Maven - Copy specific dependency with its transitive dependencies to a give location

Question

I have a maven project which I have say spring framework libraries as dependencies, I want to copy spring framework dependencies with there transitive dependencies to a location specified.

I have gone through maven dependency plugin guides at apache, I have several options where non of them will solve the complete problem.

1. copy dependencies option

<plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-dependency-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>2.8</version>
        <executions>
          <execution>
            <id>copy-dependencies</id>
            <phase>package</phase>
            <goals>
              <goal>copy-dependencies</goal>
            </goals>
            <configuration>
              <outputDirectory>${project.build.directory}/alternateLocation</outputDirectory>
              <overWriteReleases>false</overWriteReleases>
              <overWriteSnapshots>false</overWriteSnapshots>
              <overWriteIfNewer>true</overWriteIfNewer>
            </configuration>
          </execution>
        </executions>
      </plugin>

This will copy all the dependencies and there transitives to a given location, I want only spring dependencies and there transitives.

1. copying specific artifacts

<plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-dependency-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>2.8</version>
        <executions>
          <execution>
            <id>copy</id>
            <phase>package</phase>
            <goals>
              <goal>copy</goal>
            </goals>
            <configuration>
              <artifactItems>
                <artifactItem>
                   <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
                   <artifactId>spring-web</artifactId>
                   <version>3.2.4.RELEASE</version>
                  <type>jar</type>
                  <overWrite>false</overWrite>                  <outputDirectory>${project.build.directory}/alternateLocation</outputDirectory>
                  <destFileName>optional-new-name.jar</destFileName>
                </artifactItem>
              </artifactItems>
              <outputDirectory>${project.build.directory}/wars</outputDirectory>
              <overWriteReleases>false</overWriteReleases>
              <overWriteSnapshots>true</overWriteSnapshots>
            </configuration>
          </execution>
        </executions>
      </plugin>

This is not coping the transitive dependencies.

Any solution which solve my both problems.

Answer 1

This is possible with the assembly plugin.

Plugin configuration:

     <plugin>
            <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>3.1.0</version>
            <configuration>
                <descriptors>
                    <descriptor>src/assembly/assembly.xml</descriptor>
                </descriptors>
                <finalName>plugins</finalName> <!--folder name in target directory-->
            </configuration>

            <executions>
                <execution>
                    <id>some-id</id> <!-- must match assembly id in assembly.xml-->
                    <phase>pre-integration-test</phase> <!-- pic -->
                    <goals>
                        <goal>single</goal>
                    </goals>
                </execution>
            </executions>

        </plugin>

assembly.xml

<assembly xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/ASSEMBLY/2.0.0"
          xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
          xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/ASSEMBLY/2.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/assembly-2.0.0.xsd">

    <id>some-id</id>
    <formats>
        <format>dir</format>
    </formats>
    <includeBaseDirectory>false</includeBaseDirectory>

    <dependencySets>
        <dependencySet>
            <includes>
                <include>
                    org.springframework:spring-web
                </include>
            </includes>
            <useTransitiveDependencies>true</useTransitiveDependencies>
            <useTransitiveFiltering>true</useTransitiveFiltering>
        </dependencySet>
    </dependencySets>

</assembly>

The important bits are <useTransitiveDependencies>true</useTransitiveDependencies> and <useTransitiveFiltering>true</useTransitiveFiltering>, which cause the include to be applied to project dependencies, but not to transitive dependencies, resulting in spring-web artifact and it's dependencies to be copied to the directory.