Coming from an ASP.NET background, I find it shocking how much work it takes to get a webapp running with Eclipse WTP and Maven especially if you are learning on your own. Hopefully this quick start guide will help someone else get up to speed quickly.
There are two ways to get a hello world project working in Eclipse WTP with Maven. You can create a Dynamic web project and then add the Maven nature or you can do the opposite.
Pre-requisites for Eclipse with update sites
Startup configuration
Option 1: Create Dynamic Web Project then add Maven Nature
Create new Maven project, select archetype
org.apache.maven.archetypes:maven-archetype-webapp
Change to Java EE perspective.
Create a new source folder, src\main\java. Notice how Eclipse is not smart enough to do this for you and also the ordering of the folders is incorrect.
src\main\java folder is listed after src\main\resources. This can be manually fixed later in the project properties.
Create a new servlet. Notice how Eclipse defaults this file in the wrong folder src\main\resources because the order is wrong. Instead, manually select src\main\java.
Change the URL mapping on the second page of the wizard to /* to make testing easier.
Now our servlet is ready but the dependencies on the servlet api are unbound. A) we can add the servlet api as a dependency to our project or B) we can bind to the Eclipse server config for Apache 7.0.
For option A, add this dependency to the pom:
.
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.tomcat</groupId>
<artifactId>tomcat-api</artifactId>
<version>7.0.${set this}</version>
<scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>
Test of dependency publishing:
.
protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException {
response.getWriter().println("The time is now: " + new DateTime().toString());
}
Reload the test page and the output should now be:
The time is now: 2012-03-03T14:14:29.890-05:00
Now if you want to play with Servlet 3.0 and annotations this is not enabled by default, for what reason I don't know.
First force Maven to use Java 1.6 by adding this to your pom, otherwise each time you update your pom the configuration will revert to Java 1.5.
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.3.2</version>
<configuration>
<source>1.6</source>
<target>1.6</target>
</configuration>
</plugin>
Open Project Properties -> Project Facets. Change the Version under "Dynamic Web Module" to 3.0, change java version 1.6
Create a new Servlet with class name AnnotatedServlet in src\main\java and notice how the @WebServlet annotation is auto created.
Option 2: Create Dynamic Web Project then add Maven Nature
- Select Tomcat Runtime and Dynamic Module Version 3.0
- Create source folder src\main\java
- Set default output target\classes
- Set context directory src\main\webapp
- Check generate web.xml
- Create servlet with mapping /* for quick testing
- Add an output statement to the doGet method
response.getWriter().println("Another test");
.
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>joda-time</groupId>
<artifactId>joda-time</artifactId>
<version>2.1</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.3.2</version>
<configuration>
<source>1.6</source>
<target>1.6</target>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
