Would the usage of a TestPropertySource with a SpringBootTest annotated test result in the creation of a new Spring Context?

Would using a @TestPropertySource, that creates a new Bean in the application, result in the creation of a new Context or would it reuse an already created context?

Solution

Spring Test manages the context within a context cache and uses a uniquely identifiable key for each context (think of a simple Java Map).

The parameters that are used to create this key are the following:

locations (from @ContextConfiguration)

classes (from @ContextConfiguration)

contextInitializerClasses (from @ContextConfiguration)

contextCustomizers (from ContextCustomizerFactory) – this includes @DynamicPropertySource methods as well as various features from Spring Boot’s testing support such as @MockBean and @SpyBean.

contextLoader (from @ContextConfiguration)

parent (from @ContextHierarchy)

activeProfiles (from @ActiveProfiles)

propertySourceLocations (from @TestPropertySource)

propertySourceProperties (from @TestPropertySource)

resourceBasePath (from @WebAppConfiguration)

So yes, if you use @TestPropertySource with different configurations for multiple tests, there will be multiple contexts created for you. If all your test have the same @TestPropertySource annotation, then they can share the context, e.g.:

@SpringBootTest
@TestPropertySource(locations = "classpath:application.properties")
public class ContextOneIT {

  @Test
  public void testMe() {
    System.out.println("Works");
  }
}

can share the same context with

@SpringBootTest
@TestPropertySource(locations = "classpath:application.properties")
public class ContextTwoIT {

  @Test
  public void testMe() {
    System.out.println("Works");
  }

}

If you are curious and want to understand what Spring Test is doing, you can enable the following log level to get context related logs:

logging.level.org.springframework.test.context.cache=DEBUG