Test failing with the expected thrown exception

[spartanhooah]

I've run into a strange case that I can't sort out. We're testing a Spring service which calls a repository. The repository constructs a Baz object by passing a Clob to Baz's constructor, which then pulls out the string contents of the Clob. The call to Clob::getSubString can throw an SQLException, so we want to test for this. Below is the test:

def "When Baz throws SQL exception"() {
    given:
    clob.getSubString(_, _) >> { throw new SQLException() }
    def baz = new Baz(clob)
    foo.bar(headerId) >> baz
    
    when:
    testSubject.doFoo(headerId)
    
    then:
    thrown(SQLException)
}

As far as I can tell, the Baz constructor correctly throws an SQLException, but the test fails with this stack trace:

java.sql.SQLException
	at com.company.ServiceTest.when Baz throws SQL exception_closure1(ServiceTest.groovy:49)
	at groovy.lang.Closure.call(Closure.java:405)
	at org.spockframework.mock.response.CodeResponseGenerator.invokeClosure(CodeResponseGenerator.java:54)
	at org.spockframework.mock.response.CodeResponseGenerator.doRespond(CodeResponseGenerator.java:37)
	at org.spockframework.mock.response.SingleResponseGenerator.respond(SingleResponseGenerator.java:32)
	at org.spockframework.mock.response.ResponseGeneratorChain.respond(ResponseGeneratorChain.java:44)
	at org.spockframework.mock.runtime.MockInteraction.accept(MockInteraction.java:73)
	at org.spockframework.mock.runtime.MockInteractionDecorator.accept(MockInteractionDecorator.java:50)
	at org.spockframework.mock.runtime.InteractionScope$1.accept(InteractionScope.java:51)
	at org.spockframework.mock.runtime.MockController.handle(MockController.java:40)
	at org.spockframework.mock.runtime.JavaMockInterceptor.intercept(JavaMockInterceptor.java:72)
	at org.spockframework.mock.runtime.DynamicProxyMockInterceptorAdapter.invoke(DynamicProxyMockInterceptorAdapter.java:34)
	at com.company.Baz.<init>(Baz.java:17)
	at com.company.ServiceTest.when Baz throws SQL exception(ServiceTest.groovy:50)

What is going wrong here?

[leonard84]

Hi @spartanhooah,

this kind of question is more suited for Spock on Stackoverflow.

However, you actually just gave the answer already.

The repository constructs a Baz object by passing a Clob to Baz's constructor, which then pulls out the string contents of the Clob.

And the stacktrace is the next hint:

	at com.company.Baz.<init>(Baz.java:17)
	at com.company.ServiceTest.when Baz throws SQL exception(ServiceTest.groovy:50)

So you don't see a reference to testSubject.doFoo(headerId) as it already fails in your given block when calling def baz = new Baz(clob).
As you didn't actually include a MCVE I can only guess if that fixes your problem. If you read the section about exception conditions you will see, that the code that throws the exception has to be in the when block, for it to work.

def "When Baz throws SQL exception"() {
    given:
    clob.getSubString(_, _) >> { throw new SQLException() }
    
    when:
    new Baz(clob)
    
    then:
    thrown(SQLException)
}

[spartanhooah]

Ah, sorry for using the incorrect forum. But yes, I'm sure moving the constructor to the when is the correct move. Thanks!

[leonard84]

No worries, you are not the first and this will happen some more until Github will let us write some templates/notes for the respective discussion categories.