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Maven Surefire Plugin

Requirements: Maven 3.x and JDK 1.7 or higher. Due to wrong formatting of console text messages in Maven Version prior to 3.1.0 it is highly recommended to use Maven 3.1.0 or higher.

This is the road map of the development, see the GH.

Versions Release Targets
3.0.0-M1 Maven API 3.0 and Java 1.7  
 
Maven Plugin API 3.0  
Java 1.7 as minimum  
@Component is deprecated. @Parameter should be used instead  
Surefire manifest jar classloading broken on latest Debian/Ubuntu Java8  
See the Release Notes for the version 3.0.0-M1  
3.0.0-M2 Fixed: JDK9 and Windows Class-Path issues, 3.0 and Legacy Report XSD, 3.0.0-M2 shadefire  
 
Fixed JDK9+ (Jigsaw) modular paths (module-info.java) having white spaces on file system  
Windows slashes appear in relative paths of Class-Path in MANIFEST.MF (Boot Manifest-JAR)  
Surefire fails loading class ForkedBooter when using a sub-directory pom file  
Plugin fails if used Toolchains together with JDK9+ and (Jigsaw) modular paths (module-info.java)  
3.0 and Legacy Report XSD  
3.0.0-M2 shadefire  
 
Feature: Option to switch-off Java 9 modules  
 
Option to switch-off Java 9 modules  
 
See the Release Notes for the version 3.0.0-M2  
3.0.0-M3 Fixed: maven-surefire-report-plugin supports JDK11, JUnit5 issues, deprecated skipTests in Failsafe plugin, used ShadeFire 3.0.0-M2  
 
maven-surefire-report-plugin fails on JDK 11  
JUnit Runner that writes to System.out corrupts Surefire's STDOUT when using JUnit's Vintage Engine  
Smart stacktrace in test summary should not print JUnit5 assertion exception type  
Deprecate skipTests in Failsafe Plugin  
See the Release Notes for the version 3.0.0-M3  
3.0.0-M4 Provided 3 extensions of reporters which can be used to customize XML report, console and file reporters. It is very useful for JUnit5 users.  
We reworked the internal implementation so that new commands and events can be easily added. The impl is located in a center point and it is a prerequisite in next versions.  
Provided bug fixes for Docker Alpine/BusyBox Linux, JUnit5 and 43 more.  
 
ForkClient attempts to consume unrelated lines  
3.0.0-M5 Test Report tasks (prerequisite: SUREFIRE-1222 in 3.0.0-M4)  
New interprocess communication with TCP/IP which fixed current blocker and critical bugs.  
Provided extensions which can be used to customize this interprocess communication in plugin configuration. It is internally used to switch over the pipes and TCP connector.  
 
TCP/IP Channel for forked Surefire JVM. Extensions API and SPI. Polymorphism for remote and local process communication.  
3.0.0-M6 (1) We will identify the test by UniqueId in SimpleReportEntry and not by the traditional combination of class/method name. (ready for parameterized tests and a coherent re-run)  
(2) TestSetRunListener should not cache test event and make any guess about the impl in StatelessXmlReporter. TestSetRunListener should only forward events to multiple reporters. 
(3) Fire and consume more events (normal run start/end, re-run start/end)  
(4) StatelessXmlReporter repeatedly generates XML report. It is stateful report and won't work if re-run or parallel executions send test events out of order. Prerequisite: 1-3  
 
JUnit 5 in parallel execution mode confuses Surefire reports  
ConsoleOutputFileReporter should support parallel execution of test-sets  
3.0.0-M7 Providers implementation and API  
More test events used to negotiate tests to run on particular fork JVM. It is useful in situations when the tests are filtered by group/category or classpath scan with file  
filter (fork JVM is preferable over Maven JVM) and used in Test List Processor (3.0.0-M8). We will keep IsolatedClassLoader for extension 'Test List Processor' so that the user  
can decide the JVM where the tests will be searched. Possibly JUnit5 provider will be able to scan classes by annotations, see launcher.discover(), and negotiate over the forks.  
 
Surefire unable to run testng suites in parallel  
3.0.0-M8 Extensions API to customize test-set with test list processor (prerequisite: 3.0.0-M7)  
(possibly the scan of classpath based on annotations, currently the scan is done based on pattern of file name e.g. -Dtest=MyTest)  
 
Test list preprocessor support for tests to be run  
3.0.0-M9 Breaking backwards compatibility with system properties in configuration parameters, removing deprecated configuration parameters and removing deprecated code, etc.  

The Surefire Plugin is used during the test phase of the build lifecycle to execute the unit tests of an application. It generates reports in two different file formats:

  • Plain text files (*.txt)
  • XML files (*.xml)

By default, these files are generated in ${basedir}/target/surefire-reports/TEST-*.xml.

The schema for the Surefire XML reports is available at Surefire XML Report Schema.

The XML reports generated by legacy plugins (versions up to 2.22.0) should be validated by Legacy Surefire XML Report Schema.

Two plugin versions (2.22.1 and 3.0.0-M1) however generate 3.0 XML reports they still refer to legacy schema (see noNamespaceSchemaLocation in XML Report). The projects which expect XML Reports validated by XSD Schema, tools e.g xUnit, should not use versions 2.22.1 and 3.0.0-M1 of the Surefire plugin.

For an HTML format of the report, please see the Maven Surefire Report Plugin.

Goals Overview

The Surefire Plugin has only one goal:

Usage

General instructions on how to use the Surefire Plugin can be found on the usage page. Some more specific use cases are described in the examples listed below. Additionally, users can contribute to the GitHub project.

In case you still have questions regarding the plugin's usage, please have a look at the FAQ and feel free to contact the user mailing list. The posts to the mailing list are archived and could already contain the answer to your question as part of an older thread. Hence, it is also worth browsing/searching the mail archive.

If you feel like the plugin is missing a feature or has a defect, you can file a feature request or bug report in our issue tracker. When creating a new issue, please provide a comprehensive description of your concern. Especially for fixing bugs it is crucial that the developers can reproduce your problem. For this reason, entire debug logs, POMs or most preferably little demo projects attached to the issue are very much appreciated. Of course, patches are welcome, too. Contributors can check out the project from our source repository and will find supplementary information in the guide to helping with Maven.

Examples

The following examples show how to use the Surefire Plugin in more advanced use cases: