How the hell did anyone convince anyone else to use this crap?!
With that off my chest - I *have to* use mvn2 on my current project,
anyone have experience getting maven to actually do anything useful?
I don't know maven well and I'm happy to concede that I may be a
witless luser, and if someone can hit me with a cluebat, please do,
but until that moment I have to say that my experience with mvn is
completely negative.
All I want to do is:
1 - get build time (like Ant's <tstamp>) in a particular format
2 - and write this value into the manifest of the created jar.
This should not take me 1 week and still be no closer to getting a
result. Regardless of mavens other qualities (dependency management),
the fact that I cannot find the documentation that I need to solve
this problem, the fact that parts of the maven website are 404, the
fact that I cannot search the mailing list archives (no MARC, just
some nabble.com thing), the fact that the FAQ is missing answers
the list of documentation problems is endless with maven - I now think
Ant's docs are fantastic.
I'm truly at my wit's end regarding such a simple task, here is what I
currently have in my pom.xml:
<build>
<filters>
<filter>build.properties</filter>
</filters>
<resources>
<resource>
<!-- required for some reason to get
filtering working
<directory>src/main/resources</directory>
<filtering>true</filtering>
</resource>
</resources>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-antrun-plugin</artifactId>
<executions>
<execution>
<phase>process-classes</phase>
<configuration>
<tasks>
<tstamp>
<!-- 2006-08-19 15:32:04
<format property="last.updated" pattern="yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss"/>
</tstamp>
<echo file="build.properties" message="build.time=${last.updated}"/>
<!--
sanity check - yep ant works fine, thankfully
<echo message="[build.properties] - updated with : ${last.updated}"/>
</tasks>
</configuration>
<goals>
<goal>run</goal>
</goals>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-jar-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<archive>
<manifestEntries>
<!-- inserts the correct entry in the manifest, but
<!-- so far no luck on getting the build time
<Built-Time>XXX - ${build.time}</Built-Time>
</manifestEntries>
</archive>
</configuration>
<executions>
<execution>
<goals>
<goal>jar</goal>
</goals>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
Basically I want to set a property build.time, and reference it later.
As it seems that you can only specify hard-coded properties in the
pom (why oh why?!), I decided to get around this by getting ant to
spit out the correct value into a props file, then use mavens
filter/resources to pull in this new value and then reference it with
${build.time} in the appropriate place.
course it doesn't work due to - what, I don't know, is it the goal,
the phase that it executes in? Basically the docs don't tell me
enough, and neither does the debug, and google-fu has failed me too.
I know some of the maven devs lurk here (from time to time), if any of
them could shed some light on this.
Do I have to write a <tstampplugin (mojo?) for this?
This has to be the second most frustrating piece of software I've
encountered - right after
Kev
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15/09/06, Kevin Jackson <foamdino (AT) gmail (DOT) comwrote:
How the hell did anyone convince anyone else to use this crap?!

Well, since you asked so nicely :)

I'm truly at my wit's end regarding such a simple task, here is what I
currently have in my pom.xml:

If you use ant tasks, you can only use them with other ant tasks. The
ant properties are not fed back into the Maven build by the antrun
plugin.

So, you'll need to filter it into the file using your own <copy /task.

I know some of the maven devs lurk here (from time to time), if any of
them could shed some light on this.

You'll likely get more help on users (AT) maven (DOT)

Do I have to write a <tstampplugin (mojo?) for this?

That's another option.

This has to be the second most frustrating piece of software I've
encountered - right after

Well now, that comparison is just mean! :)
- Brett

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15/09/06, Kevin Jackson <foamdino (AT) gmail (DOT) comwrote:
How the hell did anyone convince anyone else to use this crap?!

Well, since you asked so nicely :)

Thanks for taking the abuse in the (semi) light-hearted manner it was
dished out in! Truly I didn't want to cause too much upset, but I
wanted to express that there are some major documentation problems

I'm truly at my wit's end regarding such a simple task, here is what I
currently have in my pom.xml:

If you use ant tasks, you can only use them with other ant tasks. The
ant properties are not fed back into the Maven build by the antrun
plugin.

So, you'll need to filter it into the file using your own <copy /task.

You see I've read pretty much every doc available on the web about
maven properties and *none* mentioned that the ant properties are only
available in the antrun plugin - that may be worth adding to the FAQ.

And with the antrun plugin, ok I can get <tstampto generate the
value I'm after, and I can use copy/replace to filter it into the
file, but what phase/goal do I need to set so that ant will execute
before the jar file is built? I thought process-classes as
process-resources seems to occur before compilation.

I know some of the maven devs lurk here (from time to time), if any of
them could shed some light on this.

You'll likely get more help on users (AT) maven (DOT)

That was my next step, but I wanted to ask here for 2 reasons:

a - I knew you lurked here and I thought I may get a faster response
(and after a week of flailing about, I need this resolved quickly)
b - the other ant devs have probably come across maven stuff in their
day jobs and they can explain stuff to me in an 'ant' way

Do I have to write a <tstampplugin (mojo?) for this?

That's another option.

Well if that's what it's going to take /rolls sleeves up/

--
This has to be the second most frustrating piece of software I've
encountered - right after

Well now, that comparison is just mean! :)

, I retract that bit :). Thanks for responding to my flamebait.

Kev

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15/09/06, Kevin Jackson <foamdino (AT) gmail (DOT) comwrote:
And with the antrun plugin, ok I can get <tstampto generate the
value I'm after, and I can use copy/replace to filter it into the
file, but what phase/goal do I need to set so that ant will execute
before the jar file is built? I thought process-classes as
process-resources seems to occur before compilation.

