Maven version with a property

Question

I have big Maven (Tycho) project witch about 400 plug-ins.

We have specified version of application in each POM file.

Is there a way how to specify the version for all POM:s only on one place?

I would expect some think like:

<properties>
<buildVersion>1.1.2-SNAPSHOT</buildVersion>
</properties>

....

<version>${buildVersion}</version>

We have parent pom.xml:

<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<groupId>company</groupId>
<artifactId>build.parent</artifactId>
<version>1.1.2-SNAPSHOT</version>
<packaging>pom</packaging>

Then in each POM is reference to parent POM:

<parent>
  <artifactId>build.parent</artifactId>
  <groupId>company</groupId>
  <relativePath>../build.parent/pom.xml</relativePath>
  <version>1.1.2-SNAPSHOT</version>
</parent>

<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<groupId>company</groupId>
<artifactId>artifact</artifactId>
<version>1.1.2-SNAPSHOT</version>
<packaging>eclipse-plugin</packaging>

Answer 1

If you have a parent project you can set the version in the parent pom and in the children you can reference sibling libs with the ${project.version} or ${version} properties.

If you want to avoid to repeat the version of the parent in each children: you can do this:

<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<groupId>company</groupId>
<artifactId>build.parent</artifactId>
<version>${my.version}</version>
<packaging>pom</packaging>

<properties>
<my.version>1.1.2-SNAPSHOT</my.version>
</properties>

And then in your children pom you have to do:

    <parent>
      <artifactId>build.parent</artifactId>
      <groupId>company</groupId>
      <relativePath>../build.parent/pom.xml</relativePath>
      <version>${my.version}</version>
    </parent>

    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <groupId>company</groupId>
    <artifactId>artifact</artifactId>
    <packaging>eclipse-plugin</packaging>

    <dependencies>
        <dependency> 
           <groupId>company</groupId>
           <artifactId>otherartifact</artifactId>   
           <version>${my.version}</version>
or
           <version>${project.version}</version>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>

hth