NetBeans 12.6, Spring Boot / Maven, Cisco AXL Schema - Background scanning of projects

Question

Often related to Background scanning of projects people complain that this happens when NetBeans is started.

I have a Spring Boot 2.6.x with Maven 3.8.2 project, using Cisco AXL Schema 12.5.

With Apache CXF from this AXL Schema a lot of Java source code files are generated.

When I do a Clean and Build on my project afterwards immediatly the Background scanning of projects starts.

And it takes most of the times recently quite long.

I see for example that it scans also

netbeans-12.6/webcommon/jsstubs/corestubs.zip

Why should it scan this too when building my project?

But most of the time, although it shows 100% scanning done, it spends in the folder where the generated Java source code files are

<project folder>/target/generated/cxf

There are 2282 generated Java source code files.

I'm not sure if NetBeans hangs or really scans these files, it shows 100% scanning so it should be done.

Often it takes too long so I have to terminate NetBeans from the console. After a restart of NetBeans the Background scanning for projects starts and takes much shorter time, but this is annoying.

What can I do about it?

When I start NetBeans from console I do only ./netbeans. Is there a difference if starting NetBeans with sudo ./netbeans?

Here is how my project folder/file structure looks like, maybe I don't use correctly:

First of all I extracted the AXL Schema next to my src folder

<project folder>
-> schema
   -> 12.5
      AXLAPI.wsdl
      AXLEnums.xsd
      AXLSoap.xsd
-> src
   -> main/...
   -> test/...

In pom.xml I use

...
<build>
...
<plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.cxf</groupId>
    <artifactId>cxf-codegen-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>3.4.5</version>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <id>generate-sources</id>
            <phase>generate-sources</phase>
            <configuration>
                <sourceRoot>${project.build.directory}/generated/cxf</sourceRoot>
                <wsdlOptions>
                    <wsdlOption>
                        <wsdl>${basedir}/schema/12.5/AXLAPI.wsdl</wsdl>
                        <wsdlLocation>classpath:schema/12.5/AXLAPI.wsdl</wsdlLocation>
                        <extraargs></extraargs>
                    </wsdlOption>
                </wsdlOptions>
            </configuration>
            <goals>
                <goal>wsdl2java</goal>
            </goals>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>
...
<resources>
...
    <resource>
        <directory>./</directory>
        <includes>
            <include>schema/**</include>
        </includes>
    </resource>  
    <resource>
        <directory>target/generated/cxf</directory>
        <includes>
            <include>**/*.java</include>
        </includes>
    </resource>
...
</resources>
</build>
...

Maybe this pom.xml setup is not correct, and that's why the Background scanning for projects works wrongly.

When I look into the resulting war file after build, I see

WEB-INF
-> classes
   -> com/cisco/axl/api/_12
   -> schema/12.5

and there are artifacts which might not belong there.

For example in com/cisco/axl/api/_12 there are not only the class files but all related generated Java source code files (all 2282).

And perhap schema/12.5 shouldn't be in the war file too.

Answer 1

I tried this pom:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" 
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 https://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
  <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
  <groupId>com.example</groupId>
  <artifactId>cxf</artifactId>
  <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
  <properties>
    <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
    <maven.compiler.source>17</maven.compiler.source>
    <maven.compiler.target>17</maven.compiler.target>
  </properties>
  <build>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.cxf</groupId>
        <artifactId>cxf-codegen-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>3.4.5</version>
        <executions>
          <execution>
            <id>generate-sources</id>
            <phase>generate-sources</phase>
            <configuration>
              <wsdlOptions>
                <wsdlOption>
                  <wsdl>src/main/resources/wsdl/CustomerService.wsdl</wsdl>
                </wsdlOption>
              </wsdlOptions>
            </configuration>
            <goals>
              <goal>wsdl2java</goal>
            </goals>
          </execution>
        </executions>
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
  </build>
  <dependencies>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>javax</groupId>
      <artifactId>javaee-api</artifactId>
      <version>7.0</version>
    </dependency>
  </dependencies>
</project>

(Latest cxf-codegen-plugin, no additional config, wsdl file from here, java ee dependencies)

Running mvn clean install ("Clean and Build Project"...takes less than 5 seconds with this wsdl), and gets us:

..this nice picture (resolution of generated sources! grouped by provider (cxf)...we could have more).

Conclusion

Netbeans is mature regarding "generated sources". (As long as they are in target/generated-sources/<provider>;).

With "generated projects" (maven/gradle e.g. openapi-plugin) on the other hand, I experienced (netbeans) issues...and had to externalize/"source control" the "generated stuff" (/project!).

---

Don'ts

• build>resources>resource>directory>. This will(try to) package your project root (additionally) to target/classes!! (This may confuse any IDE.)
• ...>resource>directory>target, for similar reasons esp. in Netbeans.

Hints

• When we want the schemas & definitons to reside in (packaged) class path, we place them within src/main/resources. Otherwise: outside.

• We add <resources/> to our <build/>, only when we decided so/know what we do/don't create "circles" (with existing maven-defaults), notto "trick netbeans"! (this is out-dated;)

---

Update:

• I updated same project with this wsdl (axl-demo/schema).
• It generated 1647 classes.
• Netbeans took a while to scan:
  • I increased memory: {nb_home}/etc/netbeans.conf:

    netbeans_default_options="-J-Xmx4g ..."
    

    (thx to: How to assign more memory to Netbeans? , ...)
  • (Restarted netbeans,) drank coffee
• But then (once scan was completed): Still "nice picture", we can import/declare/use the generated classes:

---

Some Tweaks

..Yoda added to the build:

• moved cxf-execution to profile:

  <profiles>
    <profile>
      <id>gen</id>
      <build>
        <plugins>
          <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.cxf</groupId>
            <artifactId>cxf-codegen-plugin</artifactId>
            ...
  

  to activate it (only) with mvn install -Pgen (or in netbeans (Project>Properties>Run>) Configuration(drop-down)).

• applied this: How to protect auto-generated sources during clean package in maven? like:

  <build>
     <plugins>
       <plugin>
         <artifactId>maven-clean-plugin</artifactId>
         <version>3.1.0</version>
         <configuration>
           <excludeDefaultDirectories>true</excludeDefaultDirectories>
           <filesets>
             <fileset>
               <directory>${project.build.directory}</directory>
               <excludes>
                 <exclude>generated-sources/**</exclude>
                 <exclude>classes/com/cisco/**</exclude>
               </excludes>
             </fileset>
           </filesets>
         </configuration>
       </plugin>
     </plugins>
  </build>
  

  I don't agree with "recommended solution"! For "thousands of" classes that b/rarely change, who wants to clean & re-generate them "hundreds" times/day?

Which accelerates us from (mvn -Pgen clean install):

------------------------------------------------------------------------
BUILD SUCCESS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total time:  44.515 s

To "Project>Clean and Build" (mvn clean install):

------------------------------------------------------------------------
BUILD SUCCESS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total time:  4.494 s