Can I add jars to maven 2 build classpath without installing them

Question

Maven2 is driving me crazy during the experimentation   quick and dirty mock-up phase of development     I have a pom xml file that defines the dependencies for the web-app framework I want to use  and I can quickly generate starter projects from that file  However  sometimes I want to link to a 3rd party library that doesn t already have a pom xml file defined  so rather than create the pom xml file for the 3rd party lib by hand and install it  and add the dependency to my pom xml  I would just like to tell Maven   In addition to my defined dependencies  include any jars that are in  lib too      It seems like this ought to be simple  but if it is  I am missing something   Any pointers on how to do this are greatly appreciated  Short of that  if there is a simple way to point maven to a  lib directory and easily create a pom xml with all the enclosed jars mapped to a single dependency which I could then name   install and link to in one fell swoop would also suffice

User · Answer

You may create local repository on your project

For example if you have libs folder in project structure

In libs folder you should create directory structure like: /groupId/artifactId/version/artifactId-version.jar

In your pom.xml you should register repository

<repository>
    <id>ProjectRepo</id>
    <name>ProjectRepo</name>
    <url>file://${project.basedir}/libs</url>
</repository>

and add dependency as usual

<dependency>
    <groupId>groupId</groupId>
    <artifactId>artifactId</artifactId>
    <version>version</version>
</dependency>

That is all.

For detailed information: How to add external libraries in Maven

User · Answer

Problems of popular approaches Most of the answers you ll find around the internet will suggest you to either install the dependency to your local repository or specify a  quot system quot  scope in the pom and distribute the dependency with the source of your project  But both of these solutions are actually flawed  Why you shouldn t apply the  quot Install to Local Repo quot  approach When you install a dependency to your local repository it remains there  Your distribution artifact will do fine as long as it has access to this repository  The problem is in most cases this repository will reside on your local machine  so there ll be no way to resolve this dependency on any other machine  Clearly making your artifact depend on a specific machine is not a way to handle things  Otherwise this dependency will have to be locally installed on every machine working with that project which is not any better  Why you shouldn t apply the  quot System Scope quot  approach The jars you depend on with the  quot System Scope quot  approach neither get installed to any repository or attached to your target packages  That s why your distribution package won t have a way to resolve that dependency when used  That I believe was the reason why the use of system scope even got deprecated  Anyway you don t want to rely on a deprecated feature  The static in-project repository solution After putting this in your pom   lt repository gt       lt id gt repo lt  id gt       lt releases gt           lt enabled gt true lt  enabled gt           lt checksumPolicy gt ignore lt  checksumPolicy gt       lt  releases gt       lt snapshots gt           lt enabled gt false lt  enabled gt       lt  snapshots gt       lt url gt file     project basedir  repo lt  url gt   lt  repository gt   for each artifact with a group id of form x y z Maven will include the following location inside your project dir in its search for artifacts  repo    - x        - y            - z                -   artifactId                     -   version                         -   artifactId -  version  jar  To elaborate more on this you can read this blog post  Use Maven to install to project repo Instead of creating this structure by hand I recommend to use a Maven plugin to install your jars as artifacts  So  to install an artifact to an in-project repository under repo folder execute  mvn install install-file -DlocalRepositoryPath repo -DcreateChecksum true -Dpackaging jar -Dfile  your-jar  -DgroupId       -DartifactId       -Dversion        If you ll choose this approach you ll be able to simplify the repository declaration in pom to   lt repository gt       lt id gt repo lt  id gt       lt url gt file     project basedir  repo lt  url gt   lt  repository gt   A helper script Since executing installation command for each lib is kinda annoying and definitely error prone  I ve created a utility script which automatically installs all the jars from a lib folder to a project repository  while automatically resolving all metadata  groupId  artifactId and etc   from names of files  The script also prints out the dependencies xml for you to copy-paste in your pom  Include the dependencies in your target package When you ll have your in-project repository created you ll have solved a problem of distributing the dependencies of the project with its source  but since then your project s target artifact will depend on non-published jars  so when you ll install it to a repository it will have unresolvable dependencies  To beat this problem I suggest to include these dependencies in your target package  This you can do with either the Assembly Plugin or better with the OneJar Plugin  The official documentaion on OneJar is easy to grasp

User · Answer

What seems simplest to me is just configure your maven-compiler-plugin to include your custom jars  This example will load any jar files in a lib directory             lt plugin gt               lt groupId gt org apache maven plugins lt  groupId gt               lt artifactId gt maven-compiler-plugin lt  artifactId gt               lt configuration gt                   lt includes gt                       lt include gt lib   jar lt  include gt                   lt  includes gt               lt  configuration gt           lt  plugin gt

User · Answer

Maven install plugin has command line usage to install a jar into the local repository  POM is optional but you will have to specify the GroupId  ArtifactId  Version and Packaging  all the POM stuff

User · Answer

You may create local repository on your project

For example if you have libs folder in project structure

In libs folder you should create directory structure like: /groupId/artifactId/version/artifactId-version.jar

In your pom.xml you should register repository

<repository>
    <id>ProjectRepo</id>
    <name>ProjectRepo</name>
    <url>file://${project.basedir}/libs</url>
</repository>

and add dependency as usual

<dependency>
    <groupId>groupId</groupId>
    <artifactId>artifactId</artifactId>
    <version>version</version>
</dependency>

That is all.

