Resource List Maven Plugin

Custom locations

Add element <resourceListFile>...</resourceListFile> to the plugin's configuration to specify a different name or location. To let the file be available as resource in your project's build make sure to put the file inside ${project.build.outputDirectory}.

<resourceListFile>${project.build.outputDirectory}/META-INF/my-resource-list</resourceListFile>

Add element <resourceBaseDir>...</resourceBaseDir> to the plugin's configuration to specify a different base directory to scan for resources. Note that if the value is not ${project.build.outputDirectory} or a sub directory, the resources in the resource list file may not be available as resources during runtime.

Limiting listed resources

By default all resources are included except the following:

• file META-INF/MANIFEST.MF
• files META-INF/LICENSE.*
• files inside META-INF/services/**
• files inside META-INF/maven/**
• files inside META-INF/m2e/**

Adding elements <includes>...</includes> and <excludes>...</excludes> to the plugin's configuration can be used to specify Ant patterns to limit what's included.

<!-- include only resources in a specific folder, but exclude properties files -->
<includes>
  <include>com/foo/bar/**</include>
</includes>
<excludes>
  <exclude>**/*.properties</exclude>
</excludes>

Accessing the resource list

If the resource list file is placed inside the build's output directory it can be accessed by code in the project using default resource loading methods like Class.getResource and Class.getResourceAsStream. If the resource base directory is ${project.build.outputDirectory} (the default value), each line in the resource can again be accessed using default resource loading methods.

It's possible to generate a class to access the resources in the resource list by including the following in the plugin's configuration:

<resourceListClass>
  <className>com.foo.bar.ResourceList</className>
</resourceListClass>

This will create package-private class com.foo.bar.ResourceList with the following methods:

• static ResourceList absolute() will return an instance of the class that returns absolute paths to the resources. These paths can be used with methods like Class.getResource.
• static ResourceList relative() will return an instance of the class that returns paths to the resources relative to the root folder. These paths can be used with methods like ClassLoader.getResource.
• Stream<String> stream() will return a stream over the resources. This stream should be closed after use.
• List<String> list() will return a list containing the resources.
• void forEach(Consumer<? super String> action) will run an action for each resource.

For instance, to get a list of resource URLs:

try (Stream<String> stream = ResourceList.absolute().stream()) {
    List<URL> resources = stream.map(getClass()::getResource).collect(Collectors.toList());
}

To make the resource list class and its methods public, set the nested publicVisibility element to true:

<resourceListClass>
  <className>com.foo.bar.ResourceList</className>
  <publicVisibility>true</true>
</resourceListClass>

The list-resources goal of the Resource List Maven Plugin is bound to the process-resources phase in the build lifecycle. Since this comes before the compile phase, generated accessor classes are available at compile time.