How to create an empty multi module Maven project?

Question

Right now I usually find a pom.xml file on the web that has a pom packaging and copy and paste it to create my parent project. Then I used to run <

Answer 1

mvn archetype:create has been deprecated in favor of mvn archetype:generate, so just the name changed. There is an archetype for multi-module projects in the official repositories, so running this command yields the (minimalist) result:

[axe@gromp test]$ mvn archetype:generate
..
: remote -> pom-root (Root project archetype for creating multi module projects)
..
Choose a number: 109: 
.. 

[axe@gromp test]$ tree 
.
└── modules.test
    └── pom.xml

1 directory, 1 file

[axe@gromp test]$ cat modules.test/pom.xml 

  4.0.0
  com.example
  modules.test
  1.0-SNAPSHOT
  pom
  modules.test

So, basically you will have to create the folder structure and module descriptors (pom.xml files) yourself. Using a simple shell script or batch file will easily do this, if you require it more than once.