Develop Reference

Using third-party libraries in Eclipse RCP Tycho app

I've created a boiler-plate project following vogella's extensive Tycho tutorial.
Facts:
There's no feature, and there's no plugin. The only plugin is the RCP app, which is also the entry-point.
Problem:
I have no idea in which pom.xml do I include the 3rd party dependencies.
I cannot include them in the RCP project, because the packaging of that pom is eclipse-plugin, and not jar. From what I've noticed, if I change the packaging to jar, then the "Maven Dependencies" library is added automatically. If I change back to eclipse-plugin, they get removed.
Questions:
Where do I add the dependencies? There's no pom with jar packaging in my project.
Should I create a separate project with the necessary JARs? How do I include that dependency to my entire project?
Is it really that much of a good practice to create a separate plugin and a feature for this RCP app?
Related solutions:
"Update projects" doesn't work, and neither do the n other solutions in the other SO questions.
There's also this question and that question, but I don't fully get the answers

I think that you have a fundamental misunderstanding.
Maven: Maven determines all of the project dependencies via the pom.xml and resolves transitive dependencies automatically (assuming that all of the pom files and artifacts exist in repositories that you've configured and correctly declare their dependencies).
Tycho: The problem is that Eclipse already has its own project model based on product files, feature.xml files, and plug-in MANIFEST.MF files. Tycho leverages the Maven machinery for Eclipse, but the idea is that the pom.xml files just configure the Maven plug-ins and declare the packaging type. That provides an entry point for Maven, but then Tycho takes over. While Maven would normally build the dependency chain from information in the pom.xml files, Tycho is building the dependency change from information in the product, feature, and MANIFEST.MF files. You don't put any dependencies in the pom.xml files. Tycho also uses Eclipse p2 repositories (instead of normal Maven repositories) for finding dependent plug-ins that are not found in the local modules or target platform.
That's actually a benefit for many Eclipse developers since they've already set up everything properly in their Eclipse plug-ins, features, and products. They do not want to have to repeat all of the dependencies in the pom.xml.
Using Libraries in Eclipse plug-ins: In Eclipse, if you want to use a library that is not already packaged as an Eclipse plug-in, you have a few options. Your plug-in can include a set of JARs in a libs folder and then include that libs folder in the plug-in and runtime classpath (see the build.properties file). Another option is to create your own "library plug-in" that repackages a JAR library as an Eclipse plug-in. See also https://wiki.eclipse.org/FAQ_What_is_the_classpath_of_a_plug-in%3F. That's the answer that you're getting above.
The problem is that if you're trying to include a complex library with multiple JARs that is normally distributed and included in a standard Java project via Maven. We hit this problem with the Jersey JAX-RS implementation in my project. There's no p2 repository that includes all of the pieces of the libraries as plug-ins with correct dependency information.
Easy Solution: If you need a common library, check the Orbit project first to see whether the libraries have already been packaged as Eclipse plug-ins, http://www.eclipse.org/orbit/. In that case, you can download them and include them in your target platform, or you can pull them in dynamically at (Tycho) build time from their p2 repository. Your plug-ins would just include those plug-ins as dependencies (in the their MANIFEST.MF files).
Workaround / Solution: In our case, Jersey JAX-RS was not available as an Eclipse plug-in, and it had a bunch of transitive dependencies. The workaround was to create an Eclipse "library plug-in" like I mentioned above with two pom files. We initially created a skeleton plug-in with an empty libs folder. One pom file is just a standard Maven pom file with <packaging>jar</packaging> that declares the top-level dependencies required to pull in the Jersey JAX-RS implementation and all of its dependencies. The dependencies are declared with <scope>compile</scope>. We use the maven-dependency-plugin to copy all of those dependencies into the project's libs folder.
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-dependency-plugin</artifactId>
<executions>
<execution>
<id>copy-dependencies</id>
<phase>compile</phase>
<goals>
<goal>copy-dependencies</goal>
</goals>
<configuration>
<outputDirectory>libs</outputDirectory>
</configuration>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
