Frequently Asked Questions

PODAM FAQs

  1. What if I want to change PODAM behaviour between invocations and I have used a custom annotation?
  2. I've noticed that Podam assigned random values. What if I wanted to define my own values?

PODAM FAQs

What if I want to change PODAM behaviour between invocations and I have used a custom annotation?

Ok, so you have set a property firstName with the annotation @PodamStringValue(strValue = "Michael"). This means that PODAM will fill every instance of the annotated POJO attribute with the value "Michael". Unfortunately, there is no easy way around this: when you use a PODAM custom annotation, the values driven by the annotation are assigned to every instance of the annotated POJO. There is an acceptable solution though: you can have PODAM to fill the POJO for you and then manually change the attributes for which a particular run needs particular values. This is obviously possible if the POJO allows for changes in state. For immutable-like POJOs there is no easy way to get around this issue and ultimately you might want to manufacture an immutable-like POJO by hand. 

          
          ...In Client.java
          
          @PodamStringValue(strValue = "Michael")
          private String firstName;
          
          [etc.]
          
          ...In your client
          
          Client client = PodamFactory.manufacturePojo(Client.class);
          
          //firstName is now set with the value "Michael" but you can change it
          //with the value of your choice (provided the POJO is not immutable)
          pojo.setFirstName("MyOtherValue");
I've noticed that Podam assigned random values. What if I wanted to define my own values?

You want to provide your own implementation of the DataProviderStrategy. Podam uses the default implementation (RandomDataProviderStrategy) but you can define pretty much what you want. We've provided AbstractRandomDataProviderStrategy to take away most of the boilerplate code. So you could write your own extension to this class customising the types you want to provide yourself.

Please refer to the home page documentation for examples on how to do this.