Spring Boot property resolution fails tests at build time when adding a profile

Question

I have a Spring Boot 2.7.14 application packaged as follows:

com.abc.globalpayments.feeds.downstream.dailycashreport com.abc.globalpayments.feeds.downstream.dailycashreport.acquire com.abc.globalpayments.feeds.downstream.dailycashreport.acquire.random com.abc.globalpayments.feeds.downstream.dailycashreport.distribute com.abc.globalpayments.feeds.downstream.dailycashreport.domain com.abc.globalpayments.feeds.downstream.dailycashreport.generate com.abc.globalpayments.feeds.downstream.dailycashreport.process

The root *.dailycashreport package contains the entry point:

@Slf4j
@SpringBootApplication
@PropertySource(value = "classpath:feeds-config.yml", factory = com.abc.globalpayments.feeds.downstream.YamlPropertySourceFactory.class)
public class DcrDataFactoryApplication implements CommandLineRunner {
    

    
    @Autowired
    private SyntheticRunner runner; data sources

    public static void main(String[] args) {//}

YamlPropertySourceFactory seen above is as follows:

public class YamlPropertySourceFactory implements PropertySourceFactory {

    @Override
    public PropertySource<?> createPropertySource(String name, EncodedResource encodedResource) throws IOException {
        YamlPropertiesFactoryBean factory = new YamlPropertiesFactoryBean();
        factory.setResources(encodedResource.getResource());

        Properties properties = factory.getObject();

        return new PropertiesPropertySource(encodedResource.getResource().getFilename(), properties);
    }
}

There are the following 3 resources under src/main/resources:

application.yml:

spring:
  application:
    name: daily-cash-report-application

sftp:
  host: dev
  port: 22
  user: dev
  stagingDir: /opt/ccc/Data/Stage
  tmpDir: /opt/ccc/abcd/tmp
  #privateKey: 
  privateKey: file:///C:/Users/12345/AppData/Roaming/SSH/UserKeys/distributessh
  chmod: 664 
  
file:    
  stagingDir: /opt/ccc/Data/Stage
  tmpDir: C:\tmp 

feeds-config.yml

feeds:
  downstream:
    another-system:
      output-file-name: other.txt
    daily-cash-report:
      output-file-name: dcr.txt
      test:
        records-to-generate:
          pc: 10
          dp: 5
          z: 1

and logback.xml

---

In tests, I'm using the following setup:

@SpringBootTest
class DataMarshallerServiceTest {

    @Autowired
    private DataMarshallerService cut;
    
    @Autowired
//

The above setup builds and works fine, however as soon as I'm trying to introduce a dev profile by renaming application.yml into application-dev.yml, I start encountering the following exception as part of the build in tests execution:

Caused by: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Could not resolve placeholder 'sftp.host' in value "${sftp.host}"
    at org.springframework.util.PropertyPlaceholderHelper.parseStringValue(PropertyPlaceholderHelper.java:180)

Here's the launch profile in my STS IDE:

However, the error manifests during the build time, when executing

mvn clear package -P dcr

which is equivalent to the following STS Maven config also present in STS:

What is it I'm missing so that Spring profiles start functioning properly?

Could it be that since the *App has YamlPropertySourceFactory configured, the rest of the properties need to be specified explicitly?

Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

I've made the following assumption and an attempt to validate it, it seems to work, so I'll leave it here as a potential answer to be, potentially, challenged.

Apparently tests need to be pointed at the proper profile which is not part of the @SpringBootTest annotation itself.

Either one of the following 3 configurations seem to make the build work:

Option 1:

I've updated all the failing test cases with the following annotation after the @SpringBootTest:

@ActiveProfiles(profiles = "dev")

while adding the following stanza inside the application.yml:

spring:
  application:
    name: daily-cash-report-application
  profiles: dev

It also works without the above stanza if I rename application.yml into application-dev.yml.

Option 2:

Another, even simpler approach is as follows:

1. no need to annotate all tests with additional @ActiveProfiles(profiles = "dev") as above while
2. running the build with the following Maven command instead:

mvn clean package -P dcr -Dspring.profiles.active=dev

and

3. consuming the application-dev.yml out of src/main/resources/

Option 3

No need to either:

• adding an application-dev.yml file
• or specifying an additional @ActiveProfiles(profiles = "dev") annotation
• or needing to point to a specific profile as part of invocation of the build with -Dspring.profiles.active=dev,
• or specifying -Dspring.profiles.active=dev as a parameter to Maven

Simply:

Drop a copy of application.yml into src/test/resources/ folder so as to be picked up and used for tests execution via mvn clean package -P dcr

I'll let someone more authoritative to confirm that these are the right approaches and to validate that this test behavior in Spring is by design.

Thank you for reading.

Answer 2

You are not providing the standard properties file but only the dev one. Keep the application.yml and add a application-dev.yml in addition. In the standard one you add the following property:

spring.profiles.active:
  - dev
  - another_profile
  - and_one_more_profile

Spring will now search for application-dev.yml in addition to the application.yaml. This way you can override the standards with properties from the -dev profile.

Or, as Gweltaz Niquel pointed out in his comment, you can also set profiles via system parameter.