[FIXED] maven test failing as file modified timings get updated

Issue

I have a java project with some test files in the following location:

src\test\resources\data\file\daily

I have some Junit test cases that check and assert based on the file modified time.

FileTime modFileTime = Files.getLastModifiedTime(Paths.get(classPathResource.getFile().getPath()));

when I execute the test cases using intellij without maven, my test passes and the modFileTime has time from the past e.g. 16/04/21 19:48

However, my test cases are failing when I run the tests using maven clean test as the file modified timings in target\test-classes\data\file\daily directory get updated timings.

How can I preserve the original file modified timings? or is there a common solution for this?

The method being called with test:

private boolean isFileAvailable(String file) throws IOException {
    ClassPathResource classPathResource = new ClassPathResource(file);
    boolean exists = Files.exists(Paths.get(classPathResource.getFile().getPath()));
    if (exists) {
        FileTime modFileTime = Files.getLastModifiedTime(Paths.get(classPathResource.getFile().getPath()));
        long modFileMinutes = modFileTime.to(TimeUnit.MINUTES);
        long minutes = FileTime.from(Instant.now()).to(TimeUnit.MINUTES);

        return minutes - modFileMinutes >= 5;
    } else {
        return false;
    }
}

Solution

mvn clean is getting rid of everything in your target/ directory before running the tests, and repopulating it. Hence, the timestamp will change every run. But this also will be the case for an initial (clean) checkout of the project, which you should be doing before any release build, so ... this is a pretty normal thing to be happening.

However, I agree with all the comments -- your test (not posted) doesn't make a lot of sense. If you want to have your test check a file with a relative timestamp, then e.g. set the timestamp on the file to 4 minutes ago and confirm it's not loaded, then set it to 6 minutes ago and confirm it's loaded. You can set the last-modified value on your test file from within the test. This is much more reliable than relying on something in the test execution system (maven) itself, especially if you generate the test file as part of the test (a good idea)

Also: if you only want to load data files older than a certain time, then I doubt you really want to have those be classpath resources. They should probably be loaded from some other known location. I suspect you are trying to solve some problem with cleverness that would be better solved by something from, e.g., https://commons.apache.org/

Answered By - Zac Thompson