Interface ContextCache

All Known Implementing Classes:
DefaultContextCache

public interface ContextCache
ContextCache defines the SPI for caching Spring ApplicationContexts within the Spring TestContext Framework.

A ContextCache maintains a cache of ApplicationContexts keyed by MergedContextConfiguration instances, potentially configured with a maximum size and a custom eviction policy.

As of Spring Framework 6.1, this SPI includes optional support for tracking and incrementing failure counts. As of Spring Framework 7.0, this SPI includes optional support for registering and unregistering context usage.

Rationale

Context caching can have significant performance benefits if context initialization is complex. Although the initialization of a Spring context itself is typically very quick, some beans in a context — for example, an embedded database or a LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean for working with JPA — may take several seconds to initialize. Hence, it often makes sense to perform that initialization only once per test suite or JVM process.

Since:
4.2
Author:
Sam Brannen, Juergen Hoeller
See Also: