How to use SoftAssert class of org.testng.asserts package

JDBC is simply a Java SE standard of database access offering the standard interfaces so you're not really bound to a specific JDBC implementation. MySQL Java connector (Connector/J) is an implementation of the JDBC interfaces for MySQL databases only. Out of experience, I'm involved to a project that uses huge amount of data using MySQL, and we mostly prefer MyISAM for data that can be generated: it allows to achieve much higher performance losing transactions, but generally speaking, MyISAM is faster, but InnoDB is more reliable.

I wondered for the performance of the INSERT statements too about a year ago, and found the following old testing code in my code shelf (sorry, it's a bit complex and a bit out of your question scope). The code below contains examples of 4 ways of inserting the test data:

• single INSERTs;
• batched INSERTs;
• manual bulk INSERT (never use it - it's dangerous);
• and finally prepared bulk INSERT).

It uses TestNG as the runner, and uses some custom code legacy like:

• the runWithConnection() method - ensures that the connection is closed or put back to the connection pool after the callback is executed (but the code below uses not reliable strategy of the statement closing - even without try/finally to reduce the code);
• IUnsafeIn<T, E extends Throwable> - a custom callback interface for the methods accepting a single parameter but potentially throwing an exception of type E, like: void handle(T argument) throws E;.

package test;

import test.IUnsafeIn;

import java.sql.Connection;
import java.sql.PreparedStatement;
import java.sql.SQLException;

import static java.lang.String.format;
import static java.lang.String.valueOf;
import static java.lang.System.currentTimeMillis;

import core.SqlBaseTest;
import org.testng.annotations.AfterSuite;
import org.testng.annotations.BeforeSuite;
import org.testng.annotations.BeforeTest;
import org.testng.annotations.Test;

public final class InsertVsBatchInsertTest extends SqlBaseTest {

    private static final int ITERATION_COUNT = 3000;

    private static final String CREATE_TABLE_QUERY = "CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS ttt1 (c1 INTEGER, c2 FLOAT, c3 VARCHAR(5)) ENGINE = InnoDB";
    private static final String DROP_TABLE_QUERY = "DROP TABLE ttt1";
    private static final String CLEAR_TABLE_QUERY = "DELETE FROM ttt1";

    private static void withinTimer(String name, Runnable runnable) {
        final long start = currentTimeMillis();
        runnable.run();
        logStdOutF("%20s: %d ms", name, currentTimeMillis() - start);
    }

    @BeforeSuite
    public void createTable() {
        runWithConnection(new IUnsafeIn<Connection, SQLException>() {
            @Override
            public void handle(Connection connection) throws SQLException {
                final PreparedStatement statement = connection.prepareStatement(CREATE_TABLE_QUERY);
                statement.execute();
                statement.close();
            }
        });
    }

    @AfterSuite
    public void dropTable() {
        runWithConnection(new IUnsafeIn<Connection, SQLException>() {
            @Override
            public void handle(Connection connection) throws SQLException {
                final PreparedStatement statement = connection.prepareStatement(DROP_TABLE_QUERY);
                statement.execute();
                statement.close();
            }
        });
    }

    @BeforeTest
    public void clearTestTable() {
        runWithConnection(new IUnsafeIn<Connection, SQLException>() {
            @Override
            public void handle(Connection connection) throws SQLException {
                final PreparedStatement statement = connection.prepareStatement(CLEAR_TABLE_QUERY);
                statement.execute();
                statement.close();
            }
        });
    }

    @Test
    public void run1SingleInserts() {
        withinTimer("Single inserts", new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                runWithConnection(new IUnsafeIn<Connection, SQLException>() {
                    @Override
                    public void handle(Connection connection) throws SQLException {
                        for ( int i = 0; i < ITERATION_COUNT; i++ ) {
                            final PreparedStatement statement = connection.prepareStatement("INSERT INTO ttt1 (c1, c2, c3) VALUES (?, ?, ?)");
                            statement.setInt(1, i);
                            statement.setFloat(2, i);
                            statement.setString(3, valueOf(i));
                            statement.execute();
                            statement.close();
                        }
                    }
                });
            }
        });
    }

    @Test
    public void run2BatchInsert() {
        withinTimer("Batch insert", new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                runWithConnection(new IUnsafeIn<Connection, SQLException>() {
                    @Override
                    public void handle(Connection connection) throws SQLException {
                        final PreparedStatement statement = connection.prepareStatement("INSERT INTO ttt1 (c1, c2, c3) VALUES (?, ?, ?)");
                        for ( int i = 0; i < ITERATION_COUNT; i++ ) {
                            statement.setInt(1, i);
                            statement.setFloat(2, i);
                            statement.setString(3, valueOf(i));
                            statement.addBatch();
                        }
                        statement.executeBatch();
                        statement.close();
                    }
                });
            }
        });
    }

    @Test
    public void run3DirtyBulkInsert() {
        withinTimer("Dirty bulk insert", new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                runWithConnection(new IUnsafeIn<Connection, SQLException>() {
                    @Override
                    public void handle(Connection connection) throws SQLException {
                        final StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder("INSERT INTO ttt1 (c1, c2, c3) VALUES ");
                        for ( int i = 0; i < ITERATION_COUNT; i++ ) {
                            if ( i != 0 ) {
                                builder.append(",");
                            }
                            builder.append(format("(%s, %s, '%s')", i, i, i));
                        }
                        final String query = builder.toString();
                        final PreparedStatement statement = connection.prepareStatement(query);
                        statement.execute();
                        statement.close();
                    }
                });
            }
        });
    }

    @Test
    public void run4SafeBulkInsert() {
        withinTimer("Safe bulk insert", new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                runWithConnection(new IUnsafeIn<Connection, SQLException>() {
                    private String getInsertPlaceholders(int placeholderCount) {
                        final StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder("(");
                        for ( int i = 0; i < placeholderCount; i++ ) {
                            if ( i != 0 ) {
                                builder.append(",");
                            }
                            builder.append("?");
                        }
                        return builder.append(")").toString();
                    }

                    @SuppressWarnings("AssignmentToForLoopParameter")
                    @Override
                    public void handle(Connection connection) throws SQLException {
                        final int columnCount = 3;
                        final StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder("INSERT INTO ttt1 (c1, c2, c3) VALUES ");
                        final String placeholders = getInsertPlaceholders(columnCount);
                        for ( int i = 0; i < ITERATION_COUNT; i++ ) {
                            if ( i != 0 ) {
                                builder.append(",");
                            }
                            builder.append(placeholders);
                        }
                        final int maxParameterIndex = ITERATION_COUNT * columnCount;
                        final String query = builder.toString();
                        final PreparedStatement statement = connection.prepareStatement(query);
                        int valueIndex = 0;
                        for ( int parameterIndex = 1; parameterIndex <= maxParameterIndex; valueIndex++ ) {
                            statement.setObject(parameterIndex++, valueIndex);
                            statement.setObject(parameterIndex++, valueIndex);
                            statement.setObject(parameterIndex++, valueIndex);
                        }
                        statement.execute();
                        statement.close();
                    }
                });
            }
        });
    }

}

Take a look at the methods annotated with the @Test annotation: they actually execute the INSERT statements. Also please take a look at the CREATE_TABLE_QUERY constant: in the source code it uses InnoDB producing the following results at my machine with MySQL 5.5 installed (MySQL Connector/J 5.1.12):

InnoDB
Single inserts: 74148 ms
Batch insert: 84370 ms
Dirty bulk insert: 178 ms
Safe bulk insert: 118 ms

If you change the CREATE_TABLE_QUERY InnoDB to MyISAM, you'd see significant performance increase:

MyISAM
Single inserts: 604 ms
Batch insert: 447 ms
Dirty bulk insert: 63 ms
Safe bulk insert: 26 ms

Hope this helps.

UPD:

For the 4th way you must properly customize the max_allowed_packet in mysql.ini (the [mysqld] section) to be large enough to support really big packets.

Testng is calling methods in this specific order: serviceData, beforeMethod and m1.

If you want to pass a mock with a data provider, you have to create it before or into the data provider method.

You can actually do this "semi off the shelf": http://testng.org/doc/documentation-main.html#beanshell

In your particular case, it would be something like this:

<method-selectors>
  <method-selector>
    <script language="beanshell"><![CDATA[
       return groups.containsKey("tsg1.0") && groups.containsKey("smoke");
     ]]></script>
  </method-selector>
</method-selectors>

Just answered a similar question in more detail here: Is it possible to put a condition to TestNG to run the test if that is member of two groups?

