Maven cannot find external jar's annotations

Question

I'm converting a simple android app to Maven, and I've hit a snag with a 3rd party jar (ActiveAndroid) that contains an annotation class that I'm using within my code. I've confirmed that the jar does contain the annotations class files, and the jar works fine when I include it in the libs directory, and compile with Eclipse.

Here's my POM.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">

    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <groupId>com.danh32</groupId>
    <artifactId>testapp</artifactId>
    <version>1.0</version>
    <packaging>apk</packaging>
    <name>testapp</name>

    <properties>
        <platform.version> 4.1.1.4</platform.version>
    </properties>

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.google.android</groupId>
            <artifactId>android</artifactId>
            <version>${platform.version}</version>
            <scope>provided</scope>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.actionbarsherlock</groupId>
            <artifactId>actionbarsherlock</artifactId>
            <version>4.2.0</version>
            <type>apklib</type>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.activeandroid</groupId>
            <artifactId>activeandroid</artifactId>
            <version>LATEST</version>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>

    <build>
        <sourceDirectory>src</sourceDirectory>
        <plugins>

            <plugin>
                <groupId>com.jayway.maven.plugins.android.generation2</groupId>
                <artifactId>android-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>3.5.0</version>
                <configuration>
                    <androidManifestFile>${project.basedir}/AndroidManifest.xml
                    </androidManifestFile>
                    <assetsDirectory>${project.basedir}/assets</assetsDirectory>
                    <resourceDirectory>${project.basedir}/res</resourceDirectory>
                    <nativeLibrariesDirectory>${project.basedir}/src/main/native
                    </nativeLibrariesDirectory>
                    <sdk>
                        <platform>16</platform>
                    </sdk>
                    <undeployBeforeDeploy>true</undeployBeforeDeploy>
                </configuration>
                <extensions>true</extensions>
            </plugin>

            <plugin>
                <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>2.5.1</version>
                <configuration>
                    <source>1.5</source>
                    <target>1.5</target>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>
</project>

And here's my compilation error:

[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD FAILURE
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 19.339s
[INFO] Finished at: Wed Apr 10 14:18:51 CDT 2013
[INFO] Final Memory: 17M/81M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-compiler-plugin:3.0:compile (default-compile) on project testapp: Compilation failure: Compilation failure:
[ERROR] /Users/danh32/code/android/workspace-android/TestApp/src/com/danh32/testapp/db/DSLocation.java:[9,43] cannot find symbol
[ERROR] symbol  : class ConflictAction
[ERROR] location: @interface com.activeandroid.annotation.Column
[ERROR] /Users/danh32/code/android/workspace-android/TestApp/src/com/danh32/testapp/db/DSLocation.java:[15,32] cannot find symbol
[ERROR] symbol  : method unique()
[ERROR] location: @interface com.activeandroid.annotation.Column
[ERROR] /Users/danh32/code/android/workspace-android/TestApp/src/com/danh32/testapp/db/DSLocation.java:[15,47] cannot find symbol
[ERROR] symbol  : method onUniqueConflict()
[ERROR] location: @interface com.activeandroid.annotation.Column
[ERROR] /Users/danh32/code/android/workspace-android/TestApp/src/com/danh32/testapp/db/DSLocation.java:[15,66] cannot find symbol
[ERROR] symbol  : variable ConflictAction
[ERROR] location: class com.danh32.testapp.db.DSLocation
[ERROR] -> [Help 1]
[ERROR] 
[ERROR] To see the full stack trace of the errors, re-run Maven with the -e switch.
[ERROR] Re-run Maven using the -X switch to enable full debug logging.

I'm just starting out with Maven and compiling Android apps outside of Eclipse, so I'm sure I'm missing something simple. Any nudge in the right direction is highly appreciated!

Thanks!

Answer 1

You're using LATEST. Is it possible you have more than one version of that artifact, and Maven is picking up a different one from Eclipse?

Answer 2

it doesn't look like the active android artifact is available in the Maven Central Repo (see this search). You can install that jar in your own local repository (using mvn install-file but that will only work on your local machine. Alternatively you can deploy that artifact to a repository that you control and reference that in your POM.

Answer 3

Have you considered class version problem? Just speculating, but it could be that the jar was built using 1.6 JDK (target 1.6) Your POM has specified the source and target as 1.5, considering you are also using 1.5 JDK, it is possible that the compiler is simply not able to read the classes in your jar file compiled with 1.6