Intellij maven options - What are differences between them

Question

Im a bit confused with maven options in intellij.

What are the differences between and when would you use them?

• Reimport
• Generate Sources and Update Folders
• Download Sources
• Download Documentation

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Doubletalk

The "Download XXX" does exactly what you'd expect. – Cess

Answer 1

• Reimport forces a reload of the POM. This should only be necessary if you have any major changes.
• Generate Sources generates code. Think WSDL to Java, etc.
• Downoad ... downloads the source or documentation packages for dependencies. Generally not required, but it can help if you try to debug your code and you want to jump into (nicely formatted and documented) dependencies or with writing proper JavaDocs.

PS: In rare cases when your project is really messed up and Reimport does not help, use File -> Invalidate Caches / Restart...

Twobit

Actually, downloading the source helps with javadocs when using third-party libraries. I use it every day. – Hube

I get that Reimport pulls/refreshes down all dependencies in the POM and Download sources/docs makes sense as well (not needed for build, but useful in IDE for debuging). I'm still a little uncertain of what code is generated by Generate Sources can you elaborate? – Innes

There might be better examples, but the first one that comes to my mind are WSDL files (for SOAP web services) where you can either go the code first (generate the WSDL file from the code) or contract first (generate the stub classes from the WSDL file). – Twobit