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?

Other than the approach suggested by matt b, it is useful to think it the other way around, mainly because in many cases you will have to bundle application server specific configurations that are not covered by the maven plugins (afaik). These may very well have differences between profiles.

Specifically, you can use a parent project that has all the common files between web projects of different profiles. Then child projects can have different web.xml files and the rest id done with profiles and the maven-war-plugin. For example, I have used this layout to achieve unattended builds (other than specifying a profile) for different target environments (development, uat etc.)

WebPc
├── common
│   ├── css
│   ├── images
│   ├── js
│   └── WEB-INF
│   └──├── wsdl
│── pom.xml
│
├── WebPc-DEV
│   ├── pom.xml
│   └── src
│       └── main
│           └── webapp
│               └── WEB-INF
│                   ├── geronimo-web.xml
│                   ├── ibm-web-bnd.xml
│                   ├── ibm-web-ext.xml
│                   └── web.xml
├── WebPc-UAT
│   ├── pom.xml
│   └── src
│       └── main
│           └── webapp
│               └── WEB-INF
│                   ├── geronimo-web.xml
│                   ├── ibm-web-bnd.xml
│                   ├── ibm-web-ext.xml
│                   └── web.xml

The pom of WebPc has the following pom

my.grp
WebPc
pom


    
        DEV
        
            true
        
        
            WebPc-DEV
        
    
    
        UAT
        
            WebPc-UAT
        
    



    
        

            
            
                org.apache.maven.plugins
                maven-war-plugin
                2.4
                
                    ${project.build.sourceEncoding}
                    
                        
                            ../common
                            
                                WEB-INF/**
                            
                        
                        
                            ../common/WEB-INF
                            
                                wsdl/*.wsdl
                                wsdl/*.xsd
                            
                            WEB-INF
                        
                    
                
            

        
    

And this is the pom for WebPc-DEV

    my.grp
    WebPc
    1.0.0-SNAPSHOT


WebPc-DEV
war

    
        
            org.apache.maven.plugins
            maven-war-plugin