How to run JUnit tests by category in Maven?

Question

Using JUnit 4.8 and the new @Category annotations, is there a way to choose a subset of categories to run with Maven\'s Surefire plugin?

For example I h

Answer 1

I had a similar case where I want to run all test EXCEPT a given category (for instance, because I have hundreds of legacy uncategorized tests, and I can't / don't want to modify each of them)

The maven surefire plugin allows to exclude categories, for instance:

<profiles>
    <profile>
        <id>NonSlowTests</id>
        <build>
            <plugins>
                <plugin>
                    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                    <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
                    <configuration>
                        <excludedGroups>my.category.SlowTest</excludedGroups>
                    </configuration>
                </plugin>
            </plugins>
        </build>
    </profile>
</profiles>

Answer 2

I was having issue running test with categories ex: @Category(com.mycompany.SlowTests.class) when running the test via mvn test -Dgroups=com.mycompany.SlowTests.class

I discovered that tests in a classes without the word Test in their name would not run. After adding the word Test to the class the the tests in the class ran.

Answer 3

Not exactly the same thing but using surefire plugin, test classes can be chosen based on file name. You are not using Junit Categories though.

An example for running just DAO tests.

<executions>
  <execution>
     <id>test-dao</id>
        <phase>test</phase>
          <goals>
             <goal>test</goal>
        </goals>
          <configuration>
             <excludes>
                <exclude>none</exclude>
            </excludes>
            <includes>                  
                <include>**/com/proy/core/dao/**/*Test.java</include>
            </includes>
        </configuration>
  </execution>

http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-surefire-plugin/examples/inclusion-exclusion.html

Answer 4

Junit 5 allows you to use the @Tag annotation. More info about that here: https://www.baeldung.com/junit-filtering-tests

I find it looks a little cleaner:

@Tag("SlowTests")
@Test
public void b() {
}

Answer 5

Based on this blog post - and simplifying - add this to your pom.xml:

<profiles>
    <profile>
        <id>SlowTests</id>
        <properties>
            <testcase.groups>com.example.SlowTests</testcase.groups>
        </properties>
    </profile>
    <profile>
        <id>FastTests</id>
        <properties>
            <testcase.groups>com.example.FastTests</testcase.groups>
        </properties>
    </profile>
</profiles>

<build>
    <plugins>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>2.13</version>
            <dependencies>
                <dependency>
                    <groupId>org.apache.maven.surefire</groupId>
                    <artifactId>surefire-junit47</artifactId>
                    <version>2.13</version>
                </dependency>
            </dependencies>
            <configuration>
                <groups>${testcase.groups}</groups>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
    </plugins>
</build>

then at the command line

mvn install -P SlowTests
mvn install -P FastTests
mvn install -P FastTests,SlowTests

Answer 6

I lost lot of time on this error "groups/excludedGroups require TestNG or JUnit48+ on project test classpath" because I thought I was using a bad version of junit, or a bad version of the surefire plugin, or a combination that does not fit.

It was none of that: in my project I had a "config" module that was built before the module I wanted to test. This module had no junit dependency -> it had no junit on the classpath...

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