A simple command line to download a remote maven2 artifact to the local repository?

Question

I have a library that I distribute using maven 2. The typical user of this library doesn't use maven to build their applications, but is likely somewhat familiar with maven and probably has it installed.

I'd like to document a "simple" one line command they can use to download my library's artifacts to their local ~/.m2/repository without requiring that they set up a pom.xml to do it.

I thought there was a way to do this, but I can't seem to find it after looking through the install:install-file and dependency plugin documentation. I tried things like:

mvn install:install-file -DrepositoryId=java.net -Durl=http://download.java.net/maven/2/ -Dfile=robo-guice-0.4-20091121.174618-1.jar -DpomFile=robo-guice-0.4-20091121.174618-1.pom -DgroupId=robo-guice -DartifactId=robo-guice -Dversion=0.4-SNAPSHOT -Dpackaging=jar

but I think I'm barking up the wrong tree since it appears that the install plugin is used to copy locally built files into the local repository, rather than download remote artifacts into the local repository.

This is the artifact I'd like to install: http://download.java.net/maven/2/robo-guice/robo-guice/0.4-SNAPSHOT/

Is this possible using maven?

Answer 1

Give them a trivial pom with these jars listed as dependencies and instructions to run:

mvn dependency:go-offline

This will pull the dependencies to the local repo.

A more direct solution is dependency:get, but it's a lot of arguments to type:

mvn dependency:get -DrepoUrl=something -Dartifact=group:artifact:version

Answer 2

Since version 2.1 of the Maven Dependency Plugin, there is a dependency:get goal for this purpose. To make sure you are using the right version of the plugin, you'll need to use the "fully qualified name":

mvn org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-dependency-plugin:2.1:get \
    -DrepoUrl=http://download.java.net/maven/2/ \
    -Dartifact=robo-guice:robo-guice:0.4-SNAPSHOT