How to exclude older versions of maven dependency and use new version of it?

Question

I am working with Maven project and I have two projects, ProjectA and ProjectB. My ProjectA is a maven library whose pom looks like this:

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

    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

    <parent>
        <groupId>com.texture.partial</groupId>
        <artifactId>PartialPlatform</artifactId>
        <version>2.1.5-RELEASE</version>
    </parent>

    <groupId>com.texture.transform.golden</groupId>
    <artifactId>SampleClient</artifactId>
    <version>1.0.4</version>

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.google.code.gson</groupId>
            <artifactId>gson</artifactId>
            <version>2.2.4</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.texture.partial.core</groupId>
            <artifactId>PartialKernel</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.texture.webres</groupId>
            <artifactId>WebResPartial</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
            <artifactId>javax.servlet-api</artifactId>
            <scope>provided</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>javax.servlet.jsp</groupId>
            <artifactId>jsp-api</artifactId>
            <scope>provided</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.texture.kernel</groupId>
            <artifactId>TextureServer</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.texture.kernel</groupId>
            <artifactId>Kernel</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.texture.v3jars.Houston</groupId>
            <artifactId>KernelDAL</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.texture.kernel</groupId>
            <artifactId>uKernel</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.texture.kernel</groupId>
            <artifactId>uKernelCore</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-context</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-beans</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
            <artifactId>javax.servlet-api</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-test</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-asm</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-expression</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-aop</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>aopalliance</groupId>
            <artifactId>aopalliance</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.servicemix.bundles</groupId>
            <artifactId>org.apache.servicemix.bundles.cglib</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.texture.partial.core</groupId>
            <artifactId>ConfigWeb</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.texture.partial.core</groupId>
            <artifactId>PartialWeb</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.googlecode.jmockit</groupId>
            <artifactId>jmockit</artifactId>
            <version>1.7</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>junit</groupId>
            <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
                <configuration>
                    <argLine>-javaagent:"${settings.localRepository}"/com/googlecode/jmockit/jmockit/1.7/jmockit-1.7.jar</argLine>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
                <artifactId>cobertura-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                <configuration>
                    <instrumentation>
                        <excludes>
                            <exclude>**/test/**/*.class</exclude>
                        </excludes>
                    </instrumentation>
                    <formats>
                        <format>xml</format>
                        <format>html</format>
                    </formats>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>
</project>

In my above pom, PartialKernel is bringing older version of various Spring Framework dependencies like spring-core, spring-web. It is bringing 3.2.8.RELEASE version and I want to use latest version of those two spring framework, which is 4.1.6.RELEASE. What is the right way to exclude older versions of spring-core and spring-web coming from PartialKernel and use latest version?

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-web</artifactId>
        <version>4.1.6.RELEASE</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
        <version>4.1.6.RELEASE</version>
    </dependency>

I need to use latest version since some classes are there in latest version only.

If you specify a newer version of the same artifact in any of the pom.xml involved in your project, it should automatically use those. If in doubt, your top-level pom.xml wins out. — Thilo, Apr 20 '15 at 01:54
Are you sure the two spring versions are actually compatible? — Thilo, Apr 20 '15 at 02:06

score 12 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 21 '20 at 11:30

There may be incompatible differences between the version of a library that a dependency requires and the one you want to use. If you are happy to take this risk, you can use maven exclusions to ignore transitive dependencies.

You can exclude, for example, spring-core from being brought in by PartialKernel by adding:

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.texture.partial.core</groupId>
    <artifactId>PartialKernel</artifactId>
    <exclusions>
        <exclusion>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
        </exclusion>
    </exclusions>
</dependency>

Note that you will have to do this for every dependency that brings in spring dependencies.

Now define the version of spring-core you want to use in the top level pom dependency management section:

<dependencyManagement>
  <dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
        <version>4.1.6.RELEASE</version>
    </dependency>
   </dependencies>
</dependencyManagement>

you need to do the exclusions to remove the dependency mismatch errors you get. — krock, Apr 20 '15 at 02:00

How to exclude older versions of maven dependency and use new version of it?

1 Answers1

Linked