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Three Commits During maven-release

This post explains why there are three commits to the version control during maven release goal. You can find detailed information about what is done behind the scenes during maven release on plugin website.

When one makes a release using maven release plugin, release version and next development version is specified. For explanation purpose, lets assume that we had "1.0.0-SNAPSHOT" version, "1.0.0" is our release version and "1.0.1-SNAPSHOT" is our next development version. Here what is changed and committed during release phase:

1. During the first commit versions in all pom files of the project is changed from "1.0.0-SNAPSHOT" to "1.0.0". This is a prepare step before making a tag.
2. During the second step, the tag folder /project/tag/1.0.0 is added. After this commit trunk folder (or if branch is released, then according branch folder) is copied to created tag. This copying is done behind the scenes on the server side.
3. During the last step versions in all pom files of the project is changed to the next development version "1.0.1-SNAPSHOT".