Related
In Maven, dependencies are usually set up like this:
<dependency>
<groupId>wonderful-inc</groupId>
<artifactId>dream-library</artifactId>
<version>1.2.3</version>
</dependency>
Now, if you are working with libraries that have frequent releases, constantly updating the <version> tag can be somewhat annoying. Is there any way to tell Maven to always use the latest available version (from the repository)?
NOTE:
The mentioned LATEST and RELEASE metaversions have been dropped for plugin dependencies in Maven 3 "for the sake of reproducible builds", over 6 years ago.
(They still work perfectly fine for regular dependencies.)
For plugin dependencies please refer to this Maven 3 compliant solution.
If you always want to use the newest version, Maven has two keywords you can use as an alternative to version ranges. You should use these options with care as you are no longer in control of the plugins/dependencies you are using.
When you depend on a plugin or a dependency, you can use the a version value of LATEST or RELEASE. LATEST refers to the latest released or snapshot version of a particular artifact, the most recently deployed artifact in a particular repository. RELEASE refers to the last non-snapshot release in the repository. In general, it is not a best practice to design software which depends on a non-specific version of an artifact. If you are developing software, you might want to use RELEASE or LATEST as a convenience so that you don't have to update version numbers when a new release of a third-party library is released. When you release software, you should always make sure that your project depends on specific versions to reduce the chances of your build or your project being affected by a software release not under your control. Use LATEST and RELEASE with caution, if at all.
See the POM Syntax section of the Maven book for more details. Or see this doc on Dependency Version Ranges, where:
A square bracket ( [ & ] ) means "closed" (inclusive).
A parenthesis ( ( & ) ) means "open" (exclusive).
Here's an example illustrating the various options. In the Maven repository, com.foo:my-foo has the following metadata:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><metadata>
<groupId>com.foo</groupId>
<artifactId>my-foo</artifactId>
<version>2.0.0</version>
<versioning>
<release>1.1.1</release>
<versions>
<version>1.0</version>
<version>1.0.1</version>
<version>1.1</version>
<version>1.1.1</version>
<version>2.0.0</version>
</versions>
<lastUpdated>20090722140000</lastUpdated>
</versioning>
</metadata>
If a dependency on that artifact is required, you have the following options (other version ranges can be specified of course, just showing the relevant ones here):
Declare an exact version (will always resolve to 1.0.1):
<version>[1.0.1]</version>
Declare an explicit version (will always resolve to 1.0.1 unless a collision occurs, when Maven will select a matching version):
<version>1.0.1</version>
Declare a version range for all 1.x (will currently resolve to 1.1.1):
<version>[1.0.0,2.0.0)</version>
Declare an open-ended version range (will resolve to 2.0.0):
<version>[1.0.0,)</version>
Declare the version as LATEST (will resolve to 2.0.0) (removed from maven 3.x)
<version>LATEST</version>
Declare the version as RELEASE (will resolve to 1.1.1) (removed from maven 3.x):
<version>RELEASE</version>
Note that by default your own deployments will update the "latest" entry in the Maven metadata, but to update the "release" entry, you need to activate the "release-profile" from the Maven super POM. You can do this with either "-Prelease-profile" or "-DperformRelease=true"
It's worth emphasising that any approach that allows Maven to pick the dependency versions (LATEST, RELEASE, and version ranges) can leave you open to build time issues, as later versions can have different behaviour (for example the dependency plugin has previously switched a default value from true to false, with confusing results).
It is therefore generally a good idea to define exact versions in releases. As Tim's answer points out, the maven-versions-plugin is a handy tool for updating dependency versions, particularly the versions:use-latest-versions and versions:use-latest-releases goals.
Now I know this topic is old, but reading the question and the OP supplied answer it seems the Maven Versions Plugin might have actually been a better answer to his question:
In particular the following goals could be of use:
versions:use-latest-versions searches the pom for all versions
which have been a newer version and
replaces them with the latest
version.
versions:use-latest-releases searches the pom for all non-SNAPSHOT
versions which have been a newer
release and replaces them with the
latest release version.
versions:update-properties updates properties defined in a
project so that they correspond to
the latest available version of
specific dependencies. This can be
useful if a suite of dependencies
must all be locked to one version.
