Maven - Load jar contained in dependency

Question

I'm new to maven and I know that this is a common problem but can't make my project work.

I have an jar A which contains only a manifest and a lib folder with a jar B.

I'm able to add A as dependency in this way:

<dependency>
    <groupId>A</groupId>
    <artifactId>A</artifactId>
    <version>1.0.0</version>
    <scope>compile</compile>
</dependency>

Maven successfully builds but at runtime I get a ClassNotFoundException for a class contained in B.

So, how can I include B?

My plugins section is like this:

<plugins>

        <plugin>
            <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>2.3.2</version>
            <configuration>
                <source>1.7</source>
                <target>1.7</target>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>

        <plugin>
            <artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>2.2</version>
            <configuration>
                <archive>
                    <manifest>
                        <addClasspath>true</addClasspath>
                    </manifest>
                </archive>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>

</plugins>

Answer 1

IMHO you should create two project A and B. Having module BI would install it in local Maven repo (mvn install) and the pull it like regular Maven dependency.

Probably your IDE see B's classes as you have jar in lib folder.