Mule test code for inbound file polling - testing

Question

I'm new to Mule ESB.
I have the following config file for Mule which was taken from the Spell Checker tutorial:
<file:connector name="FILE" streaming="false" doc:name="File" autoDelete="true" validateConnections="false"/>
<flow name="SpellCheckerFlow1" doc:name="SpellCheckerFlow1">
<file:inbound-endpoint connector-ref="FILE" path=".\xmlIn" pollingFrequency="3000" responseTimeout="10000" doc:name="Incoming File" moveToDirectory=".\xmlProcessed"/>
<http:outbound-endpoint exchange-pattern="request-response" host="www.google.com/tbproxy/spell?lang=en" port="80" doc:name="Invoke API"/>
<echo-component doc:name="Echo"/>
<file:outbound-endpoint path=".\xmlOut" outputPattern="#[function:datestamp:dd-MM-yy]_#[function:systime].xml" responseTimeout="10000" doc:name="File"/>
</flow>
I'm trying to extend the FunctionalTestCase class and test this flow. Below is the extracted code I'm using to do that:
MuleClient client = new MuleClient(muleContext);
client.dispatch("file://./xmlIn", "<valid_xml />", null);
MuleMessage message = client.request("file://./xmlOut", 1000000000);
When I execute this code it creates a data file in the /xmlIn folder. The rest of the flow does not get executed. The flow should poll on this folder to pick up the file.
Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

The time-out parameter is ineffective when requesting from a file endpoint: Mule is not going to wait for the file to appear.
This means that your test doesn't block and always fails. The easiest/less refined way to solve the issue is to loop on a { Thread.wait(); client.request(); } until you get a non-null message, ie until the file in xmlOut has been read.
No need to add a retry counter: Mule's FunctionalTestCase will automatically fail the test after getTestTimeoutSecs() has elapsed (60 seconds by default).
Side notes:
To make your config work in my environment, I had to replace the .\ with ./ in the file paths of the XML config.
The outbound HTTP endpoint is mis-configured: the path is mixed in the host, use instead:
<http:outbound-endpoint exchange-pattern="request-response"
host="www.google.com" path="tbproxy/spell?lang=en" port="80"
doc:name="Invoke API" />
It's slightly more efficient to get the Mule client this way:
MuleClient muleClient = muleContext.getClient();