Excluding TestNG Groups From Maven - maven

Question

I have some slow tests that rely on the database that I don't want run every time I build my project with Maven. I've added the excludedGroups element to my pom file as explained http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-surefire-plugin/test-mojo.html#excludedGroups but I can't seem to get it working.
I've created a minimal project. Here is the pom.xml:
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<groupId>test</groupId>
<artifactId>exclude</artifactId>
<version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<source>1.6</source>
<target>1.6</target>
</configuration>
</plugin>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.4.2</version>
<configuration>
<excludedGroups>db</excludedGroups>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.testng</groupId>
<artifactId>testng</artifactId>
<version>5.14</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
</project>
And these are the two test classes:
public class NormalTest {
#Test
public void fastTest() {
Assert.assertTrue(true);
}
}
and
public class DatabaseTest {
#Test(groups={"db"})
public void slowTest() {
Assert.assertTrue(false);
}
}
However both tests still run. I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong.

Answer 1

I ended up creating external test suits:
<!DOCTYPE suite SYSTEM "http://testng.org/testng-1.0.dtd" >
<suite name="tests">
<test name="standard">
<groups>
<run>
<exclude name="slow" />
<exclude name="external" />
<exclude name="db" />
</run>
</groups>
<packages>
<package name="com.test.*" />
</packages>
</test>
</suite>
and
<!DOCTYPE suite SYSTEM "http://testng.org/testng-1.0.dtd" >
<suite name="tests">
<test name="full">
<packages>
<package name="com.test.*" />
</packages>
</test>
</suite>
and specifyied which to run in a profile:
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.11</version>
<configuration>
<suiteXmlFiles>
<suiteXmlFile>src/test/resources/suites/standard.xml</suiteXmlFile>
</suiteXmlFiles>
</configuration>
</plugin>
...
<profile>
<id>fulltest</id>
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<suiteXmlFiles>
<suiteXmlFile>src/test/resources/suites/full.xml</suiteXmlFile>
</suiteXmlFiles>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
</profile>

Answer 2

From my experience, the excluded groups feature works only when you have a set of included groups. So in order to do what you want, you need to add all the tests to at least one group (you can do this "easily" by annotating the class rather than methods).
For example (just changing the NormalTest)
#Test( groups = "fast")
public class NormalTest {
#Test
public void slowTest() {
Assert.assertTrue(true);
}
}
and in your configuration
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.4.2</version>
<configuration>
<groups>fast</groups>
<excludedGroups>db</excludedGroups>
</configuration>
</plugin>
I know that this is not obvious, but it's the way that testng works :S. As a side note, I've always used an external configuration file for testng rather that the embedded configuration in the pom, so the parameter groups might not be correct.