This section contains tutorial notes for building Java packages with Maven.

Directory Structure

Maven creates a directory tree that looks like the following:

root
|--src
|   |--main
|   |   |--java
|   |       |--<package_name>
|   |             |--App.java
|   |
|   |--test
|       |--java
|           |--<package_name>
|                 |--AppTest.java
|
|--target
|   |--<package_jar_name>.jar
|   |--...{bunch of extra output folders}
|
|--pom.xml

All source codes goes in root/src/main/java/<package_name> with the package hierachy beginning at <package_name>

All unit tests goes into root/src/test/java/<package_name> with packages importable from <package_name>

The .jar file in the target folder contains the output that the maven package command generates (in Visual Studio Code).

pom.xml controls the way the maven compiles the output and how it runs etc.

Jar entry point

To set the entry point of the output jar, you need to find the maven-jar-plugin plugin in pom.xml and adding the following:

<configuration>
  <archive>
    <manifest>
      <mainClass>{package_name}.App</mainClass>
    </manifest>
  </archive>
</configuration>