4

In feature.xml (Apache Karaf provisioning mechanism) tag feature has a dependency attribute. What does this attribute do?

For example:

<feature dependency="true">custom-feature-name</feature>

Where can I find any information on it?

After a brief googling I've only found dependency attribute on a bundle tag:

The role of the dependency attribute is to mark that a bundle is a dependency. If a dependency is already satisfied (an existing bundle already exports the same packages/version) then it doesn't get installed. This behavior happens if the declared feature resolver is installed (e.g. obr is installed).

Source: http://karaf.922171.n3.nabble.com/features-xml-dependency-quot-true-quot-td3286359.html

But still, no information on feature tag.

akvyalkov
  • 273
  • 5
  • 17

1 Answers1

2

It would seem that the definition of dependency for features in

<feature name="${project.name}-cxf" version="${cxfVersion}" description="Gets CXF up and running." install="auto">
    <feature version="${cxfVersion}" dependency="true">cxf</feature>
</feature>

means that the feature ${project.name}-cxf does not have to start cxf, because it is declared that something else will provide it. This is indeed counterintuitive. Whoever came up with that ludicrous misnomer?

To auto install cxf, it should actually be set to false. This can be varified by looking up the name of the feature ${project.name}-cxf when dependency="true" and again set to false.

Developers of Karaf, the dependency=false should be renamed provided=true

Jonathan Komar
  • 2,678
  • 4
  • 32
  • 43
  • @MartijnPieters Note, this was the wrong one to delete. The other one was an accidental duplicate. I tried getting the answer on here as quickly as possible before duty called at work. Anyway, I remedied the situation. The problem with you removing the answer without first contacting me is that I cannot even request undeletion from an admin. Instead I am forced to duplicate the answer. – Jonathan Komar Oct 17 '19 at 13:16