The following other goals are also provided:
versions:display-dependency-updates scans a project's dependencies and
produces a report of those
dependencies which have newer
versions available.
versions:display-plugin-updates scans a project's plugins and
produces a report of those plugins
which have newer versions available.
versions:update-parent updates the parent section of a project so
that it references the newest
available version. For example, if
you use a corporate root POM, this
goal can be helpful if you need to
ensure you are using the latest
version of the corporate root POM.
versions:update-child-modules updates the parent section of the
child modules of a project so the
version matches the version of the
current project. For example, if you
have an aggregator pom that is also
the parent for the projects that it
aggregates and the children and
parent versions get out of sync, this
mojo can help fix the versions of the
child modules. (Note you may need to
invoke Maven with the -N option in
order to run this goal if your
project is broken so badly that it
cannot build because of the version
mis-match).
versions:lock-snapshots searches the pom for all -SNAPSHOT
versions and replaces them with the
current timestamp version of that
-SNAPSHOT, e.g. -20090327.172306-4
versions:unlock-snapshots searches the pom for all timestamp
locked snapshot versions and replaces
them with -SNAPSHOT.
versions:resolve-ranges finds dependencies using version ranges and
resolves the range to the specific
version being used.
versions:use-releases searches the pom for all -SNAPSHOT versions
which have been released and replaces
them with the corresponding release
version.
versions:use-next-releases searches the pom for all non-SNAPSHOT
versions which have been a newer
release and replaces them with the
next release version.
versions:use-next-versions searches the pom for all versions
which have been a newer version and
replaces them with the next version.
versions:commit removes the pom.xml.versionsBackup files. Forms
one half of the built-in "Poor Man's
SCM".
versions:revert restores the pom.xml files from the
pom.xml.versionsBackup files. Forms
one half of the built-in "Poor Man's
SCM".
Just thought I'd include it for any future reference.
Please take a look at this page (section "Dependency Version Ranges"). What you might want to do is something like
<version>[1.2.3,)</version>
These version ranges are implemented in Maven2.
Unlike others I think there are many reasons why you might always want the latest version. Particularly if you are doing continuous deployment (we sometimes have like 5 releases in a day) and don't want to do a multi-module project.
What I do is make Hudson/Jenkins do the following for every build:
mvn clean versions:use-latest-versions scm:checkin deploy -Dmessage="update versions" -DperformRelease=true
That is I use the versions plugin and scm plugin to update the dependencies and then check it in to source control. Yes I let my CI do SCM checkins (which you have to do anyway for the maven release plugin).
You'll want to setup the versions plugin to only update what you want:
<plugin>
<groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
<artifactId>versions-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>1.2</version>
<configuration>
<includesList>com.snaphop</includesList>
<generateBackupPoms>false</generateBackupPoms>
<allowSnapshots>true</allowSnapshots>
</configuration>
</plugin>
I use the release plugin to do the release which takes care of -SNAPSHOT and validates that there is a release version of -SNAPSHOT (which is important).
If you do what I do you will get the latest version for all snapshot builds and the latest release version for release builds. Your builds will also be reproducible.
Update
I noticed some comments asking some specifics of this workflow. I will say we don't use this method anymore and the big reason why is the maven versions plugin is buggy and in general is inherently flawed.
It is flawed because to run the versions plugin to adjust versions all the existing versions need to exist for the pom to run correctly. That is the versions plugin cannot update to the latest version of anything if it can't find the version referenced in the pom. This is actually rather annoying as we often cleanup old versions for disk space reasons.
Really you need a separate tool from maven to adjust the versions (so you don't depend on the pom file to run correctly). I have written such a tool in the the lowly language that is Bash. The script will update the versions like the version plugin and check the pom back into source control. It also runs like 100x faster than the mvn versions plugin. Unfortunately it isn't written in a manner for public usage but if people are interested I could make it so and put it in a gist or github.
Going back to workflow as some comments asked about that this is what we do:
We have 20 or so projects in their own repositories with their own jenkins jobs
When we release the maven release plugin is used. The workflow of that is covered in the plugin's documentation. The maven release plugin sort of sucks (and I'm being kind) but it does work. One day we plan on replacing this method with something more optimal.
When one of the projects gets released jenkins then runs a special job we will call the update all versions job (how jenkins knows its a release is a complicated manner in part because the maven jenkins release plugin is pretty crappy as well).
