Run tests from maven zip assembly - testing

Question

I have finally succeeded in getting Maven to zip together a bunch of jars using an assembly file and install it to my local repository. That was difficult enough...
Now my goal is to configure another maven project so that when I do "mvn test", it will pull in that zip, unpack it, and run tests from the jars within that zip file. Does anyone know how to do this?
Here is the POM for the assembly project:
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<groupId>com.pason</groupId>
<artifactId>RigFocusOnDataHub</artifactId>
<name>RigFocusOnDataHub</name>
<version>12.2.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
<packaging>pom</packaging>
<dependencies>
...
</dependencies>
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.3</version>
<configuration>
<descriptors>
<descriptor>RigFocusOnDH.xml</descriptor>
</descriptors>
</configuration>
<executions>
<execution>
<id>zip</id>
<!-- this is used for inheritance merges -->
<phase>package</phase>
<!-- append to the packaging phase. -->
<goals>
<goal>single</goal>
<!-- goals == mojos -->
</goals>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
Here is the POM for the second project. Unfortunately, instead of downloading the zip file for RigFocusOnDataHub, it just fetches the jars for all of RigFocusOnDataHub's dependencies from the local repo.
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<groupId>com.pason</groupId>
<artifactId>RigFocusDHSystemTest</artifactId>
<version>12.2.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.pason</groupId>
<artifactId>MurphyRigFocus</artifactId>
<version>2.0.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
<type>test-jar</type>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.pason</groupId>
<artifactId>RigFocusOnDataHub</artifactId>
<version>12.2.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
<type>pom</type>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>junit</groupId>
<artifactId>junit</artifactId>
<version>4.8.2</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-dependency-plugin</artifactId>
<executions>
<execution>
<id>unpack</id>
<phase>process-test-classes</phase>
<goals>
<goal>unpack</goal>
</goals>
<configuration>
<artifactItems>
<artifactItem>
<groupId>com.pason</groupId>
<artifactId>MurphyRigFocus</artifactId>
<version>2.0.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
<type>test-jar</type>
<outputDirectory>${project.build.directory}/tests/MurphyRigFocus</outputDirectory>
</artifactItem>
<artifactItem>
<groupId>com.pason</groupId>
<artifactId>RigFocusOnDataHub</artifactId>
<version>12.2.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
<type>zip</type>
<outputDirectory>${project.build.directory}/tests/MurphyRigFocus</outputDirectory>
</artifactItem>
</artifactItems>
</configuration>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.6</version>
<configuration>
<testClassesDirectory>${project.build.directory}/tests/MurphyRigFocus</testClassesDirectory>
<reportsDirectory>${project.build.directory}/surefire-reports/MurphyRigFocus</reportsDirectory>
<includes>
<include>**/*IT.*</include>
</includes>
<argLine>-Djava.library.path=${basedir}/target/classes/</argLine>
<forkMode>pertest</forkMode>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>

Answer 1

You would need to:
extract the jars from the zip - this is easy enough with maven-dependency-plugin
cut transitive dependencies so your jars don't end up in the path twice - you can do that at the source with maven-shade-plugin or in the test project itself with dependencies exclusions
add the jars to your test classpath, there are many ways to do that, I would try to use additional parameters in surefire configuration first