>javax</groupId>
                   <artifactId>javaee-endorsed-api</artifactId>
                   <version>6.0</version>
                   <type>jar</type>
                 </artifactItem>
               </artifactItems>
             </configuration>
           </execution>
         </executions>
       </plugin>
     </plugins>
     <finalName>ejb-tutorial</finalName>
   </build>
   
   <repositories>
     <repository>
       <id>maven2-repository.dev.java.net</id>
       <name>Java.net Repository for Maven</name>
       <url>http://download.java.net/maven/2/</url>
       <layout>default</layout>
     </repository>
     <repository>
       <id>maven2-repository.dev.java.net.glassfish</id>
       <name>Java.net Repository for Maven</name>
       <url>http://download.java.net/maven/glassfish/</url>
     </repository>
   </repositories>
  </project>

• Create a dumb JavaBean named UserBean in the package com.hascode.tutorial.ejb_tutorial.bean

  package com.hascode.tutorial.ejb_tutorial.bean;
   
  public class UserBean {
  	private Long    id;
  	private String    firstName;
  	private String    lastName;
   
  	// getter, setter ommitted..
  }

• Create the EJB to deliver a list of all available UserBeans named UserEJB .. a simple @Stateless annotation is enough to make this bean a stateless Enterprise Java Bean ..

  package com.hascode.tutorial.ejb_tutorial.bean;
   
  import java.util.ArrayList;
  import java.util.List;
   
  import javax.ejb.Stateless;
   
  @Stateless
  public class UserEJB {
  	public List<UserBean> findAll() {
  		List<UserBean> users = new ArrayList<UserBean>();
  		UserBean user = new UserBean();
  		user.setFirstName("Alfred");
  		user.setLastName("Newman");
  		user.setId(1l);
   
  		UserBean anotherUser = new UserBean();
  		anotherUser.setFirstName("Albert");
  		anotherUser.setLastName("Einstein");
  		anotherUser.setId(2l);
   
  		users.add(user);
  		users.add(anotherUser);
  		return users;
  	}
  }

• That is all we need for now .. now let’s do some testing …

Now that we’ve got all our classes together we should test their functions and the wiring in the EJB container. This is where the new embeddable EJB Container API saves our lives.

• We’re writing a new test case named UserEJBTest in src/test/resources

  package com.hascode.tutorial.ejb_tutorial.bean;
   
  import static org.junit.Assert.assertEquals;
  import static org.junit.Assert.assertNotNull;
   
  import java.util.List;
   
  import javax.ejb.embeddable.EJBContainer;
  import javax.naming.Context;
  import javax.naming.NamingException;
   
  import org.junit.AfterClass;
  import org.junit.BeforeClass;
  import org.junit.Test;
   
  public class UserEJBTest {
  	private static EJBContainer    ejbContainer;
  	private static Context        ctx;
   
  	@BeforeClass
  	public static void setUp() {
  		ejbContainer = EJBContainer.createEJBContainer();
  		ctx = ejbContainer.getContext();
  	}
   
  	@AfterClass
  	public static void tearDown() {
  		ejbContainer.close();
  	}
   
  	@Test
  	public void testFindAll() {
  		try {
  			UserEJB userEJB = (UserEJB) ctx.lookup("java:global/classes/UserEJB!com.hascode.tutorial.ejb_tutorial.bean.UserEJB");
  			assertNotNull(userEJB);
  			List<UserBean> users = userEJB.findAll();
  			assertNotNull(users);
  			assertEquals(2, users.size());
  		} catch (NamingException e) {
  			throw new AssertionError(e);
  		}
  	}
  }

• So what’s happening here? First we’re starting the embedded EJB Container, lookup the UserEJB via JNDI and assert that the user information we were looking for is present via the EJB.
• If you’re not sure what the corresponding JDNI name for your bean is, take a look at the console output on the EJB container startup .. when the UserEJB is registered the following helpful information shows you available JNDI names

  INFO: Portable JNDI names for EJB UserEJB : [java:global/classes/UserEJB, java:global/classes/UserEJB!com.hascode.tutorial.ejb_tutorial.bean.UserEJB]

• The test should run without errors
  
  

  Running the test in Eclipse

I have put the sources for the examples here on Bitbucket .. you may download it there or check it out using

hg clone http://bitbucket.org/hascode/ejb-3.1-embedded-tutorial

• “java.lang.ClassFormatError: Absent Code attribute in method that is not native or abstract in class file javax/ejb/embeddable/EJBContainer“ – I got this error when glassfish-embedded-all was not the first dependency in the dependencies list in my pom.xml – changing the order helped ..
• “java.lang.AssertionError: javax.naming.NamingException: Lookup failed for ‘java:global/classes/UserEJB!com.hascode.tutorial.ejb_tutorial.bean.UserEJB’ in SerialContext  [Root exception is javax.naming.NameNotFoundException: classes]“ – To fix this error, initialize the EJBContainer instance in the unit test like this (thanks to Ian Smith for mentioning)

  Map properties = new HashMap();
  properties.put(EJBContainer.MODULES, new File("target/classes"));
  ejbContainer = EJBContainer.createEJBContainer(properties);

Meanwhile, I’ve switched to using Arquillian for testing Java EE applications. If you’re interested, please feel free to have a look at the following tutorials of mine:

• Arquillian Tutorial: Writing Java EE 6 Integration Tests and more..
• Arquillian Transaction Extension: Transaction Rollback for your Java EE Integration Tests
• Java EE: Setting up and Testing Form-Based JDBC Authentication with Arquillian and Maven
• Marrying Java EE and BDD with Cucumber, Arquillian and Cukespace

• Java Community Process: JSR 318: Enterprise Java Beans 3.1
• Maven EJB Plugin Website
• GlassFish Project Website
• Oracle.com: Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI)
• Oracle.com: Code-Snippet – JNDI
• Sun Blog: A Sampling of EJB 3.1
• Antonio Goncalves: Beginning Java™ EE 6 Platform with GlassFish™ 3
• Oracle.com: Using the EJB 3.1 Embeddable API with Embedded Enterprise Server
• EJBContainer JavaDocs
• CTP Java Competence: Unit Testing EJBs and JPA with Embeddable GlassFish
• jeeunit Project Website
• JBoss.org: Arquillian Documentation. Getting started

• 2015-03-21: Links to Arquillian articles added.

Tags: application server, arquillian, bean, ejb, embedded, enterprise java bean, example, glassfish, java ee 6, jee, jeeunit, jndi, jsr-318, junit, maven, testing, tutorial

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 1st, 2011 at 3:29 pm and is filed under Java. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.