How to disable @PostConstruct in Spring during Test

Within a Spring Component I have a @PostConstruct statement. Similar to below:

@Singleton
@Component("filelist")
public class FileListService extends BaseService {

    private List listOfFiles = new Arrays.list();

    //some other functions


    @PostConstruct
    public void populate () {

        for (File f : FileUtils.listFiles(new File(SystemUtils.JAVA_IO_TMPDIR), new String[]{"txt"},true)){
            listOfFiles.add(f.getName());
        }   
    }

    @Override
    public long count() throws DataSourceException {
        return listOfFiles.size();
    }

    //  more methods .....
}

During Unit tests I would not like to have the @PostConstruct function called, is there a way to telling Spring not to do post processing? Or is there a better Annotation for calling a initiation method on a class durning non-testing ?

Answer

Since you are not testing FileListService but a depending class, you can mock it for tests. Make a mock version in a separate test package which is scanned only by test context. Mark it with @Primary annotation so it takes precedence over production version.