Intellij maven project Fatal error compiling: invalid flag: --release

Question

I am trying to start with Spring-boot, Maven in Intellij Please help me I am getting the error:

[ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven         


        

Answer 1

In your pom.xml file, simply remove the tag <release>8</release> from your maven-compiler-plugin configuration:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>3.7.0</version>
    <configuration>
        <source>1.8</source>
        <target>1.8</target>
        <verbose>true</verbose>
    </configuration>
</plugin>

Answer 2

This has to do with the version of JDK running on your system. As per the documentation for maven-compiler-plugin, the release flag is supported since 1.9, and thus has to be commented/removed from the POM if you are using prior (1.8 and below) versions of JDK.

Check Maven documentation for release tag for maven-compiler-plugin here

Answer 3

open terminal to check that Maven using correct version of Java

run: mvn -v

If you will see an old Java version, that might be the problem.

Being on Linux, I suggest removing Maven, e.g. using Fedora package manager dnf remove maven or check your PATH for maven.

Download one from here: https://maven.apache.org/download.cgi

Extract downloaded to your home path, e.g. ~/maven.

Add/Edit ~/maven/bin to your PATH

Reapply .bash_profile (or re-login)

Run mvn -v

Now you should see a correct Java version in the output

Answer 4

This configuration worked for me, for java 11. (IntelliJ version 2019.1) java.version is 11, declared in the properties part of the pom.xml. Maven version should be 3.6 or higher.

<plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>3.8.0</version>
            <configuration>
                <fork>false</fork>
                <source>${java.version}</source>
                <target>${java.version}</target>
                <encoding>UTF-8</encoding>
                <compilerArgs>
                    <arg>-parameters</arg>
                </compilerArgs>
                <release>${java.version}</release>
                <forceJavacCompilerUse>true</forceJavacCompilerUse>
            </configuration>
            <executions>
                <!-- Replacing default-compile as it is treated specially by maven -->
                <execution>
                    <id>default-compile</id>
                    <phase>none</phase>
                </execution>
                <!-- Replacing default-testCompile as it is treated specially by maven -->
                <execution>
                    <id>default-testCompile</id>
                    <phase>none</phase>
                </execution>
                <execution>
                    <id>java-compile</id>
                    <phase>compile</phase>
                    <goals>
                        <goal>compile</goal>
                    </goals>
                </execution>
                <execution>
                    <id>java-test-compile</id>
                    <phase>test-compile</phase>
                    <goals>
                        <goal>testCompile</goal>
                    </goals>
                </execution>
            </executions>
    </plugin>