Anything before 'package' is fine, with process-resources being the
most sensible. Just as long as you aren't overwriting it again with
the resources plugin itself.

Your best bet is probably to generate a filter.properties in the
"generate-resources" phase that has the value, then use the filtering
you had configured to copy the resource itself.

Here's a working example:
- Brett

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Here's a working example:

Hi, thanks for the cookbook example.

My problem now is that if I use filtering, I get exceptions thrown
during testing, these exceptions aren't thrown if I remove the
filter/resources sections from my pom. Is this a known issue? Is
there anything I have to do to get my tests to pass without throwing
exceptions?

some output:

at (Launcher.java:375)
java.util.zip.ZipException: oversubscribed literal/length tree
at (InflaterInputStream.java:140)
at (BufferedInputStream.java:218)
at (BufferedInputStream.java:235)
at java.io.FilterInputStream.read(FilterInputStream.j ava:66)
at (PNGImageReader.
java:1165)
at (PNGImageReader
java:1276)
at (PNGImageReader.j
ava:1362)
at (PNGImageReader.java:1
579)
at javax.imageio.ImageI(ImageI:1400)
at javax.imageio.ImageI(ImageI:1322)
at (ImageFile.java:101)
at <init>(ImageFile.java:63)
at (ImageF
ileTest.java:18)

As I said, if I remove the resources/filters from the pom, the tests
pass, so there's something fishy going on when maven uses filters.

Thanks for your help so far (btw what time is it for you?)

Kev

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The example basically does "copy everything from src/main/resources
with filters". I assume you have images in there too.

No, I just checked, it's a common library that is re-used for
different web-apps, but it doensn't contain any images, but then with
the filtering switched on, all the images based tests break.

You should setup a separate resource directory for filtering - maybe
replace the one in the example with src/main/filtered-resources. ,
you can add an includes or excludes to the one in the example.

ok, I did as suggested and added a src/main/filter-resources dir and
modified the pom, I'm now getting NullPointerException (s), something
fishy is definately happening with filters/resources:

Battery:

Tests run: 7, Failures: 1, Errors: 0, Time elapsed: 0.016 sec

class ()
Time elapsed: 0 sec <<< FAILURE!

[ stdout ]

[ stderr ]

[ stacktrace ]

java.lang.NullPointerException
at (IUtils.java:996)
at (IUtils.java:217)
at (File.java:325)
at (ImageFileTest.java:18)
at (ColorTest.java:61)
at (Native Method)
at ()
at ()
at (Method.java:585)
at (AbstractBattery.java:124)
at (AbstractBattery.java:70)
at (AbstractBattery.java:49)
at (JUnitBattery.java:220)
at (Surefire.java:215)
at (Surefire.java:163)
at (Surefire.java:87)

It's 4pm here (Sydney, Australia).

, I'm not keeping you up at some ridiculous hour

Kev

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Did you run a clean after the change to make sure the bogus filtered
resources got copied again properly?

not sure what you mean by bogus, but I did this:

mvn clean package

Sorry, but I'm not sure I can help much more as that's inside the
custom test cases.

The thing is that the problem disappears completely when the filters
are removed - the JUnit tests all pass when I remove the filters. So
my guess is that something is happening in maven when the filters run
which affects the interaction with the 'surefire' plugin in some way

Just FYI, we are using commons IUtils in the tests.

I'll try to track down the exact cause. If you're sure that the pom
is right (based on the cookbook example), then the problem must be in
the structure of the application, or something else that only affects
the build when filtering is true

Thanks so far
Kev

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Sorry, but I'm not sure I can help much more as that's inside the
custom test cases.

Hi, sorry to bother you again,

The problem is related to a single image in the src/test/resources
directory. When I use filters, it seems that this file is no longer
copied to the correct location for when surefire runs the unit tests.

My guess is that I need to specify a <resourcesblock in the pom
which includes graphics files (.png)

Kev

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Hi Brett,

Thanks for taking the time to trouble-shoot this - I *really*
appreciate all the help so far.

I've fixed the missing resource problem, but the Manifest file is
still not being updated in the jar file.

I have a Manifest.mf file in my src/main/resources dir, it is being
updated with the build time correctly (and put in
target/classes/META-INF. I now want this to be used in the jar
plugin:

<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-jar-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<archive>
<manifestEntries>
<Build-Time- ${build.time}</Build-Time>
</manifestEntries>
</archive>
</configuration>
<executions>
<execution>
<goals>
<goal>jar</goal>
</goals>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>

The jar plugin is simply creating a default manifest file and ignoring
the resources file. What I really want is the src/main/resources
Manifest.mf to be appended to the end of the auto-generated
Manifest.mf

Kev

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Hi Brett,

Just to let you know that I have managed to get the tstamp value into
the manifest as required.

I've left a note on the jira as the guide[1], you pointed me to is
actually wrong[2]

Finally although I may not like maven much, I have nothing but respect
for the developers. Thanks for your expert help tracking this down.

Kev

[1] -
[2] -

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Kevin Jackson wrote:
Hi Brett,

Just to let you know that I have managed to get the tstamp value into
the manifest as required.

I've left a note on the jira as the guide[1], you pointed me to is
actually wrong[2]

Kevin, you are free to provide patches :) I'm sure they'd welcome you as
a committer before long too.
-steve

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