Generate jar file in Maven with dependencies and tests

Question

I use this code in pom.xml to create a jar file.

   <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-jar-plugin</artifactId>
        <configuration>
            <excludes>
                <exclude>**/log4j.properties</exclude>
            </excludes>
            <archive>
                <manifest>
                    <mainClass>test.LeanFTest</mainClass>
                </manifest>
            </archive>
        </configuration>
    </plugin>

I got error message:

Deployment failed: repository element was not specified in the POM inside distribution

UPDATE:

I added another plugin in pom.xml.

        <plugin>
            <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
            <configuration>
                <archive>
                    <manifest>
                        <mainClass>test.LeanFTest</mainClass>
                    </manifest>
                </archive>
                <descriptorRefs>
                    <descriptorRef>jar-with-dependencies</descriptorRef>
                </descriptorRefs>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>

It generates a jar file, but seemly without dependencies.

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/apache/log4j/Logger

Structure of project:

C:.
├───.idea
│   └───libraries
├───META-INF
├───out
│   └───artifacts
│       └───Test_LeanFT_jar
├───resources
│   ├───leanftjar
│   └───META-INF
├───RunResults
│   └───Resources
│       ├───Snapshots
│       └───User
├───src
│   ├───main
│   │   ├───java
│   │   │   ├───com
│   │   │   │   └───myproj
│   │   │   ├───jar
│   │   │   │   └───META-INF
│   │   │   ├───META-INF
│   │   │   ├───unittesting
│   │   │   └───utils
│   │   └───resources
│   └───test
│       └───java
│           └───test
├───target
│   ├───classes
│   │   ├───com
│   │   │   └───myproj
│   │   ├───unittesting
│   │   └───utils
│   ├───generated-sources
│   │   └───annotations
│   ├───generated-test-sources
│   │   └───test-annotations
│   ├───maven-archiver
│   ├───maven-status
│   │   └───maven-compiler-plugin
│   │       ├───compile
│   │       │   └───default-compile
│   │       └───testCompile
│   │           └───default-testCompile
│   ├───surefire
│   ├───surefire-reports
│   │   ├───Command line suite
│   │   ├───junitreports
│   │   └───old
│   │       └───Command line suite
│   └───test-classes
│       └───test
└───test-output
    ├───All Test Suite
    ├───junitreports
    ├───My_Suite
    └───old
        ├───All Test Suite
        └───My_Suite

pom.xml file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

    <groupId>groupId</groupId>
    <artifactId>LeanFT</artifactId>
    <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <packaging>jar</packaging>
    <name>Mytest</name>
    <description>Regression test</description>

    <properties>
        <leanftsdk>C:/Program Files (x86)/HPE/Unified Functional Testing/SDK/Java/</leanftsdk>
        <maven.test.skip>true</maven.test.skip>
    </properties>

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>log4j</groupId>
            <artifactId>log4j</artifactId>
            <version>1.2.17</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.testng</groupId>
            <artifactId>testng</artifactId>
            <version>6.14.3</version>
            <scope>compile</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.hamcrest</groupId>
            <artifactId>hamcrest-core</artifactId>
            <version>1.3</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>commons-io</groupId>
            <artifactId>commons-io</artifactId>
            <version>2.6</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.hp.lft</groupId>
            <artifactId>sdk</artifactId>
            <version>14.0.0</version>
            <scope>system</scope>
            <systemPath>${leanftsdk}/com.hp.lft.sdk-standalone.jar</systemPath>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.hp.lft</groupId>
            <artifactId>report</artifactId>
            <version>14.0.0</version>
            <scope>system</scope>
            <systemPath>${leanftsdk}/com.hp.lft.report.jar</systemPath>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.hp.lft</groupId>
            <artifactId>unittesting</artifactId>
            <version>14.0.0</version>
            <scope>system</scope>
            <systemPath>${leanftsdk}/com.hp.lft.unittesting.jar</systemPath>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.hp.lft</groupId>
            <artifactId>verifications</artifactId>
            <version>14.0.0</version>
            <scope>system</scope>
            <systemPath>${leanftsdk}/com.hp.lft.verifications.jar</systemPath>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>

    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
                <configuration>
                    <source>1.7</source>
                    <target>1.7</target>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
                <artifactId>build-helper-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>1.10</version>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <id>add-source</id>
                        <phase>generate-sources</phase>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>add-source</goal>
                        </goals>
                        <configuration>
                            <sources>
                                <source>appmodels</source>
                            </sources>
                        </configuration>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
                <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
                <configuration>
                    <archive>
                        <manifest>
                            <mainClass>test.LeanFTest</mainClass>
                        </manifest>
                    </archive>
                    <descriptorRefs>
                        <descriptorRef>jar-with-dependencies</descriptorRef>
                    </descriptorRefs>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
                <configuration>
                    <skipTests>true</skipTests>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>
</project>

Answer 1

My solution is to build an archive (zip or other formats) that contains your classes in a jar, the dependencies jars, a folder with runtime configuration files and scripts to launch the application. The scope is to have a run ready application just by unzipping the archive.

The built archive content is:

artifactId-version.zip:
<artifactId folder>
    ├─ config
    |    ├─ log4j2.xml
    ├─ lib
    |    ├─ <all dependencies jars>
    ├─ leanft.cmd
    ├─ leanft.sh
    └─ artifactId-version.jar

You should tailor the solution based on what/if you need configuration files. You don't need the META-INF folders with MANIFEST.MF files because will be generated automatically by maven plugin.

Project structure

<maven_module_root>
├─ src
|   ├─ main
|   |    ├─ assembly
|   |    |    ├─ leanft-assembly.xml
|   |    ├─ java
|   |    |    ├─ <your classes content>
|   |    ├─ resources
|   |    |    ├─ log4j2.xml
|   |    |    ├─ <your runtime configuration files>
|   |    ├─ scripts
|   |    |    ├─ leanft.cmd
|   |    |    ├─ leanft.sh
│   └───test
├─ pom.xml

The project structure is similar with your current structure with two additional folders:
- assembly: in this folder is the leanft-assembly.xml to customize the maven-assembly-plugin.
- scripts: in this folder are the launcher scripts for your application. This is necessary it if you need to have runtime configuration files available for edit. In my example, the resources/log4j2.xml will be in a config file so the user can edit this file without touching any jar/archive.

Assembly descriptor

The solution is based on maven assembly plugin with custom configuration. I recommend to get familiar with it, starting with descriptor assembly descriptor

Your leanft-assembly.xml could look like:

<assembly
    xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-assembly-plugin/assembly/1.1.3"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-assembly-plugin/assembly/1.1.3 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/assembly-1.1.3.xsd">
    <id>dist</id>
    <formats>
        <!-- <format>tar.gz</format> -->
        <format>zip</format>
    </formats>
    <includeBaseDirectory>true</includeBaseDirectory>
    <baseDirectory>${project.artifactId}</baseDirectory>
    <fileSets>
        <fileSet>
            <directory>${project.build.directory}</directory>
            <outputDirectory>/</outputDirectory>
            <includes>
                <include>${project.artifactId}-${project.version}.jar</include>
            </includes>
        </fileSet>
        <fileSet>
            <directory>${project.build.directory}/lib</directory>
            <outputDirectory>/lib</outputDirectory>
            <includes>
                <include>*.*</include>
            </includes>
        </fileSet>
        <fileSet>
            <directory>${project.build.outputDirectory}</directory>
            <outputDirectory>/config</outputDirectory>
            <includes>
                <include>log4j2.xml</include>
            </includes>
        </fileSet>
        <fileSet>
            <directory>${project.basedir}/src/main/scripts</directory>
            <outputDirectory>/</outputDirectory>
            <includes>
                <include>leanft.*</include>
            </includes>
        </fileSet>
    </fileSets>
</assembly>

Maven pom

Finally, the pom.xml make use of 3 plugins:

    <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-dependency-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>3.0.1</version>
        <executions>
            <execution>
                <id>copy-dependencies</id>
                <phase>package</phase>
                <goals>
                    <goal>copy-dependencies</goal>
                </goals>
                <configuration>
                    <outputDirectory>${project.build.directory}/lib</outputDirectory>
                    <overWriteIfNewer>true</overWriteIfNewer>
                    <overWriteReleases>false</overWriteReleases>
                    <overWriteSnapshots>true</overWriteSnapshots>
                </configuration>
            </execution>
        </executions>
    </plugin>
    <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-jar-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>3.0.2</version>
        <configuration>
            <archive>
                <manifest>
                    <addClasspath>true</addClasspath>
                    <classpathPrefix>lib/</classpathPrefix>
                    <mainClass>test.LeanFTest</mainClass>
                </manifest>
            </archive>
            <excludes>
                <exclude>log4j2.xml</exclude>
            </excludes>
        </configuration>
    </plugin>
    <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>3.0.0</version>
        <executions>
            <execution>
                <id>make-assembly</id>
                <phase>package</phase>
                <goals>
                    <goal>single</goal>
                </goals>
            </execution>
        </executions>
        <configuration>
            <finalName>${project.artifactId}-${project.version}</finalName>
            <appendAssemblyId>false</appendAssemblyId>
            <descriptors>
                <descriptor>src/main/assembly/leanft-assembly.xml</descriptor>
            </descriptors>
        </configuration>
    </plugin>

I will explain the usage of maven plugins:
- maven-dependency-plugin: copy all dependencies at package phase in a lib folder under the target folder.
- maven-jar-plugin:
    - archive: generate manifest file, define in manifest all dependencies from the lib folder and what is the main class so you can run the application also with "java -jar"
    - excludes: don't include the log4j2.xml file in the module jar because will be in config folder available at runtime from outside jar.
- maven-assembly-plugin: create at package phase a zip file that contains your distribution. The archive is placed in target folder. The descriptor tag reference your assembly configuration file leanft-assembly.xml.

Script

The script to launch the application call java with predefined parameters, the main line from script being:

%JAVA_HOME%\bin\java %JVM_ARGS% -cp %SCRIPT_DIR%\*;%SCRIPT_DIR%\config\ test.LeanFTest

Answer 2

You need to specify execution phase in the maven-assembly-plugin. Use the following maven-assembly-plugin configuration.

     <plugin>
        <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
        <configuration>
            <archive>
                <manifest>
                    <mainClass>test.LeanFTest</mainClass>
                </manifest>
            </archive>
            <descriptorRefs>
                <descriptorRef>jar-with-dependencies</descriptorRef>
            </descriptorRefs>
        </configuration>
        <executions>
                <execution>
                    <phase>package</phase>
                    <goals>
                        <goal>single</goal>
                    </goals>
                </execution>
        </executions>
    </plugin>

Now just run mvn package on the project pom.xml (root directory) and you shall get a fully assembled jar by your artifactId plus "jar-with-dependencies" suffix.