#725: Migrating Compare dependency versions

src/site/markdown/compare-dependencies.md

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+title: Comparing dependency versions
+author: Paul Gier
+date: 2009-01-09
+
+<!---
+Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+distributed with this work for additional information
+regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+"License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+  https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
+software distributed under the License is distributed on an
+"AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
+KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
+specific language governing permissions and limitations
+under the License.
+-->
+
+# Compare dependency versions
+
+The `compare-dependencies` goal can be used to compare the dependencies in the current project to 
+the dependencyManagement of a remote project.  This is useful, for example, for finding differences
+between the current project dependencies and an organizational bill of materials (BOM) pom. 
+You specify the remote groupId, artifactId, and the version to which the current project
+should be compared, for example
+
+```sh
+mvn versions:compare-dependencies -DremotePom=org.foo:bom-pom:1.0
+```
+
+By default the list of dependency differences will be output to the command line.  This can be 
+written to a file using the "reportOutputFile" parameter.
+
+```sh
+mvn versions:compare-dependencies -DremotePom=org.foo:bom-pom:1.0 -DreportOutputFile=${project.build.directory}/depDiffs.txt
+```
+
+The plugin can also automatically update the dependencies of the current project to match
+the remote project using the "updateDependencies" parameter.  By default this is turned off.
+
+```sh
+mvn versions:compare-dependencies -DremotePom=org.foo:bom-pom:1.0 -DupdateDependencies=true
+```
+
+In addition to that, any property defined in the current project that represent the version
+of one of several artifacts can be updated to match the remote project using the "updatePropertyVersions"
+parameter. By default this is turned off.
+
+```sh
+mvn versions:compare-dependencies -DremotePom=org.foo:bom-pom:1.0 -updatePropertyVersions=true
+```
+
+Such update will only occur if the dependencies linked to that version exist in the remote project
+and all these dependencies have a single version. In any other case, the property is not updated.