Excluding Maven dependencies

Question

I have a query about exclusion of maven dependencies . Consider the following

   <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-security-taglibs</artifactId>
        <version>${spring-security.version}</version>
        <exclusions>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-security-web</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
        </exclusions>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-security-web</artifactId>
        <version>3.1.0.RELEASE</version>
        <exclusions>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-web</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
        </exclusions>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-web</artifactId>
        <version>3.1.0.RELEASE</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>

I am trying to achieve a transition from Spring 3.0.6 to 3.1.0 . Spring security 3.1.0 had a dependency on spring-security-web version 3.0.6 which in turn had a dependency on spring-web 3.0.6 . I need to bring it all to 3.1.0 . So I exclude spring-security-web from Spring security , have a separate dependency for spring-security-web 3.1.0 which in turn excludes the spring-web 3.0.6 version and I provide a separate spring-web 3.1.0 version . This work but I feel there would be a much easier approach . I tried putting an exclusion for spring web under Spring security but it didn't work . Please help .

Answer 1

You can utilize the dependency management mechanism.

If you create entries in the <dependencyManagement> section of your pom for spring-security-web and spring-web with the desired 3.1.0 version set the managed version of the artifact will override those specified in the transitive dependency tree.

I'm not sure if that really saves you any code, but it is a cleaner solution IMO.