Maven Dependencies in Eclipse - eclipse

Question

DISCLAIMER: Please refrain from submitting suggestions how this architecture should be changed, I am not in a position to change it. I am in a new job trying to figure how things work, making visible architectural changes is not a variable nor is it within the scope of this post. Thanks
BODY: I am relatively new to Maven and I am currently struggling trying to figure out how Eclipse builds the list of Maven Dependencies for a project. My Eclipse workspace conforms to the following layout:
workspace
|
|--maven
| |
| |--pom.xml (super pom)
|
|--proj_1
| |
| |--pom.xml (parent->relativePath=../maven/pom.xml)
| |
| |--src
|
|--proj_2
| |
| |--pom.xml (parent->relativePath=../maven/pom.xml)
| |
| |--src
...
|
|--proj_n
|
|--pom.xml (parent->relativePath=../maven/pom.xml)
|
|--src
where each node under workspace is an Eclipse project. When looking at the Eclipse Package Explorer, the presence of pom.xml (I think) triggers the creation of a library bundle named Maven Dependencies with jars that make it into that project's classpath.
What I do not understand, however, if how Eclipse extracts the list of necessary referenced jars out of the hierarchy of pom.xml files. E.g. I see a foobar.jar listed in my Maven Dependencies but no such entry is present in either that project's pom.xml nor in the super pom it references. I need to make some changes to the classpath but I can't take the jars directly out of the Maven Dependencies (like I could out of the regular Eclipse Referenced Libraries) which leads me to think it needs to be done in the poms some place.
Please help me understand how the pom.xml hierarchy translates into the Eclipse classpath of referenced libraries.

Answer 1

You should not be referencing parent pom.xml files directly, they should just be referred at the top of your children pom.xml files like so. Notice that there is no relative path anywhere in this configuration.
<parent>
<groupId>com.yourcompany</groupId>
<artifactId>your-parent</artifactId>
<version>your-version</version>
</parent>
You will see lots of .jar files that are not directly referenced in the parent pom.xml nor the children pom.xml. This is normal, these are called transient dependencies. In other words they are dependencies of your dependencies.
You never make changes to the classpath with Maven, you just manipulate the <dependency/> stanzas and Maven builds the classpath that you need for you. If you are doing this manually you are doing it wrong. Which from some of the other statements, you probably have other things fundamentally wrong as well, because of some of the terminology you are using, Idiomatic Maven doesn't work off relative paths for pom.xml inheritance for one thing. But we can't tell because you didn't actually post how you are actually configuring your parent pom.xml.
Read up on the maven-dependency-plugin it can produce this:
com.xx.xxxpreferences:jar:1.0-SNAPSHOT
+- com.xx.xxx:common:jar:1.0-SNAPSHOT:compile
| +- org.slf4j:slf4j-jdk14:jar:1.7.5:compile
| +- com.lowagie:itext:jar:4.2.0:compile
| | +- org.bouncycastle:bctsp-jdk14:jar:1.38:compile
| | | +- org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk14:jar:1.38:compile
| | | \- org.bouncycastle:bcmail-jdk14:jar:1.38:compile
| | +- dom4j:dom4j:jar:1.6.1:compile
| | | \- xml-apis:xml-apis:jar:1.0.b2:compile
| | +- jfree:jfreechart:jar:1.0.12:compile
| | | \- jfree:jcommon:jar:1.0.15:compile
| | \- org.swinglabs:pdf-renderer:jar:1.0.5:compile
| +- com.xx.xxx:exceptions:jar:1.0-SNAPSHOT:compile
| | \- struts:struts:jar:1.1:compile
| | +- commons-beanutils:commons-beanutils:jar:1.6.1:compile
| | +- commons-collections:commons-collections:jar:3.1:compile
| | +- struts:struts-legacy:jar:1.1:compile
| | +- commons-digester:commons-digester:jar:1.6:compile
| | +- commons-fileupload:commons-fileupload:jar:1.0:compile
| | +- commons-lang:commons-lang:jar:2.1:compile
| | +- commons-logging:commons-logging:jar:1.0:compile
| | +- commons-validator:commons-validator:jar:1.1.4:compile
| | +- oro:oro:jar:2.0.7:compile
| | \- javax.sql:jdbc-stdext:jar:2.0:compile
| +- javax.mail:mail:jar:1.5.0-b01:compile
| | \- javax.activation:activation:jar:1.1:compile
| \- com.netcharts:pro:jar:0.1:compile
+- com.fasterxml.jackson.core:jackson-annotations:jar:2.0.1:compile
+- com.fasterxml.jackson.core:jackson-core:jar:2.2.0:compile
+- com.fasterxml.jackson.core:jackson-databind:jar:2.2.0:compile
+- com.fasterxml.jackson.jaxrs:jackson-jaxrs-json-provider:jar:2.2.1:compile
| +- com.fasterxml.jackson.jaxrs:jackson-jaxrs-base:jar:2.2.1:compile
| \- com.fasterxml.jackson.module:jackson-module-jaxb-annotations:jar:2.2.1:compile
+- com.fasterxml.jackson.dataformat:jackson-dataformat-xml:jar:2.1.3:compile
| \- org.codehaus.woodstox:stax2-api:jar:3.1.1:compile
+- org.codehaus.woodstox:woodstox-core-asl:jar:4.1.4:compile
| \- javax.xml.stream:stax-api:jar:1.0-2:compile
+- org.slf4j:slf4j-api:jar:1.7.5:compile
+- com.google.code.findbugs:jsr305:jar:2.0.1:compile
+- junit:junit:jar:4.11:test
| \- org.hamcrest:hamcrest-core:jar:1.3:test
\- com.google.guava:guava:jar:14.0:compile
Then come back with some specific questions to get specific answers.