How to pass args to JVM which runs tests with Gradle

Question

I am a Gradle rookie and I am not sure whether Gradle will start the new JVM when it runs the test set.

Like Passing JVM arguments to Gradle test task I want to pass some parameters to the JVM running the test set.

I added the following lines to build.gradle:

...
test {
    groovy {
        jvmArgs '-agentpath:/usr/lib/code_dependency_capturer.so' // add line
        srcDirs = ['src/test']
        if (!JavaVersion.current().isJava8Compatible()) {
            exclude '**/v8/*'
            exclude '**/vm8/*'
        }
    }
    resources {
        srcDirs = ['src/test-resources']
    }
}
...

But it tells me:

A problem occurred evaluating root project 'groovy'.
Could not find method jvmArgs() for arguments[-agentpath:/usr/lib/code_dependency_capturer.so] on source set 'test' of type org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.DefaultSourceSet. 

I googled this error but failed to solve it.

Answer 1

Try setting the jvmArgs of the enclosing test task rather than trying to set them on groovy.

The error you are getting suggests that jvmArgs isn’t present on groovy.

Example:

...
test {
    jvmArgs '-agentpath:/usr/lib/code_dependency_capturer.so' // add line
    groovy {      
        srcDirs = ['src/test']
        ...
    }
    ...
}

This is just a guess as I don’t have a gradle setup handy on which to confirm but worth a try as jvmArgs is documented as a property for test:

https://docs.gradle.org/current/dsl/org.gradle.api.tasks.testing.Test.html#org.gradle.api.tasks.testing.Test:jvmArgs

List<String> jvmArgs

The extra arguments to use to launch the JVM for the process. Does not include system properties and the minimum/maximum heap size.

Since jvmArgs is a list of String you can pass it multiple arguments, refer to:

http://docs.groovy-lang.org/next/html/documentation/working-with-collections.html#_list_literals

Example:

  jvmArgs ["-Xarg1", "-Xarg2"]

For "-Dprop=value" system properties use the systemProperties of the test task instead:

https://docs.gradle.org/current/dsl/org.gradle.api.tasks.testing.Test.html#org.gradle.api.tasks.testing.Test:systemProperties