Reading a properties file in a Maven test

Question

This seems like such a silly question but no solutions I've found online have worked for me. I'm writing an integration test in a Maven project, and I need to read values from a properties file, which I've put in src/test/resources.

My test tries to read this properties file during construction:

public ControllerIT() throws Exception {
  wc = new WebConversation();
  prop = new Properties();
  InputStream stream = getClass().getResourceAsStream( "/test.properties" );
  prop.load( stream );
}

When I run the test, I always get a NullPointerException on the call to prop.load( stream );.

I've tried just about every permutation of solutions that I've found online:

• Referencing the file as test.properties instead of /test.properties
• Getting the input stream via getClass().getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream( "test.properties" );

But nothing works.

And I guess for extra points, the ideal solution would allow me to run this test via mvn integration-test on the CLI as well as in Eclipse via Run As -> JUnit test. To that end, I guess I should also mention that I've explicitly added main/test/resources as a source folder in Eclipse, but it's still not loading the file correctly.

And as requested, here is my POM:

<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

    <groupId>com.example</groupId>
    <artifactId>listener-testing</artifactId>
    <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <packaging>pom</packaging>

    <name>listener-testing</name>
    <url>http://maven.apache.org</url>

    <properties>
        <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
    </properties>

    <build>
        <plugins>
            <!-- Failsafe configuration for running integration tests -->
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-failsafe-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>2.16</version>

                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>integration-test</goal>
                            <goal>verify</goal>
                        </goals>
                    </execution>
                </executions>

            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>

    <reporting>
        <plugins>
            <!-- Surefire configuration for generating reports -->
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-surefire-report-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>2.16</version>
                <reportSets>
                    <reportSet>
                        <id>integration-tests</id>
                        <reports>
                            <report>failsafe-report-only  </report>
                        </reports>
                    </reportSet>
                </reportSets>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </reporting>

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>junit</groupId>
            <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
            <version>4.10</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>httpunit</groupId>
            <artifactId>httpunit</artifactId>
            <version>1.7</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>log4j</groupId>
            <artifactId>log4j</artifactId>
            <version>1.2.x</version>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
</project>

As you can see, this is a stand-alone integration test suite (it basically just sends POST requests to a web service). I run it with mvn verify and see:

$ mvn verify
[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Building listener-testing
[INFO]    task-segment: [verify]
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] [site:attach-descriptor {execution: default-attach-descriptor}]
Downloading: http://artifactory:8081/artifactory/simple/vm/junit/junit/debian/junit-   debian.pom
[INFO] Unable to find resource 'junit:junit:pom:debian' in repository libs-release (http://artifactory:8081/artifactory/libs-release)
Downloading: http://artifactory:8081/artifactory/simple/vm/junit/junit/debian/junit-debian.pom
[INFO] Unable to find resource 'junit:junit:pom:debian' in repository central (http://repo1.maven.org/maven2)
[INFO] [failsafe:integration-test {execution: default}]
[INFO] Failsafe report directory: /home/jmp/desktop/listener-testing/target/failsafe-reports

-------------------------------------------------------
 T E S T S
-------------------------------------------------------
Running com.example.integration.ControllerIT
Tests run: 1, Failures: 0, Errors: 1, Skipped: 0, Time elapsed: 0.156 sec <<< FAILURE! - in com.example.integration.ControllerIT
testRequest(com.example.integration.ControllerIT)  Time elapsed: 0.006 sec  <<< ERROR!
java.lang.NullPointerException: null
        at java.util.Properties$LineReader.readLine(Properties.java:435)
        at java.util.Properties.load0(Properties.java:354)
        at java.util.Properties.load(Properties.java:342)
        at com.example.integration.ControllerIT.<init>    (ControllerIT.java:30)


Results :

Tests in error:
  ControllerIT.<init>:30 » NullPointer

Tests run: 1, Failures: 0, Errors: 1, Skipped: 0

[WARNING] File encoding has not been set, using platform encoding UTF-8, i.e. build is platform dependent!
[INFO] [failsafe:verify {execution: default}]
[INFO] Failsafe report directory: /home/jmp/desktop/listener-testing/target/failsafe-reports
[WARNING] File encoding has not been set, using platform encoding UTF-8, i.e. build is platform dependent!
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ERROR] BUILD FAILURE
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] There are test failures.

Please refer to /home/jmp/desktop/listener-testing/target/failsafe-reports for the individual test results.
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] For more information, run Maven with the -e switch
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 2 seconds
[INFO] Finished at: Fri Mar 14 10:13:04 GMT 2014
[INFO] Final Memory: 12M/125M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

In this output, line 30 of ControllerIT is the call to prop.load( inputstream ).

Answer 1

Your project is of packaging type pom. That way, resources-plugin is not included in lifecycle (and no resources will be copied over to target and thus land in the classpath)

Change your packaging to jar, and everything should work.