We actually ended up running Maven with that pom by hand from time to time to update the libs, and then we just checked the plug-in with all of its dependent JARs into source control. Checking the build later, I see that we actually populate the libs folder on-the-fly with Maven with a separate build task just before we start the Maven/Tycho part of the build. Of course, plug-in's MANIFEST-MF file's Bundle-ClassPath and Export-Package entries are coming straight from source control. We have to check those from time to time to ensure that they match the libraries and packages that we're getting from Maven. (That doesn't tend to change much unless we bump major library versions or add a new dependency at the Maven level.) The plug-in's build.properties has the libs/ folder as part of bin.includes.
In the development environment, after we first check out the code, we just run mvn (with an External Tools launch config that's also checked in with the project) on the project's "copy dependencies" pom file. That populates the libs folder with all of the JAX-RS libraries and dependencies. We only have to run it again when we update something about the dependencies or when we're jumping between branches that have different versions of the JAX-RS dependencies. We set .gitignore to ensure that we don't commit the libs to Git.
The other pom for this project is set up like a normal Tycho pom file with <packaging>eclipse-plugin</packaging>. During our automated build, we run one step early in the build process (just after check out) that calls mvn with the jar pom to populate the libs. Then we proceed with the main Maven/Tycho build using the eclipse-plugin pom. The eclipse-plugin pom has no dependency information (as I said above). It's just providing Tycho a way to recognize the Eclipse plug-in and build it based on its MANIFEST.MF and build.properties files. But the built plug-in includes and exposes all of those libs that were populated by the mvn call to the jar pom step.
So, it's a bit of a mess, but that's the best solution we found a couple of years ago when we hit this problem. I'm not sure whether Tycho is doing any work to permit some sort of hybrid Maven/Tycho build that could do this automatically as part of the build. I guess I should ask the developers. :)
Your questions:
Where do I add the dependencies? There's no pom with jar packaging in my project. Answer: The workaround above lets you do it with one project. You just have two pom files, like pom_deps.xml and pom.xml. You just have to invoke the pom_deps.xml separately to populate the libs folder (in the dev environment and with your automated builds).
Should I create a separate project with the necessary JARs? How do I include that dependency to my entire project? Answer: the workaround that I described above lets you do it with a single project. Another way to do it is to create a separate JAR project, but I don't think that your Eclipse RCP app can really include a <packaging>jar</packaging> module in a useful way. The only way I've found to do it is to use a similar workaround. You build the JAR module first, install it into the maven repository, and then have one of your plug-in projects bundle the JAR in its libs folder. (If you really want to do it that way, ask. We have a case where we have to do that, too, and I can provide the steps we do in development and the build to make it work. I think the single project workaround that I provided above makes more sense for your case.)
Is it really that much of a good practice to create a separate plugin and a feature for this RCP app? Answer: that's really a separate question. If you have a feature with multiple plug-ins, you have the same problem. Tycho can handle the product/feature/plug-ins, but it cannot jump across into Maven-based dependency resolution. You'll end up having to use the same workarounds
Summary: The fundamental issue is that Eclipse plug-ins can't "see" a bare JAR library. The plug-in needs to have the library included in its local libs folder (with a matching Bundle-ClassPath entry in MANIFEST.MF), or it needs to depend on some other plug-in that exports the appropriate packages. Tycho just resolves dependencies via Eclipse plug-ins, and it cannot leverage normal Maven dependency resolution directly to pull in a bunch of JARs. If all of your dependencies are already plug-ins, you're fine. If not, you may have to use the workaround above to package a set of libraries for your plug-ins to use.

Just adding the plugin to pom dependencies and including the entry <pomDependencies>consider</pomDependencies> in the configuration of target-platform-configuration makes it work.
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.eclipse.tycho</groupId>
<artifactId>target-platform-configuration</artifactId>
<version>${tycho.version}</version>
<configuration>
<!-- The configuration to make tycho consider the maven dependencies -->
<pomDependencies>consider</pomDependencies>
<!-- other configurations -->
</configuartion>
</plugin>
<!-- other plugins-->
</plugins>
<dependencies>
<!-- An example third-party bundle (plugin) present in maven repository-->
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.felix</groupId>
<artifactId>org.apache.felix.gogo.shell</artifactId>
<version>1.1.0</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
Reference link here.

