Question

Is it possible to set environmental variables in a build profile as opposed to setting them in the command line?

For instance, I want to enable the debugger when I’m using my test environment (-Denv=test).

I want maven to do this:

export MAVEN_OPTS="-Xdebug -Xnoagent -Djava.compiler=NONE -Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_socket,address=4000,server=y,suspend=n"

This way, I can quickly attach a debugger without having to type the same repeated line over and over.

I don’t believe the helps me in this case:

<plugin>
...
<!--    Automatically enable the debugger when running Jetty    -->
                    <argLine>-Xdebug -Xnoagent -Djava.compiler=NONE -Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_socket,address=4000,server=y,suspend=n</argLine>
                </configuration>
...
</plugin>

Walter

Answer 1

In recent versions of Maven you can activate the debugger by running mvnDebug rather than mvn, the mvnDebug bat/sh file sets MVN__DEBUG_OPTS and passes them to the java.exe. The values passed are:

set MAVEN_DEBUG_OPTS=-Xdebug -Xnoagent -Djava.compiler=NONE -Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_socket,server=y,suspend=y,address=8000

If that isn’t sufficient, this may work (note I’ve not yet tested this, I’ll update once I have). Maven reads properties prefixed with “env.” from the environment, you may be able to set environment variables by prefixing with the same. i.e.:

<profile>
  <id>dev</id>
  <properties>
    <env.MAVEN_OPTS>-Xdebug -Xnoagent -Djava.compiler=NONE -Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_socket,server=y,suspend=y,address=8000<env.MAVEN_OPTS>
  </properties>
</profile>

Update: The surefire plugin allows you to specify system properties to be used during test execution. The configuration is as follows:

<plugin>
  <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
  <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
  <version>2.4.2</version>
  <configuration>
    <systemProperties>
      <property>
        <name>propertyName</name>
        <value>propertyValue</value>
      </property>
    </systemProperties>
  </configuration>
</plugin>

If none of those work for you, it is possible to write a small plugin configured in your profile that binds to the initialize phase and sets your variables. The plugin would have configuration like this:

<plugin>
  <groupId>name.seller.rich</groupId>
  <artifactId>maven-environment-plugin</artifactId>
  <version>0.0.1</version>
  <executions>
    <execution>
      <id>set-properties</id>
      <phase>initialize</phase>
      <goals>
        <goal>set-properties</goal>
      </goals>
    </execution>
  </executions>                              
  <configuration>
    <properties>
      <env.MAVEN_OPTS>-Xdebug -Xnoagent -Djava.compiler=NONE 
          -Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_socket,server=y,suspend=y,address=8000<env.MAVEN_OPTS>
    </properties>
  </configuration>
</plugin>

during execution the plugin would set each passed property using System.setProperty(). If the first two aren’t suitable or don’t work this should address your issue.