TransformerFactory and Xalan Dependency Conflict

Question

I have the following code:

javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory factory = TransformerFactory.newInstance();
factory.setAttribute(XMLConstants.ACCESS_EXTERNAL_DTD, "");
javax.xml.transform.Transformer transformer = factory.newTransformer();

This works fine normally. However, I also need to add Xalan as a dependency in my pom.xml, and when I do, the above code now throws an error:

java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Not supported: http://javax.xml.XMLConstants/property/accessExternalDTD

I think it has something to do with the fact that Xalan's jar has a different implementation of Transformer in it. How can I resolve this conflict without changing the above code and keeping Xalan as a dependency?

Answer 1

Excluding Xerces from Xalan fixes this issue:

<dependency>
    <groupId>xalan</groupId>
    <artifactId>xalan</artifactId>
    <version>2.7.2</version>
    <exclusions>
        <exclusion>
            <groupId>xerces</groupId>
            <artifactId>xercesImpl</artifactId>
        </exclusion>
    </exclusions>
</dependency>