Why maven compilation doesn't work with "pom" packaging type

Question

I don't know why my maven build doesn't generate target/classes in current pom setting, the packaging type must be "pom" in my case, please advise what is wrong... Thanks!

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"     xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0     http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<groupId>com.abc.sm.doctor</groupId>
<artifactId>smdoctor</artifactId>
<packaging>pom</packaging>
<version>${SMDOCTOR_VERSION}</version>
<name>sm doctor</name>
<properties>
    <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
</properties>
<build>
    <plugins>   
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
            <configuration>
                <source>1.5</source>
                <target>1.5</target>
                <debug>true</debug>
                <debuglevel>source,lines</debuglevel>
                <showDeprecation>true</showDeprecation>
                <archive>
                </archive>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
        <plugin>
            <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
            <configuration>
                <appendAssemblyId>false</appendAssemblyId>         
                <finalName>smdoctor</finalName> 
                <descriptors>
                    <descriptor>dist.xml</descriptor>
                    <descriptor>zip.xml</descriptor>
                </descriptors>
            </configuration>
            <executions>
                <execution>
                    <id>make-assembly</id>
                    <phase>package</phase>
                    <goals>
                        <goal>single</goal>
                    </goals>
                </execution>
            </executions>
        </plugin>
        <plugin>
    <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
    <artifactId>build-helper-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>1.7</version>
    <executions>
      <execution>
        <id>attach-artifacts</id>
        <phase>package</phase>
        <goals>
          <goal>attach-artifact</goal>
        </goals>
        <configuration>
          <artifacts>
            <artifact>
              <file>target/smdoctor.zip</file>
              <type>zip</type>
            </artifact>
          </artifacts>
        </configuration>
      </execution>
    </executions>
  </plugin>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-jar-plugin</artifactId>
            <configuration>
                <archive>
                    <manifest>
                        <addClasspath>true</addClasspath>
                        <classpathPrefix>lib/</classpathPrefix>
                        <mainClass>...</mainClass>
                    </manifest>
                </archive>
            </configuration>
            <version>2.3.1</version>
        </plugin>
    </plugins>
</build>
<dependencies>
    ... 
     </dependencies>

Answer 1

By setting the packaging type to pom, you specify that nothing should be compiled. Maybe pom isn't the right packaging type for this artifact after all? It looks like your script would run fine as jar.