How to run JUnit tests by category in Maven?

Maven has since been updated and can use categories.

An example from the Surefire documentation:

<plugin>      <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>      <version>2.11</version>      <configuration>        <groups>com.mycompany.SlowTests</groups>      </configuration></plugin>

This will run any class with the annotation @Category(com.mycompany.SlowTests.class)

Based on this blog post - and simplifying - add this to your pom.xml:

<profiles>    <profile>        <id>SlowTests</id>        <properties>            <testcase.groups>com.example.SlowTests</testcase.groups>        </properties>    </profile>    <profile>        <id>FastTests</id>        <properties>            <testcase.groups>com.example.FastTests</testcase.groups>        </properties>    </profile></profiles><build>    <plugins>        <plugin>            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>            <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>            <version>2.13</version>            <dependencies>                <dependency>                    <groupId>org.apache.maven.surefire</groupId>                    <artifactId>surefire-junit47</artifactId>                    <version>2.13</version>                </dependency>            </dependencies>            <configuration>                <groups>${testcase.groups}</groups>            </configuration>        </plugin>    </plugins></build>

then at the command line

mvn install -P SlowTestsmvn install -P FastTestsmvn install -P FastTests,SlowTests

I had a similar case where I want to run all test EXCEPT a given category (for instance, because I have hundreds of legacy uncategorized tests, and I can't / don't want to modify each of them)

The maven surefire plugin allows to exclude categories, for instance:

<profiles>    <profile>        <id>NonSlowTests</id>        <build>            <plugins>                <plugin>                    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>                    <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>                    <configuration>                        <excludedGroups>my.category.SlowTest</excludedGroups>                    </configuration>                </plugin>            </plugins>        </build>    </profile></profiles>