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I'm using Maven to build and deploy jOOQ. I now want to start generating XJC-generated classes using appropriate Maven plugins (before, I used ant scripts). This works very nicely for me, but I'm afraid that some users wanting to build jOOQ themselves without Maven will now have trouble generating those missing sources. So I'd like to move those sources out of target/generated-sources/xjc and into src/main/java, in order to be able to put them under version control.

  • Is this a common practice?
  • How can I do it (should I use plugins to move the files on a low-level, or should I generate files directly into src/main/java)?
  • Do I have other options?

Note, the underlying XSD hardly ever changes, so I don't have to generate these sources every time I build...

Lukas Eder
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2 Answers2

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This is a terrible idea, you should never put generated sources in version control because whatever they are being generated from can change, and then your code is out of sync.

Even if the XSD never changes, note I said never, not hardly ever, as you said, which is different, I would not put the sources under version control. Maven can be told to not generate the sources every time if the XSD hasn't changed.

If you go down the Maven route, then anyone building your stuff should use the same tool chain. This is not specific to Maven. If this was Ant, or a C++ project with a make file, you wouldn't want to do this either.

If you really want to provide a Maven free stand alone distribution, then have Maven generate that, there are plenty of plugins that will export all the artifacts as an archive that you can distribute. But don't compromise your build for some nebulous external requirement that may not exist.

  • OK, I can see your point in the last paragraph. Users not using Maven do have the sources from Maven deliveries, so they can build those sources, directly. Thanks for sharing your ideas – Lukas Eder Apr 12 '12 at 19:22
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Maybe an alternative is to use the Maven assembly plugin to zip all those sources and expose those as a versioned artifact. The dependency plugin would allow you to pull in those sources from a local or remote repository and make sure you have the correct version of those sources.

(In my opinion, leave it like it is. If Maven is your build system, everybody trying to build your code should use that)

Wim Deblauwe
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  • Thanks, you're probably right. I hadn't thought of using Maven to deliver the sources directly and having those few users build my product using that delivery. – Lukas Eder Apr 12 '12 at 19:29
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    You don't even need the assembly plugin - the standard maven jar build will include the generated sources. I use this frequently to avoid m2e/m2eclipse hell: keep the xml schemas/generated JAXB sources in a dependency and keep that project mostly closed. – artbristol Apr 12 '12 at 19:41