Although not ideal IDE integration, by setting up a Run Configuration for your Grails project in Eclipse, you will be able to run and debug Grails integration JUnit tests within Eclipse. Here is how:
- Open Run Configurations
- Select Java Applications->New
- On the Main tab:
Project: Select your Grails project
Main class: org.codehaus.groovy.grails.cli.support.GrailsStarter
- On Arguments tab:
Program args (Including the quotes):
“test-app ${string_prompt} -integration”
VM Arguments: -Dgrails.home=${grails_home}
-Dbase.dir=”${project_loc:}”
-Dgrails.env=development -Xms512M -Xmx768M
-XX:PermSize=64M -XX:MaxPermSize=128M
- On Classpath tab
User Entries add your project
User Entries add all $GROOVY_HOME/dist and
$GROOVY_HOME/lib jar files (to be safe)
- On Source tab add your Java Project for debugging purposes
- On Environment tab you have to add a JAVA_HOME and
GRAILS_HOME environment variable.
- On Common tab Display in Run and Debug Favorites menus
- Apply and Done

Try it out. Let’s say you have integration tests for a controller called SomeController. When you run this new run configuration, when prompted type in SomeController. The results of test will be shown in the console and the test report will be generated in /test/reports (you will have to manually re-sync to refresh the reports.

Now try setting a breakpoint in a test within the integration test case for SomeController. Now run the debug configuration version of the setup you did above. Again, when prompted enter SomeController. Eclipse should stop at your breakpoint. Now you can debug your integration test within Eclipse without having to manually setup a remote debugger.

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comments to “Versions I Used for this Setup”
I used
http://dist.codehaus.org/groovy/distributions/updateDev/
which seems to have Groovy 1.6

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comments to “Eclipse WorkSpace Setup”

I have Ubuntu and used http://code.google.com/p/ant-deb-task/ to get a debian package
using your linux console you can find out where grails is installed.
$ grails
Grails home is set to: /usr/share/grails

I had problems with enviroment variables so I used a lot of global paths

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comments to “Create Grails External Tool”

I had problems with my JAVA_HOME so I set it manually in the environment tab of the External-Config, and set it to “replace native …”

My grails command was not set to executable so I followed http://jamesladdcode.com/?p=97 not sure if this is a wise idea, but it got we forward
/usr/share/grails/bin$ sudo chmod +x grails

so the command is
/usr/share/grails/bin/grails

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comments to “Debugging Your Grails Application”
I asssume we have the same limitation like in NetBeans6.7 that we can’t set breakpoint in closures and step throug them, right?

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comments to “Resolving Eclipse Classpath Problems: Grails Project with Grails Plug-in Dependencies”

I skipped this, for the moment, but we are using this plugin too, so it seems I will come back to this soon.

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comments to “Running Grails Unit Tests in Eclipse”
I had the problem that Eclipse complained the bin-groovy is not in the classpath. I added it manually in the “configure build path”->”Libraries Tab”->”Add Class Folder Button”

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Result: Ready for Mylyn + Grails

This will allow you to make changes to your groovy files in Eclipse, compile changes are made in bin-groovy and groovy unit tests can be re-run with these changes.

A post that details these unit testing steps further can be found at: http://www.objectpartners.com/2009/02/16/unit-testing-grails-in-eclipse/