Maven: Can I package only dependencies(without app) in a jar?

Question

I have a legacy JAVA project which uses ant for builds. Since jar dependency management in this project is really tedious, I am planning to integrate maven.

I am trying to use maven only for dependency management and keep using ant for builds. I am contemplating to produce a single jar using maven which will contain all the dependencies and then I will include this single jar in classpath of my app.

I know this might not be the best approach but is it possible to do this? What might be a better approach?

Answer 1

I would create a pom.xml file (with all the required fields, like groupId, artifactId ...) add all the dependencies to this pom, and add maven assembly plugin to this pom. execute mvm assembly:single command. Your jar with all the dependencies will be created.

<build>
  <plugins>
    <plugin>
      <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
      <configuration>    
        <descriptorRefs>
          <descriptorRef>jar-with-dependencies</descriptorRef>
        </descriptorRefs>
      </configuration>
    </plugin>
  </plugins>
</build>