Unable to test step inside flow

[fmbenhassine]

Discussed in #4518

^{Originally posted by heitormsilva December 16, 2023}
Hi.

I have a configuration like this: job -> step (outerStep) -> flow (outerFlow) -> flow (innerFlow) -> step (innerStep).

I want to run a integration test of the innerStep, but I get a "java.lang.IllegalStateException: No Step found with name: [innerStep]".

If I run the test pointing to outerStep it works.

My test class is annotated with @SpringBootTest and @SpringBatchTest.
I'm running the step with: jobLauncherTestUtils.launchStep("innerStep");

How can I call only the innerStep?

[HyunSangHan]

I can take a look at this! 👀

[fmbenhassine]

@HyunSangHan Sure! Thank you for your offer to help!

As I mentioned in the initial discussion, this seems like a bug to me. The test utility should be able to locate the step no matter how deep it is in the flow. Please let me know if you need help on this.

[HyunSangHan]

Let me first share what I’ve understood so far about the issue like below:
(If I got anything wrong, feel free to let me know.)

spring-batch/spring-batch-test/src/main/java/org/springframework/batch/test/JobLauncherTestUtils.java

Line 234 in c6f88b8

Step step = locator.getStep(stepName);

When calling getStep(stepName), it looks for a step with the given name among the available steps.
At this point, only the outerStep is typically included in the list of steps(innerStep is usually not).

However, there's only one condition where we get a chance to retrieve steps inside another step (like innerStep within outerStep).

spring-batch/spring-batch-core/src/main/java/org/springframework/batch/core/job/SimpleJob.java

Lines 103 to 108 in c6f88b8

	else if (step instanceof StepLocator) {
	Step result = ((StepLocator) step).getStep(stepName);
	if (result != null) {
	return result;
	}
	}

But in the code, this only happens if the outerStep implements StepLocator.
If it doesn't, we miss that opportunity.

From what I can tell, classes like FlowStep (used as outerStep) do not implement StepLocator, so their inner steps are not exposed—leading to this issue.