title: Read jars from lib folder in grails
body: <p>I want to parse an excel file using the <a href="http://poi.apache.org/" rel="nofollow">Apache POI library</a> to boot strap some data in development mode into my grails 2.0.1 application.</p>
  
  <p>I've tried to use the Grails <a href="http://grails.org/plugin/excel-import" rel="nofollow">excel-import plugin</a> but the <a href="https://github.com/jbarmash/grails-excel-import/issues/4" rel="nofollow">plugin uninstalls automatically when I execute run-app</a>. </p>
  
  <p>Because of that I decided to got ahead without the plugin for now. First I have copied the next jars into the grails application lib folder</p>
  
  <pre><code>$ls -la lib
  poi-3.7-20101029.jar
  poi-ooxml-3.7-20101029.jar
  poi-ooxml-schemas-3.7-20101029.jar
  xmlbeans-2.3.0.jar
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I've read that I should declare the dependency in <code>grails-app/conf/BuildConfig.groovy</code>. So, I added the next: </p>
  
  <pre><code>   dependencies {
          // specify dependencies here under either 'build', 'compile', 'runtime', 'test' or 'provided' scopes eg.
          compile ('org.apache.poi:poi:3.7', 'org.apache.poi:poi-ooxml:3.7')  
  
          // runtime 'mysql:mysql-connector-java:5.1.16'
      }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>However when I execute run-app the application is still not able to find the jars.</p>
  
  <pre><code>grails&gt; run-app
  | Compiling 76 source files
  
  | Compiling 30 source files.
  | Error Compilation error: startup failed:
  UMEExcelImporter.groovy: 8: unable to resolve class org.apache.poi.xssf.usermodel.XSSFSheet
   @ line 8, column 1.
     import org.apache.poi.xssf.usermodel.XSSFSheet
     ^
  
  UMEExcelImporter.groovy: 7: unable to resolve class org.apache.poi.xssf.usermodel.XSSFWorkbook
   @ line 7, column 1.
     import org.apache.poi.xssf.usermodel.XSSFWorkbook
     ^
  
  UMEExcelImporter.groovy: 9: unable to resolve class org.apache.poi.xssf.usermodel.XSSFRow
   @ line 9, column 1.
     import org.apache.poi.xssf.usermodel.XSSFRow
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I am not using any IDE. Any feedback is welcome!</p>