Maven and url stream handlers

[adrian.brock]

Related to this thread
http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4130111#4130111

If you checkout the latest MC project and try to run the classloader-vfs
tests it tells you can't create VFS files. This is because it doesn't recognise
the vfsfile: protocol (even though it has been added to the system properties).

This issue is specific to Maven, the tests work fine in the Eclipse.

I tried to debug this before, but I couldn't work out the cause,
because if I added a modified version of the URL class (with extra debugging)
to the bootstrap classpath I couldn't reproduce the problem.

The class from Sun's src.jar doesn't match what's in the JDK. ;-(

I ended up hacking the test using reflection and setAccesible(true)
to set the vfs url handler manually on the URL object.
But I don't want to do that here, the construction of the VFS files
are not in a test in this case, they are in real code.

I'm guessing this has something to do with the way Maven is playing
with the classloaders?

[pgier]

Yes, it might be related to how the surefire plugin forks the tests. You can pass classpath elements to the forked tests, but they aren't passed directly to the jvm. A basic jvm is created, and then a new classloader is created to load whatever things you need for the test.

Maybe I'm wrong, but this sounds similar to a problem that Stale was having with some aop tests, when trying to use the javaagent option. But the problem was that there isn't a way to pass the necessary classpath to the jvm.

I will take a look this week and see if I can fix this and get a patch submitted to the surefire plugin.

[pgier]

I updated the version of the surefire plugin (2.3 -> 2.4.1) and the test failures went away. The newer plugin didn't appear to break anything else, so all the mc modules now use the newer surefire plugin.

[adrian.brock]

That fixed it. I also removed the hack from the older tests. :-)