THIS IS A TEST INSTANCE. ALL YOUR CHANGES WILL BE LOST!!!!
The concept of inheritence of from generic to specific, where the more specific overrides the values of its ancestors.
In general we see three levels, also described at Maven – Guide to Configuring Maven (apache.org) : it uses the terms user, installation, project
Just to give a hint: when you're working with multiple Maven installations on your system, they all share "user" configuration. Think of server credentials, you don't want to sepecifcy these per installation.
| user | installation | project | commandline | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| JVM | MAVEN_OPTS | .mvn/jvm.config | ||
| Maven arguments | .mvn/maven.config | -$ / --$$ | ||
| Settings | $user.home/.m2/settings.xml (--settings) | $maven.home/conf/settings.xml (--global-settings) | ||
| Toolchains | $user.home/.m2/toolchains.xml (--toolchains) | $maven.home/conf/toolchains.xml (--global-toolchains) |
Looking at the settings and toolchains there's something odd with the name of the flags: --global-x is AFTER --x
This is an inconsistency as nothing should be more global than "global".
I see a couple of options how to solve this:
1. Switch the flags. This breaks compatibility in 2 ways: The flag overrides a different file and --settings will now override --global-settings
| user | installation | project | commandline | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| JVM | MAVEN_OPTS | .mvn/jvm.config | ||
| Maven arguments | .mvn/maven.config | -$ / --$$ | ||
| Settings | $user.home/.m2/settings.xml (--global-settings) | $maven.home/conf/settings.xml (--settings) | ||
| Toolchains | $user.home/.m2/toolchains.xml (--global-toolchains) | $maven.home/conf/toolchains.xml (--toolchains) |
2. Preserve user, and fix everything around it. This means that IF you use --global-settings, it's the new base. It can be overridden with user settings, which can be overridden with installation settings (maybe we don't need --maven-settings).
| global | user | installation | project | commandline | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JVM | MAVEN_OPTS | .mvn/jvm.config | |||
| Maven arguments | .mvn/maven.config | -$ / --$$ | |||
| Settings | (--global-settings) | $user.home/.m2/settings.xml (--settings) | $maven.home/conf/settings.xml (--maven-settings) | ||
| Toolchains | (--global-toolchains) | $user.home/.m2/toolchains.xml (--toolchains) | $maven.home/conf/toolchains.xml (--maven-toolchains) |
3. Deprecate --global-settings and replace it with --maven-settings
| user | installation | project | commandline | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| JVM | MAVEN_OPTS | .mvn/jvm.config | ||
| Maven arguments | .mvn/maven.config | -$ / --$$ | ||
| Settings | $user.home/.m2/settings.xml (--settings) | $maven.home/conf/settings.xml (--maven-settings) | ||
| Toolchains | $user.home/.m2/toolchains.xml (--toolchains) | $maven.home/conf/toolchains.xml (--maven-toolchains) |