Exclude Transitive Dependencies

The problem:

You have a dependency in your project, that brings with it other dependencies. Some of these you do not want added to your project.

The solution:

First off if you don't know, transitive dependencies are those which are depended on by dependencies in your project. If you have dependency A in your pom, and it depends on dependencies B and C, then B and C are referred to as transitive dependencies. If B relies on D then it will also be referred to as a transitive dependency. In this scenario dependencies A, B, C and D are added to your project.

What if you load a newer version of B? Now you have two versions of B in your project. This may cause you pain. Well worry not. You can easily exclude dependency B from your project. Just use this example, but plug in your dependency details and those of the transitive dependency to exclude:

<dependency>
  <groupId>group-a</groupId>
  <artifactId>A</artifactId>
  <version>2.0</version>
  <exclusions>
      <exclusion>
          <groupId>group-b</groupId>
          <artifactId>B</artifactId>
      </exclusion>
  </exclusions>
</dependency>

There you go, thats all there is to it! Note that you likely will not have to do this all too often, but it's good to know what to do when you experience this problem.