Setting Up Example Projects For Java

Java with Maven

Maven is an all-in-one CI-CD tool for building testing and deploying Java projects. To setup a sample project with Java and Maven in devbox follow the steps below:

1. Create a dummy folder: dummy/ and call devbox init inside it. Then add the nix-pkg: devbox add jdk and devbox add maven.
   • Replace jdk with the version of JDK you want. Get the exact nix-pkg name from search.nixos.org.
2. Then do devbox shell to get a shell with that jdk nix pkg.
3. Then do: mvn archetype:generate -DgroupId=com.devbox.mavenapp -DartifactId=devbox-maven-app -DarchetypeArtifactId=maven-archetype-quickstart -DarchetypeVersion=1.4 -DinteractiveMode=false
   • In the generated pom.xml file, replace java version in <maven.compiler.source> with the specific version you are testing for.
4. mvn package should compile the package and create a target/ directory.
5. java -cp target/devbox-maven-app-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar com.devbox.mavenapp.App should print "Hello World!".
6. Add target/ to .gitignore.

Java with Gradle

To test a sample Gradle app with devbox, follow the steps below:

1. Create a dummy folder: dummy/ and call devbox init inside it. Then add these packages: devbox add jdk and devbox add gradle.
   • Replace jdk with the version of JDK you want. Get the exact nix-pkg name from search.nixos.org.
2. Then do devbox shell to get a shell with that jdk nix pkg.
3. Then do: gradle init
   • In the generated gradle.build file, put the following text block:
     gradleCopy

     apply plugin: 'java'
     apply plugin: 'application'
     sourceCompatibility = 17
     targetCompatibility = 17
     mainClassName = 'hello.HelloWorld'
     jar {
         manifest {
             attributes 'Main-Class': 'hello.HelloWorld'
         }
     }
     

4. gradle build should compile the package and create a build/ directory that contains an executable jar file.
5. gradle run should print "Hello World!".
6. Add build/ to .gitignore.