Selecting Contents for Uber JAR

The POM snippet below shows how to control which project dependencies should be included/excluded in the uber JAR:

<project>
  ...
  <build>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-shade-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>1.2.1</version>
        <executions>
          <execution>
            <phase>package</phase>
            <goals>
              <goal>shade</goal>
            </goals>
            <configuration>
              <artifactSet>
                <excludes>
                  <exclude>classworlds:classworlds</exclude>
                  <exclude>junit:junit</exclude>
                  <exclude>jmock:jmock</exclude>
                  <exclude>xml-apis:xml-apis</exclude>
                </excludes>
              </artifactSet>
            </configuration>
          </execution>
        </executions>
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
  </build>
  ...
</project>

Of course, <includes> can be used as well to specify a white list of artifacts. Artifacts are denoted by a composite idenitifer of the form groupId:artifactId[:classifier].

For fine-grained control of which classes from the selected dependencies are included, artifact filters can be used:

<project>
  ...
  <build>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-shade-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>1.2.1</version>
        <executions>
          <execution>
            <phase>package</phase>
            <goals>
              <goal>shade</goal>
            </goals>
            <configuration>
              <filters>
                <filter>
                  <artifact>junit:junit</artifact>
                  <includes>
                    <include>junit/framework/**</include>
                    <include>org/junit/**</include>
                  </includes>
                  <excludes>
                    <exclude>org/junit/experimental/**</exclude>
                    <exclude>org/junit/runners/**</exclude>
                  </excludes>
                </filter>
              </filters>
            </configuration>
          </execution>
        </executions>
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
  </build>
  ...
</project>

Here, Ant-like patterns are used to specify that from the dependency junit:junit only certain classes/resources should be included in the uber JAR.