Generating a JAR of the test classes

There could be situations when you would want to use the test classes and resources of a project as a test dependency in another project. This is typically the case in multi-module projects, where a module depends on another module. There could be utility code in the test classes of a module that can be reused in another module.

One way to achieve this would be by creating a separate project to hold these classes. However, that is cumbersome and may be confusing as well.

Maven provides another way to achieve this.

How to do it...

1. Open a project for which you want to create a test JAR (project-with-test-jar).
2. Add the following plugin configuration to the pom file:

     <build>
       <plugins>
         <plugin>
           <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
           <artifactId>maven-jar-plugin</artifactId>
           <version>2.5</version>
           <executions>
             <execution>
               <goals...