use maven shade plugin like assembly plugin

I have a pom file that builds a standalone application that leverages a variety of Spring modules, in particular it uses the integration-file module. Originally my pom file used the Maven Assembly plugin but the uber jar it created didn't run correctly. Further research seems to indicate that there is a bug in the assembly plugin that basically messes up the dependencies in the uber jar. The recommended workaround is the Shade plugin, which is working for me.
However, the assembly plugin is able to create a zip file that contains the uber jar and other resources (properties files, scripts, etc). You can then use that zip to unzip it and run your script which will call your jar and pass in the other items (as example). As far as I can tell the shade plugin does not do this additional feature.
I've tried combining the shade and assembly plugins using profiles but I can't figure out how to get it to use the shade plugin to build the uber jar and then afterwards, use the assembly plugin to build the zip with the other stuff.
Has anyone done anything similar? I just need to be able to create my uber jar and then zip up the uber jar with the scripts, xml and other items.
Is there a way to run the assembly plugin without binding it to a phase? If there were, I could run package and run the shade plugin and then afterwards run the assembly plugin independently? That would solve my issue if it were possible.

It's a bit late for this answer, but I have the same scenario as you ("package phase": 1. Build uber-jar with shade, 2. Pack it into assembly zip) and all I had to do is alter the order in which plugins are specified in pom.xml.
If shade is specified before assembly, it gets executed before, for the same phase.

It is a common practice to use a separate module in a multimodule project just for assembling the zip. There's also the appassembler-maven-plugin which might be interesting for you (I've never used it myself, though).
About running a plugin without a phase: that's always possible. Execute the full name as specified on the goal-page. In this case org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-assembly-plugin:2.4:single, or in short assembly:single.
Don't try o solve this with profiles, they aren't meant for that.

Dependency in Maven

I am really new to maven. I am bit confused about the dependency feature. I know that I can add dependency in the pom file like this
<dependency>
<groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
<artifactId>slf4j-api</artifactId>
<version>1.6.1</version>
</dependency>
What does this actually mean? Does it mean that I dont need to import the slf4j jar files into my project? If so how does my project get access to those libraries?
I have read about dependency from maven site but didnt help me much.
Can some one explain it in a simpler way.
Thanks

Nutshell: It means your project has a dependency on slf4j, version 1.6.1.
Furthermore:
If you build your project with Maven (or your IDE is Maven-aware), you don't have to do anything else in order to use slf4j. (Aside from normal source-code considerations, like a reasonable import statement, etc.)
slf4j v. 1.6.1 will be retrieved from a default Maven repository to your local repository, meaning...
... ~/.m2/repository is your repository. slf4j will be put in $M2_HOME/org/slf4j/$(artifactId}/1.6.1 and will include (in general) a jar file, a pom file, and a hash file.
Slf4j's dependencies will be downloaded into your local repository as well.
Dependencies of those dependencies will be downloaded ad infinitum/ad nauseum. (The source of "first use of a library downloads the internet" jokes if there are a lot of dependencies; not the case for slf4j.) This is "transitive dependency management"--one of Maven's original purposes.

If you were not using maven, you would manually download and use the dependencies that you needed for your project. You would probably place them in a lib folder and specify this location in your IDE as well as your build tool.
maven manages these dependencies for you. You specify the dependency your project needs in the prescribed format and maven downloads them for you from the internet and manages them. When building your project, maven knows where it has placed these dependencies and uses them. Most IDEs also know where these dependencies are, when they discover that it is a maven project.
Why is this a big deal? Typically most open source libraries release newer versions on a regular basis. If your project uses these, then each time a newer version is needed, you would need to manually download it and manage it. More importantly, each dependency, in turn may have other dependencies (called transitive dependency). If you do not use maven, you would need to identify, download and manage these transitive dependencies as well.
It becomes complex the more such dependencies that your project uses. It is possible that two dependencies end up using different versions of a dependency common to them.

