How to put all dependencies in separate folder for runnable jar?

Question

I\'m using mvn package to create a runnable jar with all dependencies packed inside, which runs fine. But I\'d prefer to have all external dependencies packed i

Answer 1

Use the maven-dependencies-plugin to specify an output directory for the copy-dependencies execution.

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-dependency-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>2.5.1</version>
    <executions>
      <execution>
        <id>copy-dependencies</id>
        <phase>package</phase>
        <goals>
        <goal>copy-dependencies</goal>
        </goals>
        <configuration>
        <outputDirectory>${project.build.directory}/lib/</outputDirectory>
        </configuration>
      </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>

Update:

To let the jar know where to find the lib folder, you can specify this as a Class-Path value in the manifest using the maven-jar-plugin

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-jar-plugin</artifactId>
    <configuration>
    <archive>
        <manifest>
        <addClasspath>true</addClasspath>
        <classpathPrefix>lib/</classpathPrefix>
        <mainClass>foo.bar.MainClass</mainClass>
        </manifest>
    </archive>
    </configuration>
</plugin>

Hope this helps.