Maven surefire: append to argLine

Question

I have 2 profiles that may or may not be used together to run a group of tests. They each require different vmargs to run, but if they are used together it's ok to have them appended to each other.

What I'm looking for is a way to set argLine to be the concatenation of its current value plus what I set.

I was hoping it would as simple as

<argLine>${argLine} -DnewVMArg</argLine>

Is there something similar I can do to make this happen?

I made an attempt at fixing it which results in maven getting stuck in a recursive cycle. It's documented below.

My Most recent attempt was to define a property <my.argLines></my.argLines> globally, and then to modify this within the profiles.

In each profile, in a properties block, I set overrode the property to:

<my.argLines>${my.argLines} -myUniqueToProfileArgs</my.argLines>

In each surefire configuration for the profiles, I set <argLines> to be:

<argLines>${my.argLines}</argLines>

This logically fits for me, but the way it evalutes is apparently not going to mesh.

Largely

Is it working when you set the arguments explicitly, instead of using the global var? Put your entire pom.xml file here, please. – Minstrelsy

Does it help to write as <argLine>@{argLine} -DnewVMArg</argLine>? This Hint is related to surefire / jacoco interplay, see github.com/jacoco/jacoco/issues/964 – Drumlin

Answer 1

Define your default arguments -DnewVMArg inside argLine like below:

<properties>
    <customArg/>
    <argLine>${customArg} -DnewVMArg</argLine>
</properties>

Define profiles arguments

<profiles>
    <profile>
        <id>profile1</id>
        <properties>
            <customArg>-DmyUniqueToProfile1Args</customArg>
        </properties>
    </profile>
    <profile>
        <id>profile2</id>
        <properties>
            <customArg>-DmyUniqueToProfile2Args</customArg>
        </properties>
    </profile>
</profiles>

Additional plugin configuration is not required

<build>
    <plugins>
        <plugin>
            <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>2.16</version>
            <configuration/>
        </plugin>
....

I have tested this configuration, my results below.

Default

mvn surefire:test -X 

Result

(...)java -jar -DnewVMArg (...) 

Goal with profile

mvn surefire:test -X -Pprofile1

Result

(...)java -DmyUniqueToProfile1Args -DnewVMArg -jar (...) 

Preachment

That way, only profile1 OR profile2 could be actively contributing to the argLine, however in the original question, both profiles could be used together. – Roxanneroxburgh

Answer 2

If you are dealing only with -D system properties, you could use <systemPropertyVariables> instead of <argLine> and then they will be combined naturally. One of the profiles could have:

<systemPropertyVariables>
    <propertyFromProfile1>value1</propertyFromProfile1>
</systemPropertyVariables>

and the second profile:

<systemPropertyVariables>
    <propertyFromProfile2>value2</propertyFromProfile2>
</systemPropertyVariables>

Also, it's worth mentioning that this approach allows you to override in child poms individual properties from parent poms.

Ule

I think this not work for JVM options like -Xmx1024m, only for standard -Dfoo=bar, yes? – Preachment

There's some language confusion here. I just said that your statement is correct. Also, I mentioned this detail in the beginning of my answer: "If you are dealing only with -D system properties ..." – Ule

Answer 3

As you found out, a property cannot reference itself.

You need to define different properties for each profile and finally concatenate them in your surefire call:

<properties>
  <!-- it is a good idea not to use empty or blank properties -->
  <first.props>-Dprofile1Active=false</first.props>
  <second.props>-Dprofile2Active=false</second.props>
</properties>
...
    <!-- surefire configuration -->
    <argLine>${first.props} ${second.props}</argLine>    
...
<profile>
  <id>first</id>
  <properties>
    <first.props>-myUniqueToProfile1Args</first.props>
  </properties>
</profile>
<profile>
  <id>second</id>
  <properties>
    <second.props>-myUniqueToProfile2Args</second.props>
  </properties>
</profile>

Also note the not-empty default value. Maven has some surprising way of handling those. In order to be on the safe side, use harmless non-blank default values (see “Null” versus “empty” arguments in Maven)

Roxanneroxburgh

Answer 4

Eclipse: Window -> Preferences -> TestNG -> Maven Uncheck the 'argLine'.

Cumulation