Set plugin’s version on the command line in Maven 2

Question

I generate default quickstart Maven example, and type mvn checkstyle:checkstyle, it always try to use the lastest SNAPSHOT version. Probably it is wrong in my Nexus server, but how can I set plugin's version on the command line in Maven 2, like 2.5 for checkstyle instead of 2.6-SNAPSHOT?

C:\HelloWorld>mvn checkstyle:checkstyle [INFO] Scanning for projects... [INFO] Searching repository for plugin with prefix: 'checkstyle'. [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [ERROR] BUILD ERROR [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [INFO] Error building POM (may not be this project's POM).  Project ID: org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-checkstyle-plugin  Reason: Error getting POM for 'org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-checkstyle-plugin' from  the repository: Failed to resolve artifact, possibly due to a repository list that is not appropriately equipped for this artifact's metadata.   org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-checkstyle-plugin:pom:2.6-SNAPSHOT  from the specified remote repositories:   nexus (http://localhost:9081/nexus/content/groups/public)  for project org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-checkstyle-plugin 

I guess it could be mvn checkstyle:2.5:checkstyle, unfortunately it is not.

Surely if I set build dependance in pom.xml, it will work, but I want to see how command line can work.

Answer 1

If you don't want to run the latest version of a plugin installed in your local repository, you need to set the version number. And for that, you need to specify a fully-qualified goal in the form of:

mvn groupID:artifactID:version:goal 

So in your case:

mvn org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-checkstyle-plugin:2.5:checkstyle