Specify JDK for Maven to use

So bottom line is, is there a way to specify a jdk for a single invocation of maven?

Temporarily change the value of your JAVA_HOME environment variable.

compile:compile has a user property that allows you to specify a path to the javac.

Note that this user property only works when fork is true which is false by default.

$ mvn -Dmaven.compiler.fork=true -Dmaven.compiler.executable=/path/to/the/javac compile

You might have to double quote the value if it contains spaces.

> mvn -Dmaven.compiler.fork=true -Dmaven.compiler.executable="C:\...\javac" compile

See also Maven custom properties precedence.

Seems that maven now gives a solution here : Compiling Sources Using A Different JDK

Let's say your JAVA_HOME points to JDK7 (which will run maven processes)

Your pom.xml could be :

<build>
    <plugins>
        <!-- we want JDK 1.6 source and binary compatiblility -->
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
            <configuration>
                <source>1.6</source>
                <target>1.6</target>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
        <!-- ... -->
        <!-- we want sources to be processed by a specific 1.6 javac -->
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>3.1</version>
            <configuration>
              <verbose>true</verbose>
              <fork>true</fork>
              <executable>${JAVA_1_6_HOME}/bin/javac</executable>
              <compilerVersion>1.3</compilerVersion>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
    </plugins>
</build>

If your developpers just add (and customize) the following lines in their settings.xml, your pom will be platform independant :

<settings>
  [...]
  <profiles>
    [...]
    <profile>
      <id>compiler</id>
        <properties>
          <JAVA_1_4_HOME>C:\Program Files\Java\j2sdk1.4.2_09</JAVA_1_4_HOME>
          <JAVA_1_6_HOME>C:\Program Files\Java\j2sdk1.6.0_18</JAVA_1_6_HOME>
        </properties>
    </profile>
  </profiles>
  [...]
  <activeProfiles>
    <activeProfile>compiler</activeProfile>
  </activeProfiles>
</settings>

As u said "Plus, I don't want to use 1.6 for all maven builds."....So better I will say modify your pom file and specify which jdk version to use.

<build>
    <plugins>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>3.7.0</version>
            <configuration>
                <source>1.9</source>
                <target>1.9</target>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
    </plugins>
</build>

It will ensure that your particular project uses that version of jdk.