How to conditionalize GUI tests using Netbeans/Maven vs maven on command line invocation

Question

I'd like to have a single project pom but have my GUI tests always run when I'm invoking JUnit on Netbeans, but have them conditional (on an environment variable?) when building on the command line (usually for production build - on a headless machine, but sometimes just for build speed).

I don't mind instrumenting my JUnit tests for this, as I already have to set up my GUI test infrastructure, but how do I conditionalize my pom!

Netbeans 6.5 with Maven plugin.

Any ideas how I can accomplish this?

Ilane

Answer 1

The Surefire plugin can specify which tests to run.

You could specify different sets to run for different profiles, and select your profile using -P{profilename}.

Answer 2

One solution would be to use a profile (that could be indeed activated by an environment variable) and to exclude GUI tests from the Maven Surefire Plugin configuration using excludes in this profile, based on a naming convention. Something like this:

<profile>
  <id>headless</id>
  <activation>
    <property>
      <name>env.FOO</name>
      <value>foo</value>
    </property>
  </activation>
  ...
  <build>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>2.5</version>
        <configuration>
          <excludes>
            <exclude>**/*$*</exclude><!-- to exclude inner classes -->
            <exclude>**/gui/**</exclude>
          </excludes>
        </configuration>
      </plugin>
      ...
    </plugins>
  </build>
</profile>

Another option would be to use TestNG and to leverage the excludeGroups parameter.