Maven: specify folder for jars

Sometimes you need to download jars, which were in your "dependencies" block into specified directory.
For this task you may use this approach: in "plugins" part of your pom.xml add such block:

<build>

        <plugins>

            <plugin>

                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>

                <artifactId>maven-dependency-plugin</artifactId>

                <version>2.1</version>

                <executions>

                    <execution>

                        <phase>generate-sources</phase>

                        <goals>

                            <goal>copy-dependencies</goal>

                        </goals>

                        <configuration>

                            <outputDirectory>${project.build.directory}/lib</outputDirectory>

                        </configuration>

                    </execution>

                </executions>

            </plugin>

        </plugins>

    </build>

This will copy all jars into target/lib folder after run command : mvn generate-sources

If you want to specify directory from command line, you can do such thing:

<build>

        <plugins>

            <plugin>

                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>

                <artifactId>maven-dependency-plugin</artifactId>

                <version>2.1</version>

                <executions>

                    <execution>

                        <phase>generate-sources</phase>

                        <goals>

                            <goal>copy-dependencies</goal>

                        </goals>

                        <configuration>

                            <outputDirectory>${path_to_file}</outputDirectory>

                        </configuration>

                    </execution>

                </executions>

            </plugin>

        </plugins>

    </build>

After this, you can path patameter "path_to_file" from command line : mvn -Dpath_to_file=your_path generate-sources

author - Mikhail Sidelnikov
email: sidelnikovmike@gmail.com