Usually maven plug-ins are configured by modifying the POM xml file. For example, in the following configuration POM file is edited to set the expected source and target for the maven-compiler-plugin
<plugin> <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId> <version>3.7.0</version> <configuration> <source>1.8</source> <target>1.8</target> </configuration> </plugin>
In some scenario, we may not have option to modify the POM file. In those conditions, we can configure the plugin by adding the configuration in the command line. For example, in the command below the maven-compiler-plugin is configured using command line arguments without modifying the POM file.
mvn install -Dmaven.compiler.source=1.7 -Dmaven.compiler.target=1.7
Note: The configuration set in the command line is not same as in the POM file. We should set User property in the command line. The User property should be available in the plugin documentation. For example, https://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-compiler-plugin/compile-mojo.html
