Maven Install: "Annotations are not supported in -source 1.3" - maven

Question

When running mvn install on my project, i see it fail due to the following errors:
C:\Repositories\blah\src\test\java\com\xxx\qm\testrunner\test\ATest.java:[11,5] annotations are not supported in -source 1.3
(use -source 5 or higher to enable annotations)
#Test
C:\Repositories\blah\src\test\java\com\xxx\qm\common\test\BTest.java:[11,5] annotations are not supported in -source 1.3
(use -source 5 or higher to enable annotations)
#Test
My Maven dependency includes jUnit 4.8, however and has no reference to 1.3 anything.
What would cause these errors? Please advise

Answer 1

You need to specify the source version of your maven project through the use of the maven-compiler-plugin. Add the following to your pom build element and set the appropriate java source and target levels.
<build>
<defaultGoal>install</defaultGoal>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<source>1.6</source>
<target>1.6</target>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-compiler-plugin/

Answer 2

A shorter version:
<project>
<properties>
<maven.compiler.source>1.5</maven.compiler.source>
<maven.compiler.target>1.5</maven.compiler.target>
</properties>
....

Answer 3

You are most likely using OpenJDK where the source level is 1.3 when not explicitly set - as opposed to Oracle JDK where the source level is 1.5.
Since most modern Java projects target newer code than Java 5 you most likely need to set this anyway.
Also note that if you need a lower target than source (e.g. for compiling with Java 6 but deploying to Java 5) you can do this by using the Eclipse compiler instead of Javac.

Answer 4

Bu default, the maven tries to compile using Java 1.3 version. I hope most of them hit this error because of missing to tell maven that "Hey Maven, Dont use 1.3 and use "whatever_version_I_give"
This can be mentioned in pom.xml as below :
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.5.1</version>
<inherited>true</inherited>
<configuration>
<source>1.7</source>
<target>1.7</target>
</configuration>
</plugin>
In my above example, I have used 1.7. Please replace with whatever version you wish to.

Answer 5

Add this in your pom
<build>
<pluginManagement>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
<version>3.0</version>
<configuration>
<!-- put your configurations here -->
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</pluginManagement>
</build>