add to maven a dependency packaged as mar - maven

Question

I have a project which uses several dependencies from the axis2 project. one of them if the mex (metada exchange).
the last version of mex is packaged as a mar file. If I try to add this dependency to my project maven will fail:
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.axis2</groupId>
<artifactId>mex</artifactId>
<version>1.6.1</version>
<packaging>mar</packaging>
</dependency>
org.apache.maven.reactor.MavenExecutionException: Parse error reading POM. Reason: Unrecognised tag: 'packaging' (position: START_TAG seen ...</version>\n\t\t\t<packaging>... #229:15) for project unknown at /project/pom.xml
at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.getProjects(DefaultMaven.java:404)
at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.doExecute(DefaultMaven.java:272)
at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.execute(DefaultMaven.java:138)
at org.apache.maven.cli.MavenCli.main(MavenCli.java:362)
at org.apache.maven.cli.compat.CompatibleMain.main(CompatibleMain.java:60)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:57)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:616)
at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.launchEnhanced(Launcher.java:315)
at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.launch(Launcher.java:255)
at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.mainWithExitCode(Launcher.java:430)
at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.main(Launcher.java:375)
Caused by: org.apache.maven.project.InvalidProjectModelException: Parse error reading POM. Reason: Unrecognised tag: 'packaging' (position: START_TAG seen ...</version>\n\t\t\t<packaging>... #229:15) for project unknown at /project/pom.xml
at org.apache.maven.project.DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.readModel(DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.java:1610)
at org.apache.maven.project.DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.readModel(DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.java:1571)
at org.apache.maven.project.DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.buildFromSourceFileInternal(DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.java:506)
at org.apache.maven.project.DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.build(DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.java:200)
at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.getProject(DefaultMaven.java:604)
at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.collectProjects(DefaultMaven.java:487)
at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.getProjects(DefaultMaven.java:391)
... 12 more
Caused by: org.codehaus.plexus.util.xml.pull.XmlPullParserException: Unrecognised tag: 'packaging' (position: START_TAG seen ...</version>\n\t\t\t<packaging>... #229:15)
at org.apache.maven.model.io.xpp3.MavenXpp3Reader.parseDependency(MavenXpp3Reader.java:1225)
at org.apache.maven.model.io.xpp3.MavenXpp3Reader.parseModel(MavenXpp3Reader.java:2095)
at org.apache.maven.model.io.xpp3.MavenXpp3Reader.read(MavenXpp3Reader.java:3913)
at org.apache.maven.project.DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.readModel(DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.java:1606)
... 18 more
I tried to add the mar plugin, but it didnt help
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.axis2</groupId>
<artifactId>axis2-mar-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<extensions>true</extensions>
<configuration>
<includeDependencies>false</includeDependencies>
</configuration>
</plugin>

Answer 1

It looks like you didn't read the error message correct cause it says:
Parse error reading POM. Reason: Unrecognised tag: 'packaging' (position: START_TAG seen ...</version>\n\t\t\t<packaging>... #229:15) for project unknown at /project/pom.xml
This means you have to use:
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.axis2</groupId>
<artifactId>mex</artifactId>
<version>1.6.1</version>
<type>mar</type>
</dependency>
instead.
Update: The problem is that those mar artifacts are packaged as jar's. So you have to go the following way:
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.axis2</groupId>
<artifactId>mex</artifactId>
<version>1.6.1</version>
</dependency>