maven-unit-and-integration-tests

Sample maven project to run unit and integration tests with maven surefire and maven failsafe plugins.

Compile and testing the application

Apache maven and Java JDK 8 must be correctly installed on the system.

In order to compile the application just run:

mvn clean package

To skip unit tests via command line during compilation just add the parameter -DskipTests=true:

mvn clean package -DskipTests=true 

Note: More details about the application tests can be found on section Unit Test and Integration Tests.

To run the application use the following command:

java -jar target\maven-unit-and-integration-tests-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar

Unit Tests and Integration Tests

The application is configured with two maven plugins for unit and integration tests.
In simple words, the maven-surefire plugin is designed to run unit tests while the maven-failsafe plugin is designed to run integration tests.

This is further explained in Maven FAQ:

• maven-surefire plugin is designed for running unit tests and if any of the tests fail then it will fail the build immediately.
• maven-failsafe plugin is designed for running integration tests, and decouples failing the build if there are test failures from actually running the tests, thus enabling the post-integration-test phase to execute.

The name "failsafe" was chosen both because it is a synonym of surefire and because it implies that when it fails, it does so in a safe way.

The maven-failsafe plugin lifecycle has four phases for running integration tests:

• pre-integration-test for setting up the integration test environment.
• integration-test for running the integration tests.
• post-integration-test for tearing down the integration test environment.
• verify for checking the results of the integration tests.

The maven-failsafe plugin has two goals:

• failsafe:integration-test runs the integration tests of an application.
• failsafe:verify verifies that the integration tests of an application passed.

Unit Tests

To run the application unit tests just type the following command:

mvn test

To test a specific file you can do with:

mvn test -Dtest=SampleTest 

A list of elements specifying the tests (by pattern) should be included in testing on maven-surefire plugin. When not specified and when the test parameter is not provided, the default includes will be:

<includes>
    <include>**/Test*.java</include>
    <include>**/*Test.java</include>
    <include>**/*Tests.java</include>
    <include>**/*TestCase.java</include>
</includes>

Integration Tests

To run the application integration tests just type the following command:

mvn verify

Note: when running mvn verify this tell maven to processes all phases of the lifecycle up to verify phase.

To run only the integration tests call the plugin goal directly:

mvn clean test-compile failsafe:integration-test 

or the goal to generate the failsafe reports:

mvn clean test-compile failsafe:integration-test failsafe:verify

A list of elements specifying the test filter (by pattern) should be included in testing on maven-failsafe plugin. If it is not specified and the test parameter is unspecified as well, the default includes is:

<includes>
    <include>**/IT*.java</include>
    <include>**/*IT.java</include>
    <include>**/*ITCase.java</include>
</includes>

Skipping Unit Tests and Integration Tests

To skip all tests (unit and integration tests) when install the package into the local repository via command line add the parameter -DskipTests=true (The flag is honored by Surefire, Failsafe and the Compiler Plugin).

mvn clean install -DskipTests=true 

IMPORTANT: The parameter -DskipTests only works if the configuration property <skipTests> in maven-surefire plugin or maven-failsafe plugin is not override by another property.
In our application we've configured the flag -DskipUTs on maven surefire plugin and flag -DskipITs on maven failsafe plugin to explicit skip unit test and integration tests. By default both properties hold the value of skipTests if provided by parameter on command line.

To explicit skip unit tests just add the parameter -DskipUTs=true.

mvn clean install -DskipUTs=true 

And to explicit skip integration tests via command line just add the parameter -DskipITs=true:

mvn clean install -DskipITs=true 

References

• https://maven.apache.org/guides/introduction/introduction-to-the-lifecycle.html
• https://maven.apache.org/surefire/maven-surefire-plugin
• https://maven.apache.org/surefire/maven-failsafe-plugin