Nullpointer in simple grails controller unit test

Question

I need a little assistance with a strange issue I am facing unit testing a very basic Grails 2.4.1 controller. Given this controller: ``` class AuthenticationEventController { def index() { // Sorry, ajax only! if(!request.xhr) { redirect(controller: "main") return false } render(template: "index") return } } ``` And this test: ``` @TestFor(AuthenticationEventController) class AuthenticationEventControllerSpec extends Specification { void "Test that the index rejects non-ajax calls"() { given: request.isXhr = { false } when: controller.index() then: response.redirectedUrl == '/main' } } ``` I get a NullPointerException on the "controller.index()" call. ``` java.lang.NullPointerException at org.springframework.transaction.support.TransactionTemplate.execute(TransactionTemplate.java:130) at org.codehaus.groovy.grails.orm.support.GrailsTransactionTemplate.execute(GrailsTransactionTemplate.groovy:85) at au.com.intrinsicminds.advansys.controller.AuthenticationEventControllerSpec.Test that…

Accepted Answer

the problem most likely is you are using

```
import grails.transaction.Transactional
```

instead of

```
import org.springframework.transaction.annotation.Transactional
```

for `@Transactional` annotation in the groovy class.

why, no clear answer as to the major difference or why the test doesn't do well with this. Also this usually only happens if you are testing a class with 2 more class layers behind it.

Nullpointer in simple grails controller unit test

Solution

Problem