How To Create A Web Application Project With Maven

Posted on December 21, 2012 , Last modified : January 1, 2013

In this tutorial, we will show you how to use Maven to create a Java web application (with Spring MVC) project, and make it support Eclipse IDE.

Tools used :

Maven 3.0.5
Eclipse 4.2
JDK 6
Spring 3.2.0.RELEASED
Tomcat 7

1. Web Application Project from Maven Template

In a terminal (*uix or Mac) or command prompt (Windows), navigate to the folder you want to store the project. Issue following command :

mvn archetype:generate -DgroupId={project-packaging} -DartifactId={project-name} -DarchetypeArtifactId=maven-archetype-webapp -DinteractiveMode=false

This tell Maven to create a Java web application project from “maven-archetype-webapp” template.

For example,

$ pwd
/Users/mkyong/Documents/workspace
 
$ mvn archetype:generate -DgroupId=com.mkyong -DartifactId=CounterWebApp -DarchetypeArtifactId=maven-archetype-webapp -DinteractiveMode=false
[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO]                                                                         
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Building Maven Stub Project (No POM) 1
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] 
[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.mkyong
[INFO] Parameter: packageName, Value: com.mkyong
[INFO] Parameter: package, Value: com.mkyong
[INFO] Parameter: artifactId, Value: CounterWebApp
[INFO] Parameter: basedir, Value: /Users/mkyong/Documents/workspace
[INFO] Parameter: version, Value: 1.0-SNAPSHOT
[INFO] project created from Old (1.x) Archetype in dir: /Users/mkyong/Documents/workspace/CounterWebApp
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 3.147s
[INFO] Finished at: Thu Dec 20 20:35:19 MYT 2012
[INFO] Final Memory: 12M/128M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

In above case, a new web application project named “CounterWebApp“, and the entire project directory structure is created automatically.

2. Maven Directory Layout

Maven created following web application directory layout. A standard deployment descriptor web.xml and Maven pom.xmlare created.

CounterWebApp
   |-src
   |---main
   |-----resources
   |-----webapp
   |-------index.jsp
   |-------WEB-INF
   |---------web.xml
   |-pom.xml

Note
Please check this official guide to understand more.

pom.xml

 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">
  4.0.0

com.mkyong CounterWebApp war 1.0-SNAPSHOT CounterWebApp Maven Webapp http://maven.apache.org junit junit 3.8.1 test CounterWebApp

web.xml – Servlet 2.3 is too old, consider upgrade to 2.5


 "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD Web Application 2.3//EN"
 "http://java.sun.com/dtd/web-app_2_3.dtd" >
 

  Archetype Created Web Application

index.jsp – A simple hello world html file

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

3. Eclipse IDE Support

To convert the Maven web project to support Eclipse IDE, in terminal, navigate to “CounterWebAPp” folder, issue this command :

mvn eclipse:eclipse -Dwtpversion=2.0

You must add the -Dwtpversion=2.0 argument to make it as a Eclipse web project. Imports it into Eclipse IDE, a globe icon on top of project, means this is a web project in Eclipse.

You want Eclipse web project NOT Eclipse Java project.
Many users are confused, again, if you just issue mvn eclipse:eclipse, it will only convert the project as Eclipse Java project, add extra -Dwtpversion=2.0 argument to make it as Eclipse web project.

Done. This web project is ready to deploy. Attached to Eclipse’s Tomcat server plugin, and start it.

You can access the hello world jsp via – http://localhost:8080/CounterWebApp/

4. Update POM

To make above Maven web project to support Spring MVC framework, we need to touch up on the existing pom.xml :

Add compiler plugin to specify JDK6 to compile this project (default is using JDK1.4).
Add Spring frameworks dependencies.
Update jUnit to latest 4.11.

pom.xml

 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">
 4.0.0

com.mkyong CounterWebApp war 1.0-SNAPSHOT CounterWebApp Maven Webapp http://maven.apache.org 3.0.5.RELEASE 4.11 1.6 org.springframework spring-core ${spring.version} org.springframework spring-web ${spring.version} org.springframework spring-webmvc ${spring.version} junit junit ${junit.version} test CounterWebApp org.apache.maven.plugins maven-compiler-plugin 3.0 ${jdk.version} ${jdk.version}

5. Spring MVC REST

Create a Spring MVC controller class, with two simple methods to print a message.

