XOM API for Processing XML with Java

[Steve Loughran <steve.loughran AT gmail.com>]

On 12/13/05, Adam Constabaris <adamc AT unc.edu> wrote:
> This isn't about XOM as such, since it's about Maven 2's dependency
> resolution mechanism; the short version is that the POM in the ibiblio
> respository for XOM 1.1 references jaxen, although a jaxen JAR on the
> classpath is neither a compile-time nor a runtime dependency for XOM.
>
> Having the dependency specified unfortunately leads to all sorts of
> extra jars being pulled into your dependency tree [ one of which is
> JDOM, forcing you to be very careful about which packages you let an IDE
> auto-import for you =) ]  The tree can be managed somewhat via m2's
> exclusions mechanism, but if one is available, I'd prefer a solution at
> the level of the repository.
>
> If there's a global fix to be had, it might be as simple as adding a
> <scope>provided</scope> element for the jaxen dependency, but I don't
> know enough about M2's facilities for these things to figure out whether
> that does what I think it ought to do.  Another possibility is removing
> the dependency referenced in the POM entirely, since the jaxen classes
> are bundled in the XOM jar in the repository.

1. be glad that the m2 repository is working at all; I had to complain
last week that they had a v3 pom in there, not a v4

2. yes, the dependencies hurt. its not jaxen, its the further down the
chain things like dom4j.

3. scope isnt running in the ant tasks, so that isnt a solution for
me. Indeed, the underlying problem is that the dependencies used at
build time should only be a hint as what to deploy with downstream,
nothing but a hint.

4. Patch your .pom to exclude stuff

          <dependency>
            <groupId>jdom</groupId>
            <artifactId>jdom</artifactId>
            <version>${jdom.version}</version>
            <exclusions>
              <exclusion>
                <groupId>xerces</groupId>
                <artifactId>xerces</artifactId>
              </exclusion>
            </exclusions>
          </dependency>

I'm not convinced that transitive dependencies work. right now the m2
repository is a mess, and there is no automated check that all the
dependencies are resolvable. More importantly, there is not enough
evidence that the people who 'own' the poms, the individual projects
care.

-steve