The update all versions job knows about all the 20 projects. It is actually an aggregator pom to be specific with all the projects in the modules section in dependency order. Jenkins runs our magic groovy/bash foo that will pull all the projects update the versions to the latest and then checkin the poms (again done in dependency order based on the modules section).
For each project if the pom has changed (because of a version change in some dependency) it is checked in and then we immediately ping jenkins to run the corresponding job for that project (this is to preserve build dependency order otherwise you are at the mercy of the SCM Poll scheduler).
At this point I'm of the opinion it is a good thing to have the release and auto version a separate tool from your general build anyway.
Now you might think maven sort of sucks because of the problems listed above but this actually would be fairly difficult with a build tool that does not have a declarative easy to parse extendable syntax (aka XML).
In fact we add custom XML attributes through namespaces to help hint bash/groovy scripts (e.g. don't update this version).
The dependencies syntax is located at the Dependency Version Requirement Specification documentation. Here it is is for completeness:
Dependencies' version element define version requirements, used to compute effective dependency version. Version requirements have the following syntax:
1.0: "Soft" requirement on 1.0 (just a recommendation, if it matches all other ranges for the dependency)
[1.0]: "Hard" requirement on 1.0
(,1.0]: x <= 1.0
[1.2,1.3]: 1.2 <= x <= 1.3
[1.0,2.0): 1.0 <= x < 2.0
[1.5,): x >= 1.5
(,1.0],[1.2,): x <= 1.0 or x >= 1.2; multiple sets are comma-separated
(,1.1),(1.1,): this excludes 1.1 (for example if it is known not to
work in combination with this library)
In your case, you could do something like <version>[1.2.3,)</version>
Are you possibly depending on development versions that obviously change a lot during development?
Instead of incrementing the version of development releases, you could just use a snapshot version that you overwrite when necessary, which means you wouldn't have to change the version tag on every minor change. Something like 1.0-SNAPSHOT...
But maybe you are trying to achieve something else ;)
Who ever is using LATEST, please make sure you have -U otherwise the latest snapshot won't be pulled.
mvn -U dependency:copy -Dartifact=com.foo:my-foo:LATEST
// pull the latest snapshot for my-foo from all repositories
The truth is even in 3.x it still works, surprisingly the projects builds and deploys. But the LATEST/RELEASE keyword causing problems in m2e and eclipse all over the place, ALSO projects depends on the dependency which deployed through the LATEST/RELEASE fail to recognize the version.
It will also causing problem if you are try to define the version as property, and reference it else where.
So the conclusion is use the versions-maven-plugin if you can.
By the time this question was posed there were some kinks with version ranges in maven, but these have been resolved in newer versions of maven.
This article captures very well how version ranges work and best practices to better understand how maven understands versions: https://docs.oracle.com/middleware/1212/core/MAVEN/maven_version.htm#MAVEN8855
Sometimes you don't want to use version ranges, because it seems that they are "slow" to resolve your dependencies, especially when there is continuous delivery in place and there are tons of versions - mainly during heavy development.
One workaround would be to use the versions-maven-plugin. For example, you can declare a property:
<properties>
<myname.version>1.1.1</myname.version>
</properties>
and add the versions-maven-plugin to your pom file:
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
<artifactId>versions-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.3</version>
<configuration>
<properties>
<property>
<name>myname.version</name>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>group-id</groupId>
<artifactId>artifact-id</artifactId>
<version>latest</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
</property>
</properties>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
Then, in order to update the dependency, you have to execute the goals:
mvn versions:update-properties validate
If there is a version newer than 1.1.1, it will tell you:
[INFO] Updated ${myname.version} from 1.1.1 to 1.3.2
If you want Maven should use the latest version of a dependency, then you can use Versions Maven Plugin and how to use this plugin, Tim has already given a good answer, follow his answer.
But as a developer, I will not recommend this type of practices. WHY?
answer to why is already given by Pascal Thivent in the comment of the question
I really don't recommend this practice (nor using version ranges) for
the sake of build reproducibility. A build that starts to suddenly
fail for an unknown reason is way more annoying than updating manually
a version number.
I will recommend this type of practice:
<properties>
<spring.version>3.1.2.RELEASE</spring.version>
</properties>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
<version>${spring.version}</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-context</artifactId>
<version>${spring.version}</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
it is easy to maintain and easy to debug. You can update your POM in no time.