For detailed information: How to add external libraries in Maven

User · Answer

The problem with systemPath is that the dependencies  jars won t get distributed along your artifacts as transitive dependencies  Try what I ve posted here  Is it best to Mavenize your project jar files or put them in WEB-INF lib   Then declare dependencies as usual   And please read the footer note

User · Answer

Maven install plugin has command line usage to install a jar into the local repository  POM is optional but you will have to specify the GroupId  ArtifactId  Version and Packaging  all the POM stuff

User · Answer

A strange solution I found    using Eclipse    create simple  non-maven  java project add a Main class add all the jars to the classpath export Runnable JAR  it s important  because no other way here to do it  select Extract required libraries into generated JAR decide the licence issues tadammm   install the generated jar to your m2repo add this single dependency to your other projects    cheers  Balint

User · Answer

For those that didn t find a good answer here  this is what we are doing to get a jar with all the necessary dependencies in it  This answer  https   stackoverflow com a 7623805 1084306  mentions to use the Maven Assembly plugin but doesn t actually give an example in the answer  And if you don t read all the way to the end of the answer  it s pretty lengthy   you may miss it  Adding the below to your pom xml will generate target   PROJECT NAME -  VERSION -jar-with-dependencies jar           lt plugin gt               lt groupId gt org apache maven plugins lt  groupId gt               lt artifactId gt maven-assembly-plugin lt  artifactId gt               lt version gt 2 4 1 lt  version gt               lt configuration gt                   lt  -- get all project dependencies -- gt                   lt descriptorRefs gt                       lt descriptorRef gt jar-with-dependencies lt  descriptorRef gt                   lt  descriptorRefs gt                   lt  -- MainClass in mainfest make a executable jar -- gt                   lt archive gt                     lt manifest gt                       lt mainClass gt my package mainclass lt  mainClass gt                     lt  manifest gt                   lt  archive gt                lt  configuration gt               lt executions gt                 lt execution gt                   lt id gt make-assembly lt  id gt                   lt  -- bind to the packaging phase -- gt                   lt phase gt package lt  phase gt                    lt goals gt                       lt goal gt single lt  goal gt                   lt  goals gt                 lt  execution gt               lt  executions gt           lt  plugin gt

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I just wanted a quick and dirty workaround    I couldn t run the script from Nikita Volkov  syntax error   it requires a strict format for the jar names   I made this Perl script which works with whatever format for the jar file names  and it generates the dependencies in an xml so it can be copy pasted directly in a pom   If you want to use it  make sure you understand what the script is doing  you may need to change the lib folder and the value for the groupId or artifactId        usr bin perl  use strict  use warnings   open my  fh    gt     dependencies xml   or die  Could not open file  dependencies xml       foreach my  file  glob  lib   jar          print   file n       my  groupId    my mess       my  artifactId           my  version    0 1-SNAPSHOT       if   file                 -  0-9v          jar               artifactId    1          if  defined  3                  version    3                     mvn install install-file -Dfile  file -DgroupId  groupId -DartifactId  artifactId -Dversion  version -Dpackaging jar           print  fh   lt dependency gt  n t lt groupId gt  groupId lt  groupId gt  n t lt artifactId gt  artifactId lt  artifactId gt  n t lt version gt  version lt  version gt  n lt  dependency gt  n           print     gt   groupId  artifactId  version n         else           print        BEUH    n           close  fh

User · Answer

To install the 3rd party jar which is not in maven repository use maven-install-plugin   Below are steps    Download the jar file manually from the source  website  Create a folder and place your jar file in it  Run the below command to install the 3rd party jar in your local maven repository      mvn install install-file -Dfile  -DgroupId    -DartifactId  -Dversion  -Dpackaging    Below is the e g one I used it for simonsite log4j     mvn install install-file   -Dfile  Users athanka git MyProject repo log4j-rolling-appender jar -DgroupId uk org simonsite -DartifactId log4j-rolling-appender -Dversion 20150607-2059 -Dpackaging jar    In the pom xml include the dependency as below      lt dependency gt            lt groupId gt uk org simonsite lt  groupId gt           lt artifactId gt log4j-rolling-appender lt  artifactId gt           lt version gt 20150607-2059 lt  version gt      lt  dependency gt    Run the mvn clean install command to create your packaging   Below is the reference link   https   maven apache org guides mini guide-3rd-party-jars-local html

User · Answer

The solution for scope  system  approach in Java   public static void main String   args            String filepath     Users Downloads lib            try  Stream lt Path gt  walk   Files walk Paths get filepath               List lt String gt  result   walk filter Files  isRegularFile                   map x - gt  x toString    collect Collectors toList                      String indentation                           for  String s   result                        System out println indentation   indentation     lt dependency gt                         System out println indentation   indentation   indentation     lt groupId gt                                 s replace filepath      replace   jar                                       lt  groupId gt                         System out println indentation   indentation   indentation     lt artifactId gt                                 s replace filepath      replace   jar                                       lt  artifactId gt                         System out println indentation   indentation   indentation     lt version gt                                 s replace filepath      replace   jar                                       lt  version gt                         System out println indentation   indentation   indentation     lt scope gt system lt  scope gt                         System out println indentation   indentation   indentation     lt systemPath gt     s     lt  systemPath gt                         System out println indentation   indentation     lt  dependency gt                              catch  IOException e            e printStackTrace

