How to parametrize Maven surefire plugin so I can choose which TestNG suites to run

Question

I've got many test suites in TestNG. These are XML files. I want to be able to choose multiple XML suites when running integration-test from maven.

Currently I can add the suite files to pom.xml like this:

<plugin>
  <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
  <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
  <configuration>
    <suiteXmlFiles>
      <suiteXmlFile>${pathToMySuiteFile_1}</suiteXmlFile>
      <suiteXmlFile>${pathToMySuiteFile_1}</suiteXmlFile>
    </suiteXmlFiles>
  </configuration>
</plugin>

This solution has some limitations. I can only change a path to the test suite I've got defined in pom.xml. So in my example it always has to be two files. I'm not able to run, lets say, 5 suites or just one.

Is there a way to somehow parametrize the whole section "suiteXmlFiles" in pom.xml ?

<plugin>
  <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
  <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
  <configuration>
    <suiteXmlFiles>
      ${multiple_paths_ToMySuiteFiles}
    </suiteXmlFiles>
  </configuration>
</plugin>

Running everything that matches given test group is not an option for me: I don't want to load all the suites I've got and then run just the selected tests using groups in TestNG suite. The reason being that a report that gets generated after running all the test suites with group filters is different from a report when just the selected test suites were run.

Answer 1

According to User Property of suiteXmlFiles You can use:

mvn test -Dsurefire.suiteXmlFiles=test1.xml,test2.xml