CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaresttestingspring-boot
Jan Bodnar
Jan Bodnar

Reputation: 11647

Using Spring Boot TestRestTemplate relative path forces JSON conversion

According to the Spring Boot documentation:

Note that TestRestTemplate is now available as bean whenever @SpringBootTest is used. It’s pre-configured to resolve relative paths to http://localhost:${local.server.port}. We could have also used the @LocalServerPort annotation to inject the actual port that the server is running on into a test field.

I have a RESTFul application that returns XML data. The POM file contains jackson-dataformat-xml In the test class, I have the following code:

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
@SpringBootTest(webEnvironment = WebEnvironment.RANDOM_PORT)
public class XMLDataTest {

    @Autowired
    private TestRestTemplate restTemplate;
    ...
    ResponseEntity<List<City>> cities = restTemplate.exchange(appPath,
        HttpMethod.GET, null, paramType);

    assertThat(cities.getBody()).hasSize(8);
    assertThat(cities.getBody()).contains(this.c1, this.c2, this.c3);

If the appPath equals to the full URL, such as http://localhost:9234/myapp/cities, then the test runs OK. If appPath equals to a relative path, /myapp/cities, I get a JSON exception. It looks like relative paths force JSON conversion.

Exception: 

org.springframework.http.converter.HttpMessageNotReadableException: JSON parse error: Can not deserialize instance of java.util.ArrayList out of START_OBJECT token; nested exception is com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.JsonMappingException: Can not deserialize instance of java.util.ArrayList out of START_OBJECT token
 at [Source: java.io.PushbackInputStream@4628a02b; line: 1, column: 1]
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.JsonMappingException.from(JsonMappingException.java:270)
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.DeserializationContext.reportMappingException(DeserializationContext.java:1234)
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.DeserializationContext.handleUnexpectedToken(DeserializationContext.java:1122)
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.DeserializationContext.handleUnexpectedToken(DeserializationContext.java:1075)
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.deser.std.CollectionDeserializer.handleNonArray(CollectionDeserializer.java:338)
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.deser.std.CollectionDeserializer.deserialize(CollectionDeserializer.java:269)
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.deser.std.CollectionDeserializer.deserialize(CollectionDeserializer.java:259)
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.deser.std.CollectionDeserializer.deserialize(CollectionDeserializer.java:26)
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper._readMapAndClose(ObjectMapper.java:3814)
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper.readValue(ObjectMapper.java:2938)
    at org.springframework.http.converter.json.AbstractJackson2HttpMessageConverter.readJavaType(AbstractJackson2HttpMessageConverter.java:235)
    at org.springframework.http.converter.json.AbstractJackson2HttpMessageConverter.read(AbstractJackson2HttpMessageConverter.java:223)
    at org.springframework.web.client.HttpMessageConverterExtractor.extractData(HttpMessageConverterExtractor.java:96)
    at org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate$ResponseEntityResponseExtractor.extractData(RestTemplate.java:924)
    at org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate$ResponseEntityResponseExtractor.extractData(RestTemplate.java:908)
    at org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate.doExecute(RestTemplate.java:662)
    at org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate.execute(RestTemplate.java:620)
    at org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate.exchange(RestTemplate.java:566)
    at org.springframework.boot.test.web.client.TestRestTemplate.exchange(TestRestTemplate.java:812)
    at com.zetcode.test.RestControllerTest.allCitiesTest(RestControllerTest.java:51)

How to fix this?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 2458

Answers (1)

JB Nizet
JB Nizet

Reputation: 691913

The API returns a JSON object, and you expect a JSON array, hence the exception. To make it return XML, you need to specify the Accept header of your request.

Useful trick: when debugging such problems, use String.class as the expected response type, and print the result.

HttpHeaders headers = new HttpHeaders();
headers.setContentType(MediaType.APPLICATION_XML);

HttpEntity<String> entity = new HttpEntity<>("parameters", headers);

ResponseEntity<List<City>> cities = restTemplate.exchange(appPath,
           HttpMethod.GET, entity, paramType);

Upvotes: 2

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