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Is there any difference between war file created by maven package phase and war file created by maven war plugin war:war goal

I would to know if a war file created using maven package phase would be equal to a war file created using maven war plugin war:war goal.
Assuming we have a pom.xml (extract) like this:
<groupId>com.mycompany.app</groupId>
<artifactId>my-app</artifactId>
<version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
<packaging>war</packaging>
...
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.4</version>
<configuration>
<webappDirectory>/sample/servlet/container/deploy/directory</webappDirectory>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
...
I mean, it's necessary to have the plugin to build a war file (with no special restriction or feature). Please fee free to add any comment or suggestion. Thanks in advance

They are absolutelly equal. The purpose of plugin block with maven-war-plugin description is - for example - change default webappDirectory value. See more: http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-war-plugin/usage.html

mvn clean install do not use last .class version

It seems Maven keep using use an old version of my code when packaging a war archive.
I build my war using a simple "mvn clean install".
I deleted the /target folder by hand and checked that there were no .class elsewhere in my project (as described here).
Each time I check the generated archive, an old version of my code has been packaged inside. Yet, the same code is properly packaged on my colleague's machine (he uses m2e).
Does anyone have the same problem ?
Here is the most relevant part of the POM:
<packaging>war</packaging>
...
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
<!-- <version>2.3.2</version> -->
<configuration>
<source>1.6</source>
<target>1.6</target>
</configuration>
</plugin>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.4</version>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>

It appears that the old code is still present somewhere; my guess would be your local repository. Try deleting any entry there that could contain the old code and then building your project again.

Check the <dependency> entry in pom.xml for that jar file. Change the <version> of that dependency to the latest one.

How to tell IntelliJ to use folder "web" instead of "webapp" for maven when building a war file?

What I do is:
Create a new project with IntelliJ with Maven module.
Add Framework support to this project and pick: JSF.
Go to pom.xml and add: packaging: war.
And from Maven window in IntelliJ I click: Clean Install.
Well build fails, because maven is looking for a webapp directory instead of a directory called web. For building the project.
So, if I rename the folder web to webapp build goes fine.
However, I want to learn more about IntelliJ and maven, so I want to force maven to use the folder web. How can I properly do this
Using the command line? I mean without invvolving IntelliJ at all?
Using Intellij?
Regards.

You can configure this in the pom.xml file for your project.
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<warSourceDirectory>web</warSourceDirectory>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
You can find the documentation here
If IntelliJ behaves as expected, it should pick up this new configuration.

Have a look at this post, which explains how to change the default webapp directory:
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.3</version>
<configuration>
<warSourceDirectory>web</warSourceDirectory>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>

Copy a file during maven build phase

My situation is:
I have a Maven project, I have my java classes in /app/src/main/java, my resources in /app/src/main/resources and my webapp files in /app/src/main/webapp
I have a javascript file in /common/script.js
Now what I want is to include (copy) the javascript file to the war file during the build phase of maven. To be precise, I want the script.js to land in /js/ directory of the war archive, just as it was placed in /app/src/main/webapp/js before starting the build.
I need this to share one version of resource files among many web-apps.
Kind regards,
Q.

You could do something like this, as documented here.
<project>
...
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.1.1</version>
<configuration>
<webResources>
<resource>
<!-- this is relative to the pom.xml directory -->
<directory>../common</directory>
<targetPath>/js</targetPath>
</resource>
</webResources>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
...
</project>

You can use the mojo copy-resources to copy resources which are not in the default maven layout or not declared in the build/resources element.
Check
"maven-resources-plugin"

You can use maven-resources plugin to copy a file to the desired location. Before or after a war has been built

How do I add time-stamp information to Maven artifacts?

I am upgrading a large build-system to use Maven2 instead of Ant, and we have two related requirements that I'm stuck on:
We need to generate a time-stamped artifact, so a part of the package
phase (or wherever), instead of building
project-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar
we
should be building
project-1.0-20090803125803.jar
(where the
20090803125803 is just a YYYYMMDDHHMMSS time-stamp of when the jar is
built).
The only real requirement is that the time-stamp be a part of the
generated file's filename.
The same time-stamp has to be included within a version.properties file
inside the generated jar.
This information is included in the generated pom.properties when you run,
e.g., mvn package but is commented out:
#Generated by Maven
#Mon Aug 03 12:57:17 PDT 2009
Any ideas on where to start would be helpful! Thanks!

Maven versions 2.1.0-M1 or newer have built in special variable maven.build.timestamp.
<build>
<finalName>${project.artifactId}-${project.version}-${maven.build.timestamp}</finalName>
</build>
See Maven documentation for more details.
For older Maven versions a look at maven-timestamp-plugin or buildnumber-maven-plugin.
If you use maven-timestamp-plugin, you can use something like this to manipulate resulting artifact name.
<build>
<finalName>${project.artifactId}-${project.version}-${timestamp}</finalName>
</build>
And this configuration for buildnumber-maven-plugin should create a ${timestamp} property which contains the timestamp value. There doesn't seem to be a way to create the version.properties file directly with this plugin.
<configuration>
<format>{0,date,yyyyMMddHHmmss}</format>
<items>
<item>timestamp</item>
</items>
</configuration>
These
three sites are also worth checking out.

If you use a version of Maven >= 2.1.0-M1, then you can use the ${maven.build.timestamp} property.
For more info, see:
http://maven.apache.org/guides/introduction/introduction-to-the-pom.html#Available_Variables

This post (especially the below part) is also very useful and practical for this issue.
Stamping Version Number and Build Time in a Properties File with Maven
The pom will look like this
...
<properties>
....
<!-- Timestamp of build -->
<timestamp>${maven.build.timestamp}</timestamp>
<maven.build.timestamp.format>yyyy_MM_dd_HH_mm</maven.build.timestamp.format>
</properties>
...
<build>
<finalName>${project.artifactId}-${project.version}-${timestamp}</finalName>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
....
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
....
and the package name is MyProject-1.0.0-2015_03_02_13_46.war

If you need the time in a timezone other than UTC (the default when you use ${maven.build.timestamp}) you could use the build-helper-maven-plugin. See more in Brief examples on how to use the Build Helper Maven Plugin's goals.
Anyway, this is how I've got the timestamp in GMT-5 and put it in the final name of my artifact:
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
<artifactId>build-helper-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>1.9.1</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<id>timestamp-property</id>
<goals>
<goal>timestamp-property</goal>
</goals>
<configuration>
<name>current.time</name>
<pattern>yyyyMMdd-HHmmss</pattern>
<timeZone>GMT-5</timeZone>
</configuration>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-jar-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.4</version>
<configuration>
<finalName>${project.name}-${current.time}</finalName>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>

When a SNAPSHOT project is deployed, by default a timestamp is used unless you override it in the deploy plugin. If you're not getting unique timestamps, it is probably down to a configuration of your Maven repository. As the other answer says though, use the timestamp or buildnumber plugin for releases.

We need a newer answer :)
It is build in now: http://maven.apache.org/guides/introduction/introduction-to-the-pom.html#Available_Variables
use ${maven.build.timestamp}