Update variable in source files on maven release

Question

Is the maven-release-plugin able to update a variable to actual release version in a source file?

As an example, if I have the following class in the source tree:

/**
 * Does actually nothing
 * 
 * @since ${project.version}
 */
public class NewClass {
  ...
}

the maven release plugin could replace the variable ${project.version} with the actual version of the generated release.

Answer 1

Getting the version in the source itself requires an additional plugin and can be a bit tricky (see Generate a Version.java file in Maven). It may be better to write to the version to a text/config file like in the question Using maven to output the version number to a text file and reference that file from the javadoc like in Javadoc link to src/main/resource or src/test/resource file using relative path

Or since your aim is to use a maven property (version) in javadoc, you could follow the suggestion in Using maven properties in JavaDoc, which is to put the version in a config file with maven filtering and read that into a java class that can then be referenced directly in the javadoc