maven-assembly-plugin doesn't add dependencies with system scope

Question

This is my pom file:

<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/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">   <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>   <groupId>com.sia.g7</groupId>   <artifactId>sia</artifactId>   <packaging>jar</packaging>   <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>   <name>sia</name>   <url>http://maven.apache.org</url>   <dependencies>     <dependency>         <groupId>log4j</groupId>         <artifactId>log4j</artifactId>         <version>1.2.12</version>      </dependency> <dependency>     <groupId>commons-math</groupId>     <artifactId>commons-math</artifactId>     <version>1.2</version> </dependency>     <dependency>       <groupId>junit</groupId>       <artifactId>junit</artifactId>       <version>4.8.1</version>       <scope>test</scope>     </dependency>      <dependency>       <groupId>jmathplot</groupId>       <artifactId>jmathplot</artifactId>       <version>1.0</version>       <scope>system</scope>       <systemPath>${project.basedir}/lib/jmathplot.jar</systemPath>     </dependency>      <dependency>       <groupId>jgraphx</groupId>       <artifactId>jgraphx</artifactId>       <version>1.0</version>       <scope>system</scope>       <systemPath>${project.basedir}/lib/jgraphx.jar</systemPath>     </dependency>    </dependencies> <build>   <plugins>     <plugin>       <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>       <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>       <version>2.0.2</version>       <configuration>         <source>1.6</source>         <target>1.6</target>       </configuration>     </plugin>     <plugin>       <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>       <configuration>         <descriptorRefs>           <descriptorRef>jar-with-dependencies</descriptorRef>         </descriptorRefs>         <appendAssemblyId>false</appendAssemblyId>         <archive>           <manifest>             <mainClass>com.sia.g7.AbstractSimulation</mainClass>           </manifest>         </archive>       </configuration>      </plugin>   </plugins>  </build> </project> 

And when I run the jar I get:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: com/mxgraph/swing/mxGraphComponent 

which is part of the jgraphx dependency. What am I missing?

Answer 1

Yes, and this is one of the reasons you shouldn't abuse system scope dependencies (which is globally a bad practice) and this problem has already been mentioned several times here on SO (here, here). I'm proposing a solution to deal with project relative dependencies in a "clean" way in this answer.

Answer 2

you can do it by adding this dependencySet to your assembly file descriptor

<dependencySet>     <outputDirectory>/</outputDirectory>     <unpack>true</unpack>     <scope>system</scope> </dependencySet> 

this assembly descriptor add all dependencies including system scoped

<assembly xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-assembly-plugin/assembly/1.1.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-assembly-plugin/assembly/1.1.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/assembly-1.1.0.xsd"> <id>jar-with-all-dependencies</id> <formats>     <format>jar</format> </formats> <includeBaseDirectory>false</includeBaseDirectory> <dependencySets>     <dependencySet>         <outputDirectory>/</outputDirectory>         <useProjectArtifact>true</useProjectArtifact>         <unpack>true</unpack>         <scope>runtime</scope>     </dependencySet>     <dependencySet>         <outputDirectory>/</outputDirectory>         <unpack>true</unpack>         <scope>system</scope>     </dependencySet> </dependencySets>   </assembly>