I like to unit-test my persistent classes with JUnit. Running these tests as either a part of an ant script or within Eclipse is a very nice environment. Back in the day when I used to write all my own JDBC and SQL code it was very easy to do this. I only had to instantiate a data source, throw it into a JNDI context and I could test my classes and they worked the same way within the container.

Now with Hibernate I find this to be a problem. I have been able to instantiate a DataSource and configure and open a Hibernate Session based on that data source, but I am being defeated by all the bells and whistles of Hibernate, many of which rely on in-container support. Things like Transaction Strategy, User Transaction, I don't know what to specify in my properties when I am not using the container (JBoss in my case). So the unit test platform feels so near and yet so far.

Has anyone successfully done this? Is there a documented instance of a successful JUnit test environment with Hibernate? Hibernate SAYS that it works well in a standalone environment, but I don't see the documentation that explains how to set one up. JUnit testing is essentially a standalone environment. Is there some complete listing of the properties needed to run Hibernate standalone that someone can supply (similar to the "quickstart" for tomcat in the docs)?

Yes, I know I could try using Cactus and in-container testing, but that is another can of worms I don't want to open unless I have to.

yo... Just got this working with simple-jndi. come ask on #java in efnet or freenode if you have troubles.

Hmm. Not a big IRC guy here. I tried, couldn't find the channels
(there was #java.no but no #java). And in any case I don't know your nickname. But, whatever, sounds great and we can talk in the am.

Just have different hibernate.cfg.xml for your tests
hibernate.transaction.factory_class=net.sf.hibernate.transaction.JDBCTransactionFactory

Or even better, use a standalone JTA manager such as JOTM.

steve, you have to find a server for the efnet or freenode networks on google or something. irc.efnet.nl/irc.freenode.org work for me.

emmanuel, how does that compare to Tyrex?

Tyrex seems to have lots of features. JOTM is dedicated to TM and is the TM of JORAM (J2EE server)
I would say they do the same job (on the paper), but that piece of code can be very tricky: prefer using an active and well supported implementation. Tyrex seems not to be very active.

Ipojman if you would.. can you please keep the solution of this on the forums?
That way future people with the same problem can reference a solution without having to find you?
Thanks :)