java - Add a dependency in Maven

Question

How do I take a jar file that I have and add it to the dependency system in maven 2? I will be the maintainer of this dependency and my code needs this jar in the class path so that it will compile.

Answer 1

You'll have to do this in two steps:

1. Give your JAR a groupId, artifactId and version and add it to your repository.

If you don't have an internal repository, and you're just trying to add your JAR to your local repository, you can install it as follows, using any arbitrary groupId/artifactIds:

mvn install:install-file -DgroupId=com.stackoverflow... -DartifactId=yourartifactid... -Dversion=1.0 -Dpackaging=jar -Dfile=/path/to/jarfile

You can also deploy it to your internal repository if you have one, and want to make this available to other developers in your organization. I just use my repository's web based interface to add artifacts, but you should be able to accomplish the same thing using mvn deploy:deploy-file ....

2. Update dependent projects to reference this JAR.

Then update the dependency in the pom.xml of the projects that use the JAR by adding the following to the element:

<dependencies>
    ...
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.stackoverflow...</groupId>
        <artifactId>artifactId...</artifactId>
        <version>1.0</version>
    </dependency>
    ...
</dependencies>