About

There are a few ways to get a timestamp in your maven build. Unfortunately most of them make you jump through giant hoops. This maven plugin makes it as simple as 1-2-3 to create a timestamp at your disposal.

Also, it enables you to use the syntax of SimpleDateFormat to form custom formatted dates.

Note that the plugin is currently not available in the central repository and you will have to download and install it manually

Usage Example

<build>
 ...
 <plugins>
  <plugin>
   <groupId>com.keyboardsamurais.maven</groupId>
   <artifactId>maven-timestamp-plugin</artifactId>
   <configuration>
    <propertyName>timestamp</propertyName>
    <timestampPattern>dd.MM.yyyy HH:mm</timestampPattern>
   </configuration>
   <executions>
    <execution>
     <goals>
      <goal>create</goal>
     </goals>
    </execution>
   </executions>
  </plugin>
  ...
  <plugin>
   <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
   <artifactId>maven-jar-plugin</artifactId>
   <version>2.2</version>
   <configuration>
    <archive>
     <manifestEntries>
      <Main-Class>com.myproject.Main</Main-Class>
      <buildtime>${timestamp}</buildtime>
     </manifestEntries>
    </archive>
   </configuration>
  </plugin>
...
 </plugins>
</build>

Nevertheless, if you are looking for an alternative solution to timestamping and don't want to integrate yet another plugin - that's fine, have a look at these links:

http://commons.ucalgary.ca/projects/maven-buildnumber-plugin/index.html

http://www.gadberry.com/aaron/2007/05/28/inject-build-time-timestamp-property-using-maven/

http://pteropus.blogspot.com/2007/03/from-maven-to-mvn-part-5.html