[MDEP-435] improve mvn dependency:tree - add optional xml output of the results

**[Kow Unk](https://issues.apache.org/jira/secure/ViewProfile.jspa?name=knunkler)** opened **[MDEP-435](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/MDEP-435?redirect=false)** and commented

The output of mvn dependency:tree would be more useful to me if it was in a format that is machine readable. I would like to create some tooling to be able to easily determine what is causing a particular jar to be included.

for example:

> mymvntool -why org.springframework:org.springframework.beans:3.0.5
> org.springframework.beans-3.0.5 is being **dragged** in by: my.otherproject.core:1.1
> %end of search

another use:

> mymvntool -makeexclusionfor org.springframework:org.springframework.beans:3.0.5

\
\
\org.springframework\
\org.springframework.beans\
\
\

or even:

> mymvntool -makeexclusionfor org.springframework:*:3.0.5

this would pickup all the included jars in the project and build exclusions for them.
It may have been dumb to pick spring as the exclusion resource, but this is just an example. having xml output would be valuable to me and probably others too.

-K

---

**Remote Links:**
- [GitHub Pull Request #55
](https://github.com/apache/maven-changes-plugin/pull/55)
- [GitHub Pull Request #24
](https://github.com/apache/maven-dependency-plugin/pull/24)

0 votes, 6 watchers

Start with the existing mvn dependency:tree command and review the linked GitHub Pull Request #24 for prior work. Done means the dependency tree can optionally be emitted as machine-readable XML, supporting tooling that identifies dependency paths and constructs exclusions.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.