Changing a filename using the maven assembly plugin

I’m currently working on a project which requires the build to produce a zip archive of the jar and some other stuff (doc files mainly). I’ve used the maven assembly plugin, with an assembly descriptor to help me out here. However, there was one slightly unusual requirement – I needed to change the name of the jar so that inside the zip, it has a non-standard name, and no version number (the reasons behind this are fairly weak, but basically it’s because a load of other scripts, which we can’t change, expect to find the jar in this non-standard format).

So, the build produces:

myproject-1.0.0.0-SNAPSHOT.jar

but in the zip I need to have:

my-project.jar

Here’s how I did it.

• Include the maven-assembly plugin in the build:

<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.2-beta-1</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<id>make-assembly</id>
<phase>package</phase>
<goals>
<goal>single</goal>
</goals>
<configuration>
<descriptors>
<descriptor>src/main/assembly/kit.xml</descriptor>
</descriptors>
<finalName>${pom.artifactId}-${pom.version}</finalName>
<outputDirectory>build/maven/${pom.artifactId}/target</outputDirectory>
</configuration>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>

• Create the kit.xml in src/main/assembly and specify <destName> in the file inclusion. Here’s my kit.xml:

<assembly>
<id>kit</id>
<formats>
<format>zip</format>
</formats>
<fileSets>
<fileSet>
<directory>src/main/resources</directory>
<outputDirectory>doc</outputDirectory>
<includes>
<include>*.*</include>
</includes>
</fileSet>
</fileSets>
<files>
<file>
<source>build/maven/${artifactId}/target/${artifactId}-${version}.${packaging}</source>
<outputDirectory>/</outputDirectory>
<destName>my-project.jar</destName>
</file>
</files>
</assembly>

As you can see, the assembly descriptor has a “files” section, which is what does the trick for us. I’ve isolated the actual section below for clarity:

<files>
<file>
<source>build/maven/${artifactId}/target/${artifactId}-${version}.${packaging}</source>
<outputDirectory>/</outputDirectory>
<destName>my-project.jar</destName>
</file>
</files>