JavaEE 7 Heals Crippled Jars And java.lang.ClassFormatError

JavaEE 6 APIs in Maven central were only usable for compiling. Any attempt to load the classes from


<dependency>
    <groupId>javax</groupId>
    <artifactId>javaee-web-api</artifactId>
    <version>6.0</version>
    <scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>

would result in:


java.lang.ClassFormatError: Absent Code attribute in method that is not native or abstract in class file javax/persistence/LockModeType
        at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method)
        at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClassCond(ClassLoader.java:632)
        at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:616)
        at java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(SecureClassLoader.java:141)
        at java.net.URLClassLoader.defineClass(URLClassLoader.java:283)
        at java.net.URLClassLoader.access$000(URLClassLoader.java:58)
        at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:197)
        at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
        at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:190)

The official Java EE 7 APIs do not have that problem any more:


   <dependency>
            <groupId>javax</groupId>
            <artifactId>javaee-api</artifactId>
            <version>7.0</version>
            <scope>provided</scope>
        </dependency>

If you are starting with JavaEE 7, just use the Essential Java EE 7 POM

When I spotted the "crippled" dependency in JavaEE 6 projects, I always asked "Do you write Unit Tests?". "Yes" answers were not honest. Now Java EE 7 killed my litmus tests :-)

The whole example with workaround was checked into http://kenai.com/projects/javaee-patterns The name of the project is: MavenUnitTestWithCrippledAPI. Just increase the dependency version to 7.0 and the unit tests should pass without any workarounds needed.

See you at Java EE Workshops at MUC Airport!