In maven, what is the difference between main/resources and main/config?

Question

I want to put a configuration file in my Maven project. Looking at the standard directory layout, there are two places that seem sensible, "src/main/resources" and "src/main/config". Could someone explain the difference between these, and explain when you would put something in config and when in resources?

In this case, the file I'm looking at is ehcache.xml, but my question isn't ehcache specific, I'm curious for log4j.properties etc.

A bit of googling discovered this person had the same question, but the answers seemed contradictory, and not very authorative.

Answer 1

The email exchange at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg90985.html says:

"This is all theory... Perhaps while writing the docs, someone involved with Maven development thought it might be useful to have a src/main/config directory and so it was included in docs, but since it was never implemented in the code, it is not being used today."

and

"The directory [src/main/config] doesn't show up on the classpath so the application or test classes can't read anything in it."

So just use src/main/resources.

Note: I don't know if this is true (I'm the question asker), but that would explain why so many people on the web recommend src/main/resources for log4j.properties. If people agree this is the right answer could you let me know (comment or vote) I put it here to save other people the typing.