Generating html surefire test html output during test phase

Question

I'm not sure if this is a simple question or not, but I'd like surefire to generate html formatted output files(in addition to the xml and txt formatted output files) during the test phase.

I've tried to make this happen by adding an 'executions' entry for build>surefire. Is this the correct location for this? If so, am I doing it wrong?

<build>
  ..
  <plugins>
    ..
    <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-surefire-report-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>2.6</version>
                <configuration>
                    <outputDirectory>site</outputDirectory>

                </configuration>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <id>during-tests</id>
                        <phase>test</phase>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>report</goal>
                        </goals>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
            </plugin> 

Answer 1

I'd like surefire to generate html formatted output files (in addition to the xml and txt formatted output files) during the test phase.

The easiest way (without running site) would be probably to just invoke:

mvn surefire-report:report

This will run the tests prior to generating the report (but the result is not that nice because the CSS won't be generated, you'd have to run site for that).

I've tried to make this happen by adding an 'executions' entry for build>surefire. Is this the correct location for this? If so, am I doing it wrong?

If you really want to bind the surefire-report plugin to the test phase, my suggestion would be to use the report-only goal (because it won't rerun the tests, see SUREFIRE-257), like this:

<plugins>
  <plugin>
  <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
  <artifactId>maven-surefire-report-plugin</artifactId>
  <version>2.6</version>
  <executions>
    <execution>
      <phase>test</phase>
      <goals>
        <goal>report-only</goal>
      </goals>
    </execution>
  </executions>
 </plugin>
</plugins>

As a side note, generating the report as part of the site:

  <reporting>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-surefire-report-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>2.6</version>
        <reportSets>
          <reportSet>
            <reports>
              <report>report-only</report>
            </reports>
          </reportSet>
        </reportSets>
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
  </reporting>

And running

mvn test site

doesn't seem to be that much slower (I was using Maven 3, with this report only) and produces a much nicer result. This might not be an option if you have a complex site setup though (at least not without making things more complex by introducing profiles).

Related question

• Is there a decent HTML Junit report plugin for Maven?