title: with maven is it possible to "add to" a property or plugin value specified in a parent pom?
body: <p>If, in my maven project's parent pom.xml, it has some property like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;properties&gt;
     &lt;argLine&gt;some args&lt;/argLine&gt;
  &lt;/properties&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Is it possible in the child to somehow just "augment" that, like</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;properties&gt;
     &lt;argLine&gt;${parent.argLine} some more args&lt;/argLine&gt;
  &lt;/properties&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Similarly for say, plugin settings, wish I could do something like</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;build&gt;
     &lt;plugins&gt;
      &lt;plugin&gt;
         &lt;artifactId&gt;maven-surefire-plugin&lt;/artifactId&gt;
           &lt;configuration&gt;
              &lt;argLine&gt;${parent.plugin.maven-surefire-plugin.argLine} -Xmx1G&lt;/argLine&gt;
            &lt;/configuration&gt; 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I am basically just adding to some setting specified in the parent?</p>
  
  <p>The impetus for this question is I'm wondering how to use the jacoco plugin, and, in the root pom specify some general settings "-Xmx1G" while in the children they can add other child specific parameters to that general one, where necessary.  ref: <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/a/29975159/32453">https://stackoverflow.com/a/29975159/32453</a></p>
  
  <p>I suppose I could just rename the parameter jacoco generates (<a href="https://stackoverflow.com/a/25571295/32453">https://stackoverflow.com/a/25571295/32453</a> "propertyName" setting, to change it from <code>argLine</code>) and then I could use the parent's ${argLine} and add it to the jacococ one, but my question is still interesting...</p>