Question

I need to set a property in maven pom.xml file which should be a UUID. Can anybody tell me

what is the best possible way to set a property to UUID?

I am using a profile which launch the gigaspaces and gigaspaces requires group name which I

want to be unique(uuid). So, in my profile I want to set a groupName property value which

should change for each build. I wrote a UUIDGenerator plugin myself as I didn’t found any.

So, I am looking How can this be achieved? Is writing a plugin better option or there is an

easier option.

Thanks,

Shekhar

Answer 1

First of all, if your set up requires something called “group name”, you probably should provide a meaningful value. If it has to be unique, you can append some generated characters, like “MyApplication-10937410”. Also, using a UUID seems to me like using a sledge-hammer to crack a nut. But this is independent of your actual problem, so here is the solution I propose:

If you have not already done so, create a maven plugin (there’s an archetype for that). Add this dependency:

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-project</artifactId>
        <version>2.2.1</version>
    </dependency>

This is how your MOJO should look like:

/**
 * Goal which generates a group name.
 *
 * @goal generate
 * @phase initialize
 */
public class GroupNameGeneratorMojo extends AbstractMojo {

    /**
     * @parameter expression="${project}"
     * @required
     * @readonly
     */
    private MavenProject project;

    @Override
    public void execute() throws MojoExecutionException {
        String groupName = ... ;
        project.getProperties().setProperty("uniqueGroupName", groupName);
    }

}

In your actual projects pom, use ${uniqueGroupName} whereever you need it and configure your plugin like this

<build>
    <plugins>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>the.plugin.groupid</groupId>
            <artifactId>groupNameGenerator</artifactId>
            <executions>
                <execution>
                    <goals><goal>generate</goal></goals>
                </execution>
            </executions>
        <plugin>