Refer to Environment Variables in pom.xml

1. Overview

In this quick tutorial, we're going to see how to read environment variables from Maven‘s pom.xml to customize the build process.

2. Environment Variables

To refer to environment variables from the pom.xml, we can use the ${env.VARIABLE_NAME} syntax.

For instance, let's use it to externalize the Java version in the build process:

<build>
    <plugins>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>3.8.1</version>
            <configuration>
                <source>${env.JAVA_VERSION}</source>
                <target>${env.JAVA_VERSION}</target>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
    </plugins>
</build>

We should remember to pass the Java version information via environment variables. If we fail to do so, then we won't be able to build the project.

To run the Maven goals or phases against such a build file, we should first export the environment variable. For instance:

$ export JAVA_VERSION=9
$ mvn clean package

On Windows, we should use “set VAR=value” syntax to export the environment variable.

In order to provide a default when the JAVA_VERSION environment variable is missing we can use a Maven profile:

<profiles>
    <profile>
        <id>default-java</id>
        <activation>
            <property>
                <name>!env.JAVA_VERSION</name>
            </property>
        </activation>
        <build>
            <plugins>
                <plugin>
                    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                    <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
                    <version>3.8.1</version>
                    <configuration>
                        <source>1.8</source>
                        <target>1.8</target>
                    </configuration>
                </plugin>
            </plugins>
        </build>
    </profile>
</profiles>

As shown above, we're creating a profile and making it active only if the JAVA_VERSION environment variable is missing — !env.JAVA_VERSION part. If that happens, then this new plugin definition will override the existing one.

3. Conclusion

In this short tutorial, we saw how to customize the build process by passing environment variables to the pom.xml.