Document effect of @DirtiesContext when used with constructor injection [SPR-17654]

[spring-projects-issues]

Sam Brannen opened SPR-17654 and commented

Overview

A recent discussion in the #spring channel on Kotlin Slack pointed out that issues arise when using @DirtiesContext to evict an ApplicationContext from the cache between test methods if the test class is executed with JUnit Jupiter and @TestInstance(PER_CLASS) semantics.

Analysis

Constructor injection for Spring-managed components will not work properly if @DirtiesContext is used to evict the test's ApplicationContext before or after test methods.

The reason is that the test instance will retain references to beans that came from a (now) closed ApplicationContext, and dependency injection will not occur again (to reset the references) since the constructor will only be invoked once.

To use @DirtiesContext before or after methods, one must allow dependencies from Spring to be injected via fields or setter/configuration methods.

Deliverables

• Document this in the Testing chapter of the reference manual

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Affects: 5.0.12

Referenced from: commits bd9d333, cf56506

[spring-projects-issues]

Sam Brannen commented

This has been documented in the following commits.

• 5.2/master: bd9d333
• 5.1.x: cf56506