title: FAQ
author: Stephen Connolly

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# Frequently Asked Questions

## General

### What does the Versions Maven Plugin do?

The Versions Maven Plugin provides a means to update version information in a Maven project

### Why is this plugin reporting version 1.0.0.9 of foo:bar as the latest version when I can see version 1.0.0.23?

The current implementation of
[DefaultArtifactVersion](https://maven.apache.org/ref/current/maven-artifact/xref/org/apache/maven/artifact/versioning/DefaultArtifactVersion.html)
in the core of Maven expects that version numbers will have a very specific format:

` <MajorVersion [> . <MinorVersion [> . <IncrementalVersion ] ] [> - <BuildNumber | Qualifier ]> `

Where *MajorVersion*, *MinorVersion*, *IncrementalVersion* and *BuildNumber* are all numeric and *Qualifier*
is a string. If your version number does not match this format, then the entire version number is treated as being 
the *Qualifier*.

Version numbers in maven are compared using the individual components, so *MajorVersion*, *MinorVersion*,
*IncrementalVersion*, and *BuildNumber* are all compared as `Integer`s while *Qualifier* is compared as a `String`.

From the above you may have guessed neither `1.0.0.9` nor `1.0.0.23` match the exact format that Maven expects,
and as a result they are mapped as being just a *Qualifier*. String comparison will sort `1.0.0.9` > `1.0.0.23`.

If you need version numbers to be sorted "correctly" you will need to define some
[version number comparison rules](./version-rules.html).

### Why is foo:bar version x.y.z not being detected?

In order to determine what versions of an artifact are present, Maven relies on the presence of
meta-data files in the repository.  If the meta-data files are missing or contain invalid information
then Maven will not know about versions that are available in your repositories.

Here are some common reasons why your metadata can be invalid:

- You are using a local repository as a remote repository. Stop, don't do this. The local repository
uses a separate set of metadata files from those used by a remote repository. There are tools available
to convert a local repository into a remote repository, but you're really better off using a repository
manager.
- Artifacts have been deployed by non-maven metadata aware tools.
- Tools that claim to be maven meta-data aware have clobbered the metadata files.

In most cases, using a repository manager will solve these issues as the repository managers usually
rebuild the metadata files based on the artifacts that are present.
