❮ Maven Deployment Automation Maven External Dependencies ❯

Maven Web Application

In this section, we will learn how to use the version control system Maven to manage a web-based project, including how to create, build, deploy, and run a web application.

Creating a Web Application

We can use the maven-archetype-webapp plugin to create a simple Java web application.

Open the command console, navigate to the C:\MVN folder, and then execute the following mvn command:

C:\MVN>mvn archetype:generate -DgroupId=com.companyname.automobile -DartifactId=trucks -DarchetypeArtifactId=maven-archetype-webapp -DinteractiveMode=false

After execution, Maven will start processing and create a complete directory structure for the Java Web project.

[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO] Searching repository for plugin with prefix: 'archetype'.
[INFO] -------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Building Maven Default Project
[INFO] task-segment: [archetype:generate] (aggregator-style)
[INFO] -------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Preparing archetype:generate
[INFO] No goals needed for project - skipping
[INFO] [archetype:generate {execution: default-cli}]
[INFO] Generating project in Batch mode
[INFO] --------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Using following parameters for creating project 
from Old (1.x) Archetype: maven-archetype-webapp:1.0
[INFO] --------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Parameter: groupId, Value: com.companyname.automobile
[INFO] Parameter: packageName, Value: com.companyname.automobile
[INFO] Parameter: package, Value: com.companyname.automobile
[INFO] Parameter: artifactId, Value: trucks
[INFO] Parameter: basedir, Value: C:\MVN
[INFO] Parameter: version, Value: 1.0-SNAPSHOT
[INFO] project created from Old (1.x) Archetype in dir: C:\MVN\trucks
[INFO] -------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESSFUL
[INFO] -------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 16 seconds
[INFO] Finished at: Tue Jul 17 11:00:00 IST 2012
[INFO] Final Memory: 20M/89M
[INFO] -------------------------------------------------------------------

After execution, we can see the trucks project in the C:/MVN folder, and view the project's directory structure:

Maven's directory structure is standard, with each directory serving the following purposes:

Folder Structure	Description
Trucks	Contains the src folder and pom.xml file.
src/main/webapp	Contains the index.jsp file and the WEB-INF folder.
src/main/webapp/WEB-INF	Contains the web.xml file.
src/main/resources	Contains images and properties resource files.

The pom.xml file code is as follows:

&lt;project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" 
   xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
   xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 
   http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
   <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
   <groupId>com.companyname.automobile</groupId>
   <artifactId>trucks</artifactId>
   <packaging>war</packaging>
   <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
   <name>trucks Maven Webapp</name>
   <url>http://maven.apache.org</url>
   <dependencies>
      <dependency>
         <groupId>junit</groupId>
         <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
         <version>3.8.1</version>
         <scope>test</scope>
      </dependency>
   </dependencies>
   <build>
      <finalName>trucks</finalName>
   </build>
</project>

Next, we open the C:\ > MVN > trucks > src > main > webapp folder, and we can see a pre-created index.jsp file with the following code:

<html>
   <body>
      <h2>Hello World!</h2>
   </body>
</html>

Building the Web Application

Open the command console, navigate to the C:\MVN\trucks directory, and then execute the following mvn command:

C:\MVN\trucks>mvn clean package

Maven will start building the project:

[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO] -------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Building trucks Maven Webapp
[INFO]    task-segment: [clean, package]
[INFO] -------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] [clean:clean {execution: default-clean}]
[INFO] [resources:resources {execution: default-resources}]
[WARNING] Using platform encoding (Cp1252 actually) to 
copy filtered resources, i.e. build is platform dependent!
[INFO] Copying 0 resource
[INFO] [compiler:compile {execution: default-compile}]
[INFO] No sources to compile
[INFO] [resources:testResources {execution: default-testResources}]
[WARNING] Using platform encoding (Cp1252 actually) to 
copy filtered resources, i.e. build is platform dependent!
[INFO] skip non existing resourceDirectory

C:\MVN\trucks\src\test\resources [INFO] [compiler:testCompile {execution: default-testCompile}] [INFO] No sources to compile [INFO] [surefire:test {execution: default-test}] [INFO] No tests to run. [INFO] [war:war {execution: default-war}] [INFO] Packaging webapp [INFO] Assembling webapp[trucks] in [C:\MVN\trucks\target\trucks] [INFO] Processing war project [INFO] Copying webapp resources[C:\MVN\trucks\src\main\webapp] [INFO] Webapp assembled in[77 msecs] [INFO] Building war: C:\MVN\trucks\target\trucks.war [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------- [INFO] BUILD SUCCESSFUL [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------- [INFO] Total time: 3 seconds [INFO] Finished at: Tue Jul 17 11:22:45 IST 2012 [INFO] Final Memory: 11M/85M [INFO] -------------------------------------------------------------------

Deploying the Web Application

Open the C:\ < MVN < trucks < target < folder, locate the trucks.war file, and copy it to your web server's web application directory, then restart the web server.

Testing the Web Application

Access the following URL to run the web application:

http://:/trucks/index.jsp

Verify the results:

❮ Maven Deployment Automation Maven External Dependencies ❯