surfire plugin maven : env variable for specific tests - maven

Question

I am facing an issue with Maven and the Surefire plugin.
I have two tests: testDatePos.java and testDateNeg.java and for each test an environment variable must be set. It is the same environment variable (DATE_SHIFT) but not the same value (-1 and 1).
Is it possible to configure the section surefire-plugin in the pom.xml of maven to have those tests running?
Here is my pom.xml that exclude the testDatePos.java to have the mvn test running OK (I know this is NOT a solution):
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<excludes>
<exclude>**/testDatePos.java</exclude>
<!-- this test needs the env variable DATE_SHIFT=1 but
the test testDateNeg.java needs it at -1 -->
</excludes>
<environmentVariables>
<DATE_SHIFT>-1</DATE_SHIFT>
</environmentVariables>
</configuration>
</plugin>

Answer 1

You can do this by specifying two different executions of surefire in your pom, and forking each execution.
However, this means that these tests will only work when you're running them from maven, or at least you have to change the configuration everywhere you run them from. So, for the tests which require a environment variable, I would add this to the #Before/#After (or #BeforeClass/#AfterClass) of those specific tests.
#Before public void before() {
System.setProperty("DATE_SHIFT", "-1");
}
This way, you don't need to execute the tests in maven for them to work. You'll probably want to store the original value of DATE_SHIFT and restore it at the end of the test.