Dependency hierarchy not using property from parent pom? - maven

Question

I have a problem I wonder if someone could help me to resolve.
I have a module structure in my project where I resolve dependencies using Maven. For this structure I have versions with different content I distinguish using classifiers. For each classifier I have defined a profile in a parent pom with the string for the classifier in a property. This way in my modules I use this property and is the profile I defined who decides the classifier constant.
The problem I'm stuck with now is the dependency hierarchy not recognizing the classifier when a dependency is inherit from the one I define in the pom of one of my modules.
For example, if I have projects A, B and C, B depends on A and C depends on B, from C I'm getting B with the classifier but not A with it.
This happens if I use the property from the parent pom. If I use directly a constant string instead, the dependencies get caught correctly.
The only solution I see is using profiles on each pom defining the dependencies inside them. But I have 5 profiles! Isn't there any other way to resolve this?
I'm using STS 3.8 with m2e plugin as my IDE.
Thank you in advance!
I add the poms
parent pom:
<profiles>
<profile>
<id>TRUNK</id>
<activation>
<activeByDefault>true</activeByDefault>
</activation>
<properties>
<svnBranch />
</properties>
</profile>
<profile>
<id>MON</id>
<properties>
<svnBranch>MON</svnBranch>
</properties>
</profile>
<profile>
<id>LOLA</id>
<properties>
<svnBranch>LOLA</svnBranch>
</properties>
</profile>
<profile>
<id>NBA</id>
<properties>
<svnBranch>NBA</svnBranch>
</properties>
</profile>
<profile>
<id>TEST</id>
<properties>
<svnBranch>TEST</svnBranch>
</properties>
</profile>
<profile>
<id>PROD</id>
<properties>
<svnBranch>PROD</svnBranch>
</properties>
</profile>
</profiles>
Project A:
<parent>
<groupId>com.myproject</groupId>
<artifactId>pom</artifactId>
<version>1.0.10</version>
</parent>
<artifactId>core-services</artifactId>
<version>1.1.0.41-SNAPSHOT</version>
Project B:
<parent>
<groupId>com.mycompany</groupId>
<artifactId>pom</artifactId>
<version>1.0.10</version>
</parent>
<artifactId>olb-services</artifactId>
<version>1.1.0.41-SNAPSHOT</version>
<properties>
<module.core-services.dependency.version>1.1.0.41-SNAPSHOT</module.core-services.dependency.version>
</properties>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.mycompany</groupId>
<artifactId>core-services</artifactId>
<version>${module.core-services.dependency.version}</version>
<classifier>${svnBranch}</classifier>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
Project C:
<parent>
<groupId>com.mycompany</groupId>
<artifactId>pom</artifactId>
<version>1.0.10</version>
</parent>
<artifactId>nba-services</artifactId>
<version>1.1.0.41-SNAPSHOT</version>
<properties>
<module.olb-services.dependency.version>1.1.0.41-SNAPSHOT</module.olb-services.dependency.version>
<module.core-services.dependency.version>1.1.0.41-SNAPSHOT</module.core-services.dependency.version>
</properties>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.mycompany</groupId>
<artifactId>olb-services</artifactId>
<version>${module.olb-services.dependency.version}</version>
<classifier>${svnBranch}</classifier>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.mycompany</groupId>
<artifactId>core-services</artifactId>
<version>${module.core-services.dependency.version}</version>
<classifier>${svnBranch}</classifier>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
Using the ${svnBranch} in the classifier tag for each dependency doesn't work. It looks like in project B, when is referenced by project C, the property ${svnBranch} is empty nevertheless it comes from the parent pom.

Answer 1

In maven, you can only use a profile defined at the parent level in your child pom, if you can only activate it at built time by passing -D{activation.property}=value or -P{profile.id/s} .
You cannot define a profile in your parent and try it to activate in your child pom as profile can not be inherited(you are not even trying to activate in the child pom in your case as per your example).
in another word,unless the profile is activate by default maven doesn't know about it (you might be tempted to activate everything by default in your case, but bear in mind only one profile can be activate by default at the time)
your problem is ${svnBranch} from TRUNK is only present in your child pom and has no value, therefore maven only acts on the GAV and not the classifier. and to prove that check your child's effective pom (mvn help:effective-pom). also you can check which of your profile are active and which are not (mvn help:all-profiles).
I don't think using profiles is the best approach for what you are doing. A better/simpler approach maybe be to just declare your branch names in normal properties in your parent for example.
<properties>
<svnBranch.lola>LOLA</svnBranch.lola>
<svnBranch.nba>NBA</svnBranch.nba>
</properties>
then your child uses as needed.
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.mycompany</groupId>
<artifactId>olb-services</artifactId>
<version>${module.olb-services.dependency.version}</version>
<classifier>${svnBranch.lola}</classifier>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.mycompany</groupId>
<artifactId>core-services</artifactId>
<version>${module.core-services.dependency.version}</version>
<classifier>${svnBranch.nba}</classifier>
</dependency>
</dependencies>