The Maven Compile Plugin is used to compile all the source code for your project.

Goals:

• compiler:compile is bound to the compile phase and is used to compile the main source files.
• compiler:testCompile is bound to the test-compile phase and is used to compile the test source files.

Configurations:

1. Compile using a different JDK: Following configuration sets  the version of the compiler to 1.8.

<build>
  <plugins>
    <plugin>
      <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
      <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
      <version>3.8.1</version>
      <configuration>
        <verbose>true</verbose>
        <fork>true</fork>
        <executable>C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0\bin\javac</executable>
        <compilerVersion>1.3</compilerVersion>
      </configuration>
    </plugin>
  </plugins>
</build>

2. Compile using different source and target versions of java compiler: Following configuration sets the source and target version to 1.8.

<build>
  <plugins>
    <plugin>
      <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
      <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
      <version>3.8.1</version>
      <configuration>
        <source>1.8</source>
        <target>1.8</target>
      </configuration>
    </plugin>
  </plugins>
</build>

3. Compile using enhanced memory allocation: Following configuration sets the initial memory size to 256MB and maximum memory size to 1084MB.

<build>
  <plugins>
    <plugin>
      <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
      <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
      <version>3.8.1</version>
      <configuration>
        <fork>true</fork>
        <meminitial>256m</meminitial>
        <maxmem>1084m</maxmem>
      </configuration>
    </plugin>
  </plugins>
</build>