Resources in src/main/resources are not accessible to tomcat7 maven plugin?

Question

When I put xml resources such as spring configuration files, logging ... etc in the src/main/resources these files are not readable by my application when I run it in the embedded tomcat plugin. However moving these files into src/main/java fixes the problem.

Here is the plugin definition that I am using:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.tomcat.maven</groupId>
    <artifactId>tomcat7-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>2.0</version>
    <configuration>
        <port>9090</port>
        <path>/</path>
            <contextFile>${basedir}/src/main/webapp/META-INF/context.xml</contextFile>
    </configuration>
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>postgresql</groupId>
            <artifactId>postgresql</artifactId>
            <version>${postgres.version}</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-instrument-tomcat</artifactId>
            <version>${spring.framework.version}</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>javax.mail</groupId>
            <artifactId>javax.mail-api</artifactId>
            <version>${javax.mail.version}</version>
            <exclusions>
                <exclusion>
                    <artifactId>activation</artifactId>
                    <groupId>javax.activation</groupId>
                </exclusion>
            </exclusions>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <id>default-cli</id>
            <goals>
                <goal>deploy</goal>
                <goal>run-war</goal>
            </goals>
            <phase>pre-integration-test</phase>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>

Why can the resources be found when I put them in src/main/java but not when I put them in src/main/resources when running mvn tomcat7:run

UPDATE: I am using eclipse with m2e I can run the application just fine using Run As > Run on Server which is pointed to a local tomcat server. The folder structure is correct, eclipse settings are coming from the pom.xml via m2e.

SEVERE: Exception sending context initialized event to listener instance of class org.springframework.web.util.Log4jConfigListener
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Invalid 'log4jConfigLocation' parameter: class path resource [log4j-config.xml] cannot be resolved to URL because it does not exist
    at org.springframework.web.util.Log4jWebConfigurer.initLogging(Log4jWebConfigurer.java:155)
    at org.springframework.web.util.Log4jConfigListener.contextInitialized(Log4jConfigListener.java:45)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.listenerStart(StandardContext.java:4791)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.startInternal(StandardContext.java:5285)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1559)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1549)
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerRun(FutureTask.java:334)
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:166)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1110)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:603)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:722)

in this case log4j-config.xml is in src/main/resources, there are few more exceptions like that saying that files on src/main/resources folder don't exist.

Update 2: The problem turned out to be a <resources> element in the parent POM that was causing the .xml files to not be included in the generated output.

Answer 1

Normally when eclipse try to find the files which are defined by your application..it links the src to src/main/java and src/main/resources..could you see the following entries in .class file of maven generated for eclipse..

<classpath>
    <classpathentry including="**/*.java" kind="src" path="src/main/java"/>
    <classpathentry excluding="**/*.java" kind="src" path="src/main/resources"/>

/**all repository entries are also here**/
</classpath>

then for the resources first the tomcat checks whether they are in the resources (and also checks them in the java folder)