if (rawVal != null) {
                try {
                    return new Date(Long.parseLong(rawVal));
                } catch (NumberFormatException e) {
                    getLogger().debug("Cannot parse lastUpdated date: '" + rawVal + "'. Ignoring.", e);
                }
            }
        }
        return null;
    }

    private String getError(File touchFile, String key) {

            return new MetadataStaxReader().read(input, false);
        } catch (IOException | XMLStreamException e) {
            throw new RepositoryException("Could not parse metadata " + metadataPath + ": " + e.getMessage(), e);
        }
    }

    private void write(Path metadataPath, Metadata metadata) throws RepositoryException {
        try {

            XMLStreamReader parser = new WstxInputFactory().createXMLStreamReader(is);
            if (parser.nextTag() == XMLStreamReader.START_ELEMENT
                    && parser.getLocalName().equals("project")) {
                for (int i = 0; i < parser.getAttributeCount(); i++) {
                    if ("root".equals(parser.getAttributeLocalName(i))) {

 The jar file is executable and provides a little tool to display how Maven parses and compares versions:

+----+
$ java -jar maven-artifact-*.jar 3.2.4-alpha-1 3.2.4-SNAPSHOT 3.2.4.0
Display parameters as parsed by Maven (in canonical form) and comparison result:
1. 3.2.4-alpha-1 == 3.2.4.alpha.1
   3.2.4-alpha-1 < 3.2.4-SNAPSHOT
2. 3.2.4-SNAPSHOT == 3.2.4.snapshot

    }

    void write(@Nonnull XmlWriterRequest<T> request) throws XmlWriterException;

    /**
     * Simply parse the given xml string.
     *
     * @param xml the input xml string
     * @return the parsed object
     * @throws XmlReaderException if an error occurs during the parsing
     * @see #toXmlString(Object)
     */
    @Nonnull

     * @return The deserialized metadata, never {@code null}.
     * @throws IOException If the metadata could not be deserialized.
     * @throws MetadataParseException If the input format could not be parsed.
     */
    Metadata read(File input, Map<String, ?> options) throws IOException, MetadataParseException;

    /**

                        }
                        return new Relocation(global, s, t);
                    })
                    .collect(Collectors.toList());
            LOGGER.info("Parsed {} user relocations", relocationList.size());
            return new Relocations(relocationList);
        }
    }

    private static Artifact parseArtifact(String coord) {
        Artifact s;

 * under the License.
 */
package org.apache.maven.api;

import org.apache.maven.api.annotations.Experimental;
import org.apache.maven.api.annotations.Nonnull;

/**
 * A version usually parsed using the {@link org.apache.maven.api.services.VersionParser} service.
 *
 * @since 4.0.0
 * @see org.apache.maven.api.services.VersionParser#parseVersion(String)
 * @see org.apache.maven.api.Session#parseVersion(String)
 */

     * @return The toolchains model or <code>null</code> if no toolchain file was configured or the configured file does
     *         not exist.
     * @throws MisconfiguredToolchainException If the toolchain file exists but cannot be parsed.
     */
    PersistedToolchains build(File userToolchainsFile) throws MisconfiguredToolchainException;

            resource to allow Maven to merge changes to this resource that take
            place during the execution of a plugin. This field must be managed
            by the generated parser and formatter classes in order to allow it
            to survive model interpolation.
          </description>
          <type>String</type>
        </field>
      </fields>
      <codeSegments>