Maven confused about JRE been used.

Question

First off, I'm new to Maven, hence my problem might have a simple solution.

I've created a project in eclipse and added maven dependencies. In Eclipse, it says that I am using JRE 1.5. Everything works fine in Eclipse, for instance, I can run my tests.

When I try to run mvn clean install from the terminal, it gives me the following error.

...generics are not supported in -source 1.3 (use -source 5 or higher to enable generics)...

Its seems that Maven thinks I'm using JRE 1.3 and cannot recognize generics or for-each loops.

How can I:

• Validate my assumption that maven is using the wrong version.
• Get Maven to compile my project.

Answer 1

Specify the correct version of your JRE in the Maven compiler plugin, by default your pom.xml file will inherit the compiler-plugin from the Maven super pom.xml which targets the 1.3 JRE.

     <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
                <configuration>
                    <source>1.5</source>
                    <target>1.5</target>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>    
        </plugins>
    </build>