How to set JVM parameters for Junit Unit Tests?

Question

I have some Junit unit tests that require a large amount of heap-space to run - i.e. 1G. (They test memory-intensive functionality for a webstart app that will only run with sufficient heap-space, and will be run internally on Win 7 64-bit machines - so redesigning the tests isn't a practical suggestion.)

I am developing in Intellij IDEA, so I know I can set the JVM parameters (e.g. -Xmx1024M) for the test class. However, this is only for running the whole test class - if I want to run an individual test, I have to recreate the run congfigurations for that test method.

Also, those are IDE and box specific - so if I switch boxes (I develop on multiple machines) or one of my colleagues tries to run the tests, those settings are not transferred. (Also, other IDEs like Eclipse and NetBeans are used by my colleagues.) FWIW, we're using mercurial for source code control.

For the build cycle, we're using Maven, so I know how to specify the JVM parameters for that.

So: - I'm looking for a way of specifying the JVM parameters that will apply for the whole test class and the individual test methods; and - I'd like to share those specification across IDEs on any machine (having picked up the code from the repository).

Answer 1

In Maven you can configure the surefire plugin

<plugin>     <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>     <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>     <version>2.9</version>     <configuration>         <argLine>-Xmx256M</argLine>     </configuration> </plugin> 

If you use Maven for builds then this configuration will be carried in the source tree and applied when tests are carried out. See the Maven Surefire Plugin documentation.