Is there a way to capture user input in maven and assign it to a maven property?

Question

1. Is there a way to pause the maven execution flow to provide a command prompt so user can input text.
2. Then I would like the provided text to be stored in a ma

Answer 1

You can catch a user input using maven-antrun-plugin. The following example show how ask current user the new project version.

    
        change-version
        
            validate
            
                
                    org.apache.maven.plugins
                    maven-antrun-plugin
                    1.7
                    
                        
                            catch-new-version
                            
                                run
                            
                            validate
                            
                                
                                    
                                    
                                
                                true
                            
                        
                    
                    
                        
                            org.apache.ant
                            ant
                            1.8.4
                        
                    
                
                
                    org.codehaus.mojo
                    versions-maven-plugin
                    1.3.1
                    
                        
                            set-new-version
                            
                                set
                            
                            validate
                            
                                false
                                ${new-user-version}
                            
                        
                    
                
            
        
    

You can run this feature by calling :

mvn -N -P change-version

Some explanations :

• The -N- option allow to not recurse into sub-projects.
• Using org.apache.ant:ant:1.8.4 to avoid https://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=51161
• Using maven 3.0.4
• Documentation: maven-antrun-plugin, Input Tag