How to see the classes generated by lombok in maven spring boot application

Question

I am trying to use lombok in my application which is based on spring boot and maven configuration.

I have added the dependency:

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.projectlombok</groupId>
        <artifactId>lombok</artifactId>
        <version>1.18.16</version>
        <scope>provided</scope>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

in my pom.xml. Also as I am using STS, I have installed Lombok into my sts by running the jar. I am able to use Lombok annotations and use the getters, setters, etc. but I am not able to see my generated classes/methods in target/generated-sources folder.

Is there a particular reason, why I am not able to see those generated classes and how STS or maven is able to use these generated classes/methods?

Can any one help me understand? And if possible how to view those generated classes/methods?

Note: My source code folder is still src/main/java only.

Answer 1

Your project compiled class files are located in the target/classes folder. This folder is not visible in the default view i.e., Package Explorer view. You need to enable the Navigator (now deprecated) view from Window -> Show View to see the contents of the target folder. Once done, your compiled classes will be visible in the target/classes folder according to your project package structure.

Answer 2

Lombok doesn't work by outputting source into target/generated-sources; that technique only allows adding new source files, not modifying the classes being compiled. Lombok instead works by hacking into the compiler internals and messing with the compilation process itself.