MAVEN: How Do I Pass a -D System Variable to Test

Question

I'd like to set a system environment variable to be visible by Java code in the unit tests of a Maven project. I tried this:

mvn -Dfoo=bar clean package

But that doesn't seem to take. How do I accomplish this?

see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5510690/environment-variable-with-maven — Arturo Volpe, Dec 09 '13 at 19:15

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:49

1

You should be able to use a Maven Property in your pom.xml

Edit: You can also set an environment variable in the section of a plugin like the surefire plugin: Environment Variable with Maven

edited May 23 '17 at 11:49

Community

answered Dec 09 '13 at 19:48

jmcmahon

So no way to do it on the command line? The reason I ask is because I am using this to pass a config parameter to the underlying Java tests. Ah got it, thanks, the last edit got it. Cheers. – David Williams Dec 09 '13 at 20:33
However, it looks like from these links that the path to getting an System env variable into the test code from the command line through Maven is not implemented. – David Williams Dec 09 '13 at 20:53
Yep, I think that's right. I believe you can only set Maven system variables through the command line. Maven handles Environment variables completely different. I only way I know to set env vars through maven is in the pom. – jmcmahon Dec 09 '13 at 21:37
1

Cool, so I decided just to use a unix environment variable to store the data I wanted, then used `System.getenv("foo")` which is all good for the app. – David Williams Dec 09 '13 at 23:13

1 Answers1