How to define the order of executions using maven-assembly-plugin

Question

I am working on the migration of a project from Ant to Maven. The final distribution I need to deliver is a zip containing an executable jar with all its depencencies. Here is part of my pom:

            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>2.2-beta-4</version>
                <configuration>
                    <finalName>ProjectDistribution</finalName>
                    <appendAssemblyId>false</appendAssemblyId>              
                    <descriptorRefs>
                        <descriptorRef>jar-with-dependencies</descriptorRef>                            
                    </descriptorRefs>
                    <archive>
                        <manifest>
                            <mainClass>fullQualifiedNameToMainClass</mainClass>
                            <addClasspath>true</addClasspath>                               
                        </manifest>
                    </archive>
                    <descriptors>
                        <descriptor>${project.basedir}/src/main/assembly/dep.xml</descriptor>
                    </descriptors>                      
                </configuration>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <id>jar-with-dependencies</id>
                        <phase>package</phase>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>single</goal>
                        </goals>
                    </execution>
                    <execution>
                        <id>dist</id>
                        <phase>assembly</phase>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>single</goal>
                        </goals>
                    </execution>                        
                </executions>                                       
            </plugin>

And here is the assembly file:

<assembly>
<id>dist</id>
<formats>
    <format>zip</format>
</formats> 
<!-- 1st approach-->
<!--files>
    <file>
        <source>
            /target/ProjectDistribution.jar
        </source>
        <outputDirectory>/</outputDirectory>
    </file>
</files-->
<fileSets>
            <!-- 2nd approach-->        
    <!--fileSet>
        <directory>/target</directory>
        <outputDirectory></outputDirectory>
        <includes>      
            <include>*.jar</include>
        </includes>
    </fileSet-->
    <fileSet>
        <directory>/HelpFiles</directory>
        <outputDirectory></outputDirectory>
        <includes>
            <include>*.*</include>
        </includes>
    </fileSet>
</fileSets>

I run 1.- mvn compile, 2.- mvn package, and 3.- mvn assembly:single

The problem I am dealing with is that

It does generate the jar with all the dependencies and it does generate the zip but it does not includ the jar in the zip. I pretty much need to figure out a way of making the assembly first generate the jar and wait until it is created (because its size is 5 MB) and then create the zip. Right now the 1st and 2nd approaches -from the assembly file- are commented out, however, I have used both and none of them seem to work.

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Eric

Answer 1

To get this working you need to split the <configuration> and put it into the two plugin executions:

<build>
  <plugins>
    <plugin>
      <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
      <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
      <version>2.2-beta-4</version>
      <executions>
        <execution>
          <id>jar-with-dependencies</id>
          <phase>verify</phase>
          <goals>
            <goal>single</goal>
          </goals>
          <configuration>
            <finalName>ProjectDistribution</finalName>
            <appendAssemblyId>false</appendAssemblyId>
            <descriptorRefs>
              <descriptorRef>jar-with-dependencies</descriptorRef>
            </descriptorRefs>
            <archive>
              <manifest>
                <mainClass>fullQualifiedNameToMainClass</mainClass>
                <addClasspath>true</addClasspath>
              </manifest>
            </archive>
          </configuration>
        </execution>
        <execution>
          <id>dist</id>
          <phase>verify</phase>
          <goals>
            <goal>single</goal>
          </goals>
          <configuration>
            <descriptors>
              <descriptor>${project.basedir}/src/main/assembly/dep.xml</descriptor>
            </descriptors>
          </configuration>
        </execution>
      </executions>
    </plugin>
  </plugins>
</build>

The first execution will create the jar file. The second execution will take that JAR file and put it into the ZIP file together with the other files. With this configuration, you can just execute mvn verify or mvn install to create the assembly.

There are two other things to consider:

• You should use the verify phase to build your assembly because the jar-with-dependencies descriptor includes the project artifact itself. During the package phase the project artifact will not be ready for packaging
• The jar-with-dependencies descriptor has very limited capabilities to create a JAR file with all dependencies. You should use the maven-shade-plugin instead.

Answer 2

You are mixing the pre-defined jar-with-dependencies with a custom zip descriptor. You would normally want one of them - not both.

It looks like you want a zip which contains your project artifact along with its dependencies. For this you would not need to create a jar-with-dependencies. If, however, you do want a single executable jar with all the dependencies in it, then it is not clear why you need to zip it again.