How to release Hotfix with maven release plugin

Question

I'm using the Maven release plugin to do my releases. But I can't figure out how to get it to do a Hotfix release. I'm getting the error You don't have a SNAPSHOT project in the reactor projects list. -> [Help 1]

The naming strategy I'm using is something like this (but I'm open to suggestions)

• 1.2.3 <== Normal release
• 1.2.3-SNAPSHOT <== SNAPSHOT release
• 1.2.3-4 <== Hotfix #4

I'm open to suggestions on the naming convention for Hotfixes.

But basically, we have version 1.2.3, which has already been released. I need to create a Hotfix, which I wanted to call 1.2.3-1. That's when I got the error complaining about not having a SNAPSHOT project.

Another issue is that I want to make sure that I don't create a new development release. Since version 1.2.3 was already released, I already have a 1.2.4-SNAPSHOT. So when creating a Hotfix, it shouldn't need to make any changes for development. I just want to create a branch (based on the 1.2.3 tag) for the Hotfix

Answer 1

You should have a SNAPSHOT version currently defined in the POM to use maven release plugin.

In your case, I would:

• checkout the tag 1.2.3, create a new branch..
• update pom with version 1.2.3-1-SNAPSHOT
• use maven release plugin to release a 1.2.3-1 version