Is it possible to have <packaging>jar</packaging> in a parent pom file?

Question

I am trying to not reinvent the wheel here with my POM files. I have a pom that I am trying to convert into a parent pom.xml file in maven.

The project is setup as the following structure:

    core
    |
     ---- pom.xml
    |
     ---- Proj A
          | 
           ---- <parent> pom.xml
          |
          Proj A - module 1
          |
           ---- pom.xml
          |
          Proj A - module 2
          |
           ---- pom.xml
   |
    ---- Proj B
         |
          ---- pom.xml

I have everything seemingly set up correctly, except something is throwing me off. I have this defined in the cor pom.xml file:

    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <groupId>com.imx.core</groupId>
    <artifactId>imx-core</artifactId>
    <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <packaging>pom</packaging>
<modules>
    <module>Proj A</module>
    <module>Proj B</module>
</modules>

It all seems to build except the imx-core artifact, which it's putting in the .m2 repo. Since the packaging is no longer "jar" but now "pom", how would I go about creating the jar package from the core's pom file?

The long way to do it (I'm assuming) is to create a completely new pom which is a dedicated parent and child out all the other poms? If this could be done in the existing core/pom.xml file that would be better. Or am I not thinking about this the right way?

Answer 1

I'm not sure exactly where you have the problem, but note that multi-module projects (POMs with a modules section) and parent POM projects (POMs with pluginManagement and/ or dependencyManagement sections) should have the packaging type "pom" and should not contain any source code (except things like LICENSE.txt, README.txt, CHANGES.txt, assembly configs etc.).