What is Apache Maven?

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Maven is a build automation tool used primarily for Java projects. Maven can also be used to build and manage projects written in C#, Ruby, Scala, and other languages. The Maven project is hosted by the Apache Software Foundation, where it was formerly part of the Jakarta Project. Maven is a powerful project management tool that is based on POM (project object model). It is used for projects build, dependency and documentation. It simplifies the build process like ANT. But it is too much advanced than ANT.

In short terms we can tell maven is a tool that can be used for building and managing any Java-based project. maven make the day-to-day work of Java developers easier and generally help with the comprehension of any Java-based project.

Maven does a lot of helpful task like 

• We can easily build a project using maven.
• We can add jars and other dependencies of the project easily using the help of maven. 
• Maven provides project information (log document, dependency list, unit test reports etc.) 
• Maven is very helpful for a project while updating central repository of JARs and other dependencies. 
• With the help of Maven we can build any number of projects into output types like the JAR, WAR etc without doing any scripting. 
• Using maven we can easily integrate our project with source control system (such as Subversion or Git). 

POM means Project Object Model is key to operate Maven. Maven reads pom.xml file to accomplish its configuration and operations. It is an XML file that contains information related to the project and configuration information such as dependencies, source directory, plugin, goals etc. used by Maven to build the project. 

• Maven has a convention to place source code, compiled code etc. So we don't need to provide information about the project structure in pom.xml file. 
• Maven is declarative, everything you define in the pom.xml file. 
• There is life cycle in Maven. 
• It is a framework. 
• It is mainly a project management tool. 
• The maven plugins are reusable. 
• It is more preferred than Ant.

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