Java Spring - Persisting object with API works, but I can't persist object with service in test, null pointer

Question

I have created API in spring for persisting object from JSON body andi it works fine, but I'm trying to create a bunch of tests and I need sample data for them. I'm trying to persist that data within test using service related to that entity, but when I'm trying to do that I'm getting NullPointerException. Could you please help me resolve this problem?

Entity class:

@Entity
@Table(name = "employees")
@NoArgsConstructor
@Data
public class EmployeeEntity {
    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.AUTO)
    private Long id;
    private int employeeId;
    private String firstName;
    private String lastName;
}

Entity related service:

@Service
public class EmployeeService {

    @Autowired
    EmployeeRepository employeeRepository;

    public void addEmployee(EmployeeEntity employee){
        employeeRepository.save(employee);
    }

    public Iterable<EmployeeEntity> getAllEmployees(){
        return employeeRepository.findAll();
    }

    public Optional<EmployeeEntity> getEmployeeById(Long id){
        return employeeRepository.findById(id);
    }
}

Test that throws NullPointerException:

public class EmployeeCRUDtest {

    TestUtils testUtils = new TestUtils();

    @Autowired
    EmployeeService employeeService;

    @Test
    public void shouldPersistEmployee(){
        EmployeeEntity emp = testUtils.generateSingleRandomEmployee();
        employeeService.addEmployee(emp);
    }
}

Answer 1

You're missing an annotation that makes @Autowired in tests work:

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
public class EmployeeCRUDtest