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Maven

Maven is a Java project management and project comprehension tool. It's primary goal is to make the developers life easier by providing a well defined project structure, well defined development processes to follow, and a coherent body of documentation that keeps your developers and clients apprised of what's happening with your project.

Maven is distributed at no charge for commercial or non-commercial use and is licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.

More information about Maven can be found at: http://maven.apache.org

The latest Maven version can be downloaded from: http://maven.apache.org/download.html

Quick guides

Maven 3.0.4: Convert a Maven project into an Eclipse project using the pom.xml

Information
Before you can create a Maven project you need to have internet access because Maven automatically downloads dependencies (= JAR files) from remote central repositories.

Operating system used
Windows Vista Home Premium SP 2

Software prerequisites
Maven 3.0.4
Eclipse Classic (Indigo Packages)

Procedure

First create a Maven project, for example: Setup web application with Jetty server.
Open a Windows Terminal and goto the Maven project folder where the pom.xml file is located.

For example: cd C:\mymockapi\mockapi
Convert the Maven project into an Eclipse project.
Type: mvn eclipse:eclipse

You will see:
:
Downloaded: http://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2/org/eclipse/core/resources/3.3.0
-v20070604/resources-3.3.0-v20070604.jar (663 KB at 866.3 KB/sec)
[INFO] Using Eclipse Workspace: null
[INFO] Adding default classpath container: org.eclipse.jdt.launching.JRE_CONTAINER
[INFO] Wrote settings to C:\mymockapi\mockapi\.settings\org.eclipse.jdt.core.prefs
[INFO] Wrote Eclipse project for "mockapi" to c:\mymockapi\mockapi.
[INFO]
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 5.916s
[INFO] Finished at: Tue Oct 30 21:34:53 CET 2012
[INFO] Final Memory: 6M/11M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note 1:
One directory and two files are created. These are Eclipse settings.
- .settings
- .classpath
- .project
Note 2:
The pom.xml file is not changed.
Create a Eclipse workspace.
For example: c:\workspace_maven
In this tutorial Eclipse Classic (Indigo Packages) is used.
Start Eclipse and select menu: File | Import
Expand: General and select: Existing Projects into Workspace

Press: Next button
Select root directory. The directory where the pom.xml file is located.
For example: C:\mymockapi\mockapi

Press: Finish button
The maven project is now imported into Eclipse.
Fix the "Unbound classpath variable: M2_REPO.." errors.
Right click the project folder "mockapi" and select properties.
Select: Java Build Path, select tab Libraries and press button: Add Variable...
Press button: Configure Variables...
Press button: New...
Enter Name: M2_REPO
Enter Path: The location of your local maven repository

Press OK button
Press OK Button
A message is displayed:
The classpath variabels have changed. A full rebuild is recommended for changes to take effect.
Do the full build now?
Press: Yes button
Press: OK multiple times to close all open screens
All Eclipse error messages should disappear.
To run maven commands within Eclipse you should install the Maven plugin in Eclipse (M2Eclipse plugin)
Select Menu: Help | Install New Software...
Open pulldown menu and select "--All Avalable Sites--"
Enter in search box: maven
Select: Collaboration | m2e - Maven Integration for Eclipse

Press Next button
Press Next button
Accept the license agreement
Press Finish button
A message will be diplayed
Press: Restart Now
After Eclipse is restarted, the Maven plugin is installed.
Goto workbench
To run Maven commands, right click the pom.xml file and select option "Run as"