I've been stuck attempting to use the maven-release-plugin for samples
for a few reasons. I would like go ahead and create a branch for this
release which will later be converted to a tag (the old fashioned way).
Are there any strong objects? (Note: I'm asking because of this sentence
in our release process doc - "...most smaller projects such as specs,
plugins, components, and most likely tools should avoid the complexity
of branches unless clearly necessary and agreed upon." )
Here are the problems that I'm having using the release-plugin/process:
1) There is a version property defined in the root pom to match the
release version. The maven-release-plugin will not change this version
property (just the version element in the root pom) during mvn
release:prepare
I attempted to remove the version property but it appears this is used
to generate the directory to scan by the jasper builder as I get the
following error when I attempt to remove it.
[ERROR] BUILD ERROR
[INFO]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Could not scan directory for TLD files:
jar:file:/Users/bohn/geronimo-samples-2.1/samples/CustomerService/CustomerService-jetty/target/repository/org/apache/geronimo/samples/CustomerService-jetty/${version}/CustomerService-jetty-${version}.car/CustomerService-ejb-2.1-SNAPSHOT.jar!/META-INF
Illegal character in path at index 153:
file:/Users/bohn/geronimo-samples-2.1/samples/CustomerService/CustomerService-jetty/target/repository/org/apache/geronimo/samples/CustomerService-jetty/${version}/CustomerService-jetty-${version}.car/CustomerService-ejb-2.1-SNAPSHOT.jar
Attempting to change this version property manually prior to release
didn't work either. Apparently, the maven-release does a build prior to
the svn changes (which fails with a manual change) and after the svn
changes (which fails without the manual change).
BTW, we have this same version property defined in the server root pom.
2) When using the maven-release-plugin I have to specify the release
and the new snapshot version. The release default is fine because we
are currently using 2.1-SNAPSHOT and so the release will be 2.1.
However, I must manually specify the development release to
2.1.1-SNAPSHOT or it will default to 2.2-SNAPSHOT. This isn't a big
problem but it is annoying (especially since I have to enter that value
78 times ... once for each artifact). Newer versions of the
maven-release-plugin have parms to override these versions on the
command line but the version included in genesis 1.4 does not.
3) This isn't necessary a problem but it doesn't seem right to me. When
The scm entries are updated for a tag with the name:
- http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/geronimo/samples/tags/samples-parent-2.1
I understand why this based upon the release-plugin structure. However
the name doesn't seem intuitive to me. I think a structure that matches
our server structure makes much more sense. So I would prefer:
- http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/geronimo/samples/tags/2.1.0 (with or
without the .0)
I think this makes much more sense and more clearly matches the samples
to the server (and we indicated on earlier threads that we wanted to
keep these in sync).
4) I'm becoming more and more of the opinion that we should merge the
samples svn back into the server svn. I see little advantage in keeping
these independent and a lot of problems in doing so. If I can convince
folks that is the right thing to do then it doesn't make much sense to
get the samples releasing with the maven-release-plugin while the server
is still released manually.
Some reasons I think the samples should be merged back into the server svn.
- The samples are tied to a particular server release.
- It's important to have samples available ASAP with a server release.
Tying these together would ensure that they are available in conjunction
with the server release (you can't do any better than that).
- The samples are versioned to match the server and this would make it a
no-brainer to keep them in sync.
- Samples could take advantage of the dependency management in server
root pom to ensure that everything is in sync with the server. As it
stands now dependency versions for samples are spread across numerous
poms and managed independently from the server.
- We have had 0 success to date releasing samples independently of the
server.
Regarding #4 ... I would get 2.1 samples and 2.1.1 samples released
independently and then suggest we merge the samples under the server svn
in branches/2.1 and trunk. We don't need to decide #4 right away since
we still have to get 2.1 & possibly 2.1.1 out the door. The only
advantage I can think of in keeping them independent is the ability to
build samples without building the server but as I mentioned in another
post I don't believe this is possible anyway at the moment.
Joe
