This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Java Buzz by Nick Lothian. Original Post: Using a lib directory with Maven Feed Title: BadMagicNumber Feed URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Badmagicnumber Feed Description: Java, Development and Me Latest Java Buzz Posts Latest Java Buzz Posts by Nick Lothian Latest Posts From BadMagicNumber

People seem unaware that it is pretty easy to use a lib directory in Maven builds. Many ant builds use structures like below:

+---lib
+---src
    +---conf
    +---java
    +---test

In Maven, you might have a dependency declared like this:

<dependency>
	<id>cas</id>
	<artifactId>cas</artifactId>
</dependency>

maven.jar.override=on
maven.jar.cas=lib/cas-2.0.12.jar

Obviously this (like too many things in Maven) is something that should be a lot easier than it is. I think that the project.xml should be able to specify a build-repository that is checked before the local repository, since that would make self-contained builds a lot easier. In the mean time, this is a useful measure that I've found useful.