I have a maven web project that imported into eclipse. I have another maven project (generates a jar file) that the web project depends on.
Both of these projects work correctly when executed from the command line. mvn package creates a war file which pulls the jar it depends on from the maven repository for the web project. mvn package creates a valid jar file when run for the library.
When I import the library into Eclipse, m2e recognizes that the web project depends on the library and updates parts of the project to take advantage of the fact that both maven projects are hosted within a single Eclipse workspace. The "Maven Dependencies" section of the "Libraries" tab of the "Java Build Path" preference for the web project removes the library jar file and replaces it with the library project. As the library is updated in Eclipse, the web project recognizes those changes without having to install/deploy the library.
The problem occurs when I attempt to run the web application in Eclipse. Because Eclipse is actually building the Web project against the version of the library in Eclipse, it does not deploy the library file from the maven repository, it creates a new jar file that's a snapshot of the current version of the library in Eclipse. All of this has generally worked well for me, but on the project I'm currently working on there's a problem with the jar file that Eclipse is creating. Instead of inserting the class files for the library, it appears that it's taking the "src" directory of my Maven project and zipping it up as the jar file. The contents of the jar file look something like:
-main
-java
-com
-... *.java
-resources
-...
-test
-java
-com
-... *.java
Where I would expect it to look more like:
-com
-... *.class
Since I have successfully used this type of project before, I'm trying to figure out if there's something I need to configure or if I've just run into a bug.
I'm using the latest update of m2e (1.0.200.20111228-1245) on Eclipse Indigo (Build id: 20120216-1857).
Here's the solution that I came up with.
It appears that in my case the rules for the "Deployment Assembly" for the library project are still followed.
To change it go to the library properties->Deployment Assembly
In my case that just contained a mapping from '/src' -> '/'. I removed that entry and replaced it with a mapping from '/target/classes' -> '/' and '/src/main/resources' -> '/'.
Once I had that mapping in place, when the jar file was deployed it contained exactly what I had configured in the Deployment Assembly. That allows Eclipse to continue to be used without explicitly republishing the library for every change. But, it doesn't seem to auto redeploy to tomcat for me when the library is updated -- I still need to manually restart tomcat for library changes to be reflected.
It's still not entirely clear to me what's going on with this project. I do have previous projects that have a similar structure, and in those projects the Deployment Assembly has not been updated to explicitly include the class files and yet the proper jar file is still deployed.