You shouldn't see a NPE as a test failure. You should actually assert it is not null and provide an error message,

assertNotNull(someVal, "Some descriptive message saying why value should not be null");

Instead of

public class MyTestNGTest {
    @Inject private Provider<Thing> thingProvider;

    @Test
    public void test1() {
        Thing thing = thingProvider.get();

In TestNG you can used

public class MyTestNGTest {
    @Inject 
    private Thing thingInjected;
    private Thing thing;

    @BeforeTest
    public void doBeforeTest() {
        thing = thingInjected.clone();
    }

Or just call thingProvider.get() in doBeforeTest(), it's better in you have a lot of @ Test

public class MyTestNGTest {
    @Inject private Provider<Thing> thingProvider;
    private Thing thing;

    @BeforeTest
    public void doBeforeTest() {
        thing = thingProvider.get();
    }

That is because the groups flag only indicates if a method belongs to a group. When that group is enabled, it is executed always, i.e. before all tests methods irrespective of the group the test methods belong to. By default all groups are enabled.

If you want to have the method only executed for the tests of certain groups, you would need to specify onlyForGroups.

public class BeforeTest {

    private static final Logger LOG = Logger.getLogger(BeforeTest.class);

    @BeforeMethod(onlyForGroups = { "g1" })
    public void setUpG1() {
        sleep();
        LOG.info("BeforeMethod G1");
    }

    @Test(groups = { "g1" })
    public void g1Test() {
        sleep();
        LOG.info("g1Test()");
    }

    @BeforeMethod(onlyForGroups = { "g2" }, alwaysRun = false)
    public void setUpG2() {
        sleep();
        LOG.info("BeforeMethod G2");
    }

    @Test(groups = { "g2" })
    public void g2Test() {
        sleep();
        LOG.info("g2Test()");
    }

    private void sleep() {
        try {
            Thread.sleep(500);
        } catch (InterruptedException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

The output is

BeforeMethod G1
g1Test()
BeforeMethod G2
g2Test()

Maven doesn't have build target (phase in Maven lingo), what you probably want is either compile, test or install depending what you want to achieve.

Please read through Introduction to the Build Lifecycle to learn more about how Maven lifecycle works and what each step does.

I'm not sure what was solution to this, but most of issues I had were solved by installing plugins in newer version, and all their dependent plugins

For the lack of a better approach, I decided to stick to the workaround. here is an example of how the above scenario could be implemented:

@Test
public class ExampleDataProvider {

   /**
     * Returns the list of shape codes.
     * 
     * @return the collection shape codes.
     */
    @DataProvider(name = "ShapeCodes")
    public static Object[][] getShapeCodes() {
        return new Object[][] { new Object[] { Shape.Square }, 
            new Object[] { Shape.Triangle }
        };
    }

    /**
     * Returns the list of color codes.
     * 
     * @return the collection of color codes.
     */
    @DataProvider(name = "ColorCodes")
    public static Object[][] geColorCodes() {
        return new Object[][] { new Object[] { Color.Green }, 
            new Object[] { Color.Red }
        };
    }

    /**
     * Returns the list object codes providing a color shape combination.
     * 
     * @return the collection of object codes.
     */
    @DataProvider(name = "objectCodes")
    public static Object[][] getObjectCodes(){
        return combine(geColorCodes(),  getShapeCodes());
    }


    /**
     * Returns the list of combination of color and shape codes.
     * 
     * @return the collection of combined color and shape codes.
     */
    public static Object[][] combine(Object[][] a1, Object[][] a2){
        List<Object[]> objectCodesList = new LinkedList<Object[]>();
        for(Object[] o : a1){
            for(Object[] o2 : a2){
                objectCodesList.add(concatAll(o, o2));
            }
        }
         return objectCodesList.toArray(new Object[0][0]);
    }


    @SafeVarargs
    public static <T> T[] concatAll(T[] first, T[]... rest) {
     //calculate the total length of the final object array after the concat    
      int totalLength = first.length;
      for (T[] array : rest) {
        totalLength += array.length;
      }
      //copy the first array to result array and then copy each array completely to result
      T[] result = Arrays.copyOf(first, totalLength);
      int offset = first.length;
      for (T[] array : rest) {
        System.arraycopy(array, 0, result, offset, array.length);
        offset += array.length;
      }

      return result;
    }
}

This way I get to use my Color codes and Shape codes separately and also provides me to use the combination.

So, my test methods would look like:

@Test(dataProvider = "objectCodes", dataProviderClass = ExampleDataProvider.class)
     public void test(String ShapeCode, String ColorCode) throws IOException {
           .............
           /* tests for color shape combination */
           .............
          }

@Test(dataProvider = "ShapeCodes", dataProviderClass = ExampleDataProvider.class)
    public void test(String ShapeCode) throws IOException {
        .............
        /* tests for  shapes */
        .............
    }

@Test(dataProvider = "ColorCodes", dataProviderClass = ExampleDataProvider.class)
    public void test(String ColorCode) throws IOException {
        .............
        /* tests for colors */
        .............
    }