Surefire JUnit Testing using Native Libraries

Question

We are using Maven in Hudson to run our Java build process and the Surefire plugin to execute JUnit tests however I've run into a problem with the unit tests for one project which requires native dlls.

The error we're seeing is :

Tests in error: TestFormRegistrationServiceConnection(com.#productidentifierremoved#.test.RegistrationServiceTest): no Authenticator in java.library.path

Where Authenticator is the name of the dll we require. I found this SO post which suggest that the only way to set this is through argLine. We modified our config to this:

    <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-surefire-report-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>2.10</version>
        <configuration>
            <forkMode>once</forkMode>
            <argLine>-Djava.library.path=${basedir}\src\main\native\Authenticator\Release</argLine>
        </configuration>
    </plugin>

However this still gives the same error and if we include a System.out.println(System.getProperty("java.library.path")); we can see that this is not being added to the path.

Any ideas how we can solve this?

Answer 1

To add a system property to the JUnit tests, configure the Maven Surefire Plugin as follows:

<build>
  <plugins>
    <plugin>
      <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
      <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
      <configuration>
        <systemPropertyVariables>
          <java.library.path>${project.basedir}/src/main/native/Authenticator/Release</java.library.path>
        </systemPropertyVariables>
      </configuration>
    </plugin>
  </plugins>
</build>

Update:

Ok, it seems this property has to be set before the JVM with JUnit tests starts. So I guess that you have problem with the backslashes. Backslashes in the Java property value are used to escape special characters like \t (tabulator) or \r\n (windows new-line). So try to use this instead of your solution:

<build>
  <plugins>
    <plugin>
      <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
      <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
      <configuration>
        <forkMode>once</forkMode>
        <argLine>-Djava.library.path=${project.basedir}/src/main/native/Authenticator/Release</argLine>
      </configuration>
    </plugin>
  </plugins>
</build>