I am developing a Java web application, using a multi-module maven project. The project setup is the following:
pom.xml
Main maven project, that includes the following modules:
persistence:
Entity classes and DAOsbusiness:
Service definition and implementationwebapp:
Apache wicket web applicationThe dependency hierarchy is the following: webapp
depends on business
, which depends on persistence
.
I am also using the Jetty Maven Plugin to run the web application locally using mvn -pl webapp jetty:run
inside the directory with the main pom.xml
. When developing the application, When making code changes, I want the jetty server to restart and reload the modified code files automatically. This works fine when I am modifying files inside the webapp
module, but does not work when I am modifying a file inside another module, such persistence
or business
.
The Maven Jetty Plugin is configured inside webapp/pom.xml
as follows:
<plugin>
<groupId>org.eclipse.jetty</groupId>
<artifactId>jetty-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>9.2.2.v20140723</version>
<configuration>
<reload>automatic</reload>
<scanIntervalSeconds>1</scanIntervalSeconds>
<webApp>
<extraClasspath>../business/target/classes/;../persistence/target/classes/</extraClasspath>
</webApp>
<scanTargets>
<scanTarget>../business/target/classes</scanTarget>
<scanTarget>../persistence/target/classes</scanTarget>
</scanTargets>
</plugin>
I followed the instructions of this answer. The <scanTarget>
tags work fine, since jetty gets restarted when I modify a file inside business
or persistence
. However, the <extraClasspath>
does not work since the modified files are not loaded by jetty. The linked answer uses the <webAppConfig>
tag. However, I am using the <webApp>
tag as specified in the documentation of the plugin (I also tried the old <webAppConfig>
tag, which lead to the same results).
My question is: How to configure the Jetty Maven Plugin for a multi-module project, such that it reloads modified files from other modules?
Using trial and error, I found a solution. The problem is that jetty is executed using from the parent pom using
mvn -pl webapp jetty:run
The command is called from the directory of the main pom, thus jetty cannot resolve the relative paths inside the extraClasspath
correctly. When executing the jetty:run
goal inside the webapp
directory, all modified classes are loaded correctly.
I assume the scanTargets
are working correctly even when using mvn -pl webapp jetty:run
, because the relative paths get resolved during the execution of the plugin (with the correct working directory). Jetty outputs the scan targets on startup:
[INFO] Added extra scan target:C:\PathToProject\business\target\classes
[INFO] Added extra scan target:C:\PathToProject\persistence\target\classes
However, the <extraClasspath>
property is part of the <webApp>
property, which is an instance of the org.eclipse.jetty.webapp.WebAppContext class. I assume that this instance is passed to jetty directly and that the extraClasspath property is accessed by jetty when it is already started.