Create complete EAR Project with Maven and Eclipse Helios

Question

I read some articles about how to set up eclipse and maven to create a new empty ear project but all solutions weren't complete or are to old.

I believe that I need to create three pom.xml files / or three projects:

1. client project with the WEB-APP structure (like a regular dynamic web project). This should result in a WAR file.
2. server project with the ejbs. This should be a JAR file.
3. ear project which joins both projects together.

I tried that with help of the integrated maven plugin in eclipse. Since (I believe Helios) maven is already integrated in eclipse. So I go to

file -> new -> maven -> maven project

and leave the "create a simple project" checkbox unchecked. On the next side I got the archetype catalog. To create the client project I looked for maven-archetype-webapp Version 1.0. But all the folders like WebContent\META-INF etc. are missing.

So how can I create all three projects are build them together?

Thanks a lot, Hauke

PS.: I read in question 5668710 about creating the project without maven and activate the dependency management. But is that the right way? I don't think so.

Answer 1

Creating the projects via console and importing them via m2eclipse would be the best way, as you can read it in the comments of your question.

Start off with this line in your console

mvn archetype:generate

Then use the archetype maven-archetype-j2ee-simple

This will generate you a project structure for ejb, ear and web projects. Otherwise you can create 3 simple projects maven-archetype-quickstart on your own and add the concering plugins

• maven-ear-plugin
• maven-ejb-plugin
• maven-war-plugin

Here is another post, handling your problem: Maven2: Best practice for Enterprise Project (EAR file)

Another nice example you can find here

Answer 2

The best and the most clean way for creating an Enterprise Application (all the three projects ear, jar, war.... i.e. jar and war are linked into ear).... is to create through maven Enterprise Application in NETBEANS and import the whole project into Eclipse.

Thanks Imran