Changing dependency of a inherited dependency - java

I'm using JBoss AS 7 with Maven, and also added RichFaces, that I'm almost sure, don't come with JBoss. So I added that to my pom.xml:
<dependency>
<groupId>org.richfaces.core</groupId>
<artifactId>richfaces-core-impl</artifactId>
<version>4.1.0.Final</version>
<scope>compile</scope>
</dependency>
But Richfaces also have its dependencies, so cssparser and sac also comes with compile scope, but they are also inside JBoss AS 7, so the following warning comes when I run JBoss:
Deployment "deployment.test.war" is using a private module ("org.w3c.css.sac:main") which may be changed or removed in future versions without notice.
Deployment "deployment.test.war" is using a private module ("net.sourceforge.cssparser:main") which may be changed or removed in future versions without notice.
I believe that this warning appears because I have this module both on my war and on JBoss, so I want to know: There is a way to change the scope of them to provided, in my POM? Even if they are inherited?

No, you can't change transitive dependencies' scopes. The best you can do is to exclude these dependencies using <exclusions> in your dependency declaration.

Related

Cannot find annotation method 'value()' in type 'aQute.bnd.annotation.spi.ServiceConsumer' with Tomcat

I have a Java 11 project embedding Tomcat:
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.tomcat.embed</groupId>
<artifactId>tomcat-embed-core</artifactId>
<version>10.1.0</version>
</dependency>
The Tomcat-specific code is in a subproject with only two classes. When I compile using Maven 3.8.6 and Java 17 using -Xlint:all, I see the following warning for that subproject:
[WARNING] Cannot find annotation method 'value()' in type 'aQute.bnd.annotation.spi.ServiceConsumer': class file for aQute.bnd.annotation.spi.ServiceConsumer not found
Doing a bit of searching brings up similar (but not exact) things, such as Lombok Issue #2145, which hints that I may need to add some sort of extra dependency such as biz.aQute.bnd:bndlib or org.osgi:osgi.annotation. But even after adding those dependencies, the warning remains.
Where is this error coming from, and what does it mean? I don't have any #ServiceConsumer annotation in my source code, and I couldn't find any in the Tomcat classes I'm extending, either. How can I make it go away?
I filed Tomcat Bug 66299.
I discussed this on the Tomcat users mailing list users#tomcat.apache.org (thanks Mark), and here's what is happening:
Tomcat effectively has two builds:
What I call the Tomcat "primary build" uses Ant with build.xml, which compiles the source files, creates all the JARs and binaries, and publishes them to Maven Central (Nexus).
Any "secondary build" by third parties using the published JARs and POMs, using e.g. org.apache.tomcat.embed:tomcat-embed-core:10.1.0 with Maven.
The latest versions of direct dependencies are found in the Tomcat repository inside build.properties.default.
The primary build generates JPMS and OSGi metadata, so some classes are annotated with the bnd annotation aQute.bnd.annotation.spi.ServiceConsumer. Currently Tomcat gets this annotation from biz.aQute.bnd:biz.aQute.bnd:6.3.1, which is apparently some aggregate JAR; the same annotation can be found in the smaller biz.aQute.bnd:biz.aQute.bnd.annotation:6.3.1.
The aQute.bnd.annotation.spi.ServiceConsumer annotation source code uses the OSGi annotation org.osgi.annotation.bundle.Requirement. Currently this annotation can be found in org.osgi:osgi.annotation:8.1.0.
The bnd and OSGi annotations remain part of the compiled classes even though they are not used at runtime and are not technically needed in any secondary builds.
If you want to inform Maven and javac where these classes are so that they will not appear missing (if you are compiling with some variations of -Xlint), but that they nevertheless will not be needed at runtime (and technically aren't even needed at compile time in a secondary build) and should not be distributed in the resulting JAR, you can note them in your pom.xml file using the provided scope.
<dependency>
<groupId>biz.aQute.bnd</groupId>
<artifactId>biz.aQute.bnd.annotation</artifactId>
<version>6.3.1</version>
<scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.osgi</groupId>
<artifactId>osgi.annotation</artifactId>
<version>8.1.0</version>
<scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>
Maven will download these artifacts during your build thereby removing the warning, but they will not be included in the resulting artifacts of your build.