MY solution in maven 3.5.4 ,use nexus, in eclipse:
<dependency>
<groupId>yilin.sheng</groupId>
<artifactId>webspherecore</artifactId>
<version>LATEST</version>
</dependency>
then in eclipse: atl + F5, and choose the force update of snapshots/release
it works for me.
I have a persistent problem with maven dependencies version changes in IntelliJ. Whenever I try to use a previous version of a library and change the dependency version in my pom.xml nothing happens. Maven continues to use the newer version of the library.
For example I want to use:
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.security.oauth.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-security-oauth2-autoconfigure</artifactId>
<version>2.0.1.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>
But Maven repo has version 2.0.2 saved :
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.security.oauth.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-security-oauth2-autoconfigure</artifactId>
<version>2.0.2.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>
So for my projects version 2.0.2.RELEASE is used.
I tried reimporting the project first. Then I tried "reimpor all maven projects". Then I checked Settings > Maven > Always update snapshots. I also tried opening the project settings and deleting the dependency from there, but on reimport the 2.0.2 version will be imported in the project. For now the only thing that works is deleting manually the folder from the ".m2" folder.
Shouldn't library versions be strictly followed and shouldn't version 2.0.1 v be used for my project?
The moment you change the version of the artifacts, maven will use the same version. It will never use neither new version nor the older version. Since you are using intellij, you can check which are the jar files along with their version used. See below the screenshot.
You can expand the External libraries as shown below and you can check the dependencies used in pom.xml.
Besides, you can also check in command prompt. Go to command prompt and point to the project directory and type the following command.
mvn install dependency:copy-dependencies
You can see all the required dependencies along with version information in target folder.
I suggest you not to delete the .m2 directory as you may have to download all the dependencies once again.
If you want to enforce the use of a particular dependency version you can use:
<dependencyManagement>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.security.oauth.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-security-oauth2-autoconfigure</artifactId>
<version>2.0.1.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
</dependencyManagement>
What this will do is exclude the dependency unless it actually gets used, and then if it does gets used it only uses the version you have specified.
Not clear what is the issue.
Repo can contain everything, no matter if dependency is present locally.
Also, Idea does not resolve dependency itself, we use maven api to resolve them.
By default, maven takes dependency which is nearest to root (see https://maven.apache.org/guides/introduction/introduction-to-dependency-mechanism.html)
Specifiying explicit dependency in root pom should force using this version.
Could you please provide mvn dependency:tree output and corresponding IDEA maven dependency diagram (if you have IU)?
If Idea resolve another dependency version than maven, please fill an issue at https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issues
In Maven, dependencies are usually set up like this:
<dependency>
<groupId>wonderful-inc</groupId>
<artifactId>dream-library</artifactId>
<version>1.2.3</version>
</dependency>
Now, if you are working with libraries that have frequent releases, constantly updating the <version> tag can be somewhat annoying. Is there any way to tell Maven to always use the latest available version (from the repository)?
NOTE:
The mentioned LATEST and RELEASE metaversions have been dropped for plugin dependencies in Maven 3 "for the sake of reproducible builds", over 6 years ago.
(They still work perfectly fine for regular dependencies.)
For plugin dependencies please refer to this Maven 3 compliant solution.
If you always want to use the newest version, Maven has two keywords you can use as an alternative to version ranges. You should use these options with care as you are no longer in control of the plugins/dependencies you are using.
When you depend on a plugin or a dependency, you can use the a version value of LATEST or RELEASE. LATEST refers to the latest released or snapshot version of a particular artifact, the most recently deployed artifact in a particular repository. RELEASE refers to the last non-snapshot release in the repository. In general, it is not a best practice to design software which depends on a non-specific version of an artifact. If you are developing software, you might want to use RELEASE or LATEST as a convenience so that you don't have to update version numbers when a new release of a third-party library is released. When you release software, you should always make sure that your project depends on specific versions to reduce the chances of your build or your project being affected by a software release not under your control. Use LATEST and RELEASE with caution, if at all.
See the POM Syntax section of the Maven book for more details. Or see this doc on Dependency Version Ranges, where:
A square bracket ( [ & ] ) means "closed" (inclusive).
A parenthesis ( ( & ) ) means "open" (exclusive).
