Build Lifecycles

What a project is built, it follows set of phases.

There are three lifecyles in Maven:

1. Clean

• Cleans up previous build

• IE everything in target directory is deleted

1. Default/Build

• Handles project building and deployment

1. Site

• Handles creation of project site documentation

All Lifecycles can be customised.

Each lifecycle has its own build phases. A build phase represent a stage in the lifecycle. The phase executes a goal.

Running a goal:

mvn help:describe -Dcmd=clean

mvn - to run Maven help - run the plugin help describe - run the goal describe -D - is the parameter being passed to the goal

For example this command describes the phases withing the lifecycle clean. See below:

[INFO] --- maven-help-plugin:3.0.1:describe (default-cli) @ blah ---
[INFO] 'clean' is a phase within the 'clean' lifecycle, which has the following phases:
* pre-clean: Not defined
* clean: org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-clean-plugin:2.5:clean
* post-clean: Not defined

The order of the phases, are the order in which they run. The clean phase has a goal (org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-clean-plugin:2.5:clean), which is from the maven plugin and it executes clean. The post-clean does not have mapping to a goal.

NOTE can see all the commands in IntelliJ by looking for the maven tool window (menu view > tool window > maven OR on right hand side maven option should be there). Click on <project name> -> lifecycle

Build/Default Lifecycle

Here is the list of phases in default

1. validate - validate the project is correct and all necessary information is available

2. compile - compile the source code of the project

3. test - test the compiled source code using a suitable unit testing framework. These tests should not require the code be packaged or deployed

4. package - take the compiled code and package it in its distributable format, such as a JAR.

5. verify - run any checks on results of integration tests to ensure quality criteria are met

6. install - install the package into the local repository, for use as a dependency in other projects locally

7. deploy - done in the build environment, copies the final package to the remote repository for sharing with other developers and projects.

These lifecycles have goals and/or plugins bound to them

For all the 23 lifecycles see (https://maven.apache.org/guides/introduction/introduction-to-the-lifecycle.html#Lifecycle_Reference). Not all of theses have a binding.

Call a phase for example mvn compile this will run everything up to and includin compile so it will run validate and everything within the link (7 phases in total will run).

If a goal has been mapped to a phase we can bind it ourselves. We can also override a binding ourselves.

See Plugins next