When compiling your project, Maven will download the corresponding .jar file from a repository, usually the central repository (you can configure different repositories, either for mirroring or for your own libraries which aren't available on the central repositories).
If your IDE know about Maven, it will parse the pom and either download the dependencies itself or ask Maven to do so. Then it will open the dependencies' jars, and this is how you get autocompletion: the IDE "imports" the jars for you behind the scenes.
The repository contains not only the ".jar" file for the dependency, but also a ".pom" file, which describes its dependencies. So, maven will recursively download its dependencies, and you will get all the jars you need to compile your software.
Then, when you will try to run your software, you will have to tell the JVM where to find these dependencies (ie, you have to put them on the class path).
What I usually do is copy the dependencies to a target/lib/ directory, so it is easy to deploy the software and to launch it. To do so, you can use the maven-dependency-plugin, which you specify in the <build>:
<build>
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-dependency-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.1</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<phase>package</phase>
<goals>
<goal>copy-dependencies</goal>
</goals>
<configuration>
<outputDirectory>${project.build.directory}/lib</outputDirectory>
</configuration>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
</build>

There are a variety of servers on the internet that host artifacts (jars) that you can download as part of a maven build. You can add dependencies like you show above to describe what jars you need in order to build your code. When maven goes to build, it will contact one of these servers and download the jar to your computer and place it in a local repository usually
${user_home}/.m2/repository
The servers that maven contacts must be configured in your maven project pom file, under a section like
<repositories>
<repository>
</repository>
</repositories>
The prototypical server can be seen at repo1.maven.org
The nice thing about maven is that if a jar you list is needed, it will pull not only that jar, but any jars that that jar needs. Obviously, since you are pulling the jars to your machine, it only downloads them when it can't find them on your machine, thus not slowing down your build everytime (just the first time).

dependency not found at runtime maven

I'm new to maven and somewhat new to java. Tried google and related sources, but I didn't find one which resembled my situation.
Right now, I have maven project X and Y. X can be seen as a shared library with some utilities, Y is a simple JFrame with a "hello world" printed and a call to a static method in X.
I do a "run as maven install" on project X, I get a "build successful". I add project X as dependency in project Y (using the pom-editor in Eclipse, browsing the repository and locating it). I do a "run as maven package" on project Y, I get a "build successful". Upon running project Y either via java -jar or inspect the produced jar, project X is missing everywhere and I get a fancy class not found exception. Eclipse finds it and there are no compile errors in the source editor.
Why is it only working in the Eclipse editor and not as jar?
POM:
<dependency>
<groupId>com.company.deployment.shared</groupId>
<artifactId>com.company.deployment.shared</artifactId>
<version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
<scope>compile</scope>
</dependency>

Maven doesn't produce a combined JAR file for you. What Eclipse is doing is looking at the Maven configuration and adding all the required classes / jars to your classpath for you when it runs.
If you want to run your program from the command-line, you will need to add all the JARs manually to your classpath.
Alternatively, you could run your program directly from Maven which should set up all your dependencies. There are a number of options depending on what you want to do, i.e. if it's an application which is meant to be run by an end-user you could look into the one-jar Maven plugin.

I recommend that you take a look at the Maven shade plugin. This produces an "uber-jar" comprising your project and all of its dependencies. It can also do other things such as setting the entry point class to make your JAR file an executable JAR.

You may also find exec-maven-plugin helpful
mvn exec:java -Dexec.mainClass="com.example.Main" [-Dexec.args="argument1"] ...
mvn exec:exec -Dexec.executable="maven" [-Dexec.workingdir="/tmp"] -Dexec.args="-X myproject:dist"
If your client can not download dependencies from maven m2 repo on the fly like behind firewall or no internet connection, then you also need to package the dependencies using maven-dependency-plugin to copy all dependencies and maven-assembly-plugin to assemble dependencies

It doesn't work because Maven resolves dependencies when building your project, but doesn't put all the dependencies magically in your jar. You're supposed to run your app with all its dependencies in the classpath:
java -classpath X.jar;Y.jar com.foo.bar.Main
Or you have to customize the maven jar plugin in order to create an executable jar, as described here. And you may also use the maven assemby plugin to copy all your Y project's dependencies to the target directory, next to the generated Y.jar.

The artifact produced in project Y contains only build results in project Y only, not including its dependencies.
If you want to build a JAR in Y, which u can execute directly, you can consider using assembly plugin.
For example, the easiest way to build a uber-jar for project Y:
<project>
...
<build>
...
<plugins>
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.2.1</version>
<configuration>
<descriptorRefs>
<descriptorRef>jar-with-dependencies</descriptorRef>
</descriptorRefs>
</configuration>
<executions>
<execution>
<id>make-all-in-one-jar</id>
<phase>package</phase>
<goals>
<goal>single</goal>
</goals>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
...
</project>
Apart from a normal artifact, an assembly which contains classes etc from dependencies will be created, which is suitable to be executed by java -jar
visit http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-assembly-plugin/ for more sophisticated usage.

Phil Sacre already explained the basic problem well (there basically is just no information on where to find the X.jar embedded in your Y.jar).
Additionally you can also look at the appassembler-maven-plugin (which can e.g. generate launch scripts for your Y project that already have the right classpath set) and/or the exec-maven-plugin (which you can use to e.g. directly launch Y with the right classpath using maven).

do not pack specified resources in jar

I have a maven2 project, consisting of root project (with pom packaging) and a set of modules having dependencies on each other. The project is a library with a set of apps built on top of this library. Now the problem.
My library uses some resources which cannot be packed in jar - namely some sqlite databases, and I can't find a way to put it near the jar instead of inside it, and to buldle library this way to dependent applications.
Thanks. Any ideas?

Create a custom assembly to distribute the project as an archive (e.g. a zip or tar.gz) is clearly the way to go here.
To customize the way the Assembly Plugin creates your assemblies, you'll need to provide your custom descriptor (this gives you all the flexibility you need). Then, to build the assembly as part of the build, all you have to do is to bind the single or single-directory mojos into the default build lifecycle as explained in the Configuration and Usage of the plugin's documentation.
Another great resource is Sonatype's book which has an entire chapter dedicated to assemblies: see Chapter 14. Maven Assemblies .

Sounds like you could use the maven assembly plugin to create a distribution file of your choice (zip, jar, tar...) which would include the extra resources.

Here is the important fact from Maven: The Complete Reference's Assemblies Chapter Section 8.3.2:
When you generate assemblies as part
of your normal build process, those
assembly archives will be attached to
your main project’s artifact. This
means they will be installed and
deployed alongside the main artifact,
and are then resolvable in much the
same way. Each assembly artifact is
given the same basic coordinates
(groupId, artifactId, and version) as
the main project. However, these
artifacts are attachments, which in
Maven means they are derivative works
based on some aspect of the main
project build. To provide a couple of
examples, source assemblies contain
the raw inputs for the project build,
and jar-with-dependencies assemblies
contain the project’s classes plus its
dependencies. Attached artifacts are
allowed to circumvent the Maven
requirement of one project, one
artifact precisely because of this
derivative quality.
Since assemblies are (normally)
attached artifacts, each must have a
classifier to distinguish it from the
main artifact, in addition to the
normal artifact coordinates. By
default, the classifier is the same as
the assembly descriptor’s identifier.
When using the built-in assembly
descriptors, as above, the assembly
descriptor’s identifier is generally
also the same as the identifier used
in the descriptorRef for that type of
assembly.
It is important to understand that while most Maven projects only generate a single artifact it is possible to generate more than one and use the classifier coordinate to associate these artifacts with the same GAV coordinate. In your case, you'll want to attach an assembly plugin's "single" goal using something similar to this:
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.2-beta-2</version>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.sonatype.mavenbook.assemblies</groupId>
<artifactId>web-fragment-descriptor</artifactId>
<version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
<executions>
<execution>
<id>assemble</id>
<phase>package</phase>
<goals>
<goal>single</goal>
</goals>
<configuration>
<descriptorRefs>
<descriptorRef>web-fragment</descriptorRef>
</descriptorRefs>
</configuration>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
You can attach as many of these executions as you wish, but once you have more than one execution for a particular plugin, each execution will require a unique "id" element. The "single" goal in the Maven Assembly plugin does the same thing that that the "assembly" goal does except it was designed to be bound to the lifecycle.
The other part of you question is about excluding specific resources from a JAR, you can accomplish this by excluding resources in your POM.