title: Maven alternate pom
body: <p>Is there an argument when calling a maven build to specify an alternate file in place of the standard pom.xml file name?</p>
  
  <p>Basically, I have a need to run the <em>test</em> goal of my maven build with a variety of configurations.  Right now I am having to use an external script to update the standard pom with this configurations, then revert the file after.  I would much rather just be able to maintain several seperate configuration files and call maven with the specific one I need.</p>
  
  <p>What I am wondering is if there is some way to override the pom.xml such as</p>
  
  <pre><code>mvn clean test   (uses standard pom.xml)
  mvn clean test -Dmaven.source=alternate.xml
  mvn clean test -Dmaven.source=alternate2.xml
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Is this possible?</p>