User · Answer

Maven install plugin has command line usage to install a jar into the local repository  POM is optional but you will have to specify the GroupId  ArtifactId  Version and Packaging  all the POM stuff

User · Answer

After having really long discussion with CloudBees guys about properly maven packaging of such kind of JARs  they made an interesting good proposal for a solution  Creation of a fake Maven project which attaches a pre-existing JAR as a primary artifact  running into belonged POM install install-file execution  Here is an example of such kinf of POM    lt build gt       lt plugins gt           lt plugin gt               lt groupId gt org apache maven plugins lt  groupId gt               lt artifactId gt maven-install-plugin lt  artifactId gt               lt version gt 2 3 1 lt  version gt               lt executions gt                   lt execution gt                       lt id gt image-util-id lt  id gt                       lt phase gt install lt  phase gt                       lt goals gt                           lt goal gt install-file lt  goal gt                       lt  goals gt                       lt configuration gt                           lt file gt   basedir  file-you-want-to-include jar lt  file gt                           lt groupId gt   project groupId  lt  groupId gt                           lt artifactId gt   project artifactId  lt  artifactId gt                           lt version gt   project version  lt  version gt                           lt packaging gt jar lt  packaging gt                       lt  configuration gt                   lt  execution gt               lt  executions gt           lt  plugin gt       lt  plugins gt   lt  build gt   But in order to implement it  existing project structure should be changed  First  you should have in mind that for each such kind of JAR there should be created different fake Maven project  module   And there should be created a parent Maven project including all sub-modules which are   all JAR wrappers and existing main project  The structure could be    root project  this contains the parent POM file includes all sub-modules with module XML element   POM packaging  JAR 1 wrapper Maven child project  POM packaging  JAR 2 wrapper Maven child project  POM packaging  main existing Maven child project  WAR  JAR  EAR      packaging   When parent running via mvn install or mvn packaging is forced and sub-modules will be executed  That could be concerned as a minus here  since project structure should be changed  but offers a non static solution at the end

User · Answer

For throw away code only  set scope    system and just make up a groupId  artifactId  and version   lt dependency gt       lt groupId gt org swinglabs lt  groupId gt       lt artifactId gt swingx lt  artifactId gt       lt version gt 0 9 2 lt  version gt       lt scope gt system lt  scope gt       lt systemPath gt   project basedir  lib swingx-0 9 3 jar lt  systemPath gt   lt  dependency gt    Note  system dependencies are not copied into resulted jar war  see How to include system dependencies in war built using maven

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I found another way to do this  see here from a Heroku post  To summarize  sorry about some copy  amp  paste    Create a repo directory under your root folder     yourproject  - pom xml  - src  - repo    Run this to install the jar to your local repo directory    mvn deploy deploy-file -Durl file    path to yourproject repo  -Dfile mylib-1 0 jar -DgroupId com example -DartifactId mylib -Dpackaging jar -Dversion 1 0    Add this your pom xml      lt repositories gt       lt  --other repositories if any-- gt       lt repository gt           lt id gt project local lt  id gt           lt name gt project lt  name gt           lt url gt file   project basedir  repo lt  url gt       lt  repository gt   lt  repositories gt     lt dependency gt       lt groupId gt com example lt  groupId gt       lt artifactId gt mylib lt  artifactId gt       lt version gt 1 0 lt  version gt     lt  dependency gt

User · Answer

This is how we add or install a local jar       lt dependency gt           lt groupId gt org example lt  groupId gt           lt artifactId gt iamajar lt  artifactId gt           lt version gt 1 0 lt  version gt           lt scope gt system lt  scope gt           lt systemPath gt   project basedir  lib iamajar jar lt  systemPath gt       lt  dependency gt    i gave some default groupId and artifactId because they are mandatory

