Grails 2.5.5 controller unit test cannot cast object error

Question

I've been trying to set up a unit test for a controller. However, any attempt to access the controller property causes the following error:

org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.typehandling.GroovyCastException: Cannot cast object 'class au.org.ala.collectory.ContactController' with class 'java.lang.Class' to class 'au.org.ala.collectory.ContactController'

Here's the code that I've been using:

package au.org.ala.collectory

import grails.test.mixin.Mock
import grails.test.mixin.TestFor
import spock.lang.Specification

@TestFor(ContactController)
@Mock([Contact, CollectoryAuthService])
class ContactControllerTests extends Specification {
    def contact

    def setup() {
        contact = new Contact(
            title: "Dr",
            firstName: "Lemmy",
            lastName: "Caution",
            phone: "0262465909",
            mobile: "0419468551",
            email: "lemmy.caution@csiro.au",
            notes: "to be treated with exaggerated respect",
            publish: true,
            userLastModified: 'test')
     }


    def testList() {
        when:
        contact.save(flush:true, failOnError: true)
        request.contentType = JSON_CONTENT_TYPE
        controller.list()
        then:
        model.contactInstanceList.size() == 1
        model.contactInstanceList[0].title == 'Dr'
    }
}

I've tried various combinations of code placement and mocking, all to no avail. Any explanation as to why I would be getting this error would be most appreciated.

Answer 1

The problem is caused by a def name = { closure in the controller. This seems to interfere with the AST transformation taking place. Changing the closure to a method, ie def name() { allows the tests to run.