title: Updating the versions in a Maven multi-module project
body: <p>I have Maven multi-module project and I would like to update the development versions to a given value using a script. The aggregator POM is only an aggregator and the children do not inherit from it. This is important because the artifacts all inherit from other POM files. Here is my structure</p>
  
  <pre><code>aggregator/
  --projectA
  --projectB
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Also, <code>projectB</code> has a Maven dependency on <code>projectA</code>.</p>
  
  <p>First I tried:</p>
  
  <pre><code>mvn -DnewVersion=0.28-SNAPSHOT -DupdateMatchingVersions=true versions:set
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>It only updated the <code>aggregator</code> project's version.</p>
  
  <p>If I run the Maven release process, it correctly updates <code>projectB</code>'s dependency on <code>projectA</code>  to use the new development version after the release build. Because the release process handles this well, I thought that using the release plugin might solve my issue.</p>
  
  <p>So I tried the following:</p>
  
  <pre><code>mvn -DdevelopmentVersion=0.28-SNAPSHOT -DautoVersionSubmodules=true --batch-mode release:update-versions
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This updated all of my sub-projects correctly. However it did not update <code>projectB</code>'s dependency version for <code>projectA</code>.</p>
  
  <p>What is a simple way to update all the development versions in my project, including <code>projectB</code>'s dependency on <code>projectA</code>?</p>