/src/main/java/com/mkyong/controller/BaseController.java

package com.mkyong.controller;
 
import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.ui.ModelMap;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMethod;
 
@Controller
@RequestMapping("/")
public class BaseController {
 
 @RequestMapping(value="/welcome", method = RequestMethod.GET)
 public String welcome(ModelMap model) {
 
  model.addAttribute("message", "Maven Web Project + Spring 3 MVC - welcome()");
 
  //Spring uses InternalResourceViewResolver and return back index.jsp
  return "index";
 
 }
 
 @RequestMapping(value="/welcome/{name}", method = RequestMethod.GET)
 public String welcomeName(@PathVariable String name, ModelMap model) {
 
  model.addAttribute("message", "Maven Web Project + Spring 3 MVC - " + name);
  return "index";
 
 }
 
}

Create a Spring configuration file, defines the Spring view resolver.

/src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/mvc-dispatcher-servlet.xml

 xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
 xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
 xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
 xsi:schemaLocation="
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans     
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/context 
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.0.xsd">
 
  base-package="com.mkyong.controller" />
 
 
  class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver">
   name="prefix">
   /WEB-INF/pages/

name="suffix"> .jsp

Update existing web.xml to support Servlet 2.5 (the default Servlet 2.3 is too old), and also integrates Spring framework into this web application project via Spring’s listener ContextLoaderListener.

/src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/web.xml

 xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"
       xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
       xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee 
       http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd"
       version="2.5"> 
 
 Counter Web Application

mvc-dispatcher

org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet

mvc-dispatcher

contextConfigLocation

/WEB-INF/mvc-dispatcher-servlet.xml

org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener

Move existing index.jsp inside folder WEB-INF, to protect user access it directly. In additional, edit the file to print out the${message} variable that pass by the controller.

/src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/pages/index.jsp

<html>
<body>
<h2>Hello World!</h2>
 
<h4>Message : ${message}</h1> 
</body>
</html>

Review the final directory structure

6. Eclipse + Tomcat

In order to start or debug this project via Eclipse server plugin (Tomcat or other container). You need to issue following command again, in order to make all dependencies attached to the project web deployment assembly.

mvn eclipse:eclipse -Dwtpversion=2.0

Before this command, project dependencies are empty.

After this command, now project dependdencies are here!

Important!
Many developers are trapped here, and failed to perform the starting or debugging in Eclipse server plugin, all failed by showing dependencies not found error message. Right click on your project properties, make sure all dependencies are inside the web deployment assembly, otherwise issue mvn eclipse:eclipse -Dwtpversion=2.0again!

7. Maven Packaging

Review the pom.xml again, the packaging tag defining what is the packaging format or output.

pom.xml

 ...>
 4.0.0

com.mkyong CounterWebApp war 1.0-SNAPSHOT

Package the project to deploy is easy, just issue mvn package, it compiles and package the web project into a “war” file and store in project/target folder.

For example :

$pwd
/Users/mkyong/Documents/workspace/CounterWebApp
 
Yongs-MacBook-Air:CounterWebApp mkyong$ mvn package
[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO]                                                                         
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Building CounterWebApp Maven Webapp 1.0-SNAPSHOT
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] -- omitted for readability
[INFO] 
[INFO] --- maven-war-plugin:2.1.1:war (default-war) @ CounterWebApp ---
[INFO] Packaging webapp
[INFO] Assembling webapp [CounterWebApp] in [/Users/mkyong/Documents/workspace/CounterWebApp/target/CounterWebApp]
[INFO] Processing war project
[INFO] Copying webapp resources [/Users/mkyong/Documents/workspace/CounterWebApp/src/main/webapp]
[INFO] Webapp assembled in [87 msecs]
[INFO] Building war: /Users/mkyong/Documents/workspace/CounterWebApp/target/CounterWebApp.war
[INFO] WEB-INF/web.xml already added, skipping
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 3.936s
[INFO] Finished at: Thu Dec 20 22:28:53 MYT 2012
[INFO] Final Memory: 14M/206M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Done, just copy the project/target/CounterWebApp.war file and deploy to your container.

8. Demo

Start the web application.

http://localhost:8080/CounterWebApp/welcome

http://localhost:8080/CounterWebApp/welcome/mkyong

Download Source Code

Download it – CounterWebApp.zip (13 KB)

Kumar's Blog

Sunday, October 27, 2013

How To Create A Web Application Project With Maven

1. Web Application Project from Maven Template

2. Maven Directory Layout

3. Eclipse IDE Support

4. Update POM

5. Spring MVC REST

6. Eclipse + Tomcat

7. Maven Packaging

8. Demo

Download Source Code

References

No comments: