Maven: A Developer's Notebook

Migrating a Project from Ant to Maven

A fair number of projects use Ant as a build system, and you will want to migrate to Maven.

How do I do that?

Start from scratch. Create a default Maven template, and then move your code to the proper directories. Do not try to fit Maven to your own project's directories and build locations. Maven is more than a build tool; it is a standard way to think about project layout and management. If you attempt to fit Maven to your project's idea of a build, you'll end up using Maven as it was never intended. If your project consists of a complex build.xml file which produces a number of different deliverables, you will need to "componentize" your project and follow the model for multiprojects described in Chapter 3. You will also need to start moving your project's directory structure toward the standard Maven project directory structure presented throughout this book. In other words, don't try to "shoehorn" Maven onto your project.

If you are interested in migrating to Ant, but you don't have time to stop development, you can always use Maven to call your existing Ant targets. If you do this, you'll miss out on a large part of the benefit of using Maven, but it is a possibility. For more information, see the informative "Migrating from Ant" document located at http://maven.apache.org/using/migrating.html.

What about...

...flexibility and choice?

Flexibility and choice are part of the original problem. We promise that Maven will change the way you approach ...