Maven - Add directory to classpath while executing tests

Question

The Junits I have in my project need to load property files from the classpath. How can I specify the directory of those property files so that Maven will set that in the classpath before running the tests?

Answer 1

You can use the build-helper-maven-plugin to specify additional test-resource directories as follows. Using the configuration below, the contents of the test-resources directory will be copied to the target/test-classes directory during the generate-test-sources phase:

<plugin>
  <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
  <artifactId>build-helper-maven-plugin</artifactId>
  <version>1.3</version>
  <executions>
    <execution>
      <id>add-test-resource</id>
      <phase>generate-test-sources</phase>
      <goals>
        <goal>add-test-resource</goal>
      </goals>
      <configuration>
        <resources>
          <resource>
            <directory>path/to/additional/test/resources</directory>
            <excludes>
              <exclude>**/folder-to-exclude/**</exclude>
            </excludes>
          </resource>
        </resources>
      </configuration>
    </execution> 
  </executions>
</plugin>

Answer 2

If you just want to put your property files someplace on disk and don't want to copy those property files to target/test-classes during the build, you can do it this way

<plugin>
  <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
  <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
  <configuration>
    <additionalClasspathElements>
      <additionalClasspathElement>/add/this/to/path</additionalClasspathElement>
    </additionalClasspathElements>
  </configuration>
</plugin>

Answer 3

Why not just use test/resources and place your properties in the classpath from that point. They'll only be there for the test phase.