I am new to maven. I have a top level project with several sub-projects below it. I have recently created a plugin as a sub-project that will be used by the top level project during the build (packaging phase most likely). I am having trouble getting maven to build the plugin and install it into the repository before the top level project needs it. It seems that as soon as the top level project sees the requirement for the plugin, it attempts to get it from the repository, which of course fails since it's not there yet. You can see it listed as the second item in the reactor order just under the top level project. If I try adding the plugin as a <dependency> of the top level POM, I get a cyclic reference error. I also tried adding as a <dependency> to one of the subprojects, it still gives an error stating that it's not in the repository.
Anyway, what’s the best way to go about doing this? If I build the plugin separately, then run the entire build, it works fine. How can I get maven to do something like that but without two separate builds? Thanks, Dave
