How can I display a message in Maven

Question

How can I display a message in Maven?

In ant, we do have "echo" to display a message, but in maven, how can I do that?

Answer 1

You can use the antrun plugin:

<plugin>
    <artifactId>maven-antrun-plugin</artifactId>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <phase>generate-resources</phase>
            <goals>
                <goal>run</goal>
            </goals>
            <configuration>
                <tasks>
                    <echo>Hello world!</echo>
                </tasks>
            </configuration>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>

One issue though is that you have to choose what phase of the build lifecycle to bind this to (my example has the plugin bound to generate-resources). Unlike Ant, you aren't controlling the lifecycle yourself, but rather just binding plugins to certain points in a pre-defined lifecycle. Depending on what you are actually trying to do, this may or may not make sense for your use case.

Answer 2

You can use Björn Ekryd's Echo Maven Plugin, which is published in Maven Central:

<plugin>
    <groupId>com.github.ekryd.echo-maven-plugin</groupId>
    <artifactId>echo-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>1.2.0</version>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <phase>package</phase>
            <goals>
                <goal>echo</goal>
            </goals>
            <configuration>
                <message>war has changed</message>
            </configuration>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>

---

[INFO] --- maven-war-plugin:2.4:war (default-war) @ mymodule ---
[INFO] Packaging webapp
[INFO] Processing war project
[INFO]
[INFO] --- echo-maven-plugin:1.2.0:echo (default) @ mymodule ---
[INFO] war has changed
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Also, this plugin has 95% code coverage, which is pretty cool.