How to make cascade version set in maven?

Question

I have multimodule maven project and want to automate part of release preparing. Before release I increase the version of changed module A, and because I have module B depends on A, I also need to increase version of B. I know that there is "versions" and "release" maven plugins, but they doesn't cascade the update of version . Is it possible to make update of B version automaticly too?

Some additions to make it clear: We don't use version of parent module, so i don't need to update it.

Before version bump:

parent module (1.0)
|  
|-- A module (0.01.00)
|-- B module (0.02.00)

After version bump:

parent module (1.0)
|  
|-- A module (0.01.01)
|-- B module (0.02.01)

Answer 1

release plugin have update-versions goal and autoVersionSubmodules option that sets submodules versions to parent project version.

Usage example here.

Now, if you have dependencies between your submodules (Module B depends on Module A), they won't be updated by release plugin.

To work this out you can use ${project.version} when defining dependency to Module A in Module B's pom.xml.

For example (in Module B's pom.xml):

    <dependency>
        <groupId>test</groupId>
        <artifactId>module-a</artifactId>
        <version>${project.version}</version>
    </dependency>

(this will work because both Module A and Module B versions are the same and derived from parent project version)