Example maven project using ApprovalTest.Java library.

Since ApprovalTests.jar is not available through public maven repositories, in order to use it as 'ordinary' maven dependency I suggest to install it to local or remote maven repository specifying some custom groupId, artifactId and version.

Description of several approaches to mavenizing ApprovalTests.jar follows.

This project uses Approach#3 (see bellow) with ApprovalTests.jar v0.13.

Approach 1 - adding ApprovalTests.jar to remote repository

If you have a private remote maven repository (e.g. Artifactory or Nexus), simplest approach is to add ApprovalTests.jar manually as maven artifact in repository specifying custom groupId, artifactId and version.

Then you can add dependency declaration as usual and you're done.

Approach 2 - installing ApprovalTests.jar in local repository from command line

To manually install ApprovalTests.jar v0.13 in local repository from command line, use this maven command:

mvn install:install-file 
    -Dfile=ApprovalTests.jar 
    -DgroupId=com.github.approvals 
    -DartifactId=ApprovalTests 
    -Dversion=0.13 
    -Dpackaging=jar

You can then reference ApprovalTests artifact by adding following dependency declaration:

        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.github.approvals</groupId>
            <artifactId>ApprovalTests</artifactId>
            <version>0.13</version>
        </dependency>

Approach 3 - configuring maven-install plugin in pom.xml to add ApprovalTests.jar in local repository

See this project's pom.xml as example how to configure maven-install-plugin & bind it to maven initialize phase to install ApprovalTests.jar as maven artefact in local repository.

Follow these steps:

$ git clone https://github.com/mzagar/approvals-example.git
$ cd approvals-example
$ mvn initialize
$ mvn clean install
...
Build should be successful and all tests should pass.

In initialize phase 'mvn initialize', maven-install-plugin will copy approvals-exampl/lib/ApprovalTests-0.13.jar to local repository creating artifact with

• groupId=com.github.approvals,
• artifactId=ApprovalTests,
• version=0.13,
• packaging=jar.

The effect is the same as in Approach#2.

Project pom.xml refereces ApprovalTests.jar using following dependency declaration:

        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.github.approvals</groupId>
            <artifactId>ApprovalTests</artifactId>
            <version>0.13</version>
        </dependency>

Note: using addjars-maven-plugin with ApprovalTests.jar does not work!

Alas, using addjars-maven-plugin to automagically install ApprovalTests.jar directly from {PROJECT}/lib folder and automatically add it as project dependency does not work.

Call to Approvals.verify() will throw exception saying test source file cannot be located. See [here] (approvals/ApprovalTests.Java#1) for details.

Not sure if this is a bug in [addjars-maven-plugin] (https://code.google.com/p/addjars-maven-plugin/) or not.