How to add resources to jar using maven shade plugin

My Project structure has resources folder inside the src/main/ folder. The resources folder contains the file server.properties. My pom is as follows:

<project xmlns="" xmlns:xsi="" xsi:schemaLocation=" "> <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion> <groupId>com.fde</groupId> <artifactId>Listener</artifactId> <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version> <packaging>jar</packaging> <name>Listener</name> <url> <properties> <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding> <hibernate.version>3.6.10.Final</hibernate.version> <java.version>1.6</java.version> </properties> <dependencies> <dependency> <groupId>junit</groupId> <artifactId>junit</artifactId> <version>3.8.1</version> <scope>test</scope> </dependency> <!-- Hibernate dependencies START --> <dependency> <groupId>commons-lang</groupId> <artifactId>commons-lang</artifactId> <version>2.0</version> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId> <artifactId>hibernate-ehcache</artifactId> <version>${hibernate.version}</version> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId> <artifactId>hibernate-core</artifactId> <version>${hibernate.version}</version> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>javassist</groupId> <artifactId>javassist</artifactId> <version>3.12.1.GA</version> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>commons-collections</groupId> <artifactId>commons-collections</artifactId> <version>3.2.1</version> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>mysql</groupId> <artifactId>mysql-connector-java</artifactId> <version>5.1.9</version> </dependency> <!-- Hibernate dependencies END --> </dependencies> <build> <sourceDirectory>src/main/java</sourceDirectory> <resources> <resource> <directory>resources</directory> </resource> </resources> <testSourceDirectory>src/test/java</testSourceDirectory> <plugins> <plugin> <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId> <artifactId>maven-shade-plugin</artifactId> <version>2.2</version> <executions> <execution> <phase>package</phase> <goals> <goal>shade</goal> </goals> <configuration> <transformers> <transformer implementation="org.apache.maven.plugins.shade.resource.ManifestResourceTransformer"> <mainClass>com.fde.ListenerServer</mainClass> </transformer> <transformer implementation="org.apache.maven.plugins.shade.resource.IncludeResourceTransformer"> <resource>resources</resource> <file>server.properties</file> </transformer> </transformers> <artifactSet> <excludes> <exclude>junit:junit</exclude> </excludes> </artifactSet> </configuration> </execution> </executions> </plugin> </plugins> </build> </project> 

The Jar is created properly and the main class is mentioned in the manifest. I have the following questions :

1. The target folder contains the classes folder whch has the class files. The jar also contains them so why are they needed. My goal is to have a executable jar with all the dependancies only.

2. The resources are not getting added in the jar at all. I have added the transformer according to instructions seen on the net but no use!!!

3. What are the other dir getting created in the target folder (maven-archiver, surefire, surefire-reports etc) ??

4. Another jar gets created every time i do a maven clean install (original-Listener....jar)

I have absolutely no clue about how to include resources. Any help is appreciated!!

EDIT:::

This is the tag i used for the maven-assembly-plugin:

 <plugin> <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId> <executions> <execution> <phase>package</phase> <goals> <goal>attached</goal> </goals> </execution> </executions> <configuration> <archive> <manifest> <mainClass>com.fde.ListenerServer</mainClass> </manifest> </archive> <descriptorRefs> <descriptorRef>jar-with-dependencies</descriptorRef> </descriptorRefs> </configuration> </plugin> 

This created the Listener-1.0-SNAPSHOT-jar-with-dependencies.jar with all the classes from referred jars in the folders. The manifest also contains the main class.

The problem still is that I cant include the resource bundle in the folder \src\main\resources.

Also I cant understand why jar files referenced from my code are included in the jar as well as inside the META-INF folder.

2 Answers

The problem wasn't in your maven-shade-plugin's configuration, rather that you have explicitly set resource directory to a wrong path:

 <!-- wrong --> <resource> <directory>resources</directory> </resource> 

As <directory> element's doc says: "Describe the directory where the resources are stored. The path is relative to the POM."

So if you follow default maven project structure you have to set like this:

 <!-- correct --> <directory>src/main/resources</directory> 

or don't set it, then it falls back to same as maven defaults.

I removed the following from the pom.xml and the property files were included at the root dir.

<sourceDirectory>src/main/java</sourceDirectory> <resources> <resource> <directory>resources</directory> </resource> </resources> <testSourceDirectory>src/test/java</testSourceDirectory> 

Still havent figured out why there is a repetition of the referred classes in the jar.