Data Types

Most of the data types are self explanatory and are adapted to the database in use. Refer to the database documentation for its data types specifics.

The following sections document data types within dbUnit.

  1. BigInteger
  2. BinaryStream
  3. Bit
  4. Blob
  5. Boolean
  6. Bytes
  7. Clob
  8. Date
  9. Double
  10. Float
  11. Integer
  12. Long
  13. Number
  14. NumberTolerant
  15. String
  16. StringIgnoreCase
  17. Time
  18. Timestamp
  19. UuidAwareBytes

Blob

Blob JavaDoc

Blobs contain binary data. DbUnit, however, processes data with XML or CSV files containing textual data sets, not binary. To push binary data into a database blob from dbUnit data set files, use the following syntax in a data set field: 

... field_name="[TEXT|BASE64|FILE|URL <optional argument>] optional text"

The table below shows how to use each of the forms available to load binary data into a blob.

Data Type Description
TEXT Insert text in a blob. By default the encoding used is UTF-8, but optionally any encoding can be provided.

Example with UTF-8 encoding: 
<!DOCTYPE dataset SYSTEM "my-dataset.dtd">
<dataset>
    <TABLE_WITHBLOB COL0="[TEXT]This is my text, saved in UTF-8 (default) encoding.  Java: bon café!"
                    COL1="row 0 col 1"
                    COL2="row 0 col 2"/>
</dataset>

Example with ISO-8859-1 encoding: 
<!DOCTYPE dataset SYSTEM "my-dataset.dtd">
<dataset>
    <TABLE_WITHBLOB COL0="[TEXT ISO-8859-1]This is my text, saved in ISO-8859-1 encoding.  Java: bon café!"
                    COL1="row 0 col 1"
                    COL2="row 0 col 2"/>
</dataset>
BASE64 Insert binary in a blob using Base64

Example: 
<!DOCTYPE dataset SYSTEM "my-dataset.dtd">
<dataset>
    <TABLE_WITHBLOB COL0="[BASE64]VGhpcyBpcyBteSB0ZXh0Lg=="
                    COL1="row 0 col 1"
                    COL2="row 0 col 2"/>
</dataset>
FILE Insert the content of a binary file in a blob. The path may contains spaces.

Example: 
<!DOCTYPE dataset SYSTEM "my-dataset.dtd">
<dataset>
    <TABLE_WITHBLOB COL0="[FILE]/path/to file to download"
                    COL1="row 0 col 1"
                    COL2="row 0 col 2"/>
</dataset>
URL Insert the content pointed by a URL in a blob.

Example: 
<!DOCTYPE dataset SYSTEM "my-dataset.dtd">
<dataset>
    <TABLE_WITHBLOB COL0="[URL]http://url%20here"
                    COL1="row 0 col 1"
                    COL2="row 0 col 2"/>
</dataset>

Relative date, time, and timestamp

It is possible to push date, time, and timestamp values relative to the current date/time by using the following syntax in a data set field (since 2.7.0): 

... field_name="[now{diff...}{time}]"

diff consists of two parts 1) a number with a leading plus or minus sign and 2) a character represents temporal unit. See the list below for the supported units. There can be multiple diffs and they can be specified in any order.
time is a string that can be parsed by LocalTime#parse(). If specified, it is used instead of the current time.
Both diff and time are optional.
Whitespaces are allowed before and after each diff.

  • y : years
  • M : months
  • d : days
  • h : hours
  • m : minutes
  • s : seconds

Here are some examples:

  • [now] : current date time
  • [now-1d] : the same time yesterday
  • [now+1y+1M-2h] : a year and a month from today, two hours earlier
  • [now+1d 10:00] : 10 o'clock tomorrow