Question

I have a third party jar which is necessary for our project. It is not available on the central maven repository, so I used the maven-install-plugin to install the jar locally during a build. I tied the “install-file” goal to the “validate” phase, and this mostly works. The pom.xml file excerpt is below:

<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/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
...
<build>
    <plugins>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-install-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>2.3</version>
            <executions>
                <execution>
                    <id>install-myartifact</id>
                    <phase>validate</phase>
                    <goals>
                        <goal>install-file</goal>
                    </goals>
                    <configuration>
                        <file>${basedir}/lib/myartifact-1.2.3.jar</file>
                        <groupId>com.example</groupId>
                        <artifactId>myartifact</artifactId>
                        <version>1.2.3</version>
                        <packaging>jar</packaging>
                        <generatePom>true</generatePom>
                    </configuration>
                </execution>
            </executions>
        </plugin>
    </plugins>
</build>
<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.example</groupId>
        <artifactId>myartifact</artifactId>
        <version>1.2.3</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

However, there’s a catch. Most of our developers and our Jenkins installation run “mvn clean install.” The “validate” phase is not part of the “clean” lifecycle, and clean inexplicably requires all the dependencies be present to run. So the first time someone runs this build, it does not work.

[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Building MyModule
[INFO]    task-segment: [clean, install]
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] [clean:clean]
[INFO] Deleting directory C:\svn\trunk\mymodule\target
Downloading: http://nexusserver.local:8080/nexus/content/groups/public/com/example/myartifact-1.2.3.pom
[INFO] Unable to find resource 'com.example:myartifact:pom:1.2.3' in repository central (http://central)
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ERROR] BUILD ERROR
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Failed to resolve artifact.

Missing:
----------
1) com.example:myartifact:jar:1.2.3

  Try downloading the file manually from the project website.

  Then, install it using the command: 
      mvn install:install-file -DgroupId=com.example -DartifactId=myartifact -Dversion=1.2.3 -Dpackaging=jar -Dfile=/path/to/file

  Alternatively, if you host your own repository you can deploy the file there: 
      mvn deploy:deploy-file -DgroupId=com.example -DartifactId=myartifact -Dversion=1.2.3 -Dpackaging=jar -Dfile=/path/to/file -Durl=[url] -DrepositoryId=[id]

  Path to dependency: 
    1) com.example:mymodule:war:0.0.1-SNAPSHOT
    2) com.example:myartifact:jar:1.2.3

----------
1 required artifact is missing.

for artifact: 
  com.example:mymodule:war:0.0.1-SNAPSHOT

from the specified remote repositories:
  nexus (http://nexusserver.local:8080/nexus/content/groups/public)



[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] For more information, run Maven with the -e switch
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 1 second
[INFO] Finished at: Thu Jun 09 11:01:24 EDT 2011
[INFO] Final Memory: 17M/247M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

If I were to run simply “mvn install”, the jar is installed during “validate,” and I can run “mvn clean install” in subsequent builds. However, our build server does not have that flexibility. I’ve considered the following:

1. Moving the phase to “pre-clean,” but that assumes everyone always uses clean the first time. It wouldn’t help if someone ran simply “mvn install.”
2. Copying the execution, with one occurring during “pre-clean” and one occurring during “validate.” This covers all the bases, but the copied code leaves a bad taste.

Ideally, I’d love some other option. Is it possible to run clean without dependencies? Or to run a plugin twice without having to fully copy the execution? Thanks!

Answer 1

It looks like you’re using nexus. It might be easier to deploy the artifact to the nexus repo as opposed to having to maintain it with this project.