Maven: Customize web.xml of web-app project

Question

I have a web application Maven project, and I want to customize the web.xml file depending on the Profile that is running. I am using the Maven-War-plugin, which allows me

Answer 1

is there a way to have two web.xml files and select the appropriate one depending on the profile?

Yes, within each profile you can add a configuration of the maven-war-plugin and configure each to point at a different web.xml.

    
        profile1
        
            
                
                    org.apache.maven.plugins
                    maven-war-plugin
                    
                        /path/to/webXml1
                    
                
                 ...

As an alternative to having to specify the maven-war-plugin configuration in each profile, you can supply a default configuration in the main section of the POM and then just override it for specific profiles.

Or to be even simpler, in the main of your POM, use a property to refer to the webXml attribute and then just change it's value in different profiles

    path/to/default/webXml


    
        profile1
        
            path/to/custom/webXml
        
    


    
        
            org.apache.maven.plugins
            maven-war-plugin
            
                ${webXmlPath}
            
        
        ...