title: properties-maven-plugin: Error loading properties-file
body: <p>I want to extract all the properties from my pom.xml into a properties-file. These are the common properties like dependency-versions, plugin-versions and directories.
  I'm using the properties-maven-plugin, but its not working as i want it to.</p>
  
  <p>The essential part of my pom.xml:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;plugin&gt;
    &lt;groupId&gt;org.codehaus.mojo&lt;/groupId&gt;
    &lt;artifactId&gt;properties-maven-plugin&lt;/artifactId&gt;
    &lt;version&gt;1.0-alpha-1&lt;/version&gt;
    &lt;executions&gt;
      &lt;execution&gt;
        &lt;phase&gt;initialize&lt;/phase&gt;
        &lt;goals&gt;
          &lt;goal&gt;read-project-properties&lt;/goal&gt;
        &lt;/goals&gt;
        &lt;configuration&gt;
         &lt;files&gt;
            &lt;file&gt;${basedir}/pom.properties&lt;/file&gt;
          &lt;/files&gt;
        &lt;/configuration&gt;
      &lt;/execution&gt;
    &lt;/executions&gt;
  &lt;/plugin&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Now when i run "mvn properties:read-project-properties" i get the following error:</p>
  
  <pre><code>[INFO] One or more required plugin parameters are invalid/missing for 'properties:read-project-properties'
  
  [0] Inside the definition for plugin 'properties-maven-plugin' specify the following:
  
  &lt;configuration&gt;
    ...
    &lt;files&gt;VALUE&lt;/files&gt;
  &lt;/configuration&gt;.
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The pom.properties-file is located in the same dir as the pom.xml.
  What can i do to let the properties-maven-plugin read my properties-file?</p>
  
  <p><strong>EDIT</strong></p>
  
  <p>I filed an issue at <a href="http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/MOJO-1523" rel="noreferrer">http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/MOJO-1523</a>. 
  It has been closed as "not a bug", the reason is:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>It's by design. The project definition
    has to be self-contained, otherwise it
    is no longer complete if it is refered
    from elsewhere as part of the
    transitive deps.</p>
  </blockquote>