将Maven存储库添加到Tomcat的类路径

Question

I'm working with Maven and Tomcat. Some of the web applications I have to deploy use a lot of dependencies that are marked as "provided" in Maven. One example of these dependencies is spring-context .

So, when I package the project, those dependencies are not included in the lib folder of the WAR file. Because of this, I'm getting

NoClassDefFoundError: org/springframework/context/ApplicationContext

I can't change the scope of the dependencies, and if possible, I don't want to include the dependencies JARs in the WAR file.

How can I add the Maven repository as a classpath to Tomcat, so it can resolve all the "provided" dependencies? Without copying the JARs to Tomcat's lib folder.

I tried the shared.loader property in catalina.properties , but it doesn't work recursively: I have to add each JAR path to the property's value.

Answer 1

A dependency is marked as provided when the app server or container already has it, and you don't have to put it in the war. This is the case ie for the servlets jar, but not for the spring-context. I think the better solution would be to mark this dependencies as "compile" instead of "provided".

Answer 2

You have few options here. Like @Andres said, you either add the JARs in the WAR or you add them to the classpath of Tomcat (ie lib folder).

While the concept of having a Maven-aware classloader is interesting, imagine all the possible jar version conflicts that could occur. War A having a provided dependency on Lib v1.0.1 and War B having a provided dependency on Lib v2.1.0 , with Tomcat silently resolving these...