java - Building a runnable jar with Maven 2

Question

I'm relatively new to the Maven mantra, but I'm trying to build a command-line runnable jar with Maven. I've setup my dependencies, but when I run mvn install and attempt to run the jar, two things happen. First, no main class is found, which is correctable. When I've corrected this, I get errors on run stating that classes cannot be found.

Maven is not packaging my dependency libraries inside of the jar, so I am unable to run the jar as a stand-alone application. How do I correct this?

Answer 1

The easiest way to do this would be to create an assembly using the maven-assembly-plugin and the predefined jar-with-dependencies descriptor. You'll also need to generate a manifest with a main-class entry for this uber jar. The snippet below shows how to configure the assembly plugin to do so:

<build>
  <plugins>
    <plugin>
      <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
      <configuration>
        <descriptorRefs>
          <descriptorRef>jar-with-dependencies</descriptorRef>
        </descriptorRefs>
        <archive>
          <manifest>
            <mainClass>fully.qualified.MainClass</mainClass>
          </manifest>
        </archive>
      </configuration>
    </plugin>
  </plugins>
</build>

Then, to generate the assembly, just run:

mvn assembly:assembly

If you want to generate the assembly as part of your build, simply bind the assembly:single mojo to the package phase:

<build>
  <plugins>
    <plugin>
      <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
      <configuration>
        <descriptorRefs>
          <descriptorRef>jar-with-dependencies</descriptorRef>
        </descriptorRefs>
        <archive>
          <manifest>
            <mainClass>fully.qualified.MainClass</mainClass>
          </manifest>
        </archive>
      </configuration>
      <executions>
        <execution>
          <phase>package</phase>
          <goals>
            <goal>single</goal>
          </goals>
        </execution>
      </executions>
    </plugin>
  </plugins>
</build>

And simply run:

mvn package