Java EE eclipse project directory structure?

Question

I am attempting to setup a sample dynamic web project in Eclipse using Java EE, Spring and Maven (using Nexus repository manager). I was wondering if anybody knows the "best practice" directory structure that I should setup for an enterprise web app in Eclipse? Should I just stick with the default structure that is setup for me? I ask because looking around the internet I see wide variation (for instance, where the WEB-INF and META-INF folders are..if there is a 'war' directory etc.). Thanks!

Answer 1

If you use Maven, I'd warmly recommend to just follow Maven's convention. This is the "best practice" in Maven's world (and I don't see any good reasons to not do so, not following this advice will lead to more work).

One easy way to create a webapp project is to use the maven-archetype-webapp:

mvn archetype:generate -DarchetypeArtifactId=maven-archetype-webapp \
                       -DgroupId=com.mycompany.app \
                       -DartifactId=my-webapp \
                       -Dversion=1.0-SNAPSHOT 

(You can paste this command "as is" in a Linux shell; on Windows, type everything on single line without the "\".)

And this is the structure you'll get:

my-webapp
|-- pom.xml
`-- src
    `-- main
        |-- resources
        `-- webapp
            |-- WEB-INF
            |   `-- web.xml
            `-- index.jsp

This layout is compliant with Eclipse WTP (whatever plugin you're using for the Eclipse integration). Just import this project into Eclipse and there you go.

If you have more specific question, feel free to ask (for example, most of time you don't have to worry about the META-INF directory, but put it under src/main/resources if really you need to have it).