Here's an example illustrating the various options. In the Maven repository, com.foo:my-foo has the following metadata:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><metadata>
<groupId>com.foo</groupId>
<artifactId>my-foo</artifactId>
<version>2.0.0</version>
<versioning>
<release>1.1.1</release>
<versions>
<version>1.0</version>
<version>1.0.1</version>
<version>1.1</version>
<version>1.1.1</version>
<version>2.0.0</version>
</versions>
<lastUpdated>20090722140000</lastUpdated>
</versioning>
</metadata>
If a dependency on that artifact is required, you have the following options (other version ranges can be specified of course, just showing the relevant ones here):
Declare an exact version (will always resolve to 1.0.1):
<version>[1.0.1]</version>
Declare an explicit version (will always resolve to 1.0.1 unless a collision occurs, when Maven will select a matching version):
<version>1.0.1</version>
Declare a version range for all 1.x (will currently resolve to 1.1.1):
<version>[1.0.0,2.0.0)</version>
Declare an open-ended version range (will resolve to 2.0.0):
<version>[1.0.0,)</version>
Declare the version as LATEST (will resolve to 2.0.0) (removed from maven 3.x)
<version>LATEST</version>
Declare the version as RELEASE (will resolve to 1.1.1) (removed from maven 3.x):
<version>RELEASE</version>
Note that by default your own deployments will update the "latest" entry in the Maven metadata, but to update the "release" entry, you need to activate the "release-profile" from the Maven super POM. You can do this with either "-Prelease-profile" or "-DperformRelease=true"
It's worth emphasising that any approach that allows Maven to pick the dependency versions (LATEST, RELEASE, and version ranges) can leave you open to build time issues, as later versions can have different behaviour (for example the dependency plugin has previously switched a default value from true to false, with confusing results).
It is therefore generally a good idea to define exact versions in releases. As Tim's answer points out, the maven-versions-plugin is a handy tool for updating dependency versions, particularly the versions:use-latest-versions and versions:use-latest-releases goals.
Now I know this topic is old, but reading the question and the OP supplied answer it seems the Maven Versions Plugin might have actually been a better answer to his question:
In particular the following goals could be of use:
versions:use-latest-versions searches the pom for all versions
which have been a newer version and
replaces them with the latest
version.
versions:use-latest-releases searches the pom for all non-SNAPSHOT
versions which have been a newer
release and replaces them with the
latest release version.
versions:update-properties updates properties defined in a
project so that they correspond to
the latest available version of
specific dependencies. This can be
useful if a suite of dependencies
must all be locked to one version.
The following other goals are also provided:
versions:display-dependency-updates scans a project's dependencies and
produces a report of those
dependencies which have newer
versions available.
versions:display-plugin-updates scans a project's plugins and
produces a report of those plugins
which have newer versions available.
versions:update-parent updates the parent section of a project so
that it references the newest
available version. For example, if
you use a corporate root POM, this
goal can be helpful if you need to
ensure you are using the latest
version of the corporate root POM.
versions:update-child-modules updates the parent section of the
child modules of a project so the
version matches the version of the
current project. For example, if you
have an aggregator pom that is also
the parent for the projects that it
aggregates and the children and
parent versions get out of sync, this
mojo can help fix the versions of the
child modules. (Note you may need to
invoke Maven with the -N option in
order to run this goal if your
project is broken so badly that it
cannot build because of the version
mis-match).
versions:lock-snapshots searches the pom for all -SNAPSHOT
versions and replaces them with the
current timestamp version of that
-SNAPSHOT, e.g. -20090327.172306-4
versions:unlock-snapshots searches the pom for all timestamp
locked snapshot versions and replaces
them with -SNAPSHOT.
versions:resolve-ranges finds dependencies using version ranges and
resolves the range to the specific
version being used.
versions:use-releases searches the pom for all -SNAPSHOT versions
which have been released and replaces
them with the corresponding release
version.
versions:use-next-releases searches the pom for all non-SNAPSHOT
versions which have been a newer
release and replaces them with the
next release version.
versions:use-next-versions searches the pom for all versions
which have been a newer version and
replaces them with the next version.
versions:commit removes the pom.xml.versionsBackup files. Forms
one half of the built-in "Poor Man's
SCM".
versions:revert restores the pom.xml files from the
pom.xml.versionsBackup files. Forms
one half of the built-in "Poor Man's
SCM".
