Run JUnit Test Cases From the Command Line

1. Overview

In this tutorial, we'll understand how to run JUnit 5 tests directly from the command line.

2. Test Scenarios

Previously, we've covered how to run a JUnit test programmatically. For our examples, we're going to use the same JUnit tests:

public class FirstUnitTest {
    @Test
    public void whenThis_thenThat() {
        assertTrue(true);
    }
    @Test
    public void whenSomething_thenSomething() {
        assertTrue(true);
    }
    @Test
    public void whenSomethingElse_thenSomethingElse() {
        assertTrue(true);
    }
}

public class SecondUnitTest {
    @Test
    public void whenSomething_thenSomething() {
        assertTrue(true);
    }
    @Test
    public void whensomethingElse_thenSomethingElse() {
        assertTrue(true);
    }
}

3. Running a JUnit 5 Test 

We can run a JUnit 5 test case using JUnit's console launcher. The executable for this jar can be downloaded from Maven Central, under the junit-platform-console-standalone directory.

Also, we'll need a directory that will contain all our compiled classes:

$ mkdir target

Let's see how we can run different test cases using the console launcher.

3.1. Run a Single Test Class

Before we run the test class, let's compile it:

$ javac -d target -cp target:junit-platform-console-standalone-1.7.2.jar src/test/java/com/baeldung/commandline/FirstUnitTest.java

Now, we'll run the compiled test class using the Junit console launcher:

$ java -jar junit-platform-console-standalone-1.7.2.jar --class-path target --select-class com.baeldung.commandline.FirstUnitTest

This will give us test run results:

Test run finished after 60 ms
[         3 containers found      ]
[         0 containers skipped    ]
[         3 containers started    ]
[         0 containers aborted    ]
[         3 containers successful ]
[         0 containers failed     ]
[         3 tests found           ]
[         0 tests skipped         ]
[         3 tests started         ]
[         0 tests aborted         ]
[         3 tests successful      ]
[         0 tests failed          ]

3.2. Run Multiple Test Classes

Again, let's compile the test classes we want to run:

$ javac -d target -cp target:junit-platform-console-standalone-1.7.2.jar src/test/java/com/baeldung/commandline/FirstUnitTest.java src/test/java/com/baeldung/commandline/SecondUnitTest.java 

We'll now run the compiled test classes using the console launcher:

$ java -jar junit-platform-console-standalone-1.7.2.jar --class-path target --select-class com.baeldung.commandline.FirstUnitTest --select-class com.baeldung.commandline.SecondUnitTest

Our results now show that all five test methods were successful:

Test run finished after 68 ms
...
[         5 tests found           ]
...
[         5 tests successful      ]
[         0 tests failed          ]

3.3. Run All Test Classes in a Package

To run all the test classes in a package, let's compile all the test classes present in our package:

$ javac -d target -cp target:junit-platform-console-standalone-1.7.2.jar src/test/java/com/baeldung/commandline/*.java

Again, we'll run the compiled test classes of our package:

$ java -jar junit-platform-console-standalone-1.7.2.jar --class-path target --select-package com.baeldung.commandline
...
Test run finished after 68 ms
...
[         5 tests found           ]
...
[         5 tests successful      ]
[         0 tests failed          ]

3.4. Run All the Test Classes

Let's run all the test cases:

$ java -jar junit-platform-console-standalone-1.7.2.jar --class-path target  --scan-class-path
...
Test run finished after 68 ms
...
[         5 tests found           ]
...
[         5 tests successful      ]
[         0 tests failed          ]

4. Running JUnit Using Maven

If we're using Maven as our build tool, we can execute test cases directly from the command line.

4.1. Running a Single Test Case

To run a single test case on the console, let's execute the following command by specifying the test class name:

$ mvn test -Dtest=SecondUnitTest 

This will give us test run results:

[INFO] Tests run: 2, Failures: 0, Errors: 0, Skipped: 0, Time elapsed: 0.069 s - in com.baeldung.commandline.SecondUnitTest 
[INFO] 
[INFO] Results:
[INFO]
[INFO] Tests run: 2, Failures: 0, Errors: 0, Skipped: 0
[INFO]
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS 
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
[INFO] Total time: 7.211 s [INFO] Finished at: 2021-08-02T23:13:41+05:30
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

4.2. Run Multiple Test Cases

To run multiple test cases on the console, let's execute the command, specifying the names of all the test classes we want to execute:

$ mvn test -Dtest=FirstUnitTest,SecondUnitTest
...
[INFO] Tests run: 2, Failures: 0, Errors: 0, Skipped: 0, Time elapsed: 0.069 s - in com.baeldung.commandline.SecondUnitTest
[INFO] Tests run: 3, Failures: 0, Errors: 0, Skipped: 0, Time elapsed: 0.069 s - in com.baeldung.commandline.FirstUnitTest
[INFO] 
[INFO] Results:
[INFO] 
[INFO] Tests run: 5, Failures: 0, Errors: 0, Skipped: 0
[INFO] 
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time:  7.211 s
[INFO] Finished at: 2021-08-02T23:13:41+05:30
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

4.3. Run All Test Cases in a Package

To run all the test cases within a package, on the console, we need to specify the package name as part of the command:

$ mvn test -Dtest="com.baeldung.commandline.**"
...
[INFO] Tests run: 2, Failures: 0, Errors: 0, Skipped: 0, Time elapsed: 0.069 s - in com.baeldung.commandline.SecondUnitTest
[INFO] Tests run: 3, Failures: 0, Errors: 0, Skipped: 0, Time elapsed: 0.069 s - in com.baeldung.commandline.FirstUnitTest
[INFO] 
[INFO] Results:
[INFO] 
[INFO] Tests run: 5, Failures: 0, Errors: 0, Skipped: 0
[INFO] 
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time:  7.211 s
[INFO] Finished at: 2021-08-02T23:13:41+05:30
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

4.4. Run All Test Cases

Finally, to run all the test cases using Maven on the console, we simply execute mvn clean test:

$ mvn clean test
...
[INFO] Tests run: 2, Failures: 0, Errors: 0, Skipped: 0, Time elapsed: 0.069 s - in com.baeldung.commandline.SecondUnitTest
[INFO] Tests run: 3, Failures: 0, Errors: 0, Skipped: 0, Time elapsed: 0.069 s - in com.baeldung.commandline.FirstUnitTest
[INFO] 
[INFO] Results:
[INFO] 
[INFO] Tests run: 5, Failures: 0, Errors: 0, Skipped: 0
[INFO] 
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time:  7.211 s
[INFO] Finished at: 2021-08-02T23:13:41+05:30
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

5. Conclusion

In this article, we've learned how to run JUnit tests directly from the command line, covering JUnit 5 both with and without Maven.

Implementation of the examples shown here is available over on GitHub.