Keep your mule’s dependency up to date

Last Updated on 30/05/2021 by Patryk Bandurski

One of the major changes in Mule 4 was introducing components modularization. Although it is a big step forward, it has some drawbacks that you should be aware of. In this article, we will look at keeping our mule application up to date. Especially now as MuleSoft is rapidly developing its new product.

Mule 4 modularization

In this paragraph, I will briefly introduce what I mean by mule 4 modularization. Previously you had a bundle of libraries. As a result less to manage. On the other hand, it made the update of one particular library as hard as the whole bundle would need to be updated. Not just the single library. Thus, MuleSoft has decided to split major modules out of the bundle. I have mentioned that Mule 4 revealed and using domain project articles.

In the diagram below you can see sample Mule application and its dependencies. It depends on HTTP, Munit, FTP and Spring modules. Each has its own version. Imagine now, that MuleSoft has prepared a new critical fix for an HTTP Module. You can update only this module version in your pom file.

Moreover, your packaged application weighs more as it has extra dependencies that were earlier embedded into the runtime.

Keep it up to date

Okay, instead of one dependency I have now more. As a consequence, there is more to manage. Yet, I do not need to update dependencies at all if everything is working as expected. What if there is an error or MuleSoft has published a new version with some major bug fixes?

In Anypoint Studio, you are not notified at all when there is a new version of one of the modules. You need to do it manually. But can be problematic to get the new version number.

Anypoint Studio 7 with Manage Dependencies

We, the developers, have recently received the tool to manage dependencies in a nice and easy manner directly in Anypoint Studio. This feature is available since the 7.4.2 version.

Manage modules’ dependencies

Select your application and from the context menu pick Manage Dependencies and then Manage Modules. Now you should see the Modules window like in the screenshot below.

As you can see, my application has five dependencies. Two of them, blue dot, have been marked as out-of-date dependencies. In order to update the version click the dependency and then the Update version button. After that, apply the changes.

Manage APIs’ versions

The same works for your APIs publised on Anypoint Exchange. Select your application and from the context menu pick Manage Dependencies and then Manage APIs. Now you should see the APIs window like in the screenshot below.

As you can see, my application has one API dependency. In order to update the version click the dependency and then the Update version button. After that, apply the changes.

Maven plugin to the rescue

In order to see which dependency is outdated, you can call a simple maven command, such as:

mvn versions:display-dependency-updates

Below you can see a sample output of such command on one of my mule projects. As you can see I had a lot of dependencies outdated. It may make sense to update them all. However, I have not decided to get the BETA version of the MUnit library.

 [INFO] The following dependencies in Dependencies have newer versions:
 [INFO]   com.ibm.icu:icu4j ………………………………… 60.2 -> 63.1
 [INFO]   com.mulesoft.munit:munit-runner ……………… 2.1.4 -> 2.2.0-BETA
 [INFO]   com.mulesoft.munit:munit-tools ………………. 2.1.4 -> 2.2.0-BETA
 [INFO]   org.mule.connectors:mule-db-connector …………….. 1.3.4 -> 1.5.0
 [INFO]   org.mule.connectors:mule-http-connector …………… 1.3.1 -> 1.5.0
 [INFO]   org.mule.connectors:mule-objectstore-connector …….. 1.1.2 -> 1.1.3
 [INFO]   org.mule.modules:mule-scripting-module ……………. 1.1.1 -> 1.1.4
 [INFO]   org.mule.modules:mule-validation-module …………… 1.2.2 -> 1.4.0
 [INFO]
 [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
 [INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
 [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
 [INFO] Total time:  31.874 s
 [INFO] Finished at: 2019-02-14T13:03:42+01:00
 [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Summary

In short, modularization makes our application dependencies more clear. We know what is used there for sure. However, we need to manage more dependencies, but that is not as hard as it may seem. We may use newly introduced Manage Dependencies directly in Anypoint Studio or the Maven version command to get information on what is up to date and what we should update within the pom file.