the behavior of LMP and LGP are different for spring application

[gkwan-ibm]

Hi @gkwan-ibm
I can see that you have modified pom.xml and added packagingType as "war". LMP will consider the project as a normal war project based on this.
LGP uses plugin section to identify the project is war or springboot-project. Even if we have configured "war" plugin, springboot plugin is getting higher priority.
You would be required to remove springframework.boot from plugins section. This would need lots of dependency modifications

plugins {

id 'org.springframework.boot' version '3.5.0'

}

Originally posted by @arunvenmany-ibm in #999

Why the behavior of LMP and LGP are different? Should they be same?

• i.e. if just pom.xml includes spring-boot starter dependencies, LMP does not consider the project as a spring application

[gkwan-ibm]

@arunvenmany-ibm @yeekangc

[cherylking]

@gkwan-ibm How should our LGP decide whether you meant for this to be a war or a springboot application when you have both configured? It's not just a dependency that was configured. It was a plugin org.springframework.boot that was configured.

[gkwan-ibm]

• How does LMP determine?
• Should base on the springBootApplication configuration in server.xml?
• I think the LMP and LGP should be consistent with the same way to determine the project is war or springboot project. Based on project configuration or server.xml? Consider which can be consistent for both.

[cherylking]

I think the LMP and LGP should be consistent with the same way to determine the project is war or springboot project.

@gkwan-ibm In theory, I agree with you. But we now have this implementation out there for how many years? We can't just go and change it and potentially regress someone's use case.

Also, it is important to realize that our customers are not trying this in both plugins and comparing what it does. They are either using Maven or they are using Gradle. Lastly, is it a normal use case to have a project configured for both war plugin and org.springframework.boot plugin? I don't think so.

[gkwan-ibm]

To support MoRE scenario, now it may be possible that users may deploy their SpringBoot application as a Spring war app in tWAS.

[cherylking]

To support MoRE scenario, now it may be possible that users may deploy their SpringBoot application as a Spring war app in tWAS.

Ok, how is that relevant to the Liberty Gradle plugin?

[gkwan-ibm]

...regress someone's use case. ...

If there is a user who created a gradle project for Springboot application and it runs by Liberty, surely the server.xml must contain springBootApplication. Is there a case that server.xml does not configure springBootApplication and liberty can run it?

[gkwan-ibm]

Consider that scenario. Users have gradle project for Spring application and package with SpringBoot in before. Now they can package their application as a war simply by updating the application class and adding war plugin, then they can deploy the war to MoRE/tWAS. They may want to develop the application by dev mode. I tried on petclinic and need to update the build.gradle massively to make dev mode work. Can LGP support that without updating the gradle project massively?

[cherylking]

Here is the GH project that was being used for this issue.

[venmanyarun]

Hi @gkwan-ibm @cherylking

just highlighting one more thing regarding spring boot support.
LMP uses a parameter deployPackages to configure application as spring boot. If this is not configured, application will be considered as "war" based on packaging type

Whereas LGP does not have this param
Maybe the easier way to retrofit is by adding the param into LGP and make sure this param is used instead of relying on the plugin.