Maven, assembly plugin, multi-module project and module dependencies - maven-2

Question

I'm building a multi-module Maven project whose major product is a WAR file, and I'm trying to assemble that file together with associated release-related artifacts (README, release notes, license file, etc.) into a ZIP for distribution. But when I try to build a distribution file, it fails. What am I doing wrong? Note that I have already checked that the foo-bar.1.0.war artifact exists at the point that the foo-distribution module is asked to build the distribution file; I'm aware that putting everything in foo's POM won't work. (I have a workaround; I can use relative paths to point directly to the location of the files distributed relative to the foo-distribution module root. This isn't a solution I like as it has bad code-smell.)
Note also that I always build from the root project, and that I'm using assembly:single in the distribution builder (as recommended in the Maven documentation).
Project Layout
foo
+ src
| + README.txt
+ foo-bar
| + target
| + foo-bar.1.0.war
+ foo-distribution
+ src
+ assemble
+ dist.xml
foo and foo-distribution have pom packaging, and foo-bar has war packaging. (There are other modules in the real code, but they're also constructed correctly before the foo-distribution module.)
foo POM
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<groupId>foobar</groupId>
<artifactId>foo</artifactId>
<packaging>pom</packaging>
<version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
<modules>
<module>foo-bar</module>
<module>foo-distribution</module>
</modules>
</project>
foo-distribution POM
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
<parent>
<artifactId>foo</artifactId>
<groupId>foobar</groupId>
<version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
<relativePath>..</relativePath>
</parent>
<groupId>foobar</groupId>
<artifactId>foo-distribution</artifactId>
<packaging>pom</packaging>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>foobar</groupId>
<artifactId>foo-bar</artifactId>
<version>1.0</version>
<type>war</type>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.2-beta-5</version>
<configuration>
<finalName>foobar</finalName>
<descriptors>
<descriptor>src/assemble/dist.xml</descriptor>
</descriptors>
</configuration>
<executions>
<execution>
<id>make-t2server-distribution</id>
<phase>package</phase>
<goals>
<goal>single</goal>
</goals>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
</project>
dist.xml
<assembly
xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-assembly-plugin/assembly/1.1.0">
<id>distribution</id>
<formats>
<format>zip</format>
</formats>
<moduleSets>
<moduleSet>
<includes>
<include>foobar:foo</include>
</includes>
<sources>
<fileSets>
<fileSet>
<directory>src</directory>
<includes>
<include>*.txt</include>
</includes>
</fileSet>
</fileSets>
</sources>
</moduleSet>
<moduleSet>
<includes>
<include>foobar:foo-bar</include>
</includes>
<binaries />
</moduleSet>
</moduleSets>
</assembly>
Workaround dist.xml
This is the workaround that I mentioned above. It produces exactly the artifact that I want.
<assembly
xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-assembly-plugin/assembly/1.1.0">
<id>distribution</id>
<formats>
<format>zip</format>
</formats>
<fileSets>
<fileSet>
<directory>${project.basedir}/../src</directory>
<includes>
<include>*.txt</include>
</includes>
</fileSet>
<fileSet>
<directory>${project.basedir}/../foo-bar/target</directory>
<includes>
<include>*.war</include>
</includes>
<outputDirectory>.</outputDirectory>
</fileSet>
</fileSets>
</assembly>

Answer 1

You should use a dependencySet in your assembly descriptor
<assembly>
<id>dist</id>
<formats>
<format>zip</format>
</formats>
<includeBaseDirectory>true</includeBaseDirectory>
<dependencySets>
<dependencySet>
<useTransitiveDependencies>false</useTransitiveDependencies>
<useProjectArtifact>false</useProjectArtifact>
<unpack>false</unpack>
<scope>runtime</scope>
<fileMode>0644</fileMode>
</dependencySet>
</dependencySets>
<fileSets>
<fileSet>
with all supplemental files you need
</fileSet>
</fileSets>
instead of referencing the files via file system (relative paths). And on the other hand a descriptor for source does exists already from the assembly plugin (take a look into the docs).

Answer 2

What order are the modules being build, I had a similar problem and declaring what the parent was in the child module helped with the build order. Not sure if using could help with this.