Can maven deduce and/or build an appropriate directory structure

Question

To better understand the Builder design pattern, I have downloaded a code demonstration which I am now trying to compile using maven. The demonstration code is made available in a single directory but the various java files have import statements reading

import aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd.A;
import aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd.B;
import aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd.C;
import aaa.bbb.ccc.eee.D;
import aaa.bbb.ccc.eee.E;
import aaa.bbb.ccc.eee.F;
import aaa.bbb.ccc.fff.G;
import aaa.bbb.ccc.fff.H;
import aaa.bbb.ccc.fff.I;
import aaa.bbb.ccc.fff.J;
import aaa.bbb.ccc.ggg.K;

with Main.java expected to be in directory ccc .

I'm relatively new to maven having generally built packages directly in eclipse so I've got a couple of questions relating to maven which, whilst relevant to this particular demonstration, are also relevant to some other projects I have:

• Is it possible for maven to use the import statements in the various java files to infer and build an appropriate directory structure, including the target structure?
• Is it possible for maven to move the files, currently in a single directory, into their appropriate directories?
• If I were to put build the directory structure manually and move the java files to their correct positions, is it possible to have maven build the appropriate pom.xml file?

Answer 1

I think you have a wrong comprehension about maven. Maven will not organize your Java code for you.

Maven helps you to compile and test your Java code and create a jar File containing your Java code.

Therefore you have to create a pom.xml for your Eclipse Project with your configuration. Which could be supported by maven as described at https://maven.apache.org/guides/getting-started/maven-in-five-minutes.html or Eclipse creating new Maven Project. Maven is assuming some default configuration like sourceDirectory in Eclipse Project is src/main/java and more.

And the answers are: No. No. No.

You could create maven plugins which are doing your desired Things but maven itself will not do those things.