Implicitly including optional dependencies in Maven

Question

I have a project A which has a dependency X. Dependency X has an optional dependency Y which doens't get included in A by default. Is there a way to include Y in my POM without explicitly including it? In Ivy they have a way to essentailly say include all optional dependencies of X, does Maven have a way to do this?

Answer 1

According to the Maven docs:

Optional dependencies - If project Y depends on project Z, the owner of project Y can mark project Z as an optional dependency, using the "optional" element. When project X depends on project Y, X will depend only on Y and not on Y's optional dependency Z. The owner of project X may then explicitly add a dependency on Z, at her option. (It may be helpful to think of optional dependencies as "excluded by default.")