Provided dependency and JBOSS EAP 7

I understand that PROVIDED dependencies are "provided" by container and application don't need generate this JAR.
1) So, I'm using JBOSS EAP 7.0.0.GA and this have the following jar in this module folder: hibernate-core-5.0.9.Final-redhat-1.jar.
In my project i'm using the following dependency:
<dependency>
<groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
<artifactId>hibernate-core</artifactId>
<version>5.0.9.Final-redhat-1</version>
</dependency>
It works fine, without errors. But i understand that i should use "PROVIDED" scope because this jar is provided by container. Why it works ?
2) I have another example. In Jboss Eap 7.0.0.GA i have the following jar: jboss-servlet-api_3.1_spec-1.0.0.Final-redhat-1.jar. But in my project i have the following:
<dependency>
<groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
<artifactId>javax.servlet-api</artifactId>
<version>3.0.1</version>
<scope>provided</scope>
<optional>true</optional>
</dependency>
It works fine too, but i don't understand why. To me the correct dependency should be servlet-api_3.1_spec-1.0.0.Final-redhat-1 with provided. Why it works too ?
At build time, Maven will resolve the dependencies and make the relevant packages available to the compiler. Your appserver may provide, for example, JARs that contain the classes and interfaces in javax.servlet, but these classes won't necessarily be useful to the compiler, because it doesn't know where they are. By providing the dependencies to Maven, you're having Maven find its own implementations of these dependencies, just for use at compile time.
At run time, if you've marked the dependencies as provided, then your application will use the versions provided by the appserver, rather than the versions known to Maven. This is potentially a bad thing, but it often works because the compiler really needs to know only the method signatures, not their implementations. The method signatures of classes that are controlled by specifications, such as those in javax.servlet, change only infrequently, so the mismatch between the compile-time JARs and run-time JARs may go unnoticed. Unlike OSGi-compliant JARs, JARs built for JEE do not contain meta-data that specifies particular compatible dependency versions -- JEE classloaders will use what they find, for better or worse.
You can be caught out, however -- particularly if the mismatch is substantial. Problems may be very obvious at runtime, such as exceptions related to missing classes or methods, but they can be subtle.
It's therefore often best, where practicable, to use the same compile-time versions of dependencies as the versions that will be available at runtime. For EAP, I recall that Red Hat distributes a Maven bill-of-materials (BOM) file that specifies all the versions of all the EAP JARs for specific EAP releases.

Maven: benefit of specifying dependencies's versions as properties for single module project

On various projects I've been working on, I've seen diferent ways of specifying dependencies versions. On some projects, the package version is written on the same dependency declaration:
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.myfaces.extensions.validator.validation-modules</groupId>
<artifactId>myfaces-extval-property-validation</artifactId>
<version>2.0.7</version>
<scope>compile</scope>
</dependency>
On others, a property is used, as in:
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.myfaces.extensions.validator.validation-modules</groupId>
<artifactId>myfaces-extval-property-validation</artifactId>
<version>${versions.extval}</version>
<scope>compile</scope>
</dependency>
For multimodule projects, I can see a clear benefit in declaring versions on the parent pom to avoid duplication (and the potential confusion and errors that come with it), but on single module applications, would there be a benefit to use such a level of indirection?
What would be a best practice for this and why?
Thanks a lot :)
With a version property you can override it on the command line whereas with a fixed version you cannot.
So you can recompile your project with a newer version just by specifying it on the command line.
mvn -Dversions.extval=2.0.8 clean package
Or something.
apart from that, mostly used on multi-projects, and although there you have the dependency management section as well for versions.

