maven-ear-plugin jarModule

Question

Can someone explain the purpose of the maven-ear-plugin jarModule? It's apparently for 3rd-party libraries: http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-ear-plugin/examples/including-a-third-party-library-in-application-xml.html . That said, what is the point of it if, for example, you're already using skinny WARs, and all the dependencies already go into some lib dir?

It's obviously not for other *.jar types, like EJB or application client modules. There's no explanation on the plugin website, though it's not one of the standard Java EE module types: http://docs.oracle.com/javaee/7/tutorial/doc/packaging001.htm .

I would hope they could clarify this in the plugin docs.

Thanks, Ari

Answer 1

The jarModule is intended as you suggested to hold third party libraries which can indeed be packaged inside skinny war artifacrts. I think it more come in needs when there is common dependencies between war modules inside a single ear one.