How to exclude nested dependency in maven

Question

I have this dependency tree:

[INFO] +- org.springframework.ws:org.springframework.ws:jar:2.1.0.RELEASE:compile
[INFO] |  +- org.springframework:org.springframework.aop:jar:3.1.1.RELEASE:compile
[INFO] |  |  \- org.aopalliance:com.springsource.org.aopalliance:jar:1.0.0:compile
[INFO] |  +- org.springframework:org.springframework.oxm:jar:3.1.1.RELEASE:compile
[INFO] |  \- org.springframework.ws:org.springframework.xml:jar:2.1.0.RELEASE:compile
[INFO] |     \- org.apache.ws:com.springsource.org.apache.ws.commons.schema:jar:1.3.2:compile

And I want to exclude (last one):

org.apache.ws:com.springsource.org.apache.ws.commons.schema:jar:1.3.2

which is (according to its pom):

<groupId>org.apache.ws.commons.schema</groupId>
<artifactId>XmlSchema</artifactId>

So I define in root artifact (org.springframework.ws):

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.ws</groupId>
    <artifactId>org.springframework.ws</artifactId>
    <version>2.1.0.RELEASE</version>
    <exclusions>
        <exclusion>
            <groupId>org.apache.ws.commons.schema</groupId>
            <artifactId>XmlSchema</artifactId>
        </exclusion>
    </exclusions>
</dependency>

And nothing really changes. Artifact I wanted to exclude is still present. Anyone can help me how to make it working?

Answer 1

Exclusion does not exclude separate class. It works with artifacts, i.e. jar files. You indeed can exclude the third party dependency using tag like this:

    <exclusion>
        <groupId>org.apache.ws</groupId>
        <artifactId>com.springsource.org.apache.ws.commons.schema</artifactId>
    </exclusion>

Where:

• org.apache.ws is group ID
• com.springsource.org.apache.ws.commons.schema is artifact ID

(from your dependency tree example).

I do not thing that there is a built-in ability to exclude specific class.