Arquillian combines a unit testing framework (JUnit or TestNG), ShrinkWrap, and one or more supported target containers (Java EE container, servlet container, Java SE CDI environment, etc) to provide a simple, flexible and pluggable integration testing environment.

The Arquillian test infrastructure

At the core, Arquillian provides a custom test runner for JUnit and TestNG that turns control of the test execution lifecycle from the unit testing framework to Arquillian. From there, Arquillian can delegate to service providers to setup the environment to execute the tests inside or against the container. An Arquillian test case looks just like a regular JUnit or TestNG test case with two declarative enhancements, which will be covered later.

Since Arquillian works by replacing the test runner, Arquillian tests can be executed using existing test IDE, Ant and Maven test plugins without any special configuration. Test results are reported just like you would expect. That's what we mean when we say using Arquillian is no more complicated than basic unit testing.

At this point, it's appropriate to pause and define the three aspects of an Arquillian test case. This terminology will help you better understand the explainations of how Arquillian works.

1. container — a runtime environment for a deployment

2. deployment — the process of dispatching an artifact to a container to make it operational

3. archive — a packaged assembly of code, configuration and resources

The test case is dispatched to the container's environment through coordination with ShrinkWrap, which is used to declaratively define a custom Java EE archive that encapsulates the test class and its dependent resources. Arquillian packages the ShrinkWrap-defined archive at runtime and deploys it to the target container. It then negotiates the execution of the test methods and captures the test results using remote communication with the server. Finally, Arquillian undeploys the test archive. We'll go into more detail about how Arquillian works in a later chapter.

So what is the target container? Some proprietary testing container that emulates the behavior of the technology (Java EE)? Nope, it's pluggable. It can be your actual target runtime, such as JBoss AS, GlassFish or Tomcat. It can even been an embedded container such as JBoss Embedded AS, GlassFish Embedded or Weld SE. All of this is made possible by a RPC-style (or local, if applicable) communication between the test runner and the environment, negotiating which tests are run, the execution, and communicating back the results. This means two things for the developer:

• You develop Arquillian tests just like you would a regular unit test and

• the container in which you run the tests can be easily swapped, or you can use each one.

With that in mind, let's consider where we are today with integration testing in Java EE and why an easy solution is needed.