error: Introducing edge will cause a Cycle ?

["Frey, John (MED)" <Jo...@med.ge.com>]

Does anyone know why I get this message or what it means? I'm trying to
have my top-level project create an EAR which depends on each child
project to first create a WAR. 

    <dependency>
      <groupId>projectX</groupId>
      <artifactId>childA</artifactId>
      <jar>childA.war</jar>
      <type>war</type>
      <properties>
        <ear.bundle.war>true</ear.bundle.war>
      </properties>
    </dependency> 

However specifying this dependency causes this error message...

...

Starting the reactor (this may take a while)...

BUILD FAILED
Introducing edge will cause a Cycle.
Total time:  5 seconds

...

I've gotten arround this problem by creating a separate child project B
which specifies this above dependency to produce the EAR. Can anyone
come up with a better suggestion for solving this problem (i.e.
project/child project directory structure who's final output is an
aggregated EAR or WAR of the child project artifacts?)

GE  Medical Systems 
______________________________________________________ 
John E. Frey 
Lead Software Developer, iCenter
Global Service Technology 
Phone: (262) 896-2800  Fx: (262) 896-2790 
email: John.Frey@med.ge.