Get command-line arguments from spring-boot:run

Solution 1:

Looking at the source code of the spring-boot-maven-plugin I found that you need to do:

mvn spring-boot:run -Drun.arguments="arg1,arg2"

Another way to get more information about what options the run goal of the spring-boot plugin supports is to execute the following command:

mvn help:describe -Dcmd=spring-boot:run -Ddetail

For Spring Boot 2.x, the source is here and you now need to use -Dspring-boot.run.arguments="args1,args2"

(edit from april 2021) For Spring Boot 2.2+, you now need to use -Dspring-boot.run.arguments="args1 args2"

If you are using Gradle and you want to be able to pass command line arguments to the Gradle bootRun task, you first need to configure, for example like so:

bootRun {
    if ( project.hasProperty('args') ) {
        args project.args.split('\\s+')
    }
}

and run the task using gradle bootRun -Pargs="arg1 arg2"

Solution 2:

When passing multiple arguments using -Drun.arguments, if the argument in turn has 'comma-separated' values, then only the first value of each argument is used. To avoid this repeat the argument as many times as the number of values.

This is more of a workaround. Not sure if there is an alternative unless the delimiter is different - like '|'.

E.g Issue:

mvn spring-boot:run -Drun.arguments="--spring.profiles.active=test,dev"

Picks only 'test' profile for the above command.

Workaround:

mvn spring-boot:run -Drun.arguments="--spring.profiles.active=test,--spring.profiles.active=dev"

Picks both 'dev' & 'test' profiles for the above command.

Solution 3:

Be aware : The way of passing arguments depends on the spring-boot major.minor version.

TLDR

For Spring Boot 1:

mvn spring-boot:run -Drun.arguments="argOne,argTwo"

For Spring Boot 2.0 and 2.1:

mvn spring-boot:run -Dspring-boot.run.arguments="argOne,argTwo"

(edit from april 2021) For Spring boot 2.2 and later:

mvn spring-boot:run -Dspring-boot.run.arguments="argOne argTwo"

1. spring-boot-maven-plugin version and the the Spring Boot version you use has to be aligned.

According to the Spring Boot major version used (1 or 2), the spring-boot-maven-plugin in the 1 or the 2 version should indeed be used.
If your pom.xml inherits from the spring-boot-starter-parent :

<parent>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
    <version>ONE_OR_TWO_VERSION</version>
</parent>

In your pom, the version of the plugin used should not even be specified as this plugin dependency is inherited :

<plugins>
    <plugin>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>                   
        <configuration>
           ...
        </configuration>
    </plugin>
</plugins>

In case of your pom.xml not inheriting from spring-boot-starter-parent, don't forget to align the version of spring-boot-maven-plugin with the exact version of spring boot you want to use.

2. Passing arguments in command line with spring-boot-maven-plugin:1.X.X

For one argument :

mvn spring-boot:run -Drun.arguments="argOne"

for multiple :

mvn spring-boot:run -Drun.arguments="argOne,argTwo"

The maven plugin page documents it :

  Name         Type       Since           Description
arguments  |  String[]  |  1.0  | Arguments that should be passed 
                                  to the application. On command line use 
                                  commas to separate multiple arguments.
                                  User property is: run.arguments.

3. Passing arguments in command line with spring-boot-maven-plugin:2.X.X

For one argument :

mvn spring-boot:run -Dspring-boot.run.arguments="argOne"

for multiple :

mvn spring-boot:run -Dspring-boot.run.arguments="argOne,argTwo"

I didn't find the plugin documentation for the 2.X.X version that refers to that.
But the org.springframework.boot.maven.AbstractRunMojo class of the spring-boot-maven-plugin:2.0.0.M3 plugin refers to this user property:

public abstract class AbstractRunMojo extends AbstractDependencyFilterMojo
   ...
   @Parameter(property="spring-boot.run.arguments")
   private String[] arguments;
   ...
   protected RunArguments resolveApplicationArguments(){
     RunArguments runArguments = new RunArguments(this.arguments);
     addActiveProfileArgument(runArguments);
     return runArguments;
   }
   ...
 }

4. Hint : as you pass more than one argument, whitespaces between commas are considered.

   mvn spring-boot:run -Dspring-boot.run.arguments="argOne,argTwo"

will be interpreted as ["argOne", "argTwo"]

But this :

mvn spring-boot:run -Dspring-boot.run.arguments="argOne, argTwo"

will be interpreted as ["argOne", " argTwo"]

(edit from march 2021)

Whitespaces are now used as separator for multiple-arguments commands, see the relevant issue.