Question

Is it possible using the m2e maven plugin for eclipse (or some other easy way), to figure out which <dependency> entry in my POM is the reason for a given .jar to be added to the classpath. afaik right click only allows me to see the pom of the given artifact.

in this example the my pom looks like

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>eu.medsea.mimeutil</groupId>
        <artifactId>mime-util</artifactId>
        <version>2.1.1</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

so it’s pretty easy to understand that who is responsible for adding the log4j things

Answer 1

Open the POM in the m2e POM editor (should happen by default), click Dependency Hierarchy, type the name of the offending dependency into the filter box. It will highlight the dependency that drags it in.