Testing multipart submit in jsp

[Robin Clark]

I am very new to jsp and java testing in general. I have written a jsp that will be used as part of a VoiceXML application. This jsp receives some parameters that are strings from a VoiceXML page along with a parameter that is an audio file. The jsp creates a directory structure based upon the values of the string parameter, then it constructs a filename with a date stamp, then it saves the audio using an oreilly multipart bean.
It seems to work well, but now I am wondering how I could have tested it at the unit level? I will need to do this again and I would like to learn how to test jsp code correctly.
Here is the jsp in question:

<?xml version = "1.0"?>
<vxml version = "2.0">
<form>

<block>
at the beginning of the file capture prompt 
</block>

<%@ page import="java.io.*" %>
<%@page import="java.util.*"%>
<%@page import="com.oreilly.servlet.MultipartRequest"%>
<%@page import="com.oreilly.servlet.multipart.*"%>
<%@page import="java.text.*"%>
<% 
// log message to localhost_log.yyyy-mm-dd.text 
getServletContext().log( "Starting in capturePrompt.jsp" );

com.oreilly.servlet.multipart.MultipartParser mpP= new MultipartParser(request, 1000000);
Part pt;
String channelType = "";
String phoneNbr = "";
String promptID = "";
String sex = "";
String audioStream = "";
// retrieve parameters from getFileName.jsp submit
while ((pt=mpP.readNextPart())!=null) {
    String name = pt.getName();
    ParamPart paramPart = (ParamPart)pt;
    if (name != null && name.equals("channel_type")) {
    channelType = paramPart.getStringValue();
} else if (name != null && name.equals("phoneNbr")) {
phoneNbr = paramPart.getStringValue();
} else if (name != null && name.equals("audio")) {
audioStream = paramPart.getStringValue();
} else if (name != null && name.equals("promptID")) {
    promptID = paramPart.getStringValue();
} else if (name != null && name.equals("sex")) {
sex = paramPart.getStringValue();
} else {
getServletContext().log("Got a parameter I did not expect");
}

if (name != null) {
getServletContext().log("Parameter name is " + name );
}
}  // end of while loop to retrieve parameters passed in submit

// variables for writing output audio
FileOutputStream fos;
File f; 

// store all utterances in the web applications WEB-INF directory
// under the utt subdirectory
String completePath = getServletContext().getRealPath("WEB-INF/");
// store pcs utterances under the pcs subdirectory, store
// landline utterances under the ll subdirectory
if (channelType.equals("1")) {
completePath = completePath + "/utt/pcs/";
} else {
completePath = completePath + "/utt/ll/";
}
// store utterances made by males under the male subdirectory, store
// utterances made by females under the female subdirectory
if (channelType.equals("1")) {
completePath = completePath + "female/";
} else {
completePath = completePath + "male/";
}
// store this caller's utterances under their ID key which is their
// 10 digit office telephone number
completePath = completePath + phoneNbr + "/";
// create the directories if they are not already in existence
(new File(completePath)).mkdirs();
// get the timestamp for the filename
Date today;
String dateString;
SimpleDateFormat formatter;
formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("ddMMyy_HHmm", Locale.US);
today = new Date();
dateString = formatter.format(today);
getServletContext().log("The timestamp is " + dateString); 

// determine the name of the output file based upon which
// prompt this is a response to
completePath = completePath + promptID + dateString + ".ulaw";
f = new File(completePath);
fos = new FileOutputStream(f);
fos.write(audioStream.getBytes());
// log information for debugging purposes
getServletContext().log("Complete path is " + completePath );
%>
<block>
at the end of the file capture prompt 
</block>

</form>
</vxml>

Thank you for any advice you have about unit testing jsp code!

[Lasse Koskela]

You could use HttpUnit or Cactus for sending the multipart HTTP POST request and then, somehow, verify that the file appeared in the correct place.
It's not really unit testing but functional testing, though. I would still consider extracting everything you can into helper classes which can be tested in isolation without a web container. Divide and conquer...

[Ilja Preuss]

Lasse is correct - your JSP should be as dumb as possible. Put all the logic into POJOs (plain old java objects) and test them using vanilla JUnit.