How do I run an individual test in Maven? - maven

Question

We're using Maven 3.0.3 and are using JUnit 4.8.1 ...
<dependency>
<groupId>junit</groupId>
<artifactId>junit</artifactId>
<version>4.8.1</version>
<scope>test</scope>
</dependency>
We have this test file ...
./src/test/java/com/myco/clearing/common/xml/TextNodeTest.java
How can I run this individual test? When I try
mvn -Dtest=TextNodeTest test
I get an error saying no tests were run. I get the same error if I specify the entire package name to my test. ...
mvn clean -Dtest=com.myco.clearing.common.xml.TextNodeTest test
which produces the error message ...
[ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-surefire-plugin:2.12:test (default-test) on project myco-productplus-web: No tests were executed!
(Set -DfailIfNoTests=false to ignore this error.) -> [Help 1]
[ERROR]
[ERROR] To see the full stack trace of the errors, re-run Maven with the -e switch.
[ERROR] Re-run Maven using the -X switch to enable full debug logging.
[ERROR]
[ERROR] For more information about the errors and possible solutions, please read the following articles:
[ERROR] [Help 1] http://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/MAVEN/MojoFailureException
Here is the surefire configuration I'm using
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.12</version>
<configuration>
<skip>false</skip>
<additionalClasspathElements>
<additionalClasspathElement>${project.build.sourceDirectory}</additionalClasspathElement>
<additionalClasspathElement>${project.build.testSourceDirectory}</additionalClasspathElement>
</additionalClasspathElements>
<useManifestOnlyJar>false</useManifestOnlyJar>
<forkMode>always</forkMode>
<systemProperties>
<property>
<name>gwt.args</name>
<value>-out "${webappDirectory}"</value>
</property>
</systemProperties>
<systemPropertyVariables>
<tomcat.port>${tomcat.servlet.port}</tomcat.port>
<project.artifactId>${project.artifactId}</project.artifactId>
</systemPropertyVariables>
</configuration>
</plugin>

Answer 1

The way to run a single test (method) in surefire is to do:
mvn test -Dtest=uk.co.farwell.AppTest#testSlow
Note the # instead of the space between the class name and the method name.
However, as #Andrew says, there is a bug in 2.12 (SUREFIRE-827: Surefire 2.12 cannot run a single test, regression from 2.11), but it works in 2.11.
The above bug is still open (as of 24.02.2012), but actually works for me using 2.13-SNAPSHOT.
EDIT: This is now marked as fixed in 2.12.1.

Answer 2

Looks like it's a bug in 2.12 version - SUREFIRE-827. Try downgrading to 2.11.

Answer 3

Like the others say, it's a bug in Surefire and it's fixed since version 2.11.1.