Apache Maven 3 Cookbook

Chapter 9. Extending Apache Maven

In this chapter, we will cover:

• Creating a Maven plugin using Java
• Making your Java Maven plugin useful
• Documenting your Maven plugin
• Creating a Maven plugin using Ant
• Creating a Maven plugin using JRuby

This chapter looks at ways you can extend the current functionality of Apache Maven and its plugins by writing plugins of your own. We are not going into specific details of end-to-end implementation of one particular plugin, but will broadly look at the various ways we can extend Apache Maven and present examples for each of these methods.

By design, Apache Maven is nothing more than a set of plugins wrapped together within a common framework. Every Maven functionality we have explored in this book from Chapter 1 to ...