Maven Goal and Execution

The MBG Maven plugin includes one goal:

• mybatis-generator:generate

The goal is not automatically executed by Maven. It can be executed in two ways.

The goal can be executed from the command line with the command:

• mvn mybatis-generator:generate

You can pass parameters to the goal with standard Maven command line properties. For example:

• mvn -Dmybatis.generator.overwrite=true mybatis-generator:generate

This will run MBG and instruct it to overwrite any existing Java files it may find.

In a continuous build environment, you may want to automatically execute MBG as a part of a Maven build. This can be accomplished by configuring the goal to execute automatically. An example of this is shown below:

   <project ...>
     ...
     <build>
       ...
       <plugins>
        ...
        <plugin>
          <groupId>org.mybatis.generator</groupId>
          <artifactId>mybatis-generator-maven-plugin</artifactId>
          <version>1.4.2</version>
          <executions>
            <execution>
              <id>Generate MyBatis Artifacts</id>
              <goals>
                <goal>generate</goal>
              </goals>
            </execution>
          </executions>
        </plugin>
        ...
      </plugins>
      ...
    </build>
    ...
  </project>

The MBG plugin is bound to the generate-sources phase of a Maven build, so it will execute before the compile step. Also note that MBG generates both Java source files and XML resources. The MBG goal will bind both generated Java files and XML resources to the build and they will both be included in any JAR generated by the build.

MyBatis Generator Configuration Properties

Any property specified in the POM will be passed into the configuration file and may be used in the normal way. For example:

   <project ...>
     ...
     <properties>
       <dao.target.dir>src/main/java</dao.target.dir>
     </properties>
     ...
     <build>
       ...
       <plugins>
        ...
        <plugin>
          <groupId>org.mybatis.generator</groupId>
          <artifactId>mybatis-generator-maven-plugin</artifactId>
          <version>1.4.2</version>
          <executions>
            <execution>
              <id>Generate MyBatis Artifacts</id>
              <goals>
                <goal>generate</goal>
              </goals>
            </execution>
          </executions>
        </plugin>
        ...
      </plugins>
      ...
    </build>
    ...
  </project>

In this case, the property may be accessed in the configuration file with the syntax ${dao.target.dir}.

Classpath Issues

Initially, the plugin classpath is very limited - it only contains MyBatis generator itself. If you need to add something to the plugin's classpath (for example, a JDBC driver), you can do it by adding dependencies to the plugin configuration like this:

   <project ...>
     ...
     <build>
       ...
       <plugins>
        ...
        <plugin>
          <groupId>org.mybatis.generator</groupId>
          <artifactId>mybatis-generator-maven-plugin</artifactId>
          <version>1.4.2</version>
          <executions>
            <execution>
              <id>Generate MyBatis Artifacts</id>
              <goals>
                <goal>generate</goal>
              </goals>
            </execution>
          </executions>
          <dependencies>
            <dependency>
              <groupId>org.hsqldb</groupId>
              <artifactId>hsqldb</artifactId>
              <version>2.3.4</version>
            </dependency>
          </dependencies>
        </plugin>
        ...
      </plugins>
      ...
    </build>
    ...
  </project>

If the dependencies you need are already included as dependencies of the project, then you can also use one of the configuration parameters related to the plugin classpath - "includeCompileDependencies" or "includeAllDependencies" see below for details about those properties.

Parameter Reference

All parameters are optional and most have suitable defaults.

Interpretation of targetProject

The targetProject attribute of the generator configurations is interpreted differently when running with Maven. If set to the special value "MAVEN" (case sensitive), then targetProject will be set to the plugin's output directory, and that directory will be created if it doesn't already exist. If not set to "MAVEN", then targetProject will be interpreted as normal by MBG - it must be set to a directory that already exists.