Maven properties

Intro

Because I couldn't find a clear overview of which properties are availabe in maven2 I started this page. It is a collection of things found in the offcial maven documentation and postings to the maven user mailing list.

Note: In Maven 3.0, all pom.* properties are deprecated. Use project.* instead!

Build in properties

• ${basedir } represents the directory containing pom.xml
• ${version } equivalent to ${project.version } or ${pom.version }

Pom/Project properties

All elements in the pom.xml, can be referenced with the project. prefix or using pom. as prefix. This list is just an example of some commonly used elements.

• ${project.build.directory } results in the path to your "target" dir, this is the same as ${pom.project.build.directory }
• ${project.build. outputD irectory } results in the path to your "target/classes" dir
• ${project.name } or ${pom.name } refers to the name of the project.
• ${project.version } or ${pom.version } refers to the version of the project.
• ${project.build.finalName } refers to the final name of the file created when the built project is packaged

Local user settings

Similarly, values in the user's settings.xml can be referenced using property names with settings. prefix.

• ${settings.localRepository } refers to the path of the user's local repository.
• ${maven.repo.local } also works for backward compatibility with maven1 ??

Environment variables

Environment variables can be referenced using the env prefix

• ${env.M2_HOME } returns the Maven2 installation path.
• ${java.home } specifies the path to the current JRE_HOME environment use with relative paths to get for example:
  <jvm>${java.home}../bin/java.exe</jvm>

Java system properties

All Java System Properties defined by the JVM.

Custom properties in the POM

User defined properties in the pom.xml.

<project>

...

   <properties>

      <my.filter.value>hello</my.filter.value>

   </properties>

...

</project>

• ${my.filter.value } will result in hello if you inserted the above XML fragment in your pom.xml

Parent Project variables

How can parent project variables be accessed?

You can use the prefix: ${project.parent }.

A good way to determine possible variables is to have a look directly at the API. I'm currently using Maven 2.2.1, and to access the Parent you can use ${project.parent }. This will return an org.apache.maven.project.MavenProject instance.

To access the parent version: ${parent.version }.

Reflection Properties

The pattern ${someX.someY.someZ } can simply sometimes mean getSomeX().getSomeY().getSomeZ() . Thus, properties such as ${project.build.directory } is translated to getProject().getBuild().getDirectory() .

 

 

Here is my list. Some of these are not yet on the list and some of them are already are. And I must admit that I am still not yet acquainted with some of them.

I also placed here where I got these from just in case somebody wants to know how I came up with this list and where to get more info (code-reading-wise).

Not sure though if this is the complete list (excluding plugin expressions and user-defined properties).

    *  project (from [1])
          o project.distributionManagementArtifactRepository
          o project.artifact
          o project.parent
          o project.file
          o project.artifacts

          o project.version
          o project.parentArtifact
          o project.pluginArtifacts
          o project.remoteArtifactRepositories
          o project.pluginArtifactRepositories
          o project.attachedArtifact
    * settings (from [2])
          o settings.offilne
          o settings.interactive
    * rootless (from [3])
          o localRepository
          o reactorProjects
    * java properties (from [4])
          o java.version
          o java.vendor
          o java.vendor.url
          o java.home
          o java.vm.specification.version
          o java.vm.specification.vendor
          o java.vm.specification.name
          o java.vm.version
          o java.vm.vendor
          o java.vm.name
          o java.specification.version
          o java.specification.vendor
          o java.specification.name
          o java.class.version
          o java.class.path
          o java.library.path
          o java.io.tmpdir
          o java.compiler
          o java.ext.dirs
          o os.name
          o os.arch
          o os.version
          o file.separator
          o path.separator
          o line.separator
          o user.name
          o user.home
          o user.dir

Thanks,
Franz 

[1] http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/maven/components/trunk/maven-core/src/main/resources/META-INF/maven/plugin-expressions/project.paramdoc.xml
[2] http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/maven/components/trunk/maven-core/src/main/resources/META-INF/maven/plugin-expressions/rootless.paramdoc.xml
[3] http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/maven/components/trunk/maven-core/src/main/resources/META-INF/maven/plugin-expressions/settings.paramdoc.xml
[4] http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/java/lang/System.html#getProperties