license:check-file-header wrongly fails build

[jieryn]

http://www.mojohaus.org/license-maven-plugin/check-file-header-mojo.html

Perhaps a misunderstanding, but I understood license:check-file-header -Dlicense.failOnMissingHeader=true -Dlicense.failOnNotUptodateHeader=true to be similar to other plugins which will not update the source code, but instead check for compliance according to the rules of the plugin. So, when I invoke it, if any files in my source tree would require a license header update, then the build should fail. Instead, it is failing even when license:update-file-header makes no changes to any source files..

[jieryn]

I did some quick testing and found that description for all my licenses was being updated to have a spurious 0x10 at the end. I edited src/main/resources/org/codehaus/mojo/license/default-file-header-description.ftl to have no newline at the end (removing all leading comments and the freemaker check at the bottom) so it is literally just ${projectName} with no newline at the end; and now my license:check-file-header -Dlicense.failOnMissingHeader=true -Dlicense.failOnNotUptodateHeader=true works perfectly. What can be done about this?

[tchemit]

@jieryn For the first pb could you give my a little project explaining the defect. thanks

[tchemit]

@jieryn , any news about this problem ? If no response in the next weenk, I will close this issue since I really don't know what to do...

[jessefarinacci]

I hit the same issue, but the workaround provided ..worked. Think it is safe to close this as a really really odd case when using custom licenses. I vote let it close.

[ppalaga]

If this issue still occurs, then a reproducer in form of an integration text under https://github.com/mojohaus/license-maven-plugin/tree/master/src/it would be welcome.

[weickmanna]

Same issue here. We are using standard apache_v2 license.
Our config:

                <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
                <artifactId>license-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>2.0.0</version>
                <configuration>
                    <licenseName>apache_v2</licenseName>
                    <licenseFile>${project.basedir}/LICENSE</licenseFile>
                    <projectName>${project.artifactId}</projectName>
                    <copyrightOwners>The Plugin Authors</copyrightOwners>
                    <failOnMissingHeader>true</failOnMissingHeader>
                    <failOnNotUptodateHeader>true</failOnNotUptodateHeader>
                    <canUpdateCopyright>true</canUpdateCopyright>
                    <canUpdateDescription>true</canUpdateDescription>
                    <excludes>
                        <exclude>**/plugin.properties</exclude>
                    </excludes>
                    <excludedScopes>provided,test</excludedScopes>
                </configuration>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <id>license-check-file-header</id>
                        <phase>validate</phase>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>check-file-header</goal>
                        </goals>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
            </plugin>

Error goes away if I:

• Remove failOnNotUptodateHeader (which is what I want to use however)
• Remove both canUpdateCopyright and canUpdateDescription flags (which I want to use however to make the license header check more strict, since project names can get messed up if files are copied from other projects)