Just thought I'd include it for any future reference.
Please take a look at this page (section "Dependency Version Ranges"). What you might want to do is something like
<version>[1.2.3,)</version>
These version ranges are implemented in Maven2.
Unlike others I think there are many reasons why you might always want the latest version. Particularly if you are doing continuous deployment (we sometimes have like 5 releases in a day) and don't want to do a multi-module project.
What I do is make Hudson/Jenkins do the following for every build:
mvn clean versions:use-latest-versions scm:checkin deploy -Dmessage="update versions" -DperformRelease=true
That is I use the versions plugin and scm plugin to update the dependencies and then check it in to source control. Yes I let my CI do SCM checkins (which you have to do anyway for the maven release plugin).
You'll want to setup the versions plugin to only update what you want:
<plugin>
<groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
<artifactId>versions-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>1.2</version>
<configuration>
<includesList>com.snaphop</includesList>
<generateBackupPoms>false</generateBackupPoms>
<allowSnapshots>true</allowSnapshots>
</configuration>
</plugin>
I use the release plugin to do the release which takes care of -SNAPSHOT and validates that there is a release version of -SNAPSHOT (which is important).
If you do what I do you will get the latest version for all snapshot builds and the latest release version for release builds. Your builds will also be reproducible.
Update
I noticed some comments asking some specifics of this workflow. I will say we don't use this method anymore and the big reason why is the maven versions plugin is buggy and in general is inherently flawed.
It is flawed because to run the versions plugin to adjust versions all the existing versions need to exist for the pom to run correctly. That is the versions plugin cannot update to the latest version of anything if it can't find the version referenced in the pom. This is actually rather annoying as we often cleanup old versions for disk space reasons.
Really you need a separate tool from maven to adjust the versions (so you don't depend on the pom file to run correctly). I have written such a tool in the the lowly language that is Bash. The script will update the versions like the version plugin and check the pom back into source control. It also runs like 100x faster than the mvn versions plugin. Unfortunately it isn't written in a manner for public usage but if people are interested I could make it so and put it in a gist or github.
Going back to workflow as some comments asked about that this is what we do:
We have 20 or so projects in their own repositories with their own jenkins jobs
When we release the maven release plugin is used. The workflow of that is covered in the plugin's documentation. The maven release plugin sort of sucks (and I'm being kind) but it does work. One day we plan on replacing this method with something more optimal.
When one of the projects gets released jenkins then runs a special job we will call the update all versions job (how jenkins knows its a release is a complicated manner in part because the maven jenkins release plugin is pretty crappy as well).
The update all versions job knows about all the 20 projects. It is actually an aggregator pom to be specific with all the projects in the modules section in dependency order. Jenkins runs our magic groovy/bash foo that will pull all the projects update the versions to the latest and then checkin the poms (again done in dependency order based on the modules section).
For each project if the pom has changed (because of a version change in some dependency) it is checked in and then we immediately ping jenkins to run the corresponding job for that project (this is to preserve build dependency order otherwise you are at the mercy of the SCM Poll scheduler).
At this point I'm of the opinion it is a good thing to have the release and auto version a separate tool from your general build anyway.
Now you might think maven sort of sucks because of the problems listed above but this actually would be fairly difficult with a build tool that does not have a declarative easy to parse extendable syntax (aka XML).
In fact we add custom XML attributes through namespaces to help hint bash/groovy scripts (e.g. don't update this version).
The dependencies syntax is located at the Dependency Version Requirement Specification documentation. Here it is is for completeness:
Dependencies' version element define version requirements, used to compute effective dependency version. Version requirements have the following syntax:
1.0: "Soft" requirement on 1.0 (just a recommendation, if it matches all other ranges for the dependency)
[1.0]: "Hard" requirement on 1.0
(,1.0]: x <= 1.0
[1.2,1.3]: 1.2 <= x <= 1.3
[1.0,2.0): 1.0 <= x < 2.0
[1.5,): x >= 1.5
(,1.0],[1.2,): x <= 1.0 or x >= 1.2; multiple sets are comma-separated
(,1.1),(1.1,): this excludes 1.1 (for example if it is known not to
work in combination with this library)
In your case, you could do something like <version>[1.2.3,)</version>
Are you possibly depending on development versions that obviously change a lot during development?
