Warszawa (Warsaw)
2008-07-07 05:17:57

Warszawa is the capital of Poland. During the World War II it was razed to the ground by order of Hitler, around 85% of the buildings were destroyed. After the war the old town Starowka (see below) was reconstructed and now it's an UNESCO world heritage site. The Palace of Culture and Science, built by the soviets, is the tallest building in Poland.

Palace of Culture, Warsaw Warsaw Starówka, Warsaw Starówka, Warsaw Palace of Culture, Warsaw Tank in Warsaw Waiting for the bus in Warsaw Starówka, Warsaw Starówka, Warsaw Starówka, Warsaw Starówka, Warsaw

Entrevistado por minube.com
2008-07-04 00:16:47

Pedro Jareńo de minube.com me ha hecho una entrevista en su parada en Los Angeles durante su vuelta al mundo, por si quieres saber alguna cosa mįs sobre mi ;)

minube es una web de viajes "social" con una comunidad de usuarios, muy a la web 2.0. Pedro estį dando una vuelta al mundo y blogueando desde los lugares que visita para promocionar la pįgina.

Upgrading Struts 2.0.x to 2.1.x
2008-07-02 15:47:42

Now that Struts 2.1.2 is officially out you may want to upgrade. I've found the upgrading instructions at the Struts wiki to be extremely useful, and pretty much you'll need to read the whole thing.

Two things that I've contributed to the wiki:

Ensure no dependencies in the freemarker groupId are used as the latest version used by Struts is now under the org.freeemarker groupId and you'll get classpath conflicts if you added a freemarker dependency.

In the unit tests you may get a NullPointerException as ActionContext.getContext() does not create a context on demand, I think there are better alternatives to avoid the direct use of getContext, but this snippet will fix the problem.

ConfigurationManager configurationManager = new ConfigurationManager();
configurationManager.addContainerProvider(new XWorkConfigurationProvider());
Configuration config = configurationManager.getConfiguration();
Container container = config.getContainer();

ValueStack stack = container.getInstance(ValueStackFactory.class).createValueStack();
stack.getContext().put(ActionContext.CONTAINER, container);
ActionContext.setContext(new ActionContext(stack.getContext()));

assertNotNull(ActionContext.getContext());

Poznan, Poland
2008-07-02 05:16:44

Poznan is one of the oldest cities in Poland, and the fifth in size. Poznan's cathedral is the oldest in the country, containing the tombs of the first Polish rulers.

Stary Rynek, Poznan` Stary Browar, Poznan Stary Rynek, Poznan Stary Rynek, Poznan Cytadela, Poznan

New York, New York (3)
2008-06-30 05:16:33

Last batch of pictures from New York, I promise ;).

Manhattan panorama Manhattan panorama IMG_8246 Brooklyn Bridge panorama Manhattan panorama Staten Island Ferry Liberty and Ellis Islands panorama Manhattan Jersey City Manhattan panorama Manhattan Manhattan and Jersey City panorama Brooklyn bridge 360 panorama Brooklyn bridge panorama Times Square at night, New York Manhattan Ground Zero, New York Ground Zero, New York Ground Zero, New York Ground Zero, New York Wall Street Wall Street Charging Bull, Wall Street Statue of Liberty Statue of Liberty Manhattan panorama Statue of Liberty Manhattan panorama Statue of Liberty

Functional testing with Maven, Cargo and Selenium
2008-06-25 18:17:10
.code-keyword { color: #000091; background-color: inherit; } .code-object { color: #910091; background-color: inherit; } .code-quote { color: #009100; background-color: inherit; } .code-comment { color: #808080; background-color: inherit; } .code-xml .code-keyword { color: inherit; font-weight: bold; } .code-tag { color: #000091; background-color: inherit; }

Setting up automated functional integration tests is not too hard if you have the right tools. It can take you a bit of time to setup but in the long run you'll benefit from reduced QA times, reduced risks, a more confident development team, the ability to do safe refactorings, and many more advantages.

