Easymock doesn't preserve annotations of methods

Question

I'm try to mock a class that has some public methods with annotations (it's actually a SpringBoot @RestController type of class).

When I mock it and use expect for few of the methods that have annotations I see that Easymock loses the annotation and my code breaks.

Is that EasyMock limitation or I need to do something to make it work?

EDIT: Here is a snippet of the class I'm trying to mock:

@CrossOrigin
@RestController
@RequestMapping(path = "/users")
public class UsersController {

    @RequestMapping(
            path = "/getUsers",
            method = RequestMethod.GET,
            consumes = MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON_VALUE,
            produces = MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON_VALUE)
    public List<User> getUsers(@RequestBody UserRequest userRequest, HttpServletRequest request) {
...
}
...
}

Mocking Test Code:

@Test
    public void testGetUsers() throws Exception {
UserController controller = createMock(UserController.class);
        expect(controller.getUsers(userRequest, httpRequest)).andReturn(Collections.emptyList());
        
        replay(controller);
        
        ...
        
        verify(controller);
}

I did a simple check and instead of passing the mocked instance I passed an instantiated instance and it worked well. so my conclusion is that somehow when mocking a class that has annotations on methods it loses the annotations.

btw, I'm using easymock 3.4

EDIT 2:

• I've upgrade to v4.2 but it didn't help.

• The way to reproduce it is simply by running this code

public void testGetUsers() throws Exception {

   UserController controller = createMock(UserController.class); 
 
 expect(controller.getUsers(userRequest,httpRequest)).andReturn(Collections.emptyList());
        
   replay(controller);

   Method[] methods = controller.getClass().getMethods();
   if(methods[0].isAnnotationPresent(RequestMapping.class) == false) {
   System.out.println("FOUND THE PROBLEM!!");
}

Thank you!

Answer 1

A mock is a simple thing. It extends a class and overrides all the methods. The annotations are not added to the generated class. Because you are mocking a behavior. The mock is not meant to be passed to an annotation processor.

Nothing is preventing from doing it, it's just that nobody has needed that feature for 20 years. I am curious to see a full example of why you need it.