Obscure IntelliJ IDEA "bug" with maven jdk profile activation "not working"

Since Java 9 it is popular to activate additional dependencies which were removed from the core JDK through maven profile.

<profiles>
    <profile>
        <id>java9-modules</id>
        <activation>
            <jdk>[9,)</jdk>
        </activation>
        <dependencies>
            <dependency>
                <groupId>javax.xml.bind</groupId>
                <artifactId>jaxb-api</artifactId>
                <version>2.3.1</version>
            </dependency>
        </dependencies>
    </profile>
</profiles>

Using Java 11 , jaxb-api would correctly show in maven dependency tree and Docker packaged application would work correctly with the dependency jar in the classpath.

However, when running the app from IntelliJ it would fall apart with

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javax/xml/bind/annotation/XmlRootElement

Opening module dependencies in IDE would show that jaxb-api is not on the list of dependencies. IntelliJ is therefore not activating the maven profile correctly even though:

  • maven compiler release is set to 11
  • project and Module SDK is set to Java 11
  • app is run with Java 11

Why is that? There is this snippet in IntelliJ Maven Profiles documentation:

If you use a profile activation with the JDK condition (JDK tags in the POM: <jdk></jdk>), IntelliJ IDEA will use the JDK version of the Maven importer instead of the project's JDK version when syncing the project and resolving dependencies. Also, if you use https certificates, you need to include them manually for the Maven importer as well as for the Maven runner.

Why IntelliJ developers decided to tie the maven profile activation to importer I do not know. It would make much more sense to tie it to Project/Module SDK. If app is being developed with Java 11 target one would expect to activate that profile at build and runtime, not at import time.

With more digging around I managed to find an issue complaining about this problem. Unfortunately the issue is 4 years old now with no apparent activity. Preferrably the default should be changed, if not at least give us an option to choose the source of profile activation in preferences.

 

 

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