Question

By default, Maven will grab all the dependency’s from the local repository (.m2 directory). But instead, I want it to grab the dependencies from another location. Is this even possible?

I don’t want to do this with everything. I don’t want this to happen at the “root” or the parent level. I want this to happen at a more “deeper” pom level. There is more than once that is same dependent is being dependent. For each time, I want it to come from a different location. So, one will use the default maven configuration and get it from the .m2 directory, and the other will get it from a specific directory.

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MY REASONS:

In the install phase, everything gets installed to the .m2 directory. In the package phase, I have everything get packaged into a target directory. (Am I not correct?)

My .m2 directory has more than needed. My target has my final project without the extra “things” that are included in the .m2 directory. Whatever is in the target directory is the final product. When I’m in the compile phase, I don’t want it to depend upon the .m2 directory, but instead the target since that is my real final project.

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I’m using Maven 2.2.1 on Linux (Red Hat).

I’ve read somewhere that you can use the <scope> element with the value system under the <dependency> element in your pom.xml file. Then give the actual location in another element called <systemPath> under that <dependency>. I don’tif this answers my question, or if this something entirely different.

I know this goes against Maven’s recommendations, but I have my reasons.

Answer 1

Please read my answer to this different, but related, question first.

In general, people have developed muscle memory when it comes to Maven. Case in point, almost everyone thinks this is how you build projects with Maven:

$ mvn clean install

Now that will build the project, but it also stores the built artifacts in the local repository.., this is fine if you are then going to work on a sub-module and want to safe rebuilding everything all the time, or if you are using an IDE that has a poor understanding of the reactor (newer versions of most IDEs do not have this issue)

What you should probably be doing is

$ mvn clean verify

Or

$ mvn clean package -DskipTests

(The second one skips the tests because if you don’t care about ensuring the integration tests pass, you probably don’t care about the unit tests either)

So to me it sounds like you are just typing the wrong command…

Now there is a second possibility, namely you may be building a ‘transient, intermediary’ artifact that is not exposed as a transitive dependency… In that case you could add a <skip>true</skip> to the configuration for the maven-install-plugin in that specific module (also consider adding to maven-deploy-plugin) but you need to be damn sure that the module does not leak via a transitive dependency or all hell will break loose.