src/site/apt/guides/introduction/introduction-to-the-standard-directory-layout.apt

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 Introduction to the Standard Directory Layout
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 Jason van Zyl
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 2010-09-05
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Introduction to the Standard Directory Layout

 Having a common directory layout would allow for users familiar with one Maven project to immediately feel
 at home in another Maven project. The advantages are analogous to adopting a site-wide look-and-feel.

 The next section documents the directory layout expected by Maven and the directory layout created by
 Maven. Please try to conform to this structure as much as possible; however, if you can't these settings can
 be overridden via the project descriptor.

*--------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
| <<<src/main/java>>>            | Application/Library sources
*--------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
| <<<src/main/resources>>>       | Application/Library resources
*--------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
| <<<src/main/filters>>>         | Resource filter files
*--------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
| <<<src/main/assembly>>>        | Assembly descriptors
*--------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
| <<<src/main/config>>>          | Configuration files
*--------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
| <<<src/main/webapp>>>          | Web application sources
*--------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
| <<<src/test/java>>>            | Test sources
*--------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
| <<<src/test/resources>>>       | Test resources
*--------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
| <<<src/test/filters>>>         | Test resource filter files
*--------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
| <<<src/site>>>                 | Site 
*--------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
| <<<LICENSE.txt>>>              | Project's license
*--------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
| <<<NOTICE.txt>>>               | Notices and attributions required by libraries that the project depends on
*--------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
| <<<README.txt>>>               | Project's readme
*--------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+

 At the top level files descriptive of the project: a <<<pom.xml>>> file (and any properties,
 <<<maven.xml>>> or <<<build.xml>>> if using Ant). In addition, there are textual documents meant
 for the user to be able to read immediately on receiving the source: <<<README.txt>>>,
 <<<LICENSE.txt>>>, etc.

 There are just two subdirectories of this structure: <<<src>>> and <<<target>>>. The only other
 directories that would be expected here are metadata like <<<CVS>>> or <<<.svn>>>, and any
 subprojects in a multiproject build (each of which would be laid out as above).

 The <<<target>>> directory is used to house all output of the build.

 The <<<src>>> directory contains all of the source material for building the project, its site and so on.
 It contains a subdirectory for each type: <<<main>>> for the main build artifact, <<<test>>> for
 the unit test code and resources, <<<site>>> and so on.

 Within artifact producing source directories (ie. <<<main>>> and <<<test>>>), there is one
 directory for the language <<<java>>> (under which the normal package hierarchy exists), and one for
 <<<resources>>> (the structure which is copied to the target classpath given the default resource definition).

 If there are other contributing sources to the artifact build, they would be under other subdirectories: for
 example <<<src/main/antlr>>> would contain Antlr grammar definition files.