Maven Eclipse Plugin and Eclipse PDE: The Right Configuration

pom.xml

As noted on the Maven Eclipse plugin website, a two additional plugins need to be added to the project‘s pom. These copy the dependencies‘ jar files into the project folder and remove them on the eclipse:clean command. I found it helpful to add a further antrun plugin, which copies the MANIFEST.MF file generated by the maven bundle plugin. Therewith, the following additions can be made to the pom.xml

<!– MAVEN ECLIPSE PLUGIN –>
<!–
                                Dependency Plugin used to copy the dependency JARs into the root
                                project folder. There the Maven eclipse plugin will add them to the
                                classpath of PDE projects.
                        –>
                        <plugin>
                                <artifactId>maven-dependency-plugin</artifactId>
                                <executions>
                                        <execution>
                                                <id>copy-dependencies</id>
                                                <phase>process-sources</phase>
                                                <goals>
                                                        <goal>copy-dependencies</goal>
                                                </goals>
                                                <configuration>
                                                        <outputDirectory>${basedir}</outputDirectory>
                                                        <overWriteReleases>false</overWriteReleases>
                                                        <overWriteSnapshots>false</overWriteSnapshots>
                                                        <overWriteIfNewer>true</overWriteIfNewer>
                                                </configuration>
                                        </execution>
                                </executions>
                        </plugin>

                        <!–
                                Cleanup necessary because of PDE tweaks, clear the project directory
                        –>
                        <plugin>
                                <artifactId>maven-clean-plugin</artifactId>
                                <version>2.3</version>
                                <configuration>
                                        <filesets>
                                                <fileset>
                                                        <directory>${basedir}</directory>
                                                        <includes>
                                                                <include>*.jar</include>
                                                        </includes>
                                                        <followSymlinks>false</followSymlinks>
                                                </fileset>
                                        </filesets>
                                </configuration>
                        </plugin>

                        <!–
                                Keep the MANIFEST.MF used by eclipse in sync with the MANIFEST.MF
                                created by the maven bundle plugin
                        –>
                        <plugin>
                                <artifactId>maven–antrun–plugin</artifactId>
                                <executions>
                                        <execution>
                                                <phase>package</phase>
                                                <goals>
                                                        <goal>run</goal>
                                                </goals>
                                                <configuration>
                                                        <tasks>
                                                                <delete file=“${basedir}/META-INF/MANIFEST.MF” />
                                                                <copy file=“target/classes/META-INF/MANIFEST.MF” tofile=“${basedir}/META-INF/MANIFEST.MF” />
                                                        </tasks>
                                                </configuration>
                                        </execution>
                                </executions>
                        </plugin>