The Maven 2.0.2 XML parser fails to parse a UTF-8 POM that begins with the optional byte-order mark.

The Byte-Order mark is optional, and discouraged in the UTF-8 encoding; but the Unicode specification is clear that it is allowed – if you read the Unicode Standard v4, section 2.6, and Table 2.3, and section 15.9, and table 15.3; it is clear that the BOM is allowed at the start of a UTF-8 file.

It so happens that this is the way Windows NotePad saves files when you select UTF-8; and Maven will not parse it. I'll attach a small POM saved this way, and I'll put it into a ZIP file to hopefully preserve the encoding. Here is the Maven output:

[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ERROR] FATAL ERROR
[INFO] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Error building POM (may not be this project's POM).

Project ID: unknown
POM Location: C:\Documents and Settings\Coco\Desktop\pom.xml

Reason: Parse error reading POM. Reason: only whitespace content allowed before start tag and not \u
ef (position: START_DOCUMENT seen \uef... @1:1)

[INFO] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Trace
org.apache.maven.reactor.MavenExecutionException: Parse error reading POM. Reason: only whitespace c
ontent allowed before start tag and not \uef (position: START_DOCUMENT seen \uef... @1:1)
at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.getProjects(DefaultMaven.java:365)
at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.doExecute(DefaultMaven.java:278)
at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.execute(DefaultMaven.java:115)
at org.apache.maven.cli.MavenCli.main(MavenCli.java:249)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:585)
at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.launchEnhanced(Launcher.java:315)
at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.launch(Launcher.java:255)
at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.mainWithExitCode(Launcher.java:430)
at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.main(Launcher.java:375)
Caused by: org.apache.maven.project.InvalidProjectModelException: Parse error reading POM. Reason: o
nly whitespace content allowed before start tag and not \uef (position: START_DOCUMENT seen \uef...
@1:1)
at org.apache.maven.project.DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.readModel(DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.
java:1134)
at org.apache.maven.project.DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.readModel(DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.
java:1094)
at org.apache.maven.project.DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.buildFromSourceFile(DefaultMavenProje
ctBuilder.java:289)
at org.apache.maven.project.DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.build(DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.java
:274)
at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.getProject(DefaultMaven.java:515)
at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.collectProjects(DefaultMaven.java:447)
at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.getProjects(DefaultMaven.java:351)
... 11 more
Caused by: org.codehaus.plexus.util.xml.pull.XmlPullParserException: only whitespace content allowed
before start tag and not \uef (position: START_DOCUMENT seen \uef... @1:1)
at org.codehaus.plexus.util.xml.pull.MXParser.parseProlog(MXParser.java:1516)
at org.codehaus.plexus.util.xml.pull.MXParser.nextImpl(MXParser.java:1392)
at org.codehaus.plexus.util.xml.pull.MXParser.next(MXParser.java:1090)
at org.apache.maven.model.io.xpp3.MavenXpp3Reader.read(MavenXpp3Reader.java:4545)
at org.apache.maven.project.DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.readModel(DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.
java:1130)
... 17 more
[INFO] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: < 1 second
[INFO] Finished at: Wed Feb 08 21:14:03 EST 2006
[INFO] Final Memory: 1M/2M
[INFO] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------