<plugin>
<groupId>org.codehaus.castor</groupId>
<artifactId>castor-xmlctf-plugin</artifactId>
<executions>
<execution>
<phase>test</phase>
<goals>
<goal>text</goal>
</goals>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>

now the suite can be run using

mvn test -Dcastor.xmlctf.root=tests/MasterTestSuite/

see patch patch.c2047.20070724.txt for details (patch is relative to xmlctf)
i also attached the plugin: xmlctf-maven-plugin.zip

the file patch.c2047.20070826.xmlctf.txt attached to this issue explains how to integrate the plugin into the test phase of the xmlctf module

this patch moves the xmlctf-run-mojo to the new trunk/maven-plugins project
it currently contains only one goal: xmlctf-run-text

the file patch.c2047.20070726.xmlctf.txt attached to this issue explains how to integrate the plugin into the test phase of the xmlctf module

this patch adds the castor xmlctf testRunner plugin to the test phase

in addition: the oro dependency is temporarily added because the connection to the parent pom is disabled

the config looks like this:

<plugin>
<groupId>org.codehaus.castor</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-plugins</artifactId>
<executions>
<execution>
<phase>test</phase>
<configuration>
<!-- testRoot may be overridden using systemproperty -Dcastor.xmlctf.testRoot -->
<testRoot>./tests/MasterTestSuite</testRoot>
<verbose>false</verbose>
<printStack>false</printStack>
</configuration>
<goals>
<goal>xmlctf-run-text</goal>
</goals>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>

• maven-plugins: the castor maven plugins, currently only including xmlctf-runner
• xmlctf-framework: the code to create junit tests out of xml test descriptors
• xmlctf: includes the testsuite in the tests/ folder

first, build the current castor checkout modules, if they are not already in your repo:
"mvn install" in castor (root dir), codegen, xmlctf-framework and maven-plugins

Running the tests:

• "cd xmlctf"
• "mvn test" (-> runs all tests in tests/MasterTestSuite)
• "mvn test Dcastor.xmlctf.root=tests/MasterTestSuite/mapping/configurableFieldHandler/" (> runs a custom testRoot)
• use the maven -X or --debug to enable verbose output and stacktraces

So I think your problem is that tools.jar is not added correctly to your testClasspath. This is currently achieved by:

classpath += System.getProperty("java.home") + "/lib/tools.jar:";

this ispired by the CTFRun script, where it says:

CLASSPATH=$CLASSPATH:$JAVA_HOME/lib/tools.jar

it works fine for me on unix (mac).

you can run mvn test with the -X property, then the classpath is printet out before test execution. Please check the path to the tools.jar in the debug message: "DEBUG classpath for sourcegenerator is: ..."

[DEBUG] classpath for sourcegenerator is:\bin\j2sdk1.4.2_11\jre/lib/tools.jar:
D:\dev\maven\repository\org\codehaus\castor\castor-codegen\1.1.3-SNAPSHOT\castor-codegen-1.1.3-SNAPSHOT.jar:
D:\dev\maven\repository\org\codehaus\castor\castor\1.1.3-SNAPSHOT\castor-1.1.3-SNAPSHOT.jar:
[snipped]

What's surprising is that there's a reference to tools.jar that is wrong, as it includes /jre/. I just crossed-checked, and my JAVA_HOME is set to

D:\bin\j2sdk1.4.2_11\

only. So where does the 'jre-infix' come from ?

In addition, the user can overwrite the absolute path to tools.jar using the "pathToTools" property in the pluging configuration section.

[DEBUG] classpath for sourcegenerator is:D:\bin\j2sdk1.4.2_11\jre/lib/tools.jar:
D:\bin\j2sdk1.4.2_11\jre/../lib/tools.jar:D:\dev\maven\repository\org\codehaus\c
astor\castor-codegen\1.1.3-SNAPSHOT\castor-codegen-1.1.3-SNAPSHOT.jar:D:\dev\mav
en\repository\org\codehaus\castor\castor\1.1.3-SNAPSHOT\castor-1.1.3-SNAPSHOT.ja
r:D:\dev\maven\repository\avalon-framework\avalon-framework\4.1.3\avalon-framewo
rk-4.1.3.jar:D:\dev\maven\repository\junit\junit\3.8.1\junit-3.8.1.jar:D:\dev\ma
ven\repository\commons-logging\commons-logging\1.1\commons-logging-1.1.jar:D:\de
v\maven\repository\javax\servlet\servlet-api\2.3\servlet-api-2.3.jar:D:\dev\mave
n\repository\org\codehaus\castor\castor-testsuite-xml-framework\1.1.3-SNAPSHOT\c
astor-testsuite-xml-framework-1.1.3-SNAPSHOT.jar:D:\dev\maven\repository\ant\ant
\1.6\ant-1.6.jar:D:\dev\maven\repository\xerces\xerces\1.4.0\xerces-1.4.0.jar:D:
\dev\maven\repository\logkit\logkit\1.0.1\logkit-1.0.1.jar:D:\dev\maven\reposito
ry\log4j\log4j\1.2.13\log4j-1.2.13.jar:

As you can see, the second entry now point to an existing tools.jar. Still, the compiler moans that there's no compiler on the classpath.