Compiling java class from non-java file

Question

I have a set of ruby files where I have some string of type:

@something = [Whatever.new('1rabbit'), 
              Whatever.new('2rabbit'), 
              Whatever.new('3rabbit')]

I would like to parse out this information from the ruby file during compilation phase (javac run with maven - but i think it is no difference how javac is run), and create a .class enum of type:

public enum Something {
  1RABBIT,
  2RABBIT,
  3RABBIT
}

and store it into the target folder. Then, I can use this enum whatever I want (after this initial compilation). I looked into AnnotationProcessors, and bytecode generation, but the first requires annotations, and the second is done during runtime. And I cannot find out how to do it properly.

What is the correct tool to do this, and how?

Answer 1

mavens life cycle has a generate sources phase. There you cold use the exec-maven-plugin to run a script generating the enums.