Instead of incrementing the version of development releases, you could just use a snapshot version that you overwrite when necessary, which means you wouldn't have to change the version tag on every minor change. Something like 1.0-SNAPSHOT...
But maybe you are trying to achieve something else ;)
Who ever is using LATEST, please make sure you have -U otherwise the latest snapshot won't be pulled.
mvn -U dependency:copy -Dartifact=com.foo:my-foo:LATEST
// pull the latest snapshot for my-foo from all repositories
The truth is even in 3.x it still works, surprisingly the projects builds and deploys. But the LATEST/RELEASE keyword causing problems in m2e and eclipse all over the place, ALSO projects depends on the dependency which deployed through the LATEST/RELEASE fail to recognize the version.
It will also causing problem if you are try to define the version as property, and reference it else where.
So the conclusion is use the versions-maven-plugin if you can.
By the time this question was posed there were some kinks with version ranges in maven, but these have been resolved in newer versions of maven.
This article captures very well how version ranges work and best practices to better understand how maven understands versions: https://docs.oracle.com/middleware/1212/core/MAVEN/maven_version.htm#MAVEN8855
Sometimes you don't want to use version ranges, because it seems that they are "slow" to resolve your dependencies, especially when there is continuous delivery in place and there are tons of versions - mainly during heavy development.
One workaround would be to use the versions-maven-plugin. For example, you can declare a property:
<properties>
<myname.version>1.1.1</myname.version>
</properties>
and add the versions-maven-plugin to your pom file:
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
<artifactId>versions-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.3</version>
<configuration>
<properties>
<property>
<name>myname.version</name>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>group-id</groupId>
<artifactId>artifact-id</artifactId>
<version>latest</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
</property>
</properties>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
Then, in order to update the dependency, you have to execute the goals:
mvn versions:update-properties validate
If there is a version newer than 1.1.1, it will tell you:
[INFO] Updated ${myname.version} from 1.1.1 to 1.3.2
If you want Maven should use the latest version of a dependency, then you can use Versions Maven Plugin and how to use this plugin, Tim has already given a good answer, follow his answer.
But as a developer, I will not recommend this type of practices. WHY?
answer to why is already given by Pascal Thivent in the comment of the question
I really don't recommend this practice (nor using version ranges) for
the sake of build reproducibility. A build that starts to suddenly
fail for an unknown reason is way more annoying than updating manually
a version number.
I will recommend this type of practice:
<properties>
<spring.version>3.1.2.RELEASE</spring.version>
</properties>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
<version>${spring.version}</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-context</artifactId>
<version>${spring.version}</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
it is easy to maintain and easy to debug. You can update your POM in no time.
MY solution in maven 3.5.4 ,use nexus, in eclipse:
<dependency>
<groupId>yilin.sheng</groupId>
<artifactId>webspherecore</artifactId>
<version>LATEST</version>
</dependency>
then in eclipse: atl + F5, and choose the force update of snapshots/release
it works for me.
What is the numbering/versioning strategy for dependencies when doing snapshots/releases?
A team of 15 developers,20 Maven parent projects = total 70+ POMs including child module POMs. Currently there are a lot of dependencies where most of these 70 depend on one or the other.
Past:
All POMS have 1.0.0-SNAPSHOT as their version and also under dependencies tags.It gets uploaded to Nexus repo with mvn deploy.
Present:
We started doing mvn release recently. So all 20 parent POMs are now 1.0.1-SNAPSHOT and release ver 1.0.0 for all of them lies in Nexus.All <dependencies> tags now point to 1.0.0
Problem:
Developers don't want to point to release versions. They need bleeding edge development version 1.0.X-SNAPSHOT from their peers whether its unstable or not.
SCM wants to point to RELEASE versions only as he has to do a mvn release once a week which will fail as it points to snapshot versions.
Question:
Now I know the version plugin , but the question is, what do I put in the POM so that both parties are satisfied by running their own version of mvn versions: command. Preferably, the POMs should point to SNAPSHOTS so 15 people are happy, and when SCM does the release, he can run a mvn versions:something and everything gets converted to RELEASE versions in place of SNAPSHOTS. Then back to SNAPSHOTS for developers.
I am putting this as an answer, even though at present this is not quite working answer.
