java - Environment Variable with Maven

Question

I've ported a project from Eclipse to Maven and I need to set an environment variable to make my project work.

In Eclipse, I go to "Run -> Run configurations" and, under the tab "environment", I set "WSNSHELL_HOME" to the value "conf".

How can I do this with Maven?

Answer 1

You can just pass it on the command line, as

mvn -DmyVariable=someValue install

[Update] Note that the order of parameters is significant - you need to specify any options before the command(s).[/Update]

Within the POM file, you may refer to system variables (specified on the command line, or in the pom) as ${myVariable}, and environment variables as ${env.myVariable}. (Thanks to commenters for the correction.)

Update2

OK, so you want to pass your system variable to your tests. If - as I assume - you use the Surefire plugin for testing, the best is to specify the needed system variable(s) within the pom, in your plugins section, e.g.

<build>
    <plugins>
        ...
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
            ...
            <configuration>
                ...
                <systemPropertyVariables>
                    <WSNSHELL_HOME>conf</WSNSHELL_HOME>
                </systemPropertyVariables>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
        ...
    </plugins>
</build>