How to use make and Makefile in Maven pom.xml

As a frontend web developer, I often find myself in a larger project, where I’m responsible for the frontend web app, and others work on the backend. More often than not lately, this has meant everything is a big Maven project, with several submodules. My frontend web app being one such Maven submodule.

I usually want to use Node.js and specifically npm from a Makefile when building “my” frontend web app. This clashes with the Maven setup, specifically in that other project members don’t always want to install Node.js just to be able to continuing building the entire project.

The specific problem of Auto-installing Node.js and npm from a Makefile, is solved. However, it remains to call make from inside the Maven pom.xml.

This is how you can call make from inside a Maven project:

Make sure you have set up <dependencyManagement/> like this in your parent pom:

<build>
  <pluginManagement>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <artifactId>maven-antrun-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>1.7</version>
        <dependencies>
          <dependency>
            <groupId>ant-contrib</groupId>
            <artifactId>ant-contrib</artifactId>
            <version>1.0b3</version>
            <exclusions>
              <exclusion>
                <groupId>ant</groupId>
                <artifactId>ant</artifactId>
              </exclusion>
            </exclusions>
          </dependency>
          <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.ant</groupId>
            <artifactId>ant-nodeps</artifactId>
            <version>1.8.1</version>
          </dependency>
        </dependencies>
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
  </pluginManagement>
</build>

<build>

<artifactId>maven-antrun-plugin</artifactId>

<groupId>ant-contrib</groupId>

<artifactId>ant-contrib</artifactId>

</exclusion>

</exclusions>

</dependency>

<groupId>org.apache.ant</groupId>

<artifactId>ant-nodeps</artifactId>

</dependency>

</dependencies>

</plugin>

</plugins>

</pluginManagement>

</build>

Then have this in your frontend web app’s pom.xml:

<build>
  <plugins>
    <plugin>
      <artifactId>maven-antrun-plugin</artifactId>
      <executions>
        <execution>
          <id>make</id>
          <phase>generate-sources</phase>
          <goals>
            <goal>run</goal>
          </goals>
          <configuration>
            <target name="make">
              <taskdef resource="net/sf/antcontrib/antcontrib.properties" classpathref="maven.plugin.classpath"/>
              <exec executable="make" failonerror="true" dir="${project.basedir}"/>
            </target>
          </configuration>
        </execution>
      </executions>
    </plugin>
  </plugins>
</build>

<build>

<artifactId>maven-antrun-plugin</artifactId>

<phase>generate-sources</phase>

<goals>

</goals>

</target>

</configuration>

</execution>

</executions>

</plugin>

</plugins>

</build>

Now whenever anyone builds the project with Maven, it will call make and the first target in Makefile will execute.

Combine this with Auto-install Node.js and npm from Makefile, and you have a winner!

1 Comment

Rohan

August 1, 2013 at 16:03 / Reply

Hi ,

In directory C:testtest_app i have makefile and two c files,
makefile has*********
test: test.c test1.c
gcc test.c -o test
test1: test1.c
gcc test1.c -o test1
clean:
rm -rf test
*****************

pom.xml has ***********

4.0.0
nds.test.app
test_app
jar
1.0-SNAPSHOT1
test_app
http://maven.apache.org

junit
junit
3.8.1
test

**************
please tel me what changes i need to know in POM.xml to call makefile and get the result.

How to use make and Makefile in Maven pom.xml

1 Comment

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