How to set @CreatedDate in the past (for testing)

I found a way that works for me (using plain JDBC):

First I create my domain objects for testing with spring-data-jpa:

MyModel savedModel = myRepo.save(myModel);

That automatically fills the "dateCreated" with timestamp of "now". Since I need creation dates in the past for testing I manually tweak them with plain JDBC:

@Autowired
JdbcTemplate jdbcTemplate;

[...]

// This syntax is for H2 DB.  For MySQL you need to use DATE_ADD
String sql = "UPDATE myTable SET created_at = DATEADD('DAY', -"+ageInDays+", NOW()) WHERE id='"+savedLaw.getId()+"'";
jdbcTemplate.execute(sql);
savedModel.setCreatedAt(new Date(System.currentTimeMillis() - ageInDays* 3600*24*1000);

Do not forget to also setCreatedAt inside the returned model class.

In case you are using Spring Boot, you can mock dateTimeProvider bean used in EnableJpaAuditing annotation. Spring Data uses this bean to obtain current time at the entity creation/modification.

@Import({TestDateTimeProvider.class})
@DataJpaTest
@EnableJpaAuditing(dateTimeProviderRef = "testDateTimeProvider")
public class SomeTest {

    @MockBean
    DateTimeProvider dateTimeProvider;

...

It is necessary to define actual testDateTimeProvider bean, but it won't be used at all, as you will use mock instead. You can write mockito methods afterwards as usual:

@Test
public void shouldUseMockDate() {

    when(dateTimeProvider.getNow()).thenReturn(Optional.of(LocalDateTime.of(2020, 2, 2, 0, 0, 0)));
    
   
   ... actual test assertions ...