Way to run Maven from Python script?

Question

(I am using Windows.)

I am trying to run maven from a python script. I have this:

import subprocess

mvn="C:\\_home\\apache-maven-2.2.1\\bin\\mvn.bat --version"
p = subprocess.Popen(mvn, shell=True, stdout = subprocess.PIPE)

stdout, stderr = p.communicate()
print p.returncode # is 0 if success

It works fine, but I am wondering about the following:

• Better ways to add parameters instead of appending the string.
• Maybe some specific way to run maven without the above.
• A way to show the output (currently it only prints a 1 or 0 based on failure/success).

---

What I am trying to accomplish long term (I note this in case someone has a better method) is to make a simple script to build a list of projects and move another list of files (jars/other modified things) to a folder to deploy to VMs, it's a huge pain to do manually. I have this working in a batch script no sweat, I am just curious to learn Python and wonder if it'd be easier to manage because I could just make a couple of lists and iterate over each of the locations rather than have a line for each task in the batch script.

(Short version of what my batch script looks like.)

@set version=7.8.3
@set staging_folder=C:\Users\me\Desktop\staging

@set stage_was=%staging_folder%\was
@set stage_ear=%stage_was%\stuffui.ear
@set stage_war=%stage_ear%\stuff-%version%.war

:: delete stage contents
call del /s /q %staging_folder%
call rmdir /s /q %stage_was%

:: make folders
call mkdir %stage_ear%
call mkdir %stage_war%\WEB-INF\lib

:: maven builds
call mvn -f C:\workspace\pom.xml -pl proj1,proj2 clean install

:: copy to stage
call xcopy C:\workspace\proj1\target\thing1.jar %stage_ear%\ /i /y

call xcopy C:\workspace\proj2\target\thing2.jar %stage_ear%\ /i /y
call xcopy C:\workspace\proj2\target\thing2.jar %stage_war%\WEB-INF\lib\ /i /y

Answer 1

There is the Apache Maven Invoker API.

Mark's answer to Accessing Java API information with Python mentions:

Jython which is Python run on the Java VM.

See my answers there for an example on how to use the Maven Invoker (from within Java in this particular case).