I'm going to explain how Maven, Selenium, Cargo and JBoss 4.2 can be setup to run automatically in a continuous integration server such as Continuum customizing the server configuration as needed and deploying any webapp automatically. Every time the webapp is changed the CI server will execute the tests against the latest version ensuring you are always in a safe state.

The biggest difference with other tutorials I've found is that most of them cover just Jetty and are not updated to the latest versions of libraries and tools, so here it is my contribution.

Architecture

We use profiles to enable different combination of browser/application server. By default cargo uses jetty.

Config Profiles
JBoss 4.2 and Firefox (default) -Pjboss42x,firefox
JBoss 4.2 and Internet Explorer -Pjboss42x,iexplore
Jetty and Firefox -Pfirefox
Jetty and Internet Explorer -Piexplore

The POM

Dependencies

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.acme</groupId>
      <artifactId>mywebapp</artifactId>
      <version>${project.version}</version>
      <type>war</type>
    </dependency>
    <!-- the jdbc driver we need to copy to the appserver -->
    <dependency>
      <groupId>mysql</groupId>
      <artifactId>mysql-connector-java</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.openqa.selenium.client-drivers</groupId>
      <artifactId>selenium-java-client-driver</artifactId>
      <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version> <!-- required for firefox 3 else use 1.0-beta-1 -->
      <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>
  </dependencies>

Properties used in several places

Ports, where to uncompress the application server,...

<properties>
    <cargo.install.directory>${project.build.directory}/installs</cargo.install.directory>
    <selenium.port>14444</selenium.port>
    <servlet.port>18880</servlet.port>
    <selenium.background>true</selenium.background>
  </properties>

Plugin configuration

JDBC driver

Copy mysql jdbc driver to the app server lib folder

<plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-dependency-plugin</artifactId>
        <executions>
          <execution>
            <id>copy-jdbc-lib</id>
            <phase>generate-resources</phase>
            <goals>
              <goal>copy-dependencies</goal>
            </goals>
            <configuration>
              <includeGroupIds>mysql</includeGroupIds>
              <outputDirectory>${lib.target}</outputDirectory>
            </configuration>
          </execution>
        </executions>
      </plugin>

Cargo

Install the application server in an early phase so we can customize it with our configuration files (see profiles). Then start before integration tests and stop afterwards. Parameters are used so different profiles can use different application servers.

      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.codehaus.cargo</groupId>
        <artifactId>cargo-maven2-plugin</artifactId>
        <executions>
          <execution>
            <id>install</id>
            <phase>generate-resources</phase>
            <goals>
              <goal>install</goal>
            </goals>
          </execution>
          <execution>
            <id>start-container</id>
            <phase>pre-integration-test</phase>
            <goals>
              <goal>start</goal>
            </goals>
            <configuration>
              <wait>false</wait>
            </configuration>
          </execution>
          <execution>
            <id>stop-container</id>
            <phase>post-integration-test</phase>
            <goals>
              <goal>stop</goal>
            </goals>
          </execution>
        </executions>
        <configuration>
          <container>
            <containerId>${container.name}</containerId>
            <zipUrlInstaller>
              <url>${container.url}</url>
              <installDir>${cargo.install.directory}/${container.name}</installDir>
            </zipUrlInstaller>
            <log>${project.build.directory}/logs/${container.name}.log</log>
            <output>${project.build.directory}/logs/${container.name}.out</output>
            <timeout>600000</timeout>
          </container>
          <configuration>
            <!--
            <home>${project.build.directory}/${container.name}conf</home>
            <type>existing</type>
            -->
            <properties>
              <cargo.servlet.port>${servlet.port}</cargo.servlet.port>
              <cargo.jboss.configuration>default</cargo.jboss.configuration>
              <cargo.rmi.port>1099</cargo.rmi.port>
            </properties>

            <deployables>
              <!-- application to deploy -->
              <deployable>
                <groupId>com.acme</groupId>
                <artifactId>mywebapp</artifactId>
                <type>war</type>
                <properties>
                  <context>acontext</context>
                </properties>
              </deployable>
            </deployables>
          </configuration>
        </configuration>
      </plugin>

Selenium

Make surefire skip tests during test phase and run them in the integration-test phase. Pass some properties as system properties so they are accessible from the junit test case.

