Java9 Multi-Module Maven Project Test Dependencies

Question

I have a multi-module maven project with three modules core, utils and test-utils

Core has the following dependencies definition

<dependency>
   <groupId>my.project</groupId>
   <artifactId>utils</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
   <groupId>my.project</groupId>
   <artifactId>test-utils</artifactId>
   <scope>test</scope>
</dependency>

I have added Java 9 module-info.java definitions for all three modules and core's looks like this:

module my.project.core {
   requires my.project.utils;
}

However I cannot figure out how to get core's test classes to be able to see the test-utils classes during test execution. When maven-surefire-plugin attempts the test run I get class not found.

If I add a requires my.project.testutils; to core's module-info.java:

module my.project.core {
   requires my.project.utils;
   requires my.project.testutils; //test dependency
}

Then at compile time I get an error that the my.project.testutils module can't be found (presumably because it's only brought in as a test dependency).

How does one work with test dependencies in a Java 9 modular world? For obvious reason's I don't want my main code to pull in test dependencies. Am I missing something?

Answer 1

With maven and java9, if your my.project.testutils is a test scope dependency, you don't need to explicitly include(requires) it in the module descriptor.

---

The test dependencies are taken care via the classpath itself. So you can simply remove the testutils and it would be patched by maven while executing tests.

module my.project.core {
   requires my.project.utils;
}

Refer to the slide 30 pertaining to maven-compiler-plugin.

I would also suggest you take a look at Where should I put unit tests when migrating a Java 8 project to Jigsaw and this comment by Robert confirming on the implementation that maven follows.

Edit: Created a sample project drawing an analogy that the main module is same as your core, the dependency on guava is same as your utils and the junit dependency is same as your testutils.