maven goal doesn't execute properly if plugins are defined under pluginManagement

Question

I have maven-jaxb2-plugin. I generate jaxb objects and refer it in other classes of project.I've put jaxb plugin and compiler plugin under pluginManagement tag. Maven is executing compile phase first than generate phase where as if i remove pluginManagement tag, it works fine, first generate phase gets executed and all jaxb object gets generated and then compile phase gets executed. Due to pluginManagement tag, my project doesn't compile. Is pluginManagement tag used only for defining all the plugins in parent pom so that child pom can refer to these plugins ? My project is not a multi-module project.

   <pluginManagement>       
      <plugins>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
            <configuration>
                <source>1.6</source>
                <target>1.6</target>
                <encoding>UTF-8</encoding>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>

        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.jvnet.jaxb2.maven2</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-jaxb2-plugin</artifactId>
            <executions>
                <execution>
                    <goals>
                        <goal>generate</goal>
                    </goals>
                </execution>
            </executions>
            <configuration>
                <schemaDirectory>${basedir}/src/main/resources/schema</schemaDirectory>
                <generatePackage>com.common.dto</generatePackage>
                <schemaIncludes>
                    <include>*.xsd</include>
                </schemaIncludes>
                <removeOldOutput>false</removeOldOutput>
                <strict>false</strict>
                <verbose>true</verbose>
                <forceRegenerate>true</forceRegenerate>
                <extension>true</extension>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
    </plugins>
 </pluginManagement>

Answer 1

Yes, <pluginManagement> is used to create ready-to-use configurations, but does not automatically activate your plugins - you still need to include them. So in effect you are right, <pluginManagement>, just like <dependencyManagement> are very useful in the parent pom to centralize plugin configurations and dependency management.

Effectively, 'declaring' your plugins in the right module benefits from a much more compact syntax:

<plugins>
    <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
    </plugin>

    <plugin>
        <groupId>org.jvnet.jaxb2.maven2</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-jaxb2-plugin</artifactId>
    </plugin>
</plugins>