Maven how to override the dependency added by a library

Question

Here s my generic problem   My project P depends on A which depends on B which depends on C which depends on version 1 0 1 of D    There s a problem with version 1 0 1 of D and I want to force the use of another module  I don t know how to declare this in my project s POMs since I haven t added a dependency on D directly  It s C which declared the dependency on D   Important  In this case  not only the version is changed  but the group  amp  artifact as well  So it s not just a matter of overriding the version of the dependency  but rather  of excluding a module and including another one    In the concrete case  D is StAX whose 1 0 1 has a bug  According to the notes in the bug   the problems were solved by replacing the stax-api-1 0 1  maven GroupId   stax  by stax-api-1 0-2  maven GroupId   javax xml stream   so I m trying just that   Thus  D   stax stax-api jar 1 0 1 and C   org apache xmlbeans xmlbeans jar 2 3 0  I m using maven 2 0 9 in case it matters   Output of mvn dependency tree   mvn dependency tree    snip     INFO   - org apache poi poi-ooxml jar 3 6 compile  INFO      - org apache poi poi-ooxml-schemas jar 3 6 compile  INFO         - org apache xmlbeans xmlbeans jar 2 3 0 compile  INFO            - stax stax-api jar 1 0 1 compile   In my project s POM I have the following dependency on  A     lt dependency gt       lt groupId gt org apache poi lt  groupId gt       lt artifactId gt poi lt  artifactId gt       lt version gt 3 6 lt  version gt   lt  dependency gt   lt dependency gt       lt groupId gt org apache poi lt  groupId gt       lt artifactId gt poi-ooxml lt  artifactId gt       lt version gt 3 6 lt  version gt   lt  dependency gt    Thanks in advance

User · Answer

I also had trouble overruling a dependency in a third party library. I used scot's approach with the exclusion but I also added the dependency with the newer version in the pom. (I used Maven 3.3.3)

So for the stAX example it would look like this:

<dependency>
  <groupId>a.group</groupId>
  <artifactId>a.artifact</artifactId>
  <version>a.version</version>
  <exclusions>
    <!--  STAX comes with Java 1.6 -->
    <exclusion>
      <artifactId>stax-api</artifactId>
      <groupId>javax.xml.stream</groupId>
    </exclusion>
    <exclusion>
      <artifactId>stax-api</artifactId>
      <groupId>stax</groupId>
    </exclusion>
  </exclusions>
<dependency>

<dependency>
    <groupId>javax.xml.stream</groupId>
    <artifactId>stax-api</artifactId>
    <version>1.0-2</version>
</dependency>

User · Answer

The accepted answer is correct but I d like to add my two cents  I ve run into a problem where I had a project A that had a project B as a dependency  Both projects use slf4j but project B uses log4j while project A uses logback  Project B uses slf4j 1 6 1  while project A uses slf4j 1 7 5  due to the already included logback 1 2 3 dependency    The problem  Project A couldn t find a function that exists on slf4j 1 7 5  after checking eclipe s dependency hierarchy tab I found out that during build it was using slf4j 1 6 1 from project B  instead of using logback s slf4j 1 7 5   I solved the issue by changing the order of the dependencies on project A pom  when I moved project B entry below the logback entry then maven started to build the project using slf4j 1 7 5   Edit  Adding the slf4j 1 7 5 dependency before Project B dependency worked too

User · Answer

What you put inside the  lt  dependencies gt  tag of the root pom will be included by all child modules of the root pom  If all your modules use that dependency  this is the way to go   However  if only 3 out of 10 of your child modules use some dependency  you do not want this dependency to be included in all your child modules  In that case  you can just put the dependency inside the  lt  dependencyManagement gt   This will make sure that any child module that needs the dependency must declare it in their own pom file  but they will use the same version of that dependency as specified in your  lt  dependencyManagement gt  tag   You can also use the  lt  dependencyManagement gt  to modify the version used in transitive dependencies  because the version declared in the upper most pom file is the one that will be used  This can be useful if your project A includes an external project B v1 0 that includes another external project C v1 0  Sometimes it happens that a security breach is found in project C v1 0 which is corrected in v1 1  but the developers of B are slow to update their project to use v1 1 of C  In that case  you can simply declare a dependency on C v1 1 in your project s root pom inside    and everything will be good  assuming that B v1 0 will still be able to compile with C v1 1

User · Answer

Simply specify the version in your current pom  The version specified here will override other      Forcing a version   A version will always be honoured if it is declared in the current POM with a particular version - however  it should be noted that this will also affect other poms downstream if it is itself depended on using transitive dependencies      Resources     Dependency Mediation and Conflict Resolution Introduction to the Dependency Mechanism

User · Answer

Alternatively  you can just exclude the dependency that you don t want  STAX is included in JDK 1 6  so if you re using 1 6 you can just exclude it entirely   My example below is slightly wrong for you - you only need one of the two exclusions but I m not quite sure which one  There are other versions of Stax floating about  in my example below I was importing A which imported B which imported C  amp  D which each  through yet more transitive dependencies  imported different versions of Stax  So in my dependency on  A   I excluded both versions of Stax    lt dependency gt     lt groupId gt a group lt  groupId gt     lt artifactId gt a artifact lt  artifactId gt     lt version gt a version lt  version gt     lt exclusions gt       lt  --  STAX comes with Java 1 6 -- gt       lt exclusion gt         lt artifactId gt stax-api lt  artifactId gt         lt groupId gt javax xml stream lt  groupId gt       lt  exclusion gt       lt exclusion gt         lt artifactId gt stax-api lt  artifactId gt         lt groupId gt stax lt  groupId gt       lt  exclusion gt     lt  exclusions gt   lt dependency gt

[maven-2] Maven: how to override the dependency added by a library

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