Running JDK8 for aspectj

Question

I am trying to run aspectj-maven plugin with JDK8. But it is giving errors like "The type java.lang.CharSequence cannot be resolved. It is indirectly referenced from required .class files"

Any help on how to resolve, or if the aspectj-maven-plugin supports JDK8. I am using 1.6 version of aspectj--maven-plugin.

Answer 1

I had to achieve the same and I drove crazy trying to figure out this, fortunately I could solve it and here I give you what I did:

To use aspectj-maven-plugin with Java 8 you need version aspectj-maven-plugin 1.7 (Note that aspectj-maven-plugin 1.6 works for Java 7).

So, the maven plugin configuration needs to be:

        <!-- AspectJ configuration -->
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
            <artifactId>aspectj-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>1.7-SNAPSHOT</version>
            <configuration>
                <complianceLevel>1.8</complianceLevel>
                <source>1.8</source>
                <target>1.8</target>
            </configuration>
            <executions>
                <execution>
                    <goals>
                        <goal>compile</goal>
                        <goal>test-compile</goal>
                    </goals>
                </execution>
            </executions>
        </plugin>

By the way, the aspectJ jars needed are:

    <!-- Spring AOP + AspectJ -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.aspectj</groupId>
        <artifactId>aspectjrt</artifactId>
        <version>1.8.1</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-aop</artifactId>
        <version>1.8.1</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.aspectj</groupId>
        <artifactId>aspectjweaver</artifactId>
        <version>1.8.1</version>
    </dependency>

And the most important thing I've struggled was that you need to install the aspectj-maven-plugin 1.7 jar manually into your pom.xml since this jar aren't on maven repo yet.

You can get it from Haus Jira (look at the Attachment section):

https://jira.codehaus.org/browse/MASPECTJ-131

Btw, once you download it an copy it to your repo you need to create your own aspectj-maven-plugin-1.7-SNAPSHOT.pom file within the corresponding directory. You can copy it from version 1.6 BUT ensure you modify the following content:

 <version>1.7-SNAPSHOT</version>

 <properties>
    <aspectjVersion>1.8.1</aspectjVersion>
    <mavenVersion>2.2.1</mavenVersion>
    <changesPluginVersion>2.9</changesPluginVersion>
 </properties>

That's all here you go, hope to help.

Answer 2

You don't need 1.7-SNAPSHOT for that. I have this snippent in POM and everything works:

<plugin>
                    <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
                    <artifactId>aspectj-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                    <version>1.5</version>
                    <executions>
                        <execution>
                            <goals>
                                <goal>compile</goal>
                            </goals>
                        </execution>
                    </executions>
                    <configuration>
                        <source>1.8</source>
                        <target>1.8</target>
                        <complianceLevel>1.8</complianceLevel>
                        <showWeaveInfo>true</showWeaveInfo>
                    </configuration>
                    <dependencies>
                        <dependency>
                            <groupId>org.aspectj</groupId>
                            <artifactId>aspectjrt</artifactId>
                            <version>1.8.1</version>
                        </dependency>
                        <dependency>
                            <groupId>org.aspectj</groupId>
                            <artifactId>aspectjtools</artifactId>
                            <version>1.8.1</version>
                        </dependency>
                    </dependencies>

                </plugin>