Exclude all transitive dependencies of a single dependency

Question

In Maven2  to exclude a single transitive dependency  I have to do something like this    lt dependency gt     lt groupId gt sample group lt  groupId gt     lt artifactId gt sample-artifactB lt  artifactId gt     lt version gt 1 lt  version gt      lt exclusions gt        lt exclusion gt          lt groupId gt sample group lt  groupId gt          lt artifactId gt sample-artifactAB lt  artifactId gt        lt  exclusion gt      lt  exclusions gt   lt  dependency gt    The problem with this approach is that I have to do this for every transitive dependency contributed by sample-artifactB   Is there a way to use some sort of wildcard to exclude all transitive dependencies at once instead of one-by-one

User · Accepted Answer

For maven2 there isn t a way to do what you describe  For maven 3  there is   If you are using maven 3 please see another answer for this question  For maven 2 I d recommend creating your own custom pom for the dependency that has your  lt exclusions gt    For projects that need to use that dependency  set the dependency to your custom pom instead of the typical artifact   While that does not necessarily allow you exclude all transitive dependencies with a single  lt exclusion gt   it does allow you only have to write your dependency once and all of your projects don t need to maintain unnecessary and long exclusion lists

User · Answer

In a simular issue I had the desired dependency declared with scope provided  With this approach the transitive dependencies are fetched but are NOT included in the package phase  which is what you want  I also like this solution in terms of maintenance  because there is no pom  or custom pom as in whaley s solution  needed to maintain  you only need to provide the specific dependency in the container and be done

User · Answer

There is a workaround for this  if you set the scope of a dependency to runtime  transitive dependencies will be excluded  Though be aware this means you need to add in additional processing if you want to package the runtime dependency   To include the runtime dependency in any packaging  you can use the maven-dependency-plugin s copy goal for a specific artifact

User · Answer

Currently  there s no way to exclude more than one transitive dependency at a time  but there is a feature request for this on the Maven JIRA site   https   issues apache org jira browse MNG-2315

User · Answer

One thing I have found useful   If you put the dependency with the exclusions in the dependencyManagement section of either the parent POM for your project  or in an importable dependency management POM  then you don t need to repeat the exclusion  or the version    For example  if your parent POM has    lt dependencyManagement gt       lt dependencies gt                            lt dependency gt               lt groupId gt commons-fileupload lt  groupId gt               lt artifactId gt commons-fileupload lt  artifactId gt               lt version gt 1 2 1 lt  version gt               lt exclusions gt                   lt exclusion gt                       lt groupId gt junit lt  groupId gt                       lt artifactId gt junit lt  artifactId gt                   lt  exclusion gt               lt  exclusions gt           lt  dependency gt               lt  dependencies gt   lt  dependencyManagement gt    Then the modules in your project can simply declare the dependency as            lt dependency gt               lt groupId gt commons-fileupload lt  groupId gt               lt artifactId gt commons-fileupload lt  artifactId gt           lt  dependency gt    The  in the parent POM will specify both the version and the exclusions  I use this technique for nearly all of our projects and it eliminates a lot of repetition

User · Answer

Use the latest maven in your classpath   It will remove the duplicate artifacts and keep the latest maven artifact

User · Answer

I use the following workaround   instead of trying to exclude the artifact in all appropriate dependencies  I draw the dependency as  provided  at top level  For example  to avoid shipping xml-apis  whatever version          lt dependency gt           lt groupId gt xml-apis lt  groupId gt           lt artifactId gt xml-apis lt  artifactId gt           lt version gt  1 0   lt  version gt           lt scope gt provided lt  scope gt       lt  dependency gt

User · Answer

if you need to exclude all transitive dependencies from a dependency artifact that you are going to include in an assembly  you can specify this in the descriptor for the assembly-plugin    lt assembly gt       lt id gt myApp lt  id gt       lt formats gt           lt format gt zip lt  format gt       lt  formats gt       lt dependencySets gt           lt dependencySet gt               lt useTransitiveDependencies gt false lt  useTransitiveDependencies gt               lt includes gt  lt include gt   struts2-spring-plugin jar 2 1 6 lt  include gt  lt  includes gt           lt  dependencySet gt       lt  dependencySets gt   lt  assembly gt

User · Answer

What has worked for me  may be a newer feature of Maven  is merely doing wildcards in the exclusion element   I have a multi-module project that contains an  app  module that is referenced in two WAR-packaged modules  One of those WAR-packaged modules really only needs the domain classes  and I haven t separated them out of the app module yet   I found this to work    lt dependency gt       lt groupId gt   project groupId  lt  groupId gt       lt artifactId gt app lt  artifactId gt       lt version gt   project version  lt  version gt       lt exclusions gt           lt exclusion gt               lt groupId gt   lt  groupId gt               lt artifactId gt   lt  artifactId gt           lt  exclusion gt       lt  exclusions gt   lt  dependency gt    The wildcard on both groupId and artifactId exclude all dependencies that normally would propagate through to the module using this dependency

User · Answer

If you develop under Eclipse  you can in the POM Editor  advanced tabs enabled  dependency graph look for the dependency you want to exclude of your project and then   right click on it -   Exclude Maven Artifact      and Eclipse will make the exclusion for you without the need to find out on which dependency the lib is linked

User · Answer

Three years ago I recommended using Version 99 Does Not Exist  but now I ve figured out a better way  especially since Version 99 is offline   In your project s parent POM  use maven-enforcer-plugin to fail the build if the unwanted dependency creeps into the build  This can be done using the plugin s banned dependencies rule    lt plugin gt       lt artifactId gt maven-enforcer-plugin lt  artifactId gt       lt version gt 1 0 1 lt  version gt       lt executions gt           lt execution gt               lt id gt only-junit-dep-is-used lt  id gt               lt goals gt                   lt goal gt enforce lt  goal gt               lt  goals gt               lt configuration gt                   lt rules gt                       lt bannedDependencies gt                           lt excludes gt                               lt exclude gt junit junit lt  exclude gt                           lt  excludes gt                       lt  bannedDependencies gt                   lt  rules gt               lt  configuration gt           lt  execution gt       lt  executions gt   lt  plugin gt    Then when that alerts you about an unwanted dependency  exclude it in the parent POM s  lt dependencyManagement gt  section    lt dependency gt       lt groupId gt org springframework batch lt  groupId gt       lt artifactId gt spring-batch-test lt  artifactId gt       lt version gt 2 1 8 RELEASE lt  version gt       lt exclusions gt           lt exclusion gt               lt groupId gt junit lt  groupId gt               lt artifactId gt junit lt  artifactId gt           lt  exclusion gt       lt  exclusions gt   lt  dependency gt    This way the unwanted dependency won t show up accidentally  unlike just an  lt exclusion gt  which is easy to forget   it won t be available even during compile time  unlike provided scope   there are no bogus dependencies  unlike Version 99  and it ll work without a custom repository  unlike Version 99   This approach will even work based on the artifact s version  classifiers  scope or a whole groupId - see the documentation for details

User · Answer

What is your reason for excluding all transitive dependencies   If there is a particular artifact  such as commons-logging  which you need to exclude from every dependency  the Version 99 Does Not Exist approach might help     Update 2012  Don t use this approach  Use maven-enforcer-plugin and exclusions  Version 99 produces bogus dependencies and the Version 99 repository is offline  there are similar mirrors but you can t rely on them to stay online forever either  it s best to use only Maven Central

[maven-2] Exclude all transitive dependencies of a single dependency

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