Cobertura doesn't work with Java 7

Question

I am using maven 3.0.4, JRE 1.7.0_09. When I use mvn clean install all my tests passes and everything looks good - here is my surefire plugin configuration:

<plugin>
    <version>2.12.4</version>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
    <configuration>
        <!-- -XX:-UseSplitVerifier is for java 7 -->
        <argLine>-XX:-UseSplitVerifier</argLine>
    </configuration>
</plugin> 

Now, when I mvn cobertura:cobertura some of my tests have errors like this one:

Expecting a stackmap frame at branch target .... And some more errors that made me understand that it is not running using JRE7 (for example, Encountered " "|" "| "" at line...)

Here is my cobertura plugin configuration:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
    <artifactId>cobertura-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>2.5.1</version>
    <configuration>
       <formats>
          <format>html</format>
          <format>xml</format>
       </formats>
       </configuration>
  </plugin>

And the reporting is:

<reporting>
    <plugins>
        <plugin>
           <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
           <artifactId>cobertura-maven-plugin</artifactId>
           <version>2.5.1</version>
           <configuration>
               <formats>
                   <format>html</format>
                   <format>xml</format>
               </formats>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
    </plugins>
</reporting>

I saw a lot of threads that talk about this issue and the solution is to add this line <argLine>-XX:-UseSplitVerifier</argLine> but it does not help.

What am I doing wrong here?

Gintz

If you're not bound to cobertura, I'd recommend going JaCoCo which has full java 7 support and is being actively maintained. Cobertura seems pretty dead. – Bothy

Thanks, I'm trying it and I got a new question about it. – Gintz

The split verifier thing worked for me .. – Paynim

@MichelJung - Hmmm, I tried jacoco, and coverage dropped dramatically - on one project, from 97.4% to 81.1%. Is that typical? – Homeostasis

JaCoCo does not work with PowerMock bytecode instrumentation. That is, any class that you @PrepareForTest with PowerMock will not be counted in your code coverage with JaCoCo. (github.com/jacoco/eclemma/issues/15) – Chiou

Answer 1

We are using Cobertura plugin version 2.6 with Java 7 with no problems. This includes some files with Java 7 syntax (multi-catch, e.g.) which used to fail with the earlier plugin version. Nor do I need to use -XX:-UseSplitVerifier in the SureFire plugin any longer.

<properties>
    <coberturaMavenPlugin>2.6</coberturaMavenPlugin>
    <mavenSurefirePlugin>2.12</mavenSurefirePlugin>
</properties>
<build>
    <pluginManagement>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>${mavenSurefirePlugin}</version>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </pluginManagement>
</build>
<reporting>
    <plugins>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
            <artifactId>cobertura-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>${coberturaMavenPlugin}</version>
            <configuration>
                <aggregate>true</aggregate>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
    </plugins>
</reporting>

Chiou

Answer 2

Further to this, the issue we had was to do with Cobertura and the version of Xalan/Xerces.

Looking at http://mojo.codehaus.org/cobertura-maven-plugin/dependencies.html, it can be seen that the cobertura plugin has Transitive Dependencies on Xalan 2.6.0 & Xerces at 2.6.2.

To combat this, I added:

<dependency>
    <groupId>xalan</groupId>
    <artifactId>xalan</artifactId>
    <version>2.7.1</version>
    <scope>test</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>xerces</groupId>
    <artifactId>xercesImpl</artifactId>
    <version>2.11.0</version>
    <scope>test</scope>
</dependency>

And the tests passed, both during the initial test phase with surefire and the cobertura phase.

Placement

The issue we had with xalan and xerces was an incompatibility with Mozilla Rhino: groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/… – Aeromarine

Answer 3

Perhaps you can set the compiler source and target version options to version "1.6" Different versions of build tools may choose different defaults for this setting. (Buildr 1.4 defaults to source and target 1.7 these days; Maven 2.x still uses 1.6 or earlier.)

Brose