What is the best way to avoid maven-jar?

Question

I am using a different plugin (ant4eclipse) to jar my files. What is the best way to avoid the maven-jar plugin from executing?

• I tried to remove the <plugin>maven-jar-plugin</plugin>
• I tried to <exclude> ** / * < / exclude>
• I tried to <skip>true</skip>

None worked

Answer 1

In Maven 3.0.x (I tried 3.0.2) you can disable maven-jar-plugin by binding the default-jar execution to a nonexistent phase, as @bmargulies suggested. Unfortunately that doesn't work in 2.2.1, but you can prevent it from interfering with your own jar by setting an alternative <finalName> and <classifier> for the default-jar execution; it will still create a jar, but it will be set as a secondary artifact for the project and won't overwrite the one you've created. Here's an example that should work in both Maven 2 and Maven 3:

<project>
  <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

  <groupId>test</groupId>
  <artifactId>test</artifactId>
  <version>0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>

  <build>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <artifactId>maven-jar-plugin</artifactId>
        <executions>
          <execution>
            <id>default-jar</id>
            <phase>none</phase>
            <configuration>
              <finalName>unwanted</finalName>
              <classifier>unwanted</classifier>
            </configuration>
          </execution>
        </executions>
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
  </build>
</project>

Once you've disabled maven-jar-plugin, maven-install-plugin may give you trouble too. In Maven 3 it can be disabled the same as maven-jar-plugin: bind default-install to a nonexistent phase. However, in Maven 2 maven-install-plugin requires that the target/classes directory exist, and it will install the dummy jar when there isn't a primary artifact present.