------

Prepare a Release

------

Carlos Sanchez <carlos@apache.org>

Brett Porter <brett@apache.org>

John Tolentino <jtolentino@apache.org>

Dennis Lundberg <dennisl@apache.org>

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2010-01-03

------

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~~ or more contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file

~~ distributed with this work for additional information

~~ regarding copyright ownership. The ASF licenses this file

~~ to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the

~~ "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance

~~ with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

~~

~~ http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

~~

~~ Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,

~~ software distributed under the License is distributed on an

~~ "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY

~~ KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the

~~ specific language governing permissions and limitations

~~ under the License.

Prepare a Release

{{{../prepare-mojo.html}<<<release:prepare>>> goal}} ensures the project is ready to be released and then prepares SCM to eventually contain a tagged version of the release.

This is expected to be followed by a call to {{{./perform-release.html}<<<release:perform>>>}}.

Preparing a release goes through the following release phases {{{../../maven-release-manager/#prepare}by default}}:

* Check that there are no uncommitted changes in the sources

* Check that there are no SNAPSHOT dependencies

* Change the version in the POMs from x-SNAPSHOT to a new release version (you will be prompted for the versions to use, with a default value proposed by version policy configured as <<<projectVersionPolicyId>>>)

* Transform the SCM information in the POM to include the final destination of the tag

* Run the project tests (preparation goals) against the modified POMs to confirm everything is in working order

* Commit the modified POMs

* Tag the code in the SCM with a version name (this will be prompted for)

* Bump the version in the POMs to a new value y-SNAPSHOT (these values will also be prompted for, with a default value proposed by version policy configured as <<<projectVersionPolicyId>>>)

* Eventually run completion goal(s) against the project (since 2.2)

* Commit the modified POMs

[]

To prepare a release execute this command:

-------

mvn release:prepare

-------

<<Note:>> If an error occurs, or the process is cancelled, then running this command again will pick up from where the

last one left off.

If you wish to start again, use:

-------

mvn release:prepare -Dresume=false

-------

Alternatively, you can use:

-------

mvn release:clean release:prepare

-------

<<Note:>> If any changes have been made to your source files they might need to be reverted before you restart the

prepare process. You can use <<<release:rollback>>> to make the plugin do it for you.

* Multi-module projects

You will be prompted for the version number for each module of the project.

If you prefer that every module gets the same version as the parent POM,

you can set the option <<<autoVersionSubmodules>>> to <<<true>>>. Now you will

be asked only once for the release version and the next development version.

* Generating release POMs

It is possible to generate a <<<release-pom.xml>>> file for each project that contains the fully resolved project used

at release time as a record for later. As of the 2.0 release, this requires calling an alternate goal:

---

mvn release:prepare-with-pom

---

This goal is equivalent to the <<<release:prepare>>> goal, except that it requires a previous build of the project to

exist to properly populate the <<<release-pom.xml>>> files.

* Overriding the default tag name format

By default, if you do not specify a tag name, a default tag name of <<<artifactId-version>>> will be

suggested (and used if running non-interactively).

You can override proposed value with the exact tag name to use from the command line by passing the <<<tag>>> property (<<<-Dtag=my-tag>>>). If you

want to have the tag name generated, but just change the default pattern, you can use the <<<tagNameFormat>>>

configuration option.

For example to have the tag name default to the version number prefixed with a <<<v>>> you could configure

your pom like so:

+-----

<project>

[...]

<build>

[...]

<plugins>

[...]

<plugin>

<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>

<artifactId>maven-release-plugin</artifactId>

<version>${project.version}</version>

<configuration>

<tagNameFormat>v@{project.version}</tagNameFormat>

</configuration>

</plugin>

[...]

</plugins>

[...]

</build>

[...]

</project>

+-----

The tagNameFormat uses <<<@\{>>> and <<<}>>> as delimiters in order to ensure that the default Maven property

interpolation does not substitute the values before the version transformation has taken place.

The following properties are supported:

* <<<project.groupId>>> which corresponds to the project's groupId.

* <<<project.artifactId>>> which corresponds to the project's artifactId.

* <<<project.version>>> which corresponds to the project's release version.

[]

The <<<project.>>> prefix is optional and may be omitted.

* Overriding proposed release and next development versions

The Release Plugin automatically calculates the versions that are proposed for the release and the next development version (i.e. the next SNAPSHOT).

The default VersionPolicy compares and increments versions for a common java versioning scheme:

the proposed release version is the current version without <<<-SNAPSHOT>>>,

and the proposed next development version is a minor increment to the release with <<<-SNAPSHOT>>>.

It is possible to select a different VersionPolicy by specifying its id:

+-------------------

<project>

...

<build>

<plugins>

<plugin>

<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>

<artifactId>maven-release-plugin</artifactId>

<version>${project.version}</version>

<configuration>

<projectVersionPolicyId>SemVerVersionPolicy</projectVersionPolicyId>

</configuration>

</plugin>

</plugins>

...

</build>

...

</project>

+-------------------

There are 3 VersionPolicies bundled with the Release Plugin:

* <<<default>>>: increments versions for a common java versioning scheme,

* <<<OddEvenVersionPolicy>>>: even version numbers for releases, and odd version numbers for development (see {{{../../maven-release-policies/maven-release-oddeven-policy/apidocs/org/apache/maven/shared/release/policy/oddeven/OddEvenVersionPolicy.html}javadoc}}),

* <<<SemVerVersionPolicy>>>: enforce SemVer format and increase minor element when resolving the development version (see {{{../../maven-release-policies/maven-release-semver-policy/apidocs/org/apache/maven/shared/release/policy/semver/SemVerVersionPolicy.html}javadoc}}).

[]