get maven to replace values based on user/build.properties - maven

Question

im at the point in my project where im moving data connections to the beta and production databases for testing. obviously, having the alpha database credentials stored in the source repository is fine, but the beta and production credentials, id be put in front of a firing squad for that one.
i know maven can have a {userdir}/build.properties file. this is the file i want to use to keep the db credentials out of the source repository. but i can't seem to get maven to figure out that for file x.cfg.xml it has to replace values.
so i have in one of my hibernate.cfg.xml files this line
<property name="hibernate.connection.url">#ssoBetaUrl#</property>
now how do i get maven to replace that variable with the value thats in the {userdir}/build.properties file?
edit-------------
ive been playing with the properties-maven-plugin plugin but i seem to not be able to get it to fire. i put this in my parent pom
<plugin>
<groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
<artifactId>properties-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>1.0-alpha-2</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<id>read-properties</id>
<phase>initialize</phase>
<goals>
<goal>read-project-properties</goal>
</goals>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
but when it builds, it does not fire. if im reading http://maven.apache.org/maven-1.x/reference/properties.html right it should find the build properties file in the ~/build.properties folder and go from there, but im not sure.

Answer 1

I think you are approaching this the wrong way around. Instead of having the build process bake the appropriate connection details into the JAR file you should instead have the program look for a configuration file at startup.
Typically, my hibernate based apps, will look for a file under %user.home&/.appname/config.properties and load DB credentials and other deployment specfic data from there. If the file is missing, a default version can be included in the JAR and copied to this location (on initial startup so you don't have to copy-paste the file to new systems) that is then edited with appropriate settings.
This way, you can use the same build to produce JAR (or WAR) files for test and production servers, the differences will be in the (presumably already deployed) configuration files. This also makes it possible to have multiple production deployments, each talking to a different database, without any complications in the build process.

Answer 2

You could use two plugins.
properties-maven-plugin
replacer
<plugin>
<groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
<artifactId>properties-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>1.0-alpha-1</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<phase>initialize</phase>
<goals>
<goal>read-project-properties</goal>
</goals>
<configuration>
<files>
<file>{userdir}/build.properties</file>
</files>
</configuration>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
<plugin>
<groupId>com.google.code.maven-replacer-plugin</groupId>
<artifactId>replacer</artifactId>
<version>1.5.2</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<phase>prepare-package</phase>
<goals>
<goal>replace</goal>
</goals>
</execution>
</executions>
<configuration>
<includes>
<include>target/**/*.*</include>
</includes>
<replacements>
<replacement>
<token>#ssoBetaUrl#</token>
<value>http://[anyURL]</value>
</replacement>
</replacements>
</configuration>
</plugin>