Maven plugin that helps the user sort pom.xml. The main advantages to have standardized sorted poms are that they become more readable and that comparisons between different module poms becomes much easier.

The SortPom Plugin has two goals.

• mvn sortpom:sort sorts the current pom.xml file. This goal will always sort the pom.xml file.

• mvn sortpom:verify only sorts the current pom.xml file if the xml elements are unsorted. This goal ignores text formatting (such as indentation and line breaks) when it verifies if the pom is sorted or not.

The Sortpom plugin will reorder the pom elements and format the xml structure in the pom-file. The plugin can be configured to sort by by different standards or by custom format. By default a backup file will be created, so that you can check how the pom-file has changed.

Sortpom works best if it is run every time during Maven compilation. Configure it once and then forget about it. If you want to perform a simple test what the plugin does then open a command prompt in your project home and enter

mvn com.github.ekryd.sortpom:sortpom-maven-plugin:sort -Dsort.keepBlankLines -Dsort.predefinedSortOrder=custom_1

For a example how the plugin can be configured to run every time you build your project see recommended configuration wiki page

The plugin will not change how your Maven project is compiled (Exception)

• 2015-07-19: Wiki pages should be ok now
• 2015-04-10: Started to update all Wiki pages. What a job...
• 2015-04-06: Released version 2.4.0 with new github location and updated libraries.
• 2015-03-31: Moved the SortPom plugin to GitHub.
• 2015-02-04: Received an Open Source license for Structure101. Thank you Structure101!
• 2014-08-11: Received an Open Source license for Araxis Merge. Thank you Araxis!
• 2014-04-18: Released Echo-maven-plugin, another Maven plugin. Please check it out!
• 2014-02-05: Renewed Open Source Licence for IntelliJ Ultimate. Once again, thank you JetBrains!!
• 2014-01-28: Released version 2.3.0 which lets you ignore sections in pom.xml where SortPom should not sort elements.
• 2013-11-23: Hurrah! Got a donation. Thank you Bastian!
• 2013-10-13: Released version 2.2.1 which corrects line separators when using xml:space="preserve"
• 2013-10-01: Hurrah! Got an donation. Thank you Khalid!
• 2013-08-22: Released version 2.2 which contains functionality to use an url as sortOrderFile. This means that you can have a centralized, version controlled, sort order file for multiple projects.
• 2012-12-22: Split the project into three modules: one for sorting, one for maven plugin support and one for test utils.
• 2012-11-05: Hurrah! Got an donation. Thank you Michael!
• 2012-06-12: Hurrah! Got an donation. Thank you Reuben!
• 2011-11-21: The 0.4.0 plugin is now in the Central repository. It is highly recommended to use the 0.4.0 version or later from Central from now on. There is no need to include an extra repository location.

https://github.com/Ekryd/sortpom/wiki/Versions

https://github.com/Ekryd/sortpom/wiki/Parameters

The plugin is hosted i Maven Central and will be downloaded automatically if you include it as a plugin in your pom file.

If you use it, then please consider some encouragement.
Especially now that I have made the effort to move everything to GitHub.