Question

I think I ran into an error with my classpath settings.

I want to test an internationalized web-app which has the messagesource defined like this:

<bean id="messageSource"
  class="org.springframework.context.support.ReloadableResourceBundleMessageSource">
    <property name="basenames">
        <list>
            <value>/WEB-INF/i18n/errors</value>
            <value>/WEB-INF/i18n/messages</value>
            <value>/WEB-INF/i18n/links</value>
            <value>/WEB-INF/i18n/forms</value>
            <value>/WEB-INF/i18n/communication</value>
        </list>
    </property>
</bean>

Loading these values works perfectly in a production environment.
When running a Junit Test however, it can’t resolve those property files because they are not on the classpath.

However, I want them to be NOT on the classpath because then I can make use of the feature where I can change something in the property files and it’s reflected on the website immediately: Since application servers typically cache all files loaded from the classpath, it is necessary to store resources somewhere else (for example, in the "WEB-INF" directory of a web app). Otherwise changes of files in the classpath will not be reflected in the application.

The spring applicationContext is located there: /src/main/resources/spring/applicationContext.xml
and loaded into the Junit test with these annotations:

@RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class)
@ContextConfiguration(locations = {"classpath:/spring/applicationContext.xml"})

How can I get Junit to pick up those non-classpath resources as well?
The property files are on /src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/i18n/*

Junit: 4.7.

Spring: 3.0.5.

Answer 1

I fixed my initial problem in the meantime.

Matthew’s solution didn’t help me – still very good input.
And he couldn’t know that I was using maven in my project since I never told.

However, within maven, I found a solution to my problem:

        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
            <configuration>
                <skipTests>true</skipTests>
                <additionalClasspathElements>
                    <additionalClasspathElement>src\main\webapp\</additionalClasspathElement>
                </additionalClasspathElements>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>

I configured the surefire-plugin to pickup additional elements for the classpath.