Using this method, I could successfully resolve (but NOT retrieve the actual jars) all dependencies of a library when its organization, name and revision are given, all programatically using Apache Ivy.
During the resolution process, it parses given library's POM and finds a parent POM if specified, and Ivy's POM parser always tries to resolve sources and javadoc, which generally doesn't exist for parent POMs.
The problem is that when a non-existing jar's URL is queried to our local artifactory, it takes 2~3 seconds to refresh its cache, adding up tens of minutes to total dependency resolution time when I have many transitive dependencies having parent POMs.
For example, the following is the log message I get when I try to resolve Google Guava 17.0:
:: loading settings :: url = jar:file:.ivy2/cache/org.apache.ivy/ivy/jars/ivy-2.3.0.jar!/org/apache/ivy/core/settings/ivysettings.xml
:: resolving dependencies :: com.google.guava#guava-envelope;17.0 [not transitive]
confs: [default]
validate = true
refresh = false
resolving dependencies for configuration 'default'
== resolving dependencies for com.google.guava#guava-envelope;17.0 [default]
== resolving dependencies com.google.guava#guava-envelope;17.0->com.google.guava#guava;17.0 [default->master]
tried http://artifactory/repo/com/google/guava/guava/17.0/guava-17.0.pom
resolver: found md file for com.google.guava#guava;17.0
=> http://artifactory/repo/com/google/guava/guava/17.0/guava-17.0.pom (17.0)
downloading http://artifactory/repo/com/google/guava/guava/17.0/guava-17.0.pom ...
resolver: downloading http://artifactory/repo/com/google/guava/guava/17.0/guava-17.0.pom
[SUCCESSFUL ] com.google.guava#guava;17.0!guava.pom(pom.original) (58ms)
tried http://artifactory/repo/com/google/guava/guava-parent/17.0/guava-parent-17.0.pom
resolver: found md file for com.google.guava#guava-parent;17.0
=> http://artifactory/repo/com/google/guava/guava-parent/17.0/guava-parent-17.0.pom (17.0)
downloading http://artifactory/repo/com/google/guava/guava-parent/17.0/guava-parent-17.0.pom ...
resolver: downloading http://artifactory/repo/com/google/guava/guava-parent/17.0/guava-parent-17.0.pom
[SUCCESSFUL ] com.google.guava#guava-parent;17.0!guava-parent.pom(pom.original) (20ms)
resolver: revision in cache: org.sonatype.oss#oss-parent;7
tried http://artifactory/repo/com/google/guava/guava-parent/17.0/guava-parent-17.0.jar
tried http://artifactory/repo/com/google/guava/guava-parent/17.0/guava-parent-17.0.jar
tried http://artifactory/repo/com/google/guava/guava-parent/17.0/guava-parent-17.0-sources.jar
CLIENT ERROR: Could not find resource url=http://artifactory/repo/com/google/guava/guava-parent/17.0/guava-parent-17.0-sources.jar
tried http://artifactory/repo/com/google/guava/guava-parent/17.0/guava-parent-17.0-src.jar
CLIENT ERROR: Could not find resource url=http://artifactory/repo/com/google/guava/guava-parent/17.0/guava-parent-17.0-src.jar
tried http://artifactory/repo/com/google/guava/guava-parent/17.0/guava-parent-17.0-javadoc.jar
CLIENT ERROR: Could not find resource url=http://artifactory/repo/com/google/guava/guava-parent/17.0/guava-parent-17.0-javadoc.jar
tried http://artifactory/repo/com/google/guava/guava/17.0/guava-17.0.jar
tried http://artifactory/repo/com/google/guava/guava/17.0/guava-17.0-sources.jar
tried http://artifactory/repo/com/google/guava/guava/17.0/guava-17.0-javadoc.jar
found com.google.guava#guava;17.0 in resolver
resolved ivy file produced in cache
:: resolution report :: resolve 2593ms :: artifacts dl 0ms
:: modules in use:
com.google.guava#guava;17.0 from resolver in [default]
---------------------------------------------------------------------
| | modules || artifacts |
| conf | number| search|dwnlded|evicted|| number|dwnlded|
---------------------------------------------------------------------
| default | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 || 0 | 0 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
report for com.google.guava#guava-envelope;17.0 default produced in .ivy2/cantabile/com.google.guava-guava-envelope-default.xml
resolve done (2593ms resolve - 0ms download)
You can see that Ivy wasted a few seconds while trying nonexistent -sources.jar, -src.jar, -javadoc.jar URLs for parent POMs.
Is there an option to disable this behavior when resolving a parent POM? Ideally I don't want to make HTTP requests to any .jars during resolution. Currently I need a programmatic solution but if anyone knows a command line/XML option it will be a great help.
PS: I think this is also the case when using sbt to resolve library dependencies; it takes very long while resolving oss-parent, commons-parent etc.
You need to specify a configuration mapping that excludes both optional dependencies and implicit dependencies like source and javadoc files.
In an ivy file you'd declare the dependency as follows:
<dependency org="myorg" name="mymodule" rev="1.0" conf="default"/>
Another option is to declare this dependency mapping as the default for your project.
<dependencies defaultconfmapping="default">
<dependency ..
<dependency ..
See the following SO questions on how to exclude sources and how ivy translates Maven repositories:
In conclusion Maven modules by default only have a single arefact. More can be stored (like sources and Javadocs) but there is no module metadata listing them. This is why Ivy performs a HTTP request to see if the artefacts exist or not. Changing the configuration mapping settings should help guide ivy to do the right thing :-)
PS
I think this can be done by called the "addDependencyConfiguration" method to the DefaultDependencyDescriptor object.