How to mock Spring WebFlux WebClient?

Wired mocks are fine for integration tests, although I believe they are not needed for unit tests. When doing unit tests, I'll just be curious to see if my WebClient was called with the correct parameters. To do this, you need a mock WebClient instance. Or, you could inject WebClientBuilder instead.

Let's take a look at a simplified method that executes a mail request as shown below.

@Service
@Getter
@Setter
public class RestAdapter {

    public static final String BASE_URI = "http://some/uri";
    public static final String SUB_URI = "some/endpoint";

    @Autowired
    private WebClient.Builder webClientBuilder;

    private WebClient webClient;

    @PostConstruct
    protected void initialize() {
        webClient = webClientBuilder.baseUrl(BASE_URI).build();
    }

    public Mono<String> createSomething(String jsonDetails) {

        return webClient.post()
                .uri(SUB_URI)
                .accept(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON)
                .body(Mono.just(jsonDetails), String.class)
                .retrieve()
                .bodyToMono(String.class);
    }
}

      

        
        
        
      

    

The createSomething method simply takes a String, assumed to be Json for the sake of simplicity of the example, makes a post request to the URI, and returns the body of the output response, which is assumed to be a String.

The method can be tested by a module as shown below using StepVerifier.

public class RestAdapterTest {
    private static final String JSON_INPUT = "{\"name\": \"Test name\"}";
    private static final String TEST_ID = "Test Id";

    private WebClient.Builder webClientBuilder = mock(WebClient.Builder.class);
    private WebClient webClient = mock(WebClient.class);

    private RestAdapter adapter = new RestAdapter();
    private WebClient.RequestBodyUriSpec requestBodyUriSpec = mock(WebClient.RequestBodyUriSpec.class);
    private WebClient.RequestBodySpec requestBodySpec = mock(WebClient.RequestBodySpec.class);
    private WebClient.RequestHeadersSpec requestHeadersSpec = mock(WebClient.RequestHeadersSpec.class);
    private WebClient.ResponseSpec responseSpec = mock(WebClient.ResponseSpec.class);

    @BeforeEach
    void setup() {
        adapter.setWebClientBuilder(webClientBuilder);
        when(webClientBuilder.baseUrl(anyString())).thenReturn(webClientBuilder);
        when(webClientBuilder.build()).thenReturn(webClient);
        adapter.initialize();
    }

    @Test
    @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
    void createSomething_withSuccessfulDownstreamResponse_shouldReturnCreatedObjectId() {
        when(webClient.post()).thenReturn(requestBodyUriSpec);
        when(requestBodyUriSpec.uri(RestAdapter.SUB_URI))
                .thenReturn(requestBodySpec);
        when(requestBodySpec.accept(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON)).thenReturn(requestBodySpec);
        when(requestBodySpec.body(any(Mono.class), eq(String.class)))
                .thenReturn(requestHeadersSpec);
        when(requestHeadersSpec.retrieve()).thenReturn(responseSpec);
        when(responseSpec.bodyToMono(String.class)).thenReturn(Mono.just(TEST_ID));


        ArgumentCaptor<Mono<String>> captor
                = ArgumentCaptor.forClass(Mono.class);

        Mono<String> result = adapter.createSomething(JSON_INPUT);

        verify(requestBodySpec).body(captor.capture(), eq(String.class));
        Mono<String> testBody = captor.getValue();
        assertThat(testBody.block(), equalTo(JSON_INPUT));
        StepVerifier
                .create(result)
                .expectNext(TEST_ID)
                .verifyComplete();
    }
}

      

        
        
        
      

    

Note that when clauses check all parameters except the request body. Even if one of the parameters does not match, unit testing fails, confirming all of this. The request body is then asserted in a separate review and assertion, since "Mono" cannot be equated. The result is then verified using a step-by-step verifier.

And then, we can do a wired mock integration test, as mentioned in other answers, to see if this class is wired in correctly, and if the endpoint is calling the desired body, etc.