      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
        <configuration>
          <!-- Skip the normal tests, we'll run them in the integration-test phase -->
          <skip>true</skip>
          <systemProperties>
            <property>
              <name>browser</name>
              <value>${browser}</value>
            </property>
            <property>
              <name>servlet.port</name>
              <value>${servlet.port}</value>
            </property>
            <property>
              <name>selenium.port</name>
              <value>${selenium.port}</value>
            </property>
          </systemProperties>
        </configuration>
        <executions>
          <execution>
            <phase>integration-test</phase>
            <goals>
              <goal>test</goal>
            </goals>
            <configuration>
              <skip>false</skip>
            </configuration>
          </execution>
        </executions>
      </plugin>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
        <artifactId>selenium-maven-plugin</artifactId>
        <!-- to run headless in a Unix server with a virtual framebuffer X server Xvfb
             you need to call first the goal selenium:xvfb ie. "mvn clean selenium:xvfb install"
             see http://mojo.codehaus.org/selenium-maven-plugin/examples/headless-with-xvfb.html -->
        <executions>
          <execution>
            <id>start-selenium</id>
            <phase>pre-integration-test</phase>
            <goals>
              <goal>start-server</goal>
            </goals>
          </execution>
        </executions>
        <configuration>
          <background>${selenium.background}</background>
          <port>${selenium.port}</port>
          <logOutput>true</logOutput>
        </configuration>
      </plugin>

Application server profiles

We can configure a different profile for each application server and set some specific application server configuration.

<profiles>
    <profile>
      <id>jboss42x</id>
      <activation>
        <activeByDefault>true</activeByDefault>
      </activation>
      <properties>
        <container.name>jboss42x</container.name>
        <container.url>http://internap.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/jboss/jboss-4.2.1.GA.zip</container.url>
        <jboss.version>4.2.1.GA</jboss.version>
        <jboss.conf.directory>${cargo.install.directory}/${container.name}/jboss-${jboss.version}/jboss-${jboss.version}/server/default</jboss.conf.directory>
        <lib.target>${jboss.conf.directory}/deploy/lib</lib.target>
        <war.target>${jboss.conf.directory}/deploy</war.target>
      </properties>

      <dependencies>
        <dependency>
          <groupId>org.jboss</groupId>
          <artifactId>jboss</artifactId>
          <version>${jboss.version}</version>
          <type>zip</type>
          <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
      </dependencies>
      <build>
        <plugins>
          <!-- copy to the application server directory any customized configuration files that we need -->
          <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-antrun-plugin</artifactId>
            <executions>
              <execution>
                <phase>process-resources</phase>
                <configuration>
                  <tasks>
                    <copy todir="${jboss.conf.directory}" overwrite="true">
                      <fileset dir="${basedir}/src/test/${container.name}"/>
                    </copy>
                  </tasks>
                </configuration>
                <goals>
                  <goal>run</goal>
                </goals>
              </execution>
            </executions>
          </plugin>
        </plugins>
      </build>
    </profile>

Browser profiles

As with the application servers we have a profile for each browser

<profile>
      <id>firefox</id>
      <activation>
        <activeByDefault>true</activeByDefault>
      </activation>
      <properties>
        <browser>*firefox</browser>
      </properties>
    </profile>
    <profile>
      <id>iexplore</id>
      <properties>
        <browser>*iexplore</browser>
      </properties>
    </profile>
    <profile>
      <id>otherbrowser</id>
      <properties>
        <browser>*custom ${browserPath}</browser>
      </properties>
    </profile>

Enabling testing during development

Make selenium not to run in the background so we can execute tests from the IDE

    <profile>
      <id>dev</id>
      <properties>
        <selenium.background>false</selenium.background>
      </properties>
    </profile>

Repositories

Required for Selenium dependencies

<repositories>
    <repository>
      <id>openqa.org</id>
      <name>OpenQA Repository</name>
      <url>http://archiva.openqa.org/repository/releases</url>
      <snapshots>
        <enabled>false</enabled>
      </snapshots>
      <releases>
        <enabled>true</enabled>
      </releases>
    </repository>
    <!-- for selenium 1.0-SNAPSHOT -->
    <repository>
      <id>snapshots.openqa.org</id>
      <name>OpenQA Sanpshots Repository</name>
      <url>http://archiva.openqa.org/repository/snapshots</url>
      <snapshots>
        <enabled>true</enabled>
      </snapshots>
      <releases>
        <enabled>false</enabled>
      </releases>
    </repository>
  </repositories>

Running in the build server

In an Unix server without X running you can still run Selenium tests using Xvfb (virtual framebuffer X server) by calling selenium:xvfb provided it's properly configured.

Also you can pass the path to the browser binary if not in the PATH

mvn clean selenium:xvfb install -Dbrowser="*firefox /usr/lib64/firefox-1.5.0.12/firefox-bin"

The JUnit test

public class SeleniumHelloWorldTest
    extends TestCase
{
    private DefaultSelenium selenium;

    private String baseUrl;

    @Override
    public void setUp()
        throws Exception
    {
        super.setUp();
        String port = System.getProperty( "servlet.port" );
        baseUrl = "http://localhost:" + port;
        selenium = createSeleniumClient( baseUrl );
        selenium.start();
    }

    @Override
    public void tearDown()
        throws Exception
    {
        selenium.stop();
        super.tearDown();
    }

    protected DefaultSelenium createSeleniumClient( String url )
        throws Exception
    {
        String browser = System.getProperty( "browser" );
        String port = System.getProperty( "selenium.port" );
        return new DefaultSelenium( "localhost", Integer.parseInt( port ), browser, url );
    }

    public void testHelloWorld()
        throws Exception
    {
        selenium.open( baseUrl + "/mycontext/" );
        assertTrue( selenium.isTextPresent( "acme" ) );
    }
}

References

Other wiki entries and blogs

New York, New York (2)
2008-06-24 17:16:26

A lot more pictures from my trip to New York.

Chrysler building, New York Chrysler building, New York United Nations, New York United Nations, New York Queensboro bridge, New York Queensboro bridge, New York Central Park, New York Washington arch, New York Washington arch, New York Washington arch, New York Central Park panorama Guggenheim Museum, New York 5th avenue panorama Girl in boat

New York, New York
2008-05-27 10:46:41

Some pictures from last year' trip to New York

Metropolitan Life Insurance Company tower Empire State at night Metropolitan Life Insurance Company tower

From Empire State building

Manhattan at night from Empire State Manhattan from Empire State Manhattan panorama from Empire State Manhattan at night 360 panorama from Empire State Manhattan from Empire State Manhattan 360 panorama from Empire State Manhattan panorama from Empire State Manhattan from Empire State Manhattan panorama from Empire State

Times Square

Times Square night panorama Times Square at night

Central Park

Giant piano at FAO Schwarz Toy Store Giant piano at FAO Schwarz Toy Store Central Park panorama Central Park panorama Central Park panorama Central Park panorama Central Park panorama Central Park American Museum of Natural History panorama
Empire State at night Chrysler building at night Foggy New York Egyptian tomb panorama at New York Metropolitan Museum of Art

Eclipse IAM passes creation review, Maven support at Eclipse Foundation soon
2008-05-22 12:47:24

This week we have gone through the creation review for Eclipse IAM (Eclipse Integration for Apache Maven), and so we are starting with the paperwork at the Eclipse Foundation to create the project in the incubator and start moving the code from Q4E, the codebase will be donated to IAM as start point.

Development won't stop in the meantime and we don't expect any interruption for Q4E users.

Speaking at CommunityOne on Monday
2008-05-02 16:16:40

Seems that I have been volunteered to do a lightening talk at CommunityOne on Monday at the Moscone as part of the Atlassian session.

Thanks to Cenqua' Pete for offering free drinks in exchange (he hasn't realized yet the mistake he has made) and entertainment like last year (hopefully with some differences in critical parts).

See you there.