Fresh

Create the project

Back

Getting started with Testcontainers for Java

Learn how to create a Java application and test database interactions using Testcontainers for Java with a real PostgreSQL instance.

Java Testing with Docker

20 minutes

Create the Java project

Copy as Markdown

Open MarkdownAsk Docs AIClaudeOpen in Claude

Table of contents

Set up the Maven project

Create a Java project with Maven from your preferred IDE. This guide uses Maven, but you can use Gradle if you prefer. Add the following dependencies to pom.xml:

xml

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.postgresql</groupId>
        <artifactId>postgresql</artifactId>
        <version>42.7.3</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>ch.qos.logback</groupId>
        <artifactId>logback-classic</artifactId>
        <version>1.5.6</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.junit.jupiter</groupId>
        <artifactId>junit-jupiter</artifactId>
        <version>5.10.2</version>
        <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

<build>
    <plugins>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>3.2.5</version>
        </plugin>
    </plugins>
</build>

This adds the Postgres JDBC driver, logback for logging, JUnit 5 for testing, and the latest maven-surefire-plugin for JUnit 5 support.

Implement the business logic

Create a Customer record:

java

package com.testcontainers.demo;

public record Customer(Long id, String name) {}

Create a DBConnectionProvider class to hold JDBC connection parameters and provide a database Connection:

java

package com.testcontainers.demo;

import java.sql.Connection;
import java.sql.DriverManager;

class DBConnectionProvider {

  private final String url;
  private final String username;
  private final String password;

  public DBConnectionProvider(String url, String username, String password) {
    this.url = url;
    this.username = username;
    this.password = password;
  }

  Connection getConnection() {
    try {
      return DriverManager.getConnection(url, username, password);
    } catch (Exception e) {
      throw new RuntimeException(e);
    }
  }
}

Create the CustomerService class:

java

package com.testcontainers.demo;

import java.sql.Connection;
import java.sql.PreparedStatement;
import java.sql.ResultSet;
import java.sql.SQLException;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

public class CustomerService {

  private final DBConnectionProvider connectionProvider;

  public CustomerService(DBConnectionProvider connectionProvider) {
    this.connectionProvider = connectionProvider;
    createCustomersTableIfNotExists();
  }

  public void createCustomer(Customer customer) {
    try (Connection conn = this.connectionProvider.getConnection()) {
      PreparedStatement pstmt = conn.prepareStatement(
        "insert into customers(id,name) values(?,?)"
      );
      pstmt.setLong(1, customer.id());
      pstmt.setString(2, customer.name());
      pstmt.execute();
    } catch (SQLException e) {
      throw new RuntimeException(e);
    }
  }

  public List<Customer> getAllCustomers() {
    List<Customer> customers = new ArrayList<>();

    try (Connection conn = this.connectionProvider.getConnection()) {
      PreparedStatement pstmt = conn.prepareStatement(
        "select id,name from customers"
      );
      ResultSet rs = pstmt.executeQuery();
      while (rs.next()) {
        long id = rs.getLong("id");
        String name = rs.getString("name");
        customers.add(new Customer(id, name));
      }
    } catch (SQLException e) {
      throw new RuntimeException(e);
    }
    return customers;
  }

  private void createCustomersTableIfNotExists() {
    try (Connection conn = this.connectionProvider.getConnection()) {
      PreparedStatement pstmt = conn.prepareStatement(
        """
        create table if not exists customers (
            id bigint not null,
            name varchar not null,
            primary key (id)
        )
        """
      );
      pstmt.execute();
    } catch (SQLException e) {
      throw new RuntimeException(e);
    }
  }
}

Here's what CustomerService does:

The constructor calls createCustomersTableIfNotExists() to ensure the table exists.
createCustomer() inserts a customer record into the database.
getAllCustomers() fetches all rows from the customers table and returns a list of Customer objects.

Write tests with Testcontainers »

Create the project ​

Create the Java project ​

Set up the Maven project ​

Implement the business logic ​

Create the project

Create the Java project

Set up the Maven project

Implement the business logic