Mocking is an essential part of unit testing, and the Mockito library makes it easy to write clean and intuitive unit tests for your Java code.
Get started with mocking and improve your application tests using our Mockito guide:
Handling concurrency in an application can be a tricky process with many potential pitfalls. A solid grasp of the fundamentals will go a long way to help minimize these issues.
Get started with understanding multi-threaded applications with our Java Concurrency guide:
Spring 5 added support for reactive programming with the Spring WebFlux module, which has been improved upon ever since. Get started with the Reactor project basics and reactive programming in Spring Boot:
Since its introduction in Java 8, the Stream API has become a staple of Java development. The basic operations like iterating, filtering, mapping sequences of elements are deceptively simple to use.
But these can also be overused and fall into some common pitfalls.
To get a better understanding on how Streams work and how to combine them with other language features, check out our guide to Java Streams:
Explore Spring Boot 3 and Spring 6 in-depth through building a full REST API with the framework:
Yes, Spring Security can be complex, from the more advanced functionality within the Core to the deep OAuth support in the framework.
I built the security material as two full courses - Core and OAuth, to get practical with these more complex scenarios. We explore when and how to use each feature and code through it on the backing project.
You can explore the course here:
Spring Data JPA is a great way to handle the complexity of JPA with the powerful simplicity of Spring Boot.
Get started with Spring Data JPA through the guided reference course:
Refactor Java code safely — and automatically — with OpenRewrite.
Refactoring big codebases by hand is slow, risky, and easy to put off. That’s where OpenRewrite comes in. The open-source framework for large-scale, automated code transformations helps teams modernize safely and consistently.
Each month, the creators and maintainers of OpenRewrite at Moderne run live, hands-on training sessions — one for newcomers and one for experienced users. You’ll see how recipes work, how to apply them across projects, and how to modernize code with confidence.
Join the next session, bring your questions, and learn how to automate the kind of work that usually eats your sprint time.
Get up to speed with the core of Maven quickly, and then go beyond the foundations into the more powerful functionality of the build tool, such as profiles, scopes, multi-module projects and quite a bit more:
1. Introduction
Apache Maven is one of the most popular build tools for Java projects. Apart from just decentralizing dependencies and repositories, promoting a uniform directory structure across projects is also one of its important aspects.
In this quick article, we’ll explore the standard directory layout of a typical Maven project.
2. Directory Layout
A typical Maven project has a pom.xml file and a directory structure based on defined conventions:
└───maven-project
├───pom.xml
├───README.txt
├───NOTICE.txt
├───LICENSE.txt
└───src
├───main
│ ├───java
│ ├───resources
│ ├───filters
│ └───webapp
├───test
│ ├───java
│ ├───resources
│ └───filters
├───it
├───site
└───assemblyThe default directory layout can be overridden using project descriptors, but this is uncommon and discouraged.
Going ahead in this article, we’ll uncover more details about each standard file and subdirectory.
3. The Root Directory
This directory serves as the root of every Maven project.
Let’s take a closer look at the standard files and subdirectories that are typically found at root:
- maven-project/pom.xml – defines dependencies and modules needed during the build lifecycle of a Maven project
- maven-project/LICENSE.txt – licensing information of the project
- maven-project/README.txt – summary of the project
- maven-project/NOTICE.txt – information about third-party libraries used in the project
- maven-project/src/main – contains source code and resources that become part of the artifact
- maven-project/src/test – holds all the test code and resources
- maven-project/src/it – usually reserved for integration tests used by the Maven Failsafe Plugin
- maven-project/src/site – site documentation created using the Maven Site Plugin
- maven-project/src/assembly – assembly configuration for packaging binaries
4. The src/main Directory
As the name indicates, src/main is the most important directory of a Maven project. Anything that is supposed to be part of an artifact, be it a jar or war, should be present here.
Its subdirectories are:
- src/main/java – Java source code for the artifact
- src/main/resources – configuration files and others such as i18n files, per-environment configuration files, and XML configurations
- src/main/webapp – for web applications, contains resources like JavaScript, CSS, HTML files, view templates, and images
- src/main/filters – contains files that inject values into configuration properties in the resources folder during the build phase
5. The src/test Directory
The directory src/test is the place where tests of each component in the application reside.
Note that none of these directories or files will become part of the artifact. Let’s see its subdirectories:
- src/test/java – Java source code for tests
- src/test/resources – configuration files and others used by tests
- src/test/filters – contains files that inject values into configuration properties in the resources folder during the test phase
6. Conclusion
In this article, we looked at the standard directory layout for an Apache Maven project.
