Starting with Apache cocoon - install failures

[Colm Dickson]

Hello all,

I am starting out the Apache cocoon which I'd like to use for document processing but I'm having a real problem trying to get the 'your first cocoon application using maven2' working on my windows machine from the Apache cocoon website. (cocoon.apache.org/2.2/1159_1_1.html)

I have maven installed, which I am also new to and it works when I run 'mvn --version' to verify that it is installed.

Apache Maven 3.2.1 (ea8b2b07643dbb1b84b6d16e1f08391b666bc1e9; 2014-02-14T17:37:52+00:00)
Maven home: C:\apache-maven-3.2.1
Java version: 1.6.0_24, vendor: Sun Microsystems Inc.
Java home: C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_24\jre
Default locale: en_GB, platform encoding: Cp1252
OS name: "windows 7", version: "6.1", arch: "x86", family: "windows"

So I have a directory called C:\cocoon and as per the instructions, I have ran the following command from this directory

mvn archetype:generate -DarchetypeCatalog=http://cocoon.apache.org

I have chosen option 2 as per the guide and the defaults as shown below

Define value for groupId: : com.mycompany
Define value for artifactId: : myBlock1
Define value for version: 1.0-SNAPSHOT: : 1.0.0
Define value for package: : com.mycompany.myBlock1

After this has completed , I move into the myBlock1 folder and try to run the mvn jetty:run command which fails with the error 'Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-compiler-plugin:2.5.1:compile (default-compile) on project myBlock1:Compilation failure

[ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-compiler-plugin:2.5.1:compile (default-compile) on project myBlock1: Compilation failure
[ERROR] C:\cocoon\sample\src\main\java\com\mycompany\myBlock1\MyBean.java:[17,16] ';' expected

I cannot get to the bottom of this. I hope someone else has met this and has been able to get an answer to this. I'm using jdk1.6.0_24 but I have also met the same error on 1.7

Hope you can help

Thanks,

Colm

[Ulf Dittmer]

Wow, Cocoon is something I hadn't heard about in a long time (not surprisingly, I guess, given that the last release was more than 6 years ago). I wouldn't have thought that folks are still building new solutions with that.

I can't really help with the issue at hand, but I notice that the page you mentioned is all about Maven 2, whereas you're using Maven 3 - for which I had the impression that it is not entirely backwards compatible. So my advise would be to use the latest Maven 2 instead.

[Ulf Dittmer]

Of course, this:

C:\cocoon\sample\src\main\java\com\mycompany\myBlock1\MyBean.java:[17,16] ';' expected

sounds like a syntax error in one of your Java files. (or Cocoon's example files, more like).

Are you set on building Cocoon from Scratch? There is a binary available for download, after all.

[Colm Dickson]

Hi. Thanks for replying. Well I would have preferred a binary download but apache have released recent versions up to a 3.0 (as of 2013) now but have stopped the binary downloads so I'm stuck with the source which they recommend for new projects. I thought too it was a missing semi colon from some source file but who knows where! I will however try with a lower version of maven to see what the outcome is.

If anyone else has recent experience of this please let me know.

Thanks, Colm.

[Ulf Dittmer]

Hm, I wouldn't start a new software effort on a project where the last released version is a 3+ years old "alpha 3", and the last substantial source checkins were more than a year ago, but we all have different risk thresholds in that regard.

I thought too it was a missing semi colon from some source file but who knows where!

What do you mean? The error message points to the exact file and line number. Are you saying that file is not actually where the problem is?