_posts/2009-04-29-alternate_descriptors_for_testing.html

---
layout: post
status: PUBLISHED
published: true
title: Alternate descriptors for testing
id: fa054ba6-5b0f-4e2a-8145-c8c2560cffc4
date: '2009-04-29 00:00:00 -0400'
categories: openejb
tags:
- ejb
- embedded
- newfeatures
- 3.1.1
- testing
- openejb
permalink: openejb/entry/alternate_descriptors_for_testing
---
<p>Inspired by some user blog posts, we've added a new feature so support for altDD (alternative deployment descriptors) can be done in a test or other environment without much work.</p>
<p>
Basically, just set the new "<a href="http://openejb.apache.org/3.0/alternate-descriptors.html">openejb.altdd.prefix</a>" system property or initialcontext property to something like "test", then any descriptors in your META-INF/ directory that start with "test." will override the regular descriptor.  So for example with an app like this:</p>
<li>META-INF/ejb-jar.xml
<li>META-INF/test.ejb-jar.xml
<li>META-INF/persistence.xml
<li>META-INF/test.env-entry.properties
<p>
Just initialize your test case like so:</p>
<p><pre>
 Properties properties = new Properties();
 properties.setProperty(Context.INITIAL_CONTEXT_FACTORY,
      "org.apache.openejb.client.LocalInitialContextFactory");
 properties.setProperty("openejb.altdd.prefix", "test");

 InitialContext initialContext = new InitialContext(properties);
</pre>
<p>The logical result will be:</p>
<li> META-INF/ejb-jar.xml (via test.ejb-jar.xml)
<li> META-INF/persistence.xml
<li> META-INF/env-entry.properties (via test.env-entry.properties)
<p>
This will work in any environment in which OpenEJB works (embedded, standalone, tomcat, geronimo, etc.).</p>