Question

Can we dynamically load dependencies using maven.

For example, lets say we have a web project which needs a specific jar A to run on Glassfish server, while the same project needs additional jar B to run on weblogic in its WEB-INF/lib folder.

Do I need to have the separate pom.xml file for glassfish and weblogic and then run the appropriate pom.xml depending on the server being used?

Or Can I have a single pom.xml with both dependencies i.e. both jar A and jar B specified in it and depending on the parameters passed to pom.xml while running it (like mvn clean package -Dserver=glassfish), it will load the jar A only?

Is this possible?

What is the most appropriate way of doing this?

Please help.

Answer 1

You can exploit the concept of profiles in maven. You can create a whole profile of your execution environment and launch maven with that profile. For more info, see http://maven.apache.org/guides/introduction/introduction-to-profiles.html

These profiles can be defined within pom or can be defined in an external file and refer it to in pom. You can activate a profile by launching it with -P option, mvn -P