how to add external jar to maven webapp project - maven

Question

I have a Spring roo project (basically a maven project). I want to add dropbox sdk to the project, problem is it's not in maven. I added the following files
<dependency>
<groupId>com.dropbox</groupId>
<artifactId>dropbox-sdk</artifactId>
<version>1.3.1</version>
<scope>system</scope>
<systemPath>${project.basedir}/libs/dropbox-java-sdk-1.3.1.jar</systemPath>
</dependency>
It solved the compile error, but when i run the project, in Spring Tool Suite, the jar files are not added to war lib folder. How do I make maven add my external jar files to my the war lib folder?
I don't want to install the jar in maven since, I have to install it in all the machines that uses the project

Answer 1

I finally found a neat solution, which is a lot easier to implement. You add an in-project repository inside the java project and link to it in the pom.
You add an in-project repository in maven like this:
<repository>
<id>in-project</id>
<name>In Project Repo</name>
<url>file://${project.basedir}/libs</url>
</repository>
Then create a folder structure in the root folder of your project that looks something like this
/groupId/artifactId/version/artifactId-version.jar
and add the dependency as you would normally do.
This approach has the least amount of code and work required, and if that library ever gets add into a maven repository you can always remove your in-project repository.

Answer 2

There is a much easier solution, which is set webResource in the plugin. By the solution, you can add any files of your local disk to the war! A sample is as below,
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<warName>api</warName>
<webResources>
<resource>
<directory>libs/</directory>
<targetPath>WEB-INF/lib</targetPath>
<includes>
<include>**/*.jar</include>
</includes>
</resource>
</webResources>
</configuration>
</plugin>

Answer 3

The best way to resolve this issue is to add these local jar files to WEB-INF/lib folder. You will find all these jars packaged in your final war file then.

Answer 4

I don't recommend this approach, but you could add some POM configuration to install the 3rd-party dependency in a separate profile:
<profiles>
<profile>
<id>install-dependencies</id>
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-install-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.3.1</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<id>install-dropbox-sdk</id>
<phase>validate</phase>
<goals>
<goal>install-file</goal>
</goals>
<configuration>
<groupId>com.dropbox</groupId>
<artifactId>dropbox-sdk</artifactId>
<version>1.3.1</version>
<file>src/main/lib/dropbox-java-sdk-1.3.1.jar</file>
<packaging>jar</packaging>
</configuration>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
</profile>
<profile>
<id>build</id>
<activation>
<activeByDefault>true</activeByDefault>
</activation>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.dropbox</groupId>
<artifactId>dropbox-sdk</artifactId>
<version>1.3.1</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
</profile>
</profiles>
There are two profiles here: install-dependencies and build. The first installs the dropbox-sdk dependency into your Maven repository and needs to be run once on every machine as follows:
mvn -Pinstall-dependencies validate
The second is enabled by default, and adds the Dropbox SDK as a dependency.
To be honest though, this isn't much better than running
mvn install:install-file -Dfile=src/main/lib/dropbox-java-sdk-1.3.1.jar -DgroupId=com.dropbox -DartifactId=dropbox-sdk -Dversion=1.3.1 -Dpackaging=jar
on every machine.
The other downside of this approach is that you'll have to add all dependencies of the dropbox-sdk to your build as well- whereas if it is done properly by adding the JAR and a POM to a repository server, then Maven will calculate the transitive dependencies properly.

Answer 5

I recommend creating a "third party" repository in a Maven repository server such as Nexus or Artifactory, and uploading the jar to there. Even though that means putting the jar into Maven, at least with a repository server it is available to anyone who will be building your application.

Answer 6

change the lib path to :
src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/lib
in pom.xml:
<systemPath>${project.basedir}/src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/lib/xxxx.jar</systemPath>

Answer 7

The steps described in this site are pretty simple, and they work well enough:
https://mythinkpond.com/2010/10/02/adding-custom-jars-under-web-inflib-in-a-maven-project/
Create a “lib” folder under your project like this: “\src\main\webapp\WEB-INF\lib”
Copy needed “jars” etc that you want included inside your WAR bundle folder.
Invoke your maven build as you normally do. I use “mvn install”, which creates builds the war file.

Answer 8

I know I am really late but I was wondering on why you would not put in the jar in the local repo in the .m2 file and add a reference to the pom from there ?