This list is based on a wiki page from Codehaus (http://docs.codehaus.org/display/MAVENUSER/MavenPropertiesGuide) which unfortunately has been gone with the shutdown of Codehaus
Note: In Maven 3.0, all pom.* properties are deprecated. Use project.* instead!
${basedir} represents the directory containing pom.xml
${version} equivalent to ${project.version} (deprecated: ${pom.version})
All elements in the pom.xml, can be referenced with the project. prefix. This list is just an example of some commonly used elements. (deprecated: ${pom.} prefix)
${project.build.directory} results in the path to your "target" directory, this is the same as ${pom.project.build.directory}
${project.build.outputDirectory} results in the path to your "target/classes" directory
${project.name} refers to the name of the project (deprecated: ${pom.name} ).
${project.version} refers to the version of the project (deprecated: ${pom.version}).
${project.build.finalName} refers to the final name of the file created when the built project is packaged
Similarly, values in the user's settings.xml can be referenced using property names with settings. prefix.
${settings.localRepository} refers to the path of the user's local repository
Environment variables can be referenced using the env prefix
${env.M2_HOME} returns the Maven2 installation path.
${java.home} specifies the path to the current JRE_HOME environment use with relative paths to get for example:
<jvm>${java.home}../bin/java.exe</jvm>
All Java System Properties defined by the JVM:
${file.separator}
${java.class.path}
${java.home}
${java.vendor}
${java.vendor.url}
${java.version}
${line.separator}
${os.arch}
${os.name}
${os.version}
${path.separator}
${user.dir}
${user.home}
${user.name}
...
User defined properties in the pom.xml.
<project>
...
<properties>
<my.filter.value>hello</my.filter.value>
</properties>
...
</project>
${my.filter.value} will result in hello if you inserted the above XML fragment in your pom.xml
How can parent project variables be accessed?
You can use the prefix: ${project.parent}.
A good way to determine possible variables is to have a look directly at the API. I'm currently using Maven 2.2.1, and to access the Parent you can use ${project.parent}. This will return an org.apache.maven.project.MavenProject instance.
To access the parent version: ${parent.version}.
The pattern ${someX.someY.someZ} can simply sometimes mean getSomeX().getSomeY().getSomeZ(). Thus, properties such as ${project.build.directory} is translated to getProject().getBuild().getDirectory().