Testing the Impossible: Shifting IDs

So you couldn’t resist and wrote tests against the database. With Hibernate, no less. And maybe some Spring. And to make things more simple, toString() contains the IDs of the objects in the database. Now, you want to check the results of queries and other operations using my advice how to verify several values at once.

During your first run, your DB returns some values, you copy them into a String. When you run the tests again, the tests fail because all the IDs have changed. Bummer. Now what? Just verify that the correct number of results was returned?

Don’t. assertEquals (3, list.size()) doesn’t give you a clue where to search for the error when the assert fails.

The solution is to give each ID a name. The name always stays the same and when you look at the test results, you’ll immediately know that the ID has been “fixated” (unlike when you’d replace the number with another, for example). Here is the code:

import java.util.*;

/** Helper class to fixate changing object IDs */
public class IDFixer
{
    private Map<String, String> replacements = new HashMap<String, String> ();
    private Map<String, Exception> usedNames = new HashMap<String, Exception> ();
    
    /** Assign a name to the number which follows the string <code>id=</code> in the object's
     * <code>toString()</code> method. */
    public void register (Object o, String name)
    {
        if (o == null)
            return;
        
        String s = o.toString ();
        int pos = s.indexOf ("id=");
        if (pos != -1)
            pos = s.indexOf (',', pos);
        if (pos == -1)
            throw new RuntimeException ("Can't find 'id=' in " + s);
        String search = s.substring (0, pos + 1);
        
        pos = search.lastIndexOf ('=');
        String replace = search.substring (0, pos + 1) + name + ",";
        
        add (name, search, replace);
        
        registerSpecial (o, name);
    }

    /** Add a search&replace pattern. */
    protected void add (String name, String search, String replace)
    {
        if (usedNames.containsKey (replace))
            throw new RuntimeException ("Name "+name+" is already in use", usedNames.get (replace));
        
        //System.out.println ("+++ ["+search+"] -> ["+replace+"]");
        usedNames.put (replace, new Exception ("Name was registered here"));
        replacements.put (search, replace);
    }
    
    /** Allow for special mappings */
    protected void registerSpecial (Object o, String name)
    {
        // NOP
    }

    /** Turn a <code>Collection</code> into a <code>String</code>, replacing all IDs with names. */
    public String toString (Collection c)
    {
        StringBuilder buffer = new StringBuilder (10240);
        String delim = "";
        for (Object o: c)
        {
            buffer.append (delim);
            delim = "\n";
            buffer.append (o);
        }
        return toString (buffer);
    }
    
    /** Turn a <code>Map</code> into a <code>String</code>, replacing all IDs with names. */
    public String toString (Map m)
    {
        StringBuilder buffer = new StringBuilder (10240);
        String delim = "";
        for (Iterator iter=m.entrySet ().iterator (); iter.hasNext (); )
        {
            Map.Entry e = (Map.Entry)iter.next ();
            
            buffer.append (delim);
            delim = "\n";
            buffer.append (e.getKey ());
            buffer.append ('=');
            buffer.append (e.getValue ());
        }
        return toString (buffer);
    }
    
    /** Turn an <code>Object</code> to a <code>String</code>, replacing all IDs with names.
     * 
     *  <p>If the object is a <code>Collection</code> or a <code>Map</code>, the special collection handling methods will be called. */
    public String toString (Object o)
    {
        if (o instanceof Collection)
        {
            return toString ((Collection)o);
        }
        else if (o instanceof Map)
        {
            return toString ((Map)o);
        }
        
        if (o == null)
            return "null";

        String s = o.toString ();
        for (Map.Entry<String, String> entry: replacements.entrySet ())
        {
            s = s.replace (entry.getKey (), entry.getValue ());
        }
        
        return s;
    }

    public boolean knowsAbout (String key)
    {
        return replacements.containsKey (key);
    }
}

To use the IDFixer, call register(object, name) to assign a name to whatever follows the number after id=. The method will search for this substring in the result of calling object.toString().

If you call IDFixer.toString(object) for a single object or a collection, it will replace id=number with id=name everywhere. If you have references between objects, you can register additional pattern to be replaced by overriding registerSpecial().

To make it easier to compare lists and maps in assertEquals(), each item gets its own line.