Is it possible to build a java project only once using eclipse and share?

Question

Is it possible to actually build a maven project containing java code to be built once and the binaries can be shared?

Problem: The project I am trying to build would take me about 3-4 hours and requires high internet bandwidth. I am trying to check the possibility of re using this built project among several other machines.

I have worked with c++ projects involving makefiles earlier and this was pretty simpler. I am new to Java / eclipse and would need help to figure out if this is something really possible.

PS: I did try to find existing solutions; they were not straight forward or they say that this can't be done.

Answer 1

Build once and share it offline

In Maven, you can build your project only once and get a JAR file fully packed with all dependencies. So that, you can share this JAR to other machines off-line.

Below are the steps to make it.

1. First update your pom.xml with the below setting

 <build>
  <plugins>
    <plugin>
      <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
      <configuration>
        <archive>
          <manifest>
            <mainClass>com.thanga.MyTest[REPLACE WITH YOUR MAIN CLASS]</mainClass>
          </manifest>
        </archive>
        <descriptorRefs>
          <descriptorRef>jar-with-dependencies</descriptorRef>
        </descriptorRefs>
      </configuration>
    </plugin>
  </plugins>
</build>

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2. Package your project with the goal package assembly:single as shown below

In console,

 mvn package assembly:single

In eclipse,

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3. Run this and you can get the two JAR files. One of them MyFullPack-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT-jar-with-dependencies.jar has the full dependencies loaded.

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4. You can open the JAR to see the dependencies are packed as shown below.

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5. You can share this JAR to other machines off-line without any more build

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