[buckminster-dev] Setup / tear down for JUnit plugin tests

[Michal Ruzicka <michal.ruzicka@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,
This is a re-post of my previous post to eclipse.tools.buckminster, as 
this newsgroup is probably the more appropriate.

I'm having problems with running JUnit plug-in tests which happen to 
need GUI in a headless environment with Buckminster's junit command.

The problem is that there is no X server running at the time when the 
framework supposed to execute the tests is launched. This naturally 
results in an early exit of the framework before any tests are executed.

I was able to solve the problem for plain (non plug-in) JUnit tests by 
starting / stopping Xvfb (a virtual framebuffer X server which runs 
entirely in background without any need for real display or input 
devices) in @BeforeClass / @AfterClass annotated methods.
This solution unfortunately does not work for the JUnit plug-in tests as 
the framework  (and GUI) is attempted to be started earlier than the 
@BeforeClass / @AfterClass methods from any test class are called.

A working solution would be to add some kind of setup / tear down 
functionality to the Buckminster's junit command. I'm willing to 
implement it but I'd like to discuss possible options first. So here are 
some question for you to comment on:

1) Should the implementation just allow to specify a command to execute 
prior to launching the tests, or should it rather require a java class 
implementing the setup / tear down functionality.

2) If the class is required, should it implement an interface devised 
for the setup / tear down purpose, or should it rather use annotations 
(perhaps the JUnit 4 @BeforeClass / @AfterClass annotations)?

3) If the class is required, then specifying it means specifying the 
class itself plus the classpath where the class is found. A classpath is 
much easier specified in an ant script that on a command line which 
leads me to the question: Shouldn't there be a <bukminster.junit> ant 
task companion to the Buckminster's junit command?

4) In case the ant task was implemented, should the junit command be 
extended to support the setup / tear down at all given that using it 
(specifying the classpath) would be a hassle anyway?

Thanks in advance for your comments,
regards,
Michal