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This is what I have done  it also works around the package issue and it works with checked out code   I created a new folder in the project in my case I used repo  but feel free to use src repo  In my POM I had a dependency that is not in any public maven repositories   lt dependency gt       lt groupId gt com dovetail lt  groupId gt       lt artifactId gt zoslog4j lt  artifactId gt       lt version gt 1 0 1 lt  version gt       lt scope gt runtime lt  scope gt   lt  dependency gt    I then created the following directories repo com dovetail zoslog4j 1 0 1 and copied the JAR file into that folder   I created the following POM file to represent the downloaded file  this step is optional  but it removes a WARNING  and helps the next guy figure out where I got the file to begin with    lt  xml version  1 0  encoding  UTF-8    gt   lt 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  gt       lt modelVersion gt 4 0 0 lt  modelVersion gt       lt groupId gt com dovetail lt  groupId gt       lt artifactId gt zoslog4j lt  artifactId gt       lt packaging gt jar lt  packaging gt       lt version gt 1 0 1 lt  version gt       lt name gt z OS Log4J Appenders lt  name gt       lt url gt http   dovetail com downloads misc index html lt  url gt       lt description gt Apache Log4j Appender for z OS Logstreams  files  etc  lt  description gt   lt  project gt    Two optional files I create are the SHA1 checksums for the POM and the JAR to remove the missing checksum warnings   shasum -b  lt  repo com dovetail zoslog4j 1 0 1 zoslog4j-1 0 1 jar              gt  repo com dovetail zoslog4j 1 0 1 zoslog4j-1 0 1 jar sha1  shasum -b  lt  repo com dovetail zoslog4j 1 0 1 zoslog4j-1 0 1 pom              gt  repo com dovetail zoslog4j 1 0 1 zoslog4j-1 0 1 pom sha1   Finally I add the following fragment to my pom xml that allows me to refer to the local repository   lt repositories gt       lt repository gt           lt id gt project lt  id gt           lt url gt file      basedir  repo lt  url gt       lt  repository gt   lt  repositories gt

User · Answer

You really ought to get a framework in place via a repository and identifying your dependencies up front  Using the system scope is a common mistake people use  because they  don t care about the dependency management   The trouble is that doing this you end up with a perverted maven build that will not show maven in a normal condition  You would be better off following an approach like this

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If you want a quick and dirty solution  you can do the following  though I do not recommend this for anything except test projects  maven will complain in length that this is not proper    Add a dependency entry for each jar file you need  preferably with a perl script or something similar and copy paste that into your pom file       usr bin perl  foreach my  n   ARGV          n  s             print   lt dependency gt       lt groupId gt local dummy lt  groupId gt       lt artifactId gt  n lt  artifactId gt       lt version gt 0 0 1 lt  version gt       lt scope gt system lt  scope gt       lt systemPath gt    project basedir  lib  n lt  systemPath gt   lt  dependency gt

User · Answer

This doesn t answer how to add them to your POM  and may be a no brainer  but would just adding the lib dir to your classpath work  I know that is what I do when I need an external jar that I don t want to add to my Maven repos    Hope this helps

User · Answer

Maven install plugin has command line usage to install a jar into the local repository  POM is optional but you will have to specify the GroupId  ArtifactId  Version and Packaging  all the POM stuff

User · Answer

I found another way to do this  see here from a Heroku post  To summarize  sorry about some copy  amp  paste    Create a repo directory under your root folder     yourproject  - pom xml  - src  - repo    Run this to install the jar to your local repo directory    mvn deploy deploy-file -Durl file    path to yourproject repo  -Dfile mylib-1 0 jar -DgroupId com example -DartifactId mylib -Dpackaging jar -Dversion 1 0    Add this your pom xml      lt repositories gt       lt  --other repositories if any-- gt       lt repository gt           lt id gt project local lt  id gt           lt name gt project lt  name gt           lt url gt file   project basedir  repo lt  url gt       lt  repository gt   lt  repositories gt     lt dependency gt       lt groupId gt com example lt  groupId gt       lt artifactId gt mylib lt  artifactId gt       lt version gt 1 0 lt  version gt     lt  dependency gt

User · Answer

To install the 3rd party jar which is not in maven repository use maven-install-plugin   Below are steps    Download the jar file manually from the source  website  Create a folder and place your jar file in it  Run the below command to install the 3rd party jar in your local maven repository      mvn install install-file -Dfile  -DgroupId    -DartifactId  -Dversion  -Dpackaging    Below is the e g one I used it for simonsite log4j     mvn install install-file   -Dfile  Users athanka git MyProject repo log4j-rolling-appender jar -DgroupId uk org simonsite -DartifactId log4j-rolling-appender -Dversion 20150607-2059 -Dpackaging jar    In the pom xml include the dependency as below      lt dependency gt            lt groupId gt uk org simonsite lt  groupId gt           lt artifactId gt log4j-rolling-appender lt  artifactId gt           lt version gt 20150607-2059 lt  version gt      lt  dependency gt    Run the mvn clean install command to create your packaging   Below is the reference link   https   maven apache org guides mini guide-3rd-party-jars-local html

User · Answer

This is how we add or install a local jar       lt dependency gt           lt groupId gt org example lt  groupId gt           lt artifactId gt iamajar lt  artifactId gt           lt version gt 1 0 lt  version gt           lt scope gt system lt  scope gt           lt systemPath gt   project basedir  lib iamajar jar lt  systemPath gt       lt  dependency gt    i gave some default groupId and artifactId because they are mandatory

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What works in our project is what Archimedes Trajano wrote  but we had in our  m2 settings xml something like this     lt mirror gt     lt id gt nexus lt  id gt     lt mirrorOf gt   lt  mirrorOf gt     lt url gt http   url to our repository lt  url gt    lt  mirror gt    and the   should be changed to central  So if his answer doesn t work for you  you should check your settings xml

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For throw away code only  set scope    system and just make up a groupId  artifactId  and version   lt dependency gt       lt groupId gt org swinglabs lt  groupId gt       lt artifactId gt swingx lt  artifactId gt       lt version gt 0 9 2 lt  version gt       lt scope gt system lt  scope gt       lt systemPath gt   project basedir  lib swingx-0 9 3 jar lt  systemPath gt   lt  dependency gt    Note  system dependencies are not copied into resulted jar war  see How to include system dependencies in war built using maven

