Maven deptools plugin

Supports Maven 3

Latest version: 1.4

• Now also as an enforcer-plugin rule * (See description at the bottom of this README)

Maven 2 and Maven 3 plugin which gives build error if maven resolves transient dependencies in such a way that the none-newest version is chosen.

At work we have all kinds of different dependencies problems related to transient dependencies.

Transient dependencies has many downsides, but in my opinion, the alternative is worse.

This plugin makes it possible to have the build process fail if not the newest version of a referred dependency is selected by mavens dependency resolving.

It is possible to include/exclude which artifacts should be included in the check.

This will make it possible for us to check dependency resolving for all inhouse APIs and projects..

The plugin is written in Scala

For example-maven-project showing the problem and the pluging, have a look here:

http://github.com/mbknor/deptools/tree/master/test/

If you find a bug or have a feature request, report them here:

http://github.com/mbknor/deptools/issues

The plugin can be found in this repository:

<pluginRepositories>
    <pluginRepository>
        <id>mbk_mvn_repo</id>
        <name>mbk_mvn_repo</name>
        <url>https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mbknor/mbknor.github.com/master/m2repo/releases</url>
    </pluginRepository>
</pluginRepositories>

(PS: the repository does not work from Nexus(http://nexus.sonatype.org/))

To run the plugin from the command line:

mvn deptools.plugin:maven-deptools-plugin:version-checker

To include/exclude dependencies use one/both of these settings:

-DexcludePattern=<regular expression>
-DincludePattern=<regular expression>

If you want to automatically include the deptools plugin in your build, so it can fail your build if it finds an error, you can do it like this:

<build>
    <plugins>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>deptools.plugin</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-deptools-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>1.3</version>
            <!--
                Use these optional settings to include and/or include
                dependencies from the check:

                <configuration>
                    <includePattern> a valid regular expression </includePattern>
                    <excludePattern> a valid regular expression </excludePattern>
                </configuration>

                The pattern is matched against the string "groupId:artifactId" for
                all dependencies in the dependency-path.

                Example:
                <includePattern>com.kjetland:.*</includePattern>
                The pattern above will only fail the build if an error is found
                on any dependency linked to from a an artifact with groupId
                equal to 'com.kjetland'

            -->
            <executions>
                <execution>
                    <phase>compile</phase>
                    <goals>
                        <goal>version-checker</goal>
                    </goals>
                </execution>
            </executions>
        </plugin>
    </plugins>
</build>

<pluginRepositories>
    <pluginRepository>
        <id>mbk_mvn_repo</id>
        <name>mbk_mvn_repo</name>
        <url>https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mbknor/mbknor.github.com/master/m2repo/releases</url>
    </pluginRepository>
</pluginRepositories>

The plugin can also be used as a maven-enforcer-plugin rule.

For example-maven-projects showing the problem and the plugin as enforcer-rule, have a look here:

http://github.com/mbknor/deptools/tree/master/test/enforcer-tests/

This is done like like this:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-enforcer-plugin</artifactId>
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>deptools.plugin</groupId>
            <artifactId>enforcer-rule</artifactId>
            <version>1.3</version>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>

    <configuration>
        <rules>
            <requireMavenVersion>
                <version>2.0.6</version>
            </requireMavenVersion>
            <myCustomRule implementation="deptools.plugin.enforcerrule.DeptoolsEnforcerRule">
                <includePattern>com.kjetland:.+</includePattern>
                <excludePattern>.*commons-logging.*</excludePattern>
            </myCustomRule>

        </rules>
    </configuration>

</plugin>

To invoke the deptools-plugin as an enforcer plugin, execute this on the command-line:

mvn package enforcer:enforce