maven-j2me-plugin

The maven J2ME plugin supports the development of J2ME applications. The goals of this plugin cover the preverification process of the compiled classes and the creation of a java descriptor. The goals are configured using plugin configurations and profiles.

Introduction

Creating J2ME applications is different from creating applications using J2SE. Usually a device running a J2ME application is limited in resources. Therefore subsets of the Java APIs where defined, to honor the limited capabilities of these devices.

Currently there are two subsets of the Java APIs wich are used on limited devices. The first subset is called CLDC (connected limited device configuration). It contains a strict subset of the Java class libraries and is the minimum of classes needed for a Java virtual machine to run.

The second subset of Java APIs is called MIDP (mobile information device profile). It contains an GUI API aimed for the use on limited LCDs. Also included are classes of a simple 2D graphics API.

The Java virtual machine running on limited devices is also limited compared with a full blown JVM of the standard edition. Sun introduced a limited virtual machine called K virtual machine (KVM). It is found an many limited devices running Java.

One thing a JVM is responsible for, is a process called JVM class file verification. The class file verification is done in four steps for every class to load, before the JVM starts execution. The code size in the J2SE according to the wikipedia is round about 50K.

The KVM spares this extra code and is not able to run a class file verification. The class file verification has to be done as a part of the development process. The J2ME SDK comes with an executable called preverify (or preverify.exe on windows platforms). After compiling the classes using a java compiler of the J2SE SDK, the classes must be preverified using this executable.

For further information on building J2ME applications, you might want to have a look at the links given below: