Running JDK8 for aspectj

Question

I am trying to run aspectj-maven plugin with JDK8. But it is giving errors like \"The type java.lang.CharSequence cannot be resolved. It is indirectly referenced from requir

Answer 1

You don't need 1.7-SNAPSHOT for that. I have this snippent in POM and everything works:

<plugin>
                    <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
                    <artifactId>aspectj-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                    <version>1.5</version>
                    <executions>
                        <execution>
                            <goals>
                                <goal>compile</goal>
                            </goals>
                        </execution>
                    </executions>
                    <configuration>
                        <source>1.8</source>
                        <target>1.8</target>
                        <complianceLevel>1.8</complianceLevel>
                        <showWeaveInfo>true</showWeaveInfo>
                    </configuration>
                    <dependencies>
                        <dependency>
                            <groupId>org.aspectj</groupId>
                            <artifactId>aspectjrt</artifactId>
                            <version>1.8.1</version>
                        </dependency>
                        <dependency>
                            <groupId>org.aspectj</groupId>
                            <artifactId>aspectjtools</artifactId>
                            <version>1.8.1</version>
                        </dependency>
                    </dependencies>

                </plugin>

Answer 2

I had to achieve the same and I drove crazy trying to figure out this, fortunately I could solve it and here I give you what I did:

To use aspectj-maven-plugin with Java 8 you need version aspectj-maven-plugin 1.7 (Note that aspectj-maven-plugin 1.6 works for Java 7).

So, the maven plugin configuration needs to be:

        <!-- AspectJ configuration -->
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
            <artifactId>aspectj-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>1.7-SNAPSHOT</version>
            <configuration>
                <complianceLevel>1.8</complianceLevel>
                <source>1.8</source>
                <target>1.8</target>
            </configuration>
            <executions>
                <execution>
                    <goals>
                        <goal>compile</goal>
                        <goal>test-compile</goal>
                    </goals>
                </execution>
            </executions>
        </plugin>

By the way, the aspectJ jars needed are:

    <!-- Spring AOP + AspectJ -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.aspectj</groupId>
        <artifactId>aspectjrt</artifactId>
        <version>1.8.1</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-aop</artifactId>
        <version>1.8.1</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.aspectj</groupId>
        <artifactId>aspectjweaver</artifactId>
        <version>1.8.1</version>
    </dependency>

And the most important thing I've struggled was that you need to install the aspectj-maven-plugin 1.7 jar manually into your pom.xml since this jar aren't on maven repo yet.

You can get it from Haus Jira (look at the Attachment section):

https://jira.codehaus.org/browse/MASPECTJ-131

Btw, once you download it an copy it to your repo you need to create your own aspectj-maven-plugin-1.7-SNAPSHOT.pom file within the corresponding directory. You can copy it from version 1.6 BUT ensure you modify the following content:

 <version>1.7-SNAPSHOT</version>

 <properties>
    <aspectjVersion>1.8.1</aspectjVersion>
    <mavenVersion>2.2.1</mavenVersion>
    <changesPluginVersion>2.9</changesPluginVersion>
 </properties>

That's all here you go, hope to help.

Answer 3

Another way to solve this problem is to downgrade JDK level to 1.7. JDK 1.7 works well with aspectj-maven-plugin of versions 1.4 - 1.6.

Here is a screenshot showing how to change JDK level in IntelliJ IDEA project:

Set Project SDK to 1.7. See documentation for more details.