Francois Le Droff: Quickly create, run and test a simple Java web app with eclipse, maven and jetty

Here is ``short'' entry to tell you how to use maven to quickly and nicely set up a simple and standard web application ready for development debugging and unit testing

prerequisites:

You must have installed:

Java 5
Eclipse 3.3 with WTP installed : the Europa bundle for instance
M2Eclipse plug-in installed (http://m2eclipse.codehaus.org/)
Maven

Create your project from a maven archetype

The maven archetype plugin allows the user to create a Maven 2 project from an existing template called an archetype. Here is the one I used to create my simple web app.

mvn archetype:create -DgroupId=com.adobe.consulting.fr -DartifactId=ac_fr_samples -Dpackagename=com.adobe.consulting.fr -DarchetypeArtifactId=maven-archetype-webapp

Create your own sources and unit test folder structure

Those are default maven folder structure, if you follow that, you won’t have anything more to configure in your build.

The main java source folder structure and packages

mkdir src/main/java/com/adobe/consulting/fr

The test java source folders structure and packages

mkdir src/test/java/com/adobe/consulting/fr
mkdir src/test/resources

lots of archetypes:

By the way, there are a lot of archetypes out there : here is a list http://docs.codehaus.org/display/MAVENUSER/Archetypes+List Those archetypes can create a lot of stuff in advance for you, like a full hibernate, spring, struts project skeleton.

Wouldn’t it be great to have others for:

Adobe flex blazeDS/lcds project

Create your WTP eclipse project

The Eclipse plugin supports creating configurations for Eclipse WTP (Web Tools Project). Projects with a WAR packaging can be setup as WTP dynamic web projects and runtime dependencies are configured to be used when running them using Eclipse internal servers.

To generate WTP project for Eclipse Europa, use this command:

mvn -Dwtpversion=1.5 eclipse:eclipse

To configure your newly create eclipse project to use with the M2Elipse plugin.

mvn eclipse:m2eclipse -DdownloadSources=true  -DdownloadJavadocs=true

Other neat options:

It’s also possible to import code style cf. http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-eclipse-plugin/examples/load-code-styles.html
Artifacts with sources deployed can be attached to Eclipse libraries using downloadSources cf. http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-eclipse-plugin/examples/attach-library-sources.html

Now, just import this project in Eclipse

Install Jetty and deploy your web app with maven:

Edit your maven project object model

Edit your pom.xml to add the maven-jetty-plugin

    ac_fr_samples


        org.mortbay.jetty
        maven-jetty-plugin

Install Jetty and deploy your web app in one maven command

mvn -Djetty.port=9999 jetty:run

I chose 9999 as the web http port number, because I’m already running jboss on port 8080

Test your web app

Go to http://localhost:9999/ac_fr_samples/

Combine Jetty, maven and eclipse :

Let’s Debug your web app with eclipse, maven and jetty

Stop the above jetty instance

Set up you jetty web app server as a runnable external tools:

Go to the Run/External Tools/External Tools …" menu item on the Run'' menu bar. Select Program'' and click the New'' button. On the Main'' tab, fill in the Location:'' as the full path to your mvn'' executable. For the Working Directory:'' select the workspace that matches your webapp. For Arguments:'' add jetty:run. Move to the Environment'' tab and click the New'' button to add a new variable named MAVEN_OPTS with the value:

-Xdebug -Xnoagent -Djetty.port=9999 -Djava.compiler=NONE -Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_socket,address=9998,server=y,suspend=n

A few remarks about this:

If you supply suspend=y instead of suspend=n, it will suspend the web server until the debugger is launched
I chose 9999 as the web http port number, because I’m already running jboss on port 8080
I chose port 9998 as the debug port number cause it was already used as well, I faced a `’'ERROR: transport error 202: bind failed: Address already in use"

You may start jetty this way.

Deploy and Debug your project through eclipse launching maven jetty

Pull up the Run/Debug/Debug …'' menu item and select Remote Java Application'' and click the New'' button. Fill in the dialog by selecting your webapp project for the Project:'' field, and ensure you are using the same port number as you specified in the address= property above.

You may now Run/Debug your project.

Monitor the quality of your project

Lots of plugin out there. Here is the first few that don’t cost a penny to set up and give quite a few indicators.

Add this to your pom.xml:

    org.apache.maven.plugins


     maven-project-info-reports-plugin



    maven-javadoc-plugin

    2.1

     true




    org.apache.maven.plugins
    maven-surefire-report-plugin



    maven-checkstyle-plugin


      http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/struts/maven/trunk/build/struts_checks.xml





    org.apache.maven.plugins
    maven-jxr-plugin



    maven-pmd-plugin



    net.sf.dtddoc
    dtddoc-maven-plugin


      **/web-app*

To generate the associated reports and the project site, just use:

mvn site

and you’ll get this for free (as in free software, and free beer :-) )

Alternatives : use Jboss or tomcat :

What you did with the very fast and light jetty web server, you may also do it with the full J2EE beast Jboss

Edit your pom.xml to add the maven-jboss-plugin

    org.codehaus.mojo

    jboss-maven-plugin

     localhost
     all

     8080

It will allow you to deploy through maven (and jmx) your web application build by maven:

mvn jboss:deploy

The same goes with Tomcat: you also have a maven tomcat plugin.

References:

maven:

http://www.sonatype.com/book/reference/public-book.html#

Web application, eclipse wtp, jetty and maven :