User · Answer

For those that didn t find a good answer here  this is what we are doing to get a jar with all the necessary dependencies in it  This answer  https   stackoverflow com a 7623805 1084306  mentions to use the Maven Assembly plugin but doesn t actually give an example in the answer  And if you don t read all the way to the end of the answer  it s pretty lengthy   you may miss it  Adding the below to your pom xml will generate target   PROJECT NAME -  VERSION -jar-with-dependencies jar           lt plugin gt               lt groupId gt org apache maven plugins lt  groupId gt               lt artifactId gt maven-assembly-plugin lt  artifactId gt               lt version gt 2 4 1 lt  version gt               lt configuration gt                   lt  -- get all project dependencies -- gt                   lt descriptorRefs gt                       lt descriptorRef gt jar-with-dependencies lt  descriptorRef gt                   lt  descriptorRefs gt                   lt  -- MainClass in mainfest make a executable jar -- gt                   lt archive gt                     lt manifest gt                       lt mainClass gt my package mainclass lt  mainClass gt                     lt  manifest gt                   lt  archive gt                lt  configuration gt               lt executions gt                 lt execution gt                   lt id gt make-assembly lt  id gt                   lt  -- bind to the packaging phase -- gt                   lt phase gt package lt  phase gt                    lt goals gt                       lt goal gt single lt  goal gt                   lt  goals gt                 lt  execution gt               lt  executions gt           lt  plugin gt

User · Answer

This is what I have done  it also works around the package issue and it works with checked out code   I created a new folder in the project in my case I used repo  but feel free to use src repo  In my POM I had a dependency that is not in any public maven repositories   lt dependency gt       lt groupId gt com dovetail lt  groupId gt       lt artifactId gt zoslog4j lt  artifactId gt       lt version gt 1 0 1 lt  version gt       lt scope gt runtime lt  scope gt   lt  dependency gt    I then created the following directories repo com dovetail zoslog4j 1 0 1 and copied the JAR file into that folder   I created the following POM file to represent the downloaded file  this step is optional  but it removes a WARNING  and helps the next guy figure out where I got the file to begin with    lt  xml version  1 0  encoding  UTF-8    gt   lt 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  gt       lt modelVersion gt 4 0 0 lt  modelVersion gt       lt groupId gt com dovetail lt  groupId gt       lt artifactId gt zoslog4j lt  artifactId gt       lt packaging gt jar lt  packaging gt       lt version gt 1 0 1 lt  version gt       lt name gt z OS Log4J Appenders lt  name gt       lt url gt http   dovetail com downloads misc index html lt  url gt       lt description gt Apache Log4j Appender for z OS Logstreams  files  etc  lt  description gt   lt  project gt    Two optional files I create are the SHA1 checksums for the POM and the JAR to remove the missing checksum warnings   shasum -b  lt  repo com dovetail zoslog4j 1 0 1 zoslog4j-1 0 1 jar              gt  repo com dovetail zoslog4j 1 0 1 zoslog4j-1 0 1 jar sha1  shasum -b  lt  repo com dovetail zoslog4j 1 0 1 zoslog4j-1 0 1 pom              gt  repo com dovetail zoslog4j 1 0 1 zoslog4j-1 0 1 pom sha1   Finally I add the following fragment to my pom xml that allows me to refer to the local repository   lt repositories gt       lt repository gt           lt id gt project lt  id gt           lt url gt file      basedir  repo lt  url gt       lt  repository gt   lt  repositories gt

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For throw away code only  set scope    system and just make up a groupId  artifactId  and version   lt dependency gt       lt groupId gt org swinglabs lt  groupId gt       lt artifactId gt swingx lt  artifactId gt       lt version gt 0 9 2 lt  version gt       lt scope gt system lt  scope gt       lt systemPath gt   project basedir  lib swingx-0 9 3 jar lt  systemPath gt   lt  dependency gt    Note  system dependencies are not copied into resulted jar war  see How to include system dependencies in war built using maven

User · Answer

A strange solution I found    using Eclipse    create simple  non-maven  java project add a Main class add all the jars to the classpath export Runnable JAR  it s important  because no other way here to do it  select Extract required libraries into generated JAR decide the licence issues tadammm   install the generated jar to your m2repo add this single dependency to your other projects    cheers  Balint

User · Answer

What seems simplest to me is just configure your maven-compiler-plugin to include your custom jars  This example will load any jar files in a lib directory             lt plugin gt               lt groupId gt org apache maven plugins lt  groupId gt               lt artifactId gt maven-compiler-plugin lt  artifactId gt               lt configuration gt                   lt includes gt                       lt include gt lib   jar lt  include gt                   lt  includes gt               lt  configuration gt           lt  plugin gt

User · Answer

For throw away code only  set scope    system and just make up a groupId  artifactId  and version   lt dependency gt       lt groupId gt org swinglabs lt  groupId gt       lt artifactId gt swingx lt  artifactId gt       lt version gt 0 9 2 lt  version gt       lt scope gt system lt  scope gt       lt systemPath gt   project basedir  lib swingx-0 9 3 jar lt  systemPath gt   lt  dependency gt    Note  system dependencies are not copied into resulted jar war  see How to include system dependencies in war built using maven

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Even though it does not exactly fit to your problem  I ll drop this here  My requirements were    Jars that can not be found in an online maven repository should be in the SVN  If one developer adds another library  the other developers should not be bothered with manually installing them  The IDE  NetBeans in my case  should be able find the sources and javadocs to provide autocompletion and help    Let s talk about  3  first  Just having the jars in a folder and somehow merging them into the final jar will not work for here  since the IDE will not understand this  This means all libraries have to be installed properly  However  I dont want to have everyone installing it using  mvn install-file    In my project I needed metawidget  Here we go    Create a new maven project  name it  shared-libs  or something like that   Download metawidget and extract the zip into src main lib  The folder doc api contains the javadocs  Create a zip of the content  doc api api zip   Modify the pom like this Build the project and the library will be installed  Add the library as a dependency to your project  or  if you added the dependency in the shared-libs project  add shared-libs as dependency to get all libraries at once    Every time you have a new library  just add a new execution and tell everyone to build the project again  you can improve this process with project hierachies

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I just wanted a quick and dirty workaround    I couldn t run the script from Nikita Volkov  syntax error   it requires a strict format for the jar names   I made this Perl script which works with whatever format for the jar file names  and it generates the dependencies in an xml so it can be copy pasted directly in a pom   If you want to use it  make sure you understand what the script is doing  you may need to change the lib folder and the value for the groupId or artifactId        usr bin perl  use strict  use warnings   open my  fh    gt     dependencies xml   or die  Could not open file  dependencies xml       foreach my  file  glob  lib   jar          print   file n       my  groupId    my mess       my  artifactId           my  version    0 1-SNAPSHOT       if   file                 -  0-9v          jar               artifactId    1          if  defined  3                  version    3                     mvn install install-file -Dfile  file -DgroupId  groupId -DartifactId  artifactId -Dversion  version -Dpackaging jar           print  fh   lt dependency gt  n t lt groupId gt  groupId lt  groupId gt  n t lt artifactId gt  artifactId lt  artifactId gt  n t lt version gt  version lt  version gt  n lt  dependency gt  n           print     gt   groupId  artifactId  version n         else           print        BEUH    n           close  fh

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Problems of popular approaches Most of the answers you ll find around the internet will suggest you to either install the dependency to your local repository or specify a  quot system quot  scope in the pom and distribute the dependency with the source of your project  But both of these solutions are actually flawed  Why you shouldn t apply the  quot Install to Local Repo quot  approach When you install a dependency to your local repository it remains there  Your distribution artifact will do fine as long as it has access to this repository  The problem is in most cases this repository will reside on your local machine  so there ll be no way to resolve this dependency on any other machine  Clearly making your artifact depend on a specific machine is not a way to handle things  Otherwise this dependency will have to be locally installed on every machine working with that project which is not any better  Why you shouldn t apply the  quot System Scope quot  approach The jars you depend on with the  quot System Scope quot  approach neither get installed to any repository or attached to your target packages  That s why your distribution package won t have a way to resolve that dependency when used  That I believe was the reason why the use of system scope even got deprecated  Anyway you don t want to rely on a deprecated feature  The static in-project repository solution After putting this in your pom   lt repository gt       lt id gt repo lt  id gt       lt releases gt           lt enabled gt true lt  enabled gt           lt checksumPolicy gt ignore lt  checksumPolicy gt       lt  releases gt       lt snapshots gt           lt enabled gt false lt  enabled gt       lt  snapshots gt       lt url gt file     project basedir  repo lt  url gt   lt  repository gt   for each artifact with a group id of form x y z Maven will include the following location inside your project dir in its search for artifacts  repo    - x        - y            - z                -   artifactId                     -   version                         -   artifactId -  version  jar  To elaborate more on this you can read this blog post  Use Maven to install to project repo Instead of creating this structure by hand I recommend to use a Maven plugin to install your jars as artifacts  So  to install an artifact to an in-project repository under repo folder execute  mvn install install-file -DlocalRepositoryPath repo -DcreateChecksum true -Dpackaging jar -Dfile  your-jar  -DgroupId       -DartifactId       -Dversion        If you ll choose this approach you ll be able to simplify the repository declaration in pom to   lt repository gt       lt id gt repo lt  id gt       lt url gt file     project basedir  repo lt  url gt   lt  repository gt   A helper script Since executing installation command for each lib is kinda annoying and definitely error prone  I ve created a utility script which automatically installs all the jars from a lib folder to a project repository  while automatically resolving all metadata  groupId  artifactId and etc   from names of files  The script also prints out the dependencies xml for you to copy-paste in your pom  Include the dependencies in your target package When you ll have your in-project repository created you ll have solved a problem of distributing the dependencies of the project with its source  but since then your project s target artifact will depend on non-published jars  so when you ll install it to a repository it will have unresolvable dependencies  To beat this problem I suggest to include these dependencies in your target package  This you can do with either the Assembly Plugin or better with the OneJar Plugin  The official documentaion on OneJar is easy to grasp

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Note  When using the System scope  as mentioned on this page   Maven needs absolute paths   If your jars are under your project s root  you ll want to prefix your systemPath values with   basedir

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The solution for scope  system  approach in Java   public static void main String   args            String filepath     Users Downloads lib            try  Stream lt Path gt  walk   Files walk Paths get filepath               List lt String gt  result   walk filter Files  isRegularFile                   map x - gt  x toString    collect Collectors toList                      String indentation                           for  String s   result                        System out println indentation   indentation     lt dependency gt                         System out println indentation   indentation   indentation     lt groupId gt                                 s replace filepath      replace   jar                                       lt  groupId gt                         System out println indentation   indentation   indentation     lt artifactId gt                                 s replace filepath      replace   jar                                       lt  artifactId gt                         System out println indentation   indentation   indentation     lt version gt                                 s replace filepath      replace   jar                                       lt  version gt                         System out println indentation   indentation   indentation     lt scope gt system lt  scope gt                         System out println indentation   indentation   indentation     lt systemPath gt     s     lt  systemPath gt                         System out println indentation   indentation     lt  dependency gt                              catch  IOException e            e printStackTrace

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You really ought to get a framework in place via a repository and identifying your dependencies up front  Using the system scope is a common mistake people use  because they  don t care about the dependency management   The trouble is that doing this you end up with a perverted maven build that will not show maven in a normal condition  You would be better off following an approach like this

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This doesn t answer how to add them to your POM  and may be a no brainer  but would just adding the lib dir to your classpath work  I know that is what I do when I need an external jar that I don t want to add to my Maven repos    Hope this helps

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Using  lt scope gt system lt  scope gt  is a terrible idea for reasons explained by others  installing the file manually to your local repository makes the build unreproducible  and using  lt url gt file     project basedir  repo lt  url gt  is not a good idea either because  1  that may not be a well-formed file URL  e g  if the project is checked out in a directory with unusual characters    2  the result is unusable if this project   s POM is used as a dependency of someone else   s project   Assuming you are unwilling to upload the artifact to a public repository  Simeon   s suggestion of a helper module does the job  But there is an easier way now     The Recommendation  Use non-maven-jar-maven-plugin  Does exactly what you were asking for  with none of the drawbacks of the other approaches

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A quick amp dirty batch solution  based on Alex s answer    libs bat   ECHO OFF FOR   I IN    jar  DO   echo   lt dependency  gt  echo   lt groupId  gt local dummy  lt  groupId  gt  echo   lt artifactId  gt   I  lt  artifactId  gt  echo   lt version  gt 0 0 1  lt  version  gt  echo   lt scope  gt system  lt  scope  gt  echo   lt systemPath  gt   project basedir  lib   I  lt  systemPath  gt  echo   lt  dependency  gt      Execute it like this  libs bat  gt  libs txt  Then open libs txt and copy its content as dependencies   In my case  I only needed the libraries to compile my code  and this solution was the best for that purpose

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What works in our project is what Archimedes Trajano wrote  but we had in our  m2 settings xml something like this     lt mirror gt     lt id gt nexus lt  id gt     lt mirrorOf gt   lt  mirrorOf gt     lt url gt http   url to our repository lt  url gt    lt  mirror gt    and the   should be changed to central  So if his answer doesn t work for you  you should check your settings xml

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After having really long discussion with CloudBees guys about properly maven packaging of such kind of JARs  they made an interesting good proposal for a solution  Creation of a fake Maven project which attaches a pre-existing JAR as a primary artifact  running into belonged POM install install-file execution  Here is an example of such kinf of POM    lt build gt       lt plugins gt           lt plugin gt               lt groupId gt org apache maven plugins lt  groupId gt               lt artifactId gt maven-install-plugin lt  artifactId gt               lt version gt 2 3 1 lt  version gt               lt executions gt                   lt execution gt                       lt id gt image-util-id lt  id gt                       lt phase gt install lt  phase gt                       lt goals gt                           lt goal gt install-file lt  goal gt                       lt  goals gt                       lt configuration gt                           lt file gt   basedir  file-you-want-to-include jar lt  file gt                           lt groupId gt   project groupId  lt  groupId gt                           lt artifactId gt   project artifactId  lt  artifactId gt                           lt version gt   project version  lt  version gt                           lt packaging gt jar lt  packaging gt                       lt  configuration gt                   lt  execution gt               lt  executions gt           lt  plugin gt       lt  plugins gt   lt  build gt   But in order to implement it  existing project structure should be changed  First  you should have in mind that for each such kind of JAR there should be created different fake Maven project  module   And there should be created a parent Maven project including all sub-modules which are   all JAR wrappers and existing main project  The structure could be    root project  this contains the parent POM file includes all sub-modules with module XML element   POM packaging  JAR 1 wrapper Maven child project  POM packaging  JAR 2 wrapper Maven child project  POM packaging  main existing Maven child project  WAR  JAR  EAR      packaging   When parent running via mvn install or mvn packaging is forced and sub-modules will be executed  That could be concerned as a minus here  since project structure should be changed  but offers a non static solution at the end

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Note  When using the System scope  as mentioned on this page   Maven needs absolute paths   If your jars are under your project s root  you ll want to prefix your systemPath values with   basedir

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This doesn t answer how to add them to your POM  and may be a no brainer  but would just adding the lib dir to your classpath work  I know that is what I do when I need an external jar that I don t want to add to my Maven repos    Hope this helps

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Even though it does not exactly fit to your problem  I ll drop this here  My requirements were    Jars that can not be found in an online maven repository should be in the SVN  If one developer adds another library  the other developers should not be bothered with manually installing them  The IDE  NetBeans in my case  should be able find the sources and javadocs to provide autocompletion and help    Let s talk about  3  first  Just having the jars in a folder and somehow merging them into the final jar will not work for here  since the IDE will not understand this  This means all libraries have to be installed properly  However  I dont want to have everyone installing it using  mvn install-file    In my project I needed metawidget  Here we go    Create a new maven project  name it  shared-libs  or something like that   Download metawidget and extract the zip into src main lib  The folder doc api contains the javadocs  Create a zip of the content  doc api api zip   Modify the pom like this Build the project and the library will be installed  Add the library as a dependency to your project  or  if you added the dependency in the shared-libs project  add shared-libs as dependency to get all libraries at once    Every time you have a new library  just add a new execution and tell everyone to build the project again  you can improve this process with project hierachies

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A quick amp dirty batch solution  based on Alex s answer    libs bat   ECHO OFF FOR   I IN    jar  DO   echo   lt dependency  gt  echo   lt groupId  gt local dummy  lt  groupId  gt  echo   lt artifactId  gt   I  lt  artifactId  gt  echo   lt version  gt 0 0 1  lt  version  gt  echo   lt scope  gt system  lt  scope  gt  echo   lt systemPath  gt   project basedir  lib   I  lt  systemPath  gt  echo   lt  dependency  gt      Execute it like this  libs bat  gt  libs txt  Then open libs txt and copy its content as dependencies   In my case  I only needed the libraries to compile my code  and this solution was the best for that purpose

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The problem with systemPath is that the dependencies  jars won t get distributed along your artifacts as transitive dependencies  Try what I ve posted here  Is it best to Mavenize your project jar files or put them in WEB-INF lib   Then declare dependencies as usual   And please read the footer note

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Note  When using the System scope  as mentioned on this page   Maven needs absolute paths   If your jars are under your project s root  you ll want to prefix your systemPath values with   basedir

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I alluded to some python code in a comment to the answer from  alex lehmann s   so am posting it here   def AddJars jarList     s1        for elem in jarList     s1             lt dependency gt           lt groupId gt local dummy lt  groupId gt           lt artifactId gt  s lt  artifactId gt           lt version gt 0 0 1 lt  version gt           lt scope gt system lt  scope gt           lt systemPath gt   project basedir  manual jars  s lt  systemPath gt        lt  dependency gt  n     elem  elem    return s1

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If you want a quick and dirty solution  you can do the following  though I do not recommend this for anything except test projects  maven will complain in length that this is not proper    Add a dependency entry for each jar file you need  preferably with a perl script or something similar and copy paste that into your pom file       usr bin perl  foreach my  n   ARGV          n  s             print   lt dependency gt       lt groupId gt local dummy lt  groupId gt       lt artifactId gt  n lt  artifactId gt       lt version gt 0 0 1 lt  version gt       lt scope gt system lt  scope gt       lt systemPath gt    project basedir  lib  n lt  systemPath gt   lt  dependency gt

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I alluded to some python code in a comment to the answer from  alex lehmann s   so am posting it here   def AddJars jarList     s1        for elem in jarList     s1             lt dependency gt           lt groupId gt local dummy lt  groupId gt           lt artifactId gt  s lt  artifactId gt           lt version gt 0 0 1 lt  version gt           lt scope gt system lt  scope gt           lt systemPath gt   project basedir  manual jars  s lt  systemPath gt        lt  dependency gt  n     elem  elem    return s1

User · Answer

Note  When using the System scope  as mentioned on this page   Maven needs absolute paths   If your jars are under your project s root  you ll want to prefix your systemPath values with   basedir

User · Answer

Using  lt scope gt system lt  scope gt  is a terrible idea for reasons explained by others  installing the file manually to your local repository makes the build unreproducible  and using  lt url gt file     project basedir  repo lt  url gt  is not a good idea either because  1  that may not be a well-formed file URL  e g  if the project is checked out in a directory with unusual characters    2  the result is unusable if this project   s POM is used as a dependency of someone else   s project   Assuming you are unwilling to upload the artifact to a public repository  Simeon   s suggestion of a helper module does the job  But there is an easier way now     The Recommendation  Use non-maven-jar-maven-plugin  Does exactly what you were asking for  with none of the drawbacks of the other approaches

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This doesn t answer how to add them to your POM  and may be a no brainer  but would just adding the lib dir to your classpath work  I know that is what I do when I need an external jar that I don t want to add to my Maven repos    Hope this helps

[java] Can I add jars to maven 2 build classpath without installing them?

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