Find a Maven Dependency or Repo from an Import Statement in Java Code

Question

Is there a nice easy way to find out the Maven information for a library specified in an import statement in Java code?

For example, if I see some random piece of Java code on the internet that looks useful (happens often!), and I want to copy it into a Maven project, how do I find out what that dependency information is (i.e. the groupId, artifactId and version) to place into the POM.xml file?

e.g. If I see this:

import wow.magiclibrary.net.*;

public class Magic
{
  public static void main ( String[] args ) throws IOException 
  {
    try 
    {    
      MagicLibrary ml = new MagicLibrary( args[0] );

      ml.doSomethingAmazing();

...

... where can I find the information to put into the POM.xml file to make Maven download the wow.magiclibrary.net library as a dependency from whatever repository it comes from?

<dependency>
    <groupId>wow.magiclibrary.net</groupId>
    <artifactId>magiclibrary</artifactId>
    <version>2.0.0</version>
</dependency>

Do I just have to use Google to search for a repo on the web that has the library, download jars manually and install them into my local maven repo?

Just curious. I'm lazy. I know I can do something like this after downloading a jar file:

mvn install:install-file -DgroupId=wow.magiclibrary -DartifactId=magiclibrary \
     -Dversion=2.0.0 -Dpackaging=jar -Dfile=magiclibrary2.0.0.jar -DgeneratePom=true

... but if there was a way to automate the search and install process through Maven then that would rock.

Frederic Close · Accepted Answer · 2014-04-19 13:55:17Z

7

When I'm looking for the maven dependency for a library I know usually go to

http://mvnrepository.com/

If I'm looking for a library I don't know, I would first do a simple google search or grepcode.com and then go to mvnrepository.com

mvnrepository allows you to easily copy paste the maven dependency, here is an example for commons.lang version 2.6

http://mvnrepository.com/artifact/commons-lang/commons-lang/2.6

answered Apr 19, 2014 at 13:55

Frederic Close

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1 Comment

Matheus Santana Over a year ago

Another great source to search for artifacts is search.maven.org. It provides much more detailed (and better presented) information on them. Check out this page for some example.

Angular University · Accepted Answer · 2014-04-19 13:40:31Z

3

You can use online tools like grepcode.com, which will identify you the jar names and maven artifacts. Here is an example for apache commons-lang StringUtils.

answered Apr 19, 2014 at 13:40

Angular University

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2 Comments

Fuzzy Analysis Over a year ago

Yesssss... that's what I wanted. Cheers

Angular University Over a year ago

Glad I could help. If you found the answer was what you needed, consider marking it as accepted as described in this link meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5234/…

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