How to release a Maven submodule without releasing the parent POM?
java, maven, maven-release-plugin, release, snapshot
Solution
After several days of research, I did not find a way to make the parent POM transparent.
I finally chose to also release the parent module. Even if it is (theoritically) useless I noticed it is a common practice for that kind of projects.
I am pretty disappointed that it seems there is no such feature (like to include the parent POM in the child POM) with Maven. But I will change the accepted answer if someone can find a way to do that in the future.
Problem
I am the maintainer of a Java library (ta4j, which provides functions for technical analysis). On my repository, the different modules are mavenized and I am trying to release one of them. Maven architecture The Maven architecture of this project is: ``` ta4j-parent |__ ta4j |__ ta4j-examples ``` ta4j-parent I added this `pom.xml` only to share some properties (`licenses`, `issueManagement`, etc.) between `ta4j` and `ta4j-examples`, and for future `dependencyManagement`. I don't want to release this artifact (as it's useless for the users of my library). ta4j This `pom.xml` has `ta4j-parent` as its parent. It contains what is necessary to release the `ta4j` artifact, which is the only useful (It is the only source module of the library itself) module for my library. ta4j-examples This artifact contains standalone main classes which shows examples of usage of ta4j. I don't want to release it. For now this `pom.xml` only contains the dependencies of the examples. Release As I want to release only the `ta4j` module, I went to the `./ta4j/ta4j` subdirectory and ran the following command: ``` mvn release:prepare -Darguments=-Dgpg.passphrase="<my key secret>" ``` ...which returned: ``` [INFO] Scanning for projects... [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [INFO] Building ta4j [INFO] task-segment: [release:prepare] (aggregator-style) [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [INFO] [release:prepare {execution: default-cli}] [INFO] Verifying that there are no local modifications... [INFO] ignoring changes on: **/pom.xml.backup, **/release.properties, **/pom.xml.branch, **/pom.xml.next, **/pom.xml.releaseBackup, **/pom.xml.tag [INFO] Executing: /bin/sh -c cd /home/user/workspace/ta4j/ta4j && git status [INFO] Working directory: /home/user/workspace/ta4j/ta4j [INFO] Checking dependencies and plugins for snapshots ... There are still some remaining snapshot dependencies. : Do you want to resolve them now? (yes/no) no: : no [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [ERROR] BUILD FAILURE [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [INFO] Can't release project due to non released dependencies : eu.verdelhan:ta4j-parent:pom:0.4-SNAPSHOT in project 'ta4j' (eu.verdelhan:ta4j:jar:0.4-SNAPSHOT) [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [INFO] For more information, run Maven with the -e switch [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [INFO] Total time: 7 seconds [INFO] Finished at: Thu May 22 21:50:50 CEST 2014 [INFO] Final Memory: 23M/293M [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ``` The release plugin does not want to release the `ta4j` module. It considers I should release a snapshot dependency first: `ta4j-parent`. BUT, as I previously said, I don't want the parent to be released (... because it's useless for everyone). So how could I release the `ta4j` module and only the `ta4j` module? Note: the Maven version I use is Apache Maven 2.2.1 (Java 1.7). Thanks. Edit 2014-06-02 I edited the question as I considered that my main problem was to release a child module without releasing its parent. Whether snapshot or not makes no difference.