Trying to build with maven: package my.external.package does not exist

[jean-gobert de coster]

Hi, I created a maven project and did some coding (yay) which required me to use some libraries that are in any maven repository (:sad:)

so I imported the .jar files of those libraries and did happily code without Eclipse complaining about anything (except for staying up too late).

then now I'm proudly trying to build my very first .war with maven, I run -> maven build... clean package and then I get a whole bunch of errors saying that

[ERROR]
Mojo:
org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-compiler-plugin:2.0.2:compile
FAILED for project:
myproject:search:war:0.0.1-SNAPSHOT
Reason:
/Users/me/Documents/myproject/src/main/java/com/mydomain/myclass/myController.java:[17,36] package org.someother.project.package does not exist

what is wrong? How can this be? I'm in despair, save my friday the 13th

[Martijn Verburg]

Somewhere in your pom you are referencing org.someother.project.package, where is that?

[Peter Johnson]

What are the contents of the myController.java file? Do you have this line:

package org.someother.project.package;

[jean-gobert de coster]

Peter Johnson wrote:What are the contents of the myController.java file? Do you have this line:

package org.someother.project.package;

more like

import org.someother.project.package;

Somewhere in your pom you are referencing org.someother.project.package, where is that?

I'm not sure I can reference org.someother.project.package in my pom.xml, since that package is not a maven project, it's not in any repository.

my pom.xml looks like this:

<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
  <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
  <groupId>myGroup</groupId>
  <artifactId>myArtefact</artifactId>
  <packaging>war</packaging>
  <name>myProject</name>
  <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
  <description/>
  <build>
  	<plugins>
  		<plugin>
  			<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
  			<artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
  			<configuration>
  				<source>1.5</source>
				<target>1.5</target>
  			</configuration>
  			<version>2.0.2</version>
  		</plugin>
  	</plugins>
  	<extensions>
  	</extensions>
  </build>
  <dependencies>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
      <artifactId>servlet-api</artifactId>
      <version>2.4</version>
      <scope>compile</scope>
    </dependency>
  </dependencies>
</project>

What I did do, in the build path of the project, was to link the .jar in which org.someother.project.package is. So I have a symbolic link "lib" source folder in my project.

As I said, Eclipse doesn't seem to mind, however I noticed that I don't have any .class files generated (even though auto build is on).

[Martijn Verburg]

Does your pom.xml for the war project have the built jar as a dependency?

[jean-gobert de coster]

Martijn Verburg wrote:Does your pom.xml for the war project have the built jar as a dependency?

the pom.xml in my previous post is that of my war project

[Martijn Verburg]

Sorry, didn't have my coffee yet In that case you need to add in that 3rd party jar as a dependency in your pom.xml file.

[jean-gobert de coster]

Martijn Verburg wrote:Sorry, didn't have my coffee yet In that case you need to add in that 3rd party jar as a dependency in your pom.xml file.

Is it possible to add that as a directory or do I have to add all the .jar manually one by one?

[Martijn Verburg]

You need to add the jar manually, see for assistance, you'll need to install that jar into your local repository however.

[jean-gobert de coster]

OK will do

I didn't think of adding them to my local, that's brilliant (and simple) thanks

[Martijn Verburg]

You'll want to probably be able to do this as a long term solution (your local repo is temporary after all). Nexus and Artifactory are two highly recommended dependency managers to try.

[jean-gobert de coster]

Martijn Verburg wrote:You'll want to probably be able to do this as a long term solution (your local repo is temporary after all). Nexus and Artifactory are two highly recommended dependency managers to try.

Thanks for the input, I've hear of Nexus before and will definitely take it into consideration. My intent is to convince my boss and co-workers that maven is good for us, but I need to tame the beast if I want to present it

[Martijn Verburg]

Sounds good! In that case I'd recommend reading the Free PDF - "Maven - Definitive Guide", it'll quickly get you up to speed (just google for it).