dynamic web project package structure

Question

I have download a sample project and saw the below package structure.

src/main/java
src/main/resources
JRE System Library
Referenced Libraries
src
  main
    webapp 
      css
      user
      WEB-INF
target

Is it a best way to create the package structure. Normally when we create a dynamic project in eclipse it has one src folder and the WebContent folder in project root. The WEB-INF would be under the WebContent. But here we can identify two source folders and instead of WebContent we find webapp under the source folder not in root.

Despite its correct package structure or not i try to create the same in eclipse. But i cant rename the src folder to something like src/main/java know. It gives me an error

Cannot nest source folder "src/main/java" inside source folder "src".

in eclipse when create a dynamic project

Answer 1

This structure is maven based web base project and mostly for maven base project this structure is used, and as for as new conventions Maven is most popular deployment tool, so I myself recommend the maven base architecture.

Answer 2

If maven drives this organization a maven plugin exists, its goal is to generates eclipse projet.

A second plugin (an eclipse plugin) exists to faciltate the integration into eclipse.

Answer 3

The src/main/java folder is an automated updated duplicate of src folder. (These are the build paths configured in your project)

You should edit your files in src and the changes will be updated by eclipse to their symlinks.

Answer 4

First of all, its only one src folder. Eclipse displays them in such a way to make it easier to access different parts of the project. Webapp is main WebApplication Folder which contains all the goodies. The other most important folder is WEB-INF this is folder which is read protected from the client side so, you have your Java Class files and any thing which you want to protect from the client inside this folder. This folder also, contains a lib directory to contain the JAR files. This is the main overlay for the directory structure.