Expose war package build date as a rest service, using maven, spring and jax-rs

build.properties

# build properties 
# this file is supposed to be a maven filtered resource, variables are replaced by build process 
build.name=${pom.name}
build.version=${pom.version}
build.date=${buildDateTime}

context.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
	xmlns:tx="http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx" 
	xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
	xmlns:p="http://www.springframework.org/schema/p"
	xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	xmlns:util="http://www.springframework.org/schema/util"
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans 
	http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.1.xsd
	http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx
	http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx/spring-tx-3.1.xsd
	http://www.springframework.org/schema/context
	http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.1.xsd
	http://www.springframework.org/schema/util
	http://www.springframework.org/schema/util/spring-util-3.1.xsd">
	
	<context:property-placeholder />
	<context:annotation-config />
		
	<util:properties id="buildprop" location="classpath:build.properties" />
	
    <!-- ...bean definitions etc... -->
	
</beans>

pom.xml

<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
	<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
	<!-- ...project specific stuff... -->

	<properties>
		<!-- ...other properties... -->
		<buildDateTime>${maven.build.timestamp}</buildDateTime>
	</properties>

	
   
    <!-- ...dependencies... -->
 
	<build>
	
		<!-- ...plugins... -->
		
		<resources>
			<resource>
				<directory>src/main/resources</directory>
				<filtering>false</filtering>
				<includes>
					<include>**/*.xml</include>
				</includes>
			</resource>
			<resource>
				<directory>src/main/resources/build</directory>
				<filtering>true</filtering>
				<includes>
					<include>**/*.properties</include>
				</includes>
			</resource>
		</resources>
	</build>
</project>

TestResource.java

import javax.ws.rs.GET;
import javax.ws.rs.Path;
import javax.ws.rs.Produces;
import javax.ws.rs.core.MediaType;
import javax.ws.rs.core.Response;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Value;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Component;

/**
 * @author Inanc Sevinc
 *
 */
@Path("/")
@Component
public class TestResource{
	
	@Value("#{buildprop['build.date']}")
	private String buildDate;

	/**
	 * @return build date of the package which is defined in build.properties
	 */
	@GET
	@Path("/version")
	@Produces(MediaType.TEXT_PLAIN)
	public Response version() {
		try {
			return Response.ok(buildDate).build();
		} catch (Exception e) {
			return Response.status(Response.Status.INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR)
				.entity("version info couldn't be retrieved").build();
		}
	}
}