How to use classes of a maven project (packaging -> maven-plugin) in another maven project (packaging -> jar)

Question

I have created a maven plugin. I have some classes in the plugin, which I want to make available to the plugin client after execution.

The problem is that a project of type maven-plugin is also a jar, so I simply can't use maven-jar-plugin and maven-install-plugin to install the jar (having the classes) as a dependency.

Any ideas on how to do this?

Answer 1

I have created a maven plugin. I have some classes in the plugin, which I want to make available to the plugin client after execution.

I see two options:

1. declare a dependency on the plugin in the client:

   <dependency>
     <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
     <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
     <version>2.0.2</version>
     <type>maven-plugin</type>
   </dependency>
   

2. put the shared classes in a shared module (with a packaging of type jar) and declare a dependency on this shared module in both the client and the plugin.

Personally, I find the second option cleaner (and you won't get all the transitive dependencies of the plugin on the classpath).