Force Maven use only first level dependencies

I have a Maven Java project. I don't want my project dependencies to be satisfied by chance through a chain of subdependencies when compiling the project. It is OK for me when building the final war when maven must check all used dependencies and add necessary libs to the war, but when compiling the code I want to be sure that only direct dependencies are used. Why?
Let's say I have two dependencies:
<dependency>
<groupId>com.package</groupId>
<artifactId>module-1</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.package</groupId>
<artifactId>module-2</artifactId>
</dependency>
For our project module-1 and module-2 serve completely different purposes, but somewhere in the dependency tree of module-2, module-1 is used. I delete module-1 dependency, but maven continue to build my project without compilation errors, because it resolves module-1 from module-2 sub-dependencies. This change goes unnoticed.
After sometime we decide to remove module-2, because we don't need it. Strange enough but we can not any more compile classes which were using imports from module-1 and which are not connected to module-2 logic.
This is a simple case, but in big project this can make quite a dependency mess.
You can use the Maven dependency plugin goal "dependency:analyze" to give you a report of all used dependencies which are not declared on the current module (included transitively). That way Maven will still use transitive dependencies (no way around that I guess), but you can force yourself via the plugin to make sure these are also declared. It will also warn you of unnecessary dependencies. Mind, the plugin analyzes the compiled classes. At times, you may need to configure the plugin, because occasionally it may not detect that a dependency is required at compile time but not at runtime, e.g. because a constant was inlined.
If you really need to do this then you can setup exclusions in the pom.
e.g. here's an example of an exclusion in one of my poms where I don't want it to automatically get commons-logging because I'm using a different logging provider.
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-context</artifactId>
<version>${org.springframework-version}</version>
<exclusions>
<!-- Exclude Commons Logging in favor of SLF4j -->
<exclusion>
<groupId>commons-logging</groupId>
<artifactId>commons-logging</artifactId>
</exclusion>
</exclusions>
</dependency>
You could do something like this (untested)
<dependency>
<groupId>com.package</groupId>
<artifactId>module-2</artifactId>
<exclusions>
<exclusion>
<groupId>com.package</groupId>
<artifactId>module-1</artifactId>
</exclusion>
</exclusions>
</dependency>
I wouldn't necessarily recommend this though. It makes sense in the case of my logging exclusion because I'm using slf4j instead of commons logging. I've seen other examples where this is used to exclude spring 2 if the project as a whole is using spring 3.
It's a bit difficult to tell from your example because it's so vague. In general you should keep your dependencies to a minimum. If module-2 depends on module-1 then it implies that your application won't compile or run without module-1. If in fact it can live happily without it then it's not really dependent.
As a side note it's a bit alarming that you don't have a version number against the dependencies. You'll probably find maven warns you about this. It's good practice to always include a version number. If you're dependent on a module which is currently in development then you should use the .SNAPSHOT suffix on the version to get the latest build for that version.
There seems to be no way to tell maven not to resolve dependency transitively: How to exclude all transitive dependencies of a Maven dependency. One of the reason's I think, is that the user can soon run into runtime troubles, when he finds that some of the artifacts are not being resolved at runtime or there are artifact versions problems. However, if you check the link out, you can make each of the deps 'standalone' with a wildcard exclusion pattern.
One other option is to use <optional> dependency for each of your module-X sub-dependencies. This will make sure the project compiles and non of your module-X would be resolved transitively. Like:
<dependency>
<groupId>com.package</groupId>
<artifactId>module-1</artifactId>
<optional>true</optional>
</dependency>
Still, analyzing the dependency tree might be the most safe and predictable choice.
It does sound a bit strange what you plan to do. In a way you sabotage the dependency management you want to use.
If your module-2 depends on module-1 and has a dependency to it, then any module that depends on module-2 only need to define that one.
You may be able to restrict the depth of the resolution using exclusions: Exclude all transitive dependencies of a single dependency
Newer versions of maven allow wildcards in those.
But: you will need to re-add the ones you actually need, this is by repeating the dependencies you have an other modules. This duplicates the work.
If there are artifacts that cause weirdness it may be possible to define a scope: http://maven.apache.org/guides/introduction/introduction-to-dependency-mechanism.html so it is not propagated to dependant modules as well.

