Cannot overwrite pom maven-surefire-plugin from command line

Question

I have in pom the plugin maven-surefire-plugin with skipTests on true. However, sometimes I want to run the tests from the command line and I want to overwrite this plugin from command line and to

I tried

mvn install -DskipTests=false

but it still skips the tests...

Any idea how I can solve my problem...?
Thanks

Answer 1

Skipping by default is specifically discussed in the plugin documentation:

If you want to skip tests by default but want the ability to re-enable tests from the command line, you need to go via a properties section in the pom

In other words use a property for the default:

    <configuration>
      <skipTests>${skipTests}</skipTests>
    </configuration>

Define a property:

    <properties>
      <skipTests>true</skipTests>
    </properties>

Properties can be overridden from the command-line:

    mvn install -DskipTests=false

Note that the skipTests in the command-line above refers to the property, not to the plugin parameter with the same name.

Answer 2

Using profile can do the trick. It requires you change the pom file though it gives you the behaviour you want.

Set a property in project element

<properties>
  <runtests>false</runtests>
</properties>

Now create a profile

    <profile>
        <id>run-tests</id>
        <properties>
            <runtests>true</runtests>
        </properties>
    </profile>

in surefire plugin configuration

<skipTests>${runtests}</skipTests>

Now run mvn install -P run-tests This command will activate the profile, thus set the runtests property to true