Missing tools-1.6.jar with Eclipse and Maven

Question

I am trying to get a project to run using Maven in Eclipse, but I am getting this error below. The tools.jar is in the JDK's lib folder, but tools-1.6.jar doesn't seem to exist on my computer. I am using the JDK 1.7 and my JAVA_HOME is pointing to that folder (as is my eclipse.ini) Anyone know where I can get this file or what I might be doing wrong?

The container 'Maven Dependencies' references non existing library C:\Users\sejohnson\.m2\repository\com\sun\tools\1.6\tools-1.6.jar

Answer 1

The tools-x.y.z.jar should be provided by your JDK.

Make sure that eclipse is run by JDK and not by JRE by adding -vm option in eclipse.ini.

For example:

-vm
C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_26\bin\javaw

New line after -vm is crucial.

it should be right above

-vmargs

See also Eclipse Maven Plugin Configuration Problem

Answer 2

I had exactly the same problem and end up adding the following dependency to the pom file:

    <dependency>
        <groupId>jdk.tools</groupId>
        <artifactId>jdk.tools</artifactId>
        <version>${java.version}</version>
        <scope>system</scope>
        <systemPath>${JAVA_HOME}/lib/tools.jar</systemPath>
    </dependency>

This fixed the problem and made tools.jar available for QueryDSL plugin in my project. Hope this helps. Note, make sure that JDK version is used instead of JRE.

Edit: Recently noted that problem reappeared when I moved on new dev platform, in my case it was Ubuntu 12.10. The fix was to add ${JAVA_HOME}/bin to the $PATH