Solving Maven dependency convergence issues

I use the maven-enforcer-plugin to check for dependency convergence issues. A typical output would be:
[WARNING] Rule 1: org.apache.maven.plugins.enforcer.DependencyConvergence failed
with message:
Failed while enforcing releasability the error(s) are [
Dependency convergence error for junit:junit:3.8.1 paths to dependency are:
+-foo:bar:1.0-SNAPSHOT
+-ca.juliusdavies:not-yet-commons-ssl:0.3.9
+-commons-httpclient:commons-httpclient:3.0
+-junit:junit:3.8.1
and
+-foo:bar:1.0-SNAPSHOT
+-junit:junit:4.11
]
Seeing this message, I would normally "solve" it by excluding the transitive dependency, e.g.
<dependency>
<groupId>ca.juliusdavies</groupId>
<artifactId>not-yet-commons-ssl</artifactId>
<version>0.3.9</version>
<exclusions>
<!-- This artifact links to another artifact which stupidly includes
junit in compile scope -->
<exclusion>
<groupId>junit</groupId>
<artifactId>junit</artifactId>
</exclusion>
</exclusions>
</dependency>
I'd like to understand whether this is truly a fix and the risks involved in excluding libraries in this fashion. As I see it:
The "fix" is normally safe, provided I'm choosing to use the newer version. This relies on the library authors maintaining backwards compatibility.
There is typically no impact on the Maven build (since the nearer definition wins), however by excluding the dependency I'm telling Maven that I know about this problem and thus appeasing the maven-enforcer-plugin.
Are my thoughts correct and is there an alternative way of handling this issue? I'm interested in answers that focus on the general case - I realise the junit example above is a little strange.
We all agree that JUnit should never be set to another scope than test. Generally speaking I don't think either that there is another solution than excluding the unwanted dependency, so we all agree that your are right to do it.
A SIMPLE CASE :
As Andreas Krueger says, there may be a risk with versions (I actually encountered it). Let say that the project's dependencies are the following:
+-foo:bar:1.0-SNAPSHOT
+-group1:projectA:2.0
+-group2:projectB:3.8.1
+-group2:projectB:4.11
Note that it is only a mere simplification of your case. Seeing this dependency tree, you would exclude the dependency projectB given by projectA :
<dependency>
<groupId>group1</groupId>
<artifactId>projectA</artifactId>
<version>2.0</version>
<exclusions>
<exclusion>
<groupId>group2</groupId>
<artifactId>projectB</artifactId>
</exclusion>
</exclusions>
</dependency>
After packaging the project with maven, the remaining dependency would be group2-someProjectB-4.11.jar, version 4.11 and not 3.8.1. Everything would be fine and the project would run without encountering any problem at all.
Then, a while after, let say that you decide to upgrade to the next version of project A, version 3.0 which adds new great features :
<dependency>
<groupId>group1</groupId>
<artifactId>projectA</artifactId>
<version>3.0</version>
<exclusions>
<exclusion>
<groupId>group2</groupId>
<artifactId>projectB</artifactId>
</exclusion>
</exclusions>
</dependency>
The problem is that you are not aware yet that projectA version 3.0 also have upgraded its dependency projectB to version 5.0 :
+-foo:bar:1.0-SNAPSHOT
+-group1:projectA:3.0
+-group2:projectB:5.0
+-group2:projectB:4.11
In that case, the exclusion you would have made a while ago excludes projectB version 5.0.
However, projectA version 3.0 needs the improvements from project B version 5.0. Because of the exclusion, after packaging the project with maven, the remaining dependency would be group2-someProjectB-4.11.jar, version 4.11 and not 5.0. At the moment you use any of projectA's new features, the program wouldn't run correctly.
WHAT WAS THE SOLUTION ?
I encountered this problem in a Java-EE project.
A team developped database services. They packaged it as projectA. Each time they updated the services, they also updated a file listing all their current dependencies and the current versions.
ProjectA was a dependency for the Java-EE project I was working on. Each time the service-team updated ProjectA, I also checked the versions' updates.
In fact, there is no harm in excluding a dependency. But each time you update a dependency where an exclusion has been set, You have to check :
if this exclusion still makes sense.
if you need to upgrade the version of the excluded dependency in your own project.
I guess maven exclusions are like kitchen knifes. It's sharp, cuts vegetables with no effort, but requires care when handling it...
If JUnit as an artifact is coming through as a dependency in compile scope, it is a bug of one of your libraries, here: ca.juliusdavies.
JUnit should always be included in test scope. Thus, it is not packed into the produced .jar, .war or .ear file, on successful build.
Generally speaking, there is no harm in excluding already included dependencies, as when library 1 and library 2 share one common dependency.
The only problem, of course, that can occur, is when library 1 and library 2 include different versions of the same dependent artifact. This can cause run-time errors, when the features of the library have changed.
Fortunately, this is not often the case, unless the difference in the version numbers is great. In general, it is advisable to include the latest dependency version and exlude the older one. This is most of the time viable.
If not, check wheter there are updates to the first-level dependencies of your project.

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