Upgrading from 2.4 version to 2.5

There are significant changes in how netbeans module system dependencies are mapped to maven's own dependencies model. Th 2.4 and older version all module system deps had to be explicitly defined in the module descriptor at src/main/nbm/module.xml. That is no longer a requirement in 2.5 for most cases. The plugin will try to decide based on the declaration in maven POM file.

These are the rules:

  • for netbeans module dependencies (jars that have the netbeans specific entries in META-INF/MANIFEST.MF)
    • It's defined in existing (though optional) module.xml file in dependencies section.
    • It's a direct dependency (non-transitive) and is a netbeans module.
    • When the dependency is of type "nbm". Such dependencies don't include their transitive deps on compilation classpath.
  • for module libraries (jars that are packed together with the module and appear on it's classpath directly, not by a dependency relationship.)
    • It's defined in existing (though optional) module.xml file in libraries section
    • It's a direct dependency (non-transitive) and is not of "provided" scope.

So if you have used 2.4 and older before, you need to check your dependencies when upgrading to 2.5.

  • The new plugin can pick up and declare more module dependencies than the previous version. Module dependencies are safe. You either declared them in your module.xml file. Some additional ones can appear if you have them as direct dependencies in your pom. Use the dependency:analyze goal to check for used/unused direct dependencies.
  • The new plugin can also pick up and declare more module libraries. That's something to watch out for! That happens again only when you declared the jars as direct dependencies. You could end up with a single jar being added to multiple modules and get runtime classpath issues and of course your download size will get higher than necessary. Again the dependency:analyze goal shall help. If you know the jar is required but is provided by a module you depend on, use the "provided" scope to prevent inclusion.