Apache Maven Basic Operations

Maven is the engine. All the work is done by plugins.

Maven Plugins

Clean

Clean up after the build.

# mvn clean

Compiler

Compiles Java sources.

# mvn compiler

Failsafe

Run the JUnit integration tests in an isolated classloader.

# mvn failsafe

Install

Install the built artifact into the local repository.

# mvn install

You can also install into local repository an existing jar. For more details follow How to include library into maven local repository tutorial.

Resources

Copy the resources to the output directory for including in the JAR.

# mvn resources

Site

Generate a site for the current project.

# mvn site

Surefire

Run the JUnit unit tests in an isolated classloader.

# mvn surefire

Verifier

Useful for integration tests - verifies the existence of certain conditions.

# mvn verifier

Also can be used combinations of plugins, like

# mvn clean package install

Maven Archetypes

Maven archetypes are project templates which can be used to generate empty projects. Maven contains a lot of archetypes, but here are the most used archetypes.

Eclipse Archetype

This Maven archetype can generate a new Java project including files for the Eclipse IDE. You can generate that archetype using this Maven command:

# mvn eclipse:eclipse

Before running this archetype you need to have an existing maven project file (pom.xml).

IDEA Archetype

Similar to the Eclipse archetype, there is an IntelliJ IDEA archetype. You can generate the IDEA archetype using this Maven command:

# mvn idea:idea

Conclusions

Maven is a powerful tool used in all steps of development process from dependencies management to deployment. Any comments or suggestions are welcome.

References

• Maven
• How to include library into maven local repository