When I added the completionGoals configuration option in the Maven Release Plugin, my aim was to enable the work-flow where development used version ranges, but that releases would be pinned to concrete versions only.
One of the enabling goals that was added to the Versions Maven Plugin was the versions:resolve-ranges goal. What is missing is a way to unresolve those ranges again afterwards.
We don't really have anywhere safe to stash the originating ranges that the release plugin will not object to or clean up before we need it again.
The closest solution I have thought of is to inject XML PI's beside the version containing the version range... in such a situation, the pom.xml would get transformed from, e.g.
<project>
...
<dependencies>
...
<dependency>
<groupId>com.foo.bar</groupId>
<artifactId>manchu</artifactId>
<version>[1.2.3,2.0)</version>
</dependency?
...
</dependencies>
...
</project>
to
<project>
...
<dependencies>
...
<dependency>
<groupId>com.foo.bar</groupId>
<artifactId>manchu</artifactId>
<version>1.5.7</version>
<?versions-maven-plugin allowed-version-range="[1.2.3,2.0)"?>
</dependency?
...
</dependencies>
...
</project>
by ensuring that the preparationGoals included the versions:resolve-ranges goal... (Note: the versions plugin might have to fork a third Maven to work around the lack of pom.xml reloading in order to have the clean verify be meaningful, though resolve-ranges is supposed to resolve in the exact version that the build is working with, so it shouldn't be an issue).
Then in completionGoals you have the (as yet unimplemented) versions-maven-plugin goal that removes the XML PI's and puts the ranges back in place.
There are a number of issues preventing this at present:
Unsure if the Maven Release Plugin's pom rewriting will remove the XML PI's (needs testing to confirm)
The XML parsing library in versions-maven-plugin is hacky at best, and a better solution is needed to enable the XML PI injection
My son demands attention, leaving very little time for me to attend to these issues.
However, you might be able to codge something together.
Set completionGoals to something like versions:use-next-snapshots versions:commit
Run your releases like so mvn versions:use-releases versions:commit scm:commit release:prepare release:perform install
So what should happen:
We switch the -SNAPSHOTs to releases
We commit the change to SCM
We start the release preparation
When the pom.xml is transformed to the next development version, we also advance the dependencies (using the fact that all our dependencies had the exact same command (with the install at the end) so their next -SNAPSHOT is already in the local repository, so they will get advanced for us automatically (in theory)) and we rely on release:prepare to commit the changes for us.
The release is performed as normally
We install the next development -SNAPSHOT into the local repo so that all the down-stream projects will get their version of this updated when they run versions:use-next-snapshots
The above is slightly error prone... I'd far prefer if I could offer you the version range based solution, but, well right now this is the best solution I can see.
I am running cucumber-jvm via JUnit and maven. I can get into the source code and make changes to the core code, but these changed do not affect the other projects that run cucumber-jvm.
How do I make changes to the core and have the other projects on my machine be affected? Does maven only run the jars on github? Do I have to create a new cucumber-jvm project and add that project as a dependency instead of:
<dependency>
<groupId>info.cukes</groupId>
<artifactId>cucumber-java</artifactId>
<version>1.0.3</version>
<scope>test</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>info.cukes</groupId>
<artifactId>cucumber-junit</artifactId>
<version>1.0.2</version>
<scope>test</scope>
</dependency>
Thanks.
You've pulled down the Cucumber-JVM code and modified it locally, yes? Then all you need to do is run a Maven build (not within Eclipse!). This will replace the downloaded dependencies in your Maven repo with newer ones you've changed (but only the ones you've changed). Then your tests should pick up your changes.
If you want to commit your changes back to Cucumber-JVM as enhancements or bug-fixes, and you should, if you feel they'll be useful, you'll need to go through the github pull request process - see the Cucumber-JVM website for details on that.
As #TrueDub said, you need to clone the project locally, and build it using mvn install. This will build the project and install it in your local repository. Any project you build locally referencing the version of cucumber-jvm you have built in their pom will be using your modified version.
If you need to distribute your version of cucumber-jvm to other environment, the best bet is to use a Nexus repository to deploy your artefact and make it available for others to use within your organization. Make sure you give that artefact a name (or classifier, or version) that distinguishes your version from the official one to avoid potential confusion – in which case poms using your version of cucumber-jvm must be modified to use that particular version.