Question

I have a library A, which depends on the libraries B and C. I unpack the libraries classes of B and C into the jar for library A using the maven-dependency-plugin (see below).

Now, when a library D uses library A, library D can access all the classes of A, B and C. However, I want D only to depend on A but not on the transitive dependencies B and C.

I know this can be achieved by manually excluding B and C for the dependency A-D but I would like to somehow declare in A that B and C are not to be made known to modules using A.

        <plugin>
            <artifactId>maven-dependency-plugin</artifactId>
            <executions>
                <execution>
                    <id>unpack-dependencies</id>
                    <phase>generate-resources</phase>
                    <goals>
                        <goal>unpack-dependencies</goal>
                    </goals>
                </execution>
            </executions>
        </plugin>

Answer 1

I think you can mark the dependency with the scope “provided” so the dependent project will assume that the jar’s are already “provided”. Normally they are provided by the container, in your case you “provided” them in dependency A.

In any case modules dependent on A will ignore the dependencies B and C.