I categorize different usage of Maven into two categories: A) As a build tool B) As a utility tool
A) would be for example building a Java web application, i.e. using the full build lifecycle of Maven. B) on the other hand is where you just want to do one specific "thing", for example generate Java classes from an xml schema or creating a jar of existing Java classes. So the first question is if your usage would fit into A or B? To narrow things down a little bit, do you want this excel file to be generated as part of the build of your software and then deployed together with that to the repository? If so, it would be A. If you're just trying to find a tool to generate this excel file on demand, we would be in B. My point here is that if you're in category A then Maven is absolutely appropriate. At least if you're building everything else with Maven. But if you're in category B, then Maven is just one of many options you have. I would even go as far as saying that there are simpler solutions, one being a shell script (or Windows batch file) where you just have you Java command with the jar on the classpath and the options to have the excel file generated. Using Maven here would just add an additional dependency (to Maven) which could just complicate things. My two cents, /Anders On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 2:05 PM, Steinar Bang <s...@dod.no> wrote: > I have access to a Jar-file that contains code that: > - Reads an excel file containing a JQL query, the names of the fields > from the JQL results to include in excel, as well as the sheets that > are to be populated > - Talks to Jira, using the Jira REST API, to do the query and extract > the results > - Exports a new excel file populated with the query results > > The Jar-file resides in a plexus archive, so I thought that having a > small maven project, containing a pom.xml and the template excel > spreadshet in src/main/resources/ would be a good match. > > The idea was that I could: > - set the Jar-file containing the excel export code as a dependency > - use exec-maven-plugin to run the Jar > - have the output of exec-maven-plugin (an excel file) as the build > artifact > > But the idea stopped on that I don't know what packaging should be used > for the pom: "jar" didn't seem appropriate, so I tried "pom", but that > doesn't do anything (no target directory created). > > Is maven appropriate for what I'm trying to do? Is there an appropriate > packaging to use? > > Thanks! > > > - Steinar > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@maven.apache.org > For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@maven.apache.org > >
