Packaging Javascript files in a war?

Question

I am developing a Servlet based Java project which is to be packaged as a war using Maven. Is there a way I can include JavaScript (JS) files along with this project (they should be available at some url when the project loads on a Tomcat Server).

I have looked around but have not found any working solutions.

Answer 1

Maybe the better solution is to stick to Maven convention, which specifies that the root directory of your Web application is src/main/webapp.

So if you put all your Javascript files in src/main/webapp/javascript (or src/main/webapp/js), they will be integrated in your final war package.

In the Maven WAR plugin, they give some descriptions (see here for example) about the content of the directories. For example:

 |-- pom.xml
 `-- src
     `-- main
         |-- java
         |   `-- com
         |       `-- example
         |           `-- projects
         |               `-- SampleAction.java
         |-- resources
         |   `-- images
         |       `-- sampleimage.jpg
         `-- webapp
             |-- WEB-INF
             |   `-- web.xml
             |-- index.jsp
             `-- jsp
                 `-- websource.jsp

As you can see, you can put resources in webapp/xxx directory, such as jsp file here.

As stated by cuh, you can also configure the Maven WAR plugin if your directory structure is different.

Answer 2

You can use the maven-war-plugin and configure it something like this:

<plugin>
      <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
       <artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
       <version>2.0.2</version>
       <configuration>
           <warSourceDirectory>${basedir}/src/main/webapp</warSourceDirectory>
           <webResources>
                <resource>
                    <directory>your/path/to/js</directory>
                    <targetPath>js</targetPath>
                </resource>
           </webResources>
       </configuration>
</plugin>

See here.

edit: You probably don't want to include the js into the classes Folder.

Answer 3

Put them in directories under src/main/webapp. That is, assuming you generated it using the maven-archetype-webapp archetype.

My current app has them under src/main/webapp/javascript, and accesses them in JSPs like this:

<script type="text/javascript" src="javascript/jquery-1.4.2.min.js"></script>

(for jsp files in src/main/webapp that is)