Maven Project in Eclipse IDE

Eclipse is still common in many companies, especially in large enterprise and service projects. Its Maven support comes from a plugin called m2e (Maven Integration for Eclipse), which is already included in the "Eclipse IDE for Enterprise Java and Web Developers" and "Eclipse IDE for Java Developers" packages. As with IntelliJ, the project structure is exactly the same Maven structure. Only the screens look different.

Create the project

Open the wizard

Make sure you are in the Java EE perspective (top right corner of the window). Then choose File > New > Maven Project. If you do not see it in the menu, use File > New > Other... > Maven > Maven Project.

Keep archetype selection

On the first page, leave Create a simple project (skip archetype selection) unticked this time, so you can choose a template. Click Next. Eclipse loads the archetype catalogs, which can take a few seconds.

Choose the quickstart archetype

Select org.apache.maven.archetypes : maven-archetype-quickstart and click Next.

The archetype list in Eclipse. The built-in catalog shows quickstart 1.1.

Eclipse's built-in catalog only offers the old version 1.1 (no Java version in the POM, JUnit 3.8.1). To get the current 1.5 template, click Add Archetype... and enter groupId org.apache.maven.archetypes, artifactId maven-archetype-quickstart, version 1.5. Either works for this lesson.

Enter the coordinates

Field	Value
Group Id	com.telusko
Artifact Id	MavenSimpleApp
Version	0.0.1-SNAPSHOT (Eclipse's default)
Package	filled in automatically from group and artifact

Click Finish. Eclipse runs archetype:generate in the background. The Console view may ask you to confirm the properties with Y: click in the console, type Y and press Enter. That is the interactive mode you switched off with -DinteractiveMode=false on the command line.

Explore the project

The generated project in Eclipse's Project Explorer, with the sample App.java open.

Notice JRE System Library [JavaSE-1.8]. The quickstart 1.1 POM does not set a Java version, so Eclipse falls back to Java 1.8. Fix it the Maven way, in the POM, not in Eclipse's project settings:

<properties>
  <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
  <maven.compiler.release>17</maven.compiler.release>
</properties>

Then right click the project and choose Maven > Update Project... (shortcut Alt+F5). The node changes to JavaSE-17. If you change Eclipse settings by hand instead, the next Update Project overwrites them, and command line builds ignore them anyway.

The POM editor tabs

Double click pom.xml. Eclipse's POM editor has tabs at the bottom:

Open Effective POM and you will find the Maven Central repository, the plugin list and all the defaults you did not write.

Add a dependency

Copy the spring-core dependency from Maven Dependencies into the pom.xml tab, inside <dependencies>:

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
  <artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
  <version>6.2.8</version>
</dependency>

Save the file (Ctrl+S). m2e usually refreshes the project automatically, and the Spring JARs appear under Maven Dependencies. If they do not, run Maven > Update Project.... Check the Effective POM tab again and the dependency is there too.

Run Maven goals in Eclipse

Right click the project and choose Run As. You get shortcuts such as Maven clean, Maven install and Maven test. For anything else choose Maven build... and type the goals yourself, for example clean package. Output appears in the Console view.

Try It Yourself

1. Create MavenSimpleApp from the quickstart archetype and find junit-3.8.1.jar under Maven Dependencies.
2. Set maven.compiler.release to 17, run Maven > Update Project, and confirm the JRE System Library changes.
3. Add spring-core 6.2.8, save, and open the Dependency Hierarchy tab to find spring-jcl.
4. Use Run As > Maven build... with goals clean package and find the JAR in target.

Official references

• Eclipse m2e: Maven Integration for Eclipse
• Apache Maven: Quickstart Archetype

Written By: Shramik Masti