Is there a way to trace origin of a property in maven pom?

Question

I have a complex maven project with a lot of managed dependencies, and have a little problem tracing versions of these dependencies. For example, spring libraries\' version is g

Answer 1

You could give help:effective-pom a go. Just make sure that you use the 3.2.0 version (or later) together with the -Dverbose=true flag set. This will print out the source of the POM value.

To force the right version of the plugin:

<build>
    <pluginManagement>
      <plugins>
        <plugin>
          <artifactId>maven-help-plugin</artifactId>
          <version>3.2.0</version>
        </plugin>
      </plugins>
    </pluginManagement>
</build>

To use it:

%> mvn help:effective-pom -Dverbose=true 

This will print out the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!-- ====================================================================== -->
<!--                                                                        -->
<!-- Generated by Maven Help Plugin on 2019-07-24T15:28:33+02:00            -->
<!-- See: http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-help-plugin/                -->
<!--                                                                        -->
<!-- ====================================================================== -->
<!-- ====================================================================== -->
<!--                                                                        -->
<!-- Effective POM for project                                              -->
<!-- 'org.example:test-project:jar:0.0.1-SNAPSHOT'                          -->
<!--                                                                        -->
<!-- ====================================================================== -->
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
  <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>  <!-- org.example:test-project:0.0.1-SNAPSHOT, line 5 -->
  <parent>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>  <!-- org.example:test-project:0.0.1-SNAPSHOT, line 16 -->
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>  <!-- org.example:test-project:0.0.1-SNAPSHOT, line 17 -->
    <version>2.0.5.RELEASE</version>  <!-- org.example:test-project:0.0.1-SNAPSHOT, line 18 -->
    <relativePath />  <!-- org.example:test-project:0.0.1-SNAPSHOT, line 19 -->
  </parent>
  <groupId>org.example</groupId>  <!-- org.example:test-project:0.0.1-SNAPSHOT, line 7 -->
  <artifactId>test-project</artifactId>  <!-- org.example:test-project:0.0.1-SNAPSHOT, line 8 -->
  <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>  <!-- org.example:test-project:0.0.1-SNAPSHOT, line 9 -->
  <name>Test Project</name>  <!-- org.example:test-project:0.0.1-SNAPSHOT, line 12 -->
  <description>Blabla.</description>  <!-- org.example:test-project:0.0.1-SNAPSHOT, line 13 -->
  <url>https://projects.spring.io/spring-boot/#/spring-boot-starter-parent/test-project</url>  <!-- org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-parent:2.0.5.RELEASE, line 14 -->
  <licenses>
    <license>
      <name>Apache License, Version 2.0</name>  <!-- org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-dependencies:2.0.5.RELEASE, line 12 -->
      <url>http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0</url>  <!-- org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-dependencies:2.0.5.RELEASE, line 13 -->
    </license>
  </licenses>
  <developers>
    <developer>
      <name>Pivotal</name>  <!-- org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-dependencies:2.0.5.RELEASE, line 18 -->
      <email>info@pivotal.io</email>  <!-- org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-dependencies:2.0.5.RELEASE, line 19 -->
      <organization>Pivotal Software, Inc.</organization>  <!-- org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-dependencies:2.0.5.RELEASE, line 20 -->
      <organizationUrl>http://www.spring.io</organizationUrl>  <!-- org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-dependencies:2.0.5.RELEASE, line 21 -->
    </developer>
  </developers>
  <properties>
    <activemq.version>5.15.6</activemq.version>  <!-- org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-dependencies:2.0.5.RELEASE, line 28 -->
    <antlr2.version>2.7.7</antlr2.version>  <!-- org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-dependencies:2.0.5.RELEASE, line 29 -->
    <appengine-sdk.version>1.9.64</appengine-sdk.version>  <!-- org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-dependencies:2.0.5.RELEASE, line 30 -->
    <artemis.version>2.4.0</artemis.version>  <!-- org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-dependencies:2.0.5.RELEASE, line 31 -->
    <aspectj.version>1.8.13</aspectj.version>  <!-- org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-dependencies:2.0.5.RELEASE, line 32 -->
    ...
  </properties>
  <dependencyManagement>
    <dependencies>
      <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>  <!-- org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-dependencies:2.0.5.RELEASE, line 208 -->
        <artifactId>spring-boot</artifactId>  <!-- org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-dependencies:2.0.5.RELEASE, line 209 -->
        <version>2.0.5.RELEASE</version>  <!-- org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-dependencies:2.0.5.RELEASE, line 210 -->
      </dependency>
      ...
    </dependencies>
  </dependencyManagement>
</project>