Adding JGit to the Project with Maven

Integrating the JGit with Maven not only enhances the project version control capabilities but also streamlines workflow processes by leveraging the Maven build and dependency management system. This article will guide you through the steps of adding JGit to the Maven project and enabling you to harness the power of Git directly from the Java code.

Integrating the JGit into the Maven project means enabling the JGit library into the projects to build the configuration through the pom.xml file. This setup can allow the Java applications to interact directly with Git repositories. It can enable version control operations programmatically.

How Integrating JGit Enhances a Maven Project?

• Automation of the Git Tasks: Automate the repetitive Git tasks like committing the changes, tagging the releases, and managing the branches of the repository.
• Seamless Integration: JGit can fit smoothly with the Maven ecosystem and leverage the Maven dependency management to ensure that the project always uses the correct version of the JGit.
• Enhanced the workflow: Incorporate the Git operations into the applications workflow such as automatically committing and pushing the changes as part of the build process.

Implementation of Adding JGit to a Maven Project

Below is the implementation to add JGit to a Maven Project.

Step 1: Create the Maven project

Create a maven project using Intelij Idea and on creating the project, choose the build system as Maven and click on the create button.

Project Folder Structure:

After successfully creating the project, the file structure will look like the below image.

Step 2: Add the JGit Dependency

Open the pom.xml file and add the JGit dependency into the project.

<dependency>
            <groupId>org.eclipse.jgit</groupId>
            <artifactId>org.eclipse.jgit</artifactId>
            <version>6.9.0.202403050737-r</version>
        </dependency>

pom.xml:

<?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 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

    <groupId>org.example</groupId>
    <artifactId>JGit-for-gradle</artifactId>
    <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>

    <properties>
        <maven.compiler.source>17</maven.compiler.source>
        <maven.compiler.target>17</maven.compiler.target>
        <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
    </properties>
    <dependencies>
        <!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.eclipse.jgit/org.eclipse.jgit -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.eclipse.jgit</groupId>
            <artifactId>org.eclipse.jgit</artifactId>
            <version>6.9.0.202403050737-r</version>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
</project>

We can successfully add the JGit dependency into the Java project with Maven. Now we are working on th JGit functionalities into the Java project.

Step 3: Refresh the Maven project

After updating the pom.xml file, we need to refresh the project to allow the Maven to download the newly added dependencies into the project. We need to manual update through the command line use the below command.

mvn build

Step 4: Using the JGit

With the JGit added into the project, we can start using it perform the Git operations.

Example

This is a simple example of opening the existing repository and printing the latest commits.

LatestCommit.Java:

package org.example;

import org.eclipse.jgit.api.Git;
import org.eclipse.jgit.lib.Repository;
import org.eclipse.jgit.lib.RepositoryBuilder;
import org.eclipse.jgit.revwalk.RevCommit;
import org.eclipse.jgit.revwalk.RevWalk;

import java.io.File;

public class LatestCommit {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        File repoDir = new File("c:/Users/Mahesh/Desktop/git-repo/.git");  // Adjust this path to your repo location

        try (Repository repo = new RepositoryBuilder().setGitDir(repoDir).build();
             RevWalk revWalk = new RevWalk(repo)) {
            Git git = new Git(repo);
            Iterable<RevCommit> commits = git.log().setMaxCount(1).call();
            RevCommit latestCommit = commits.iterator().next();

            System.out.println("Latest commit details:");
            System.out.println("Commit ID: " + latestCommit.getId().getName());
            System.out.println("Author: " + latestCommit.getAuthorIdent().getName());
            System.out.println("Date: " + latestCommit.getAuthorIdent().getWhen());
            System.out.println("Message: " + latestCommit.getFullMessage());

            revWalk.dispose();
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

• The above example demonstrates how to use JGit to access the latest commit in a Git repository.
• It sets up a Repository object pointing to the specified .git directory, and then uses Git and RevWalk to traverse the commit history.
• The details of the most recent commit, including the commit ID, author, date, and message, are printed to the console.
• Adjust the repoDir path to point to your local Git repository.

Output:

Integrating of the JGit with Maven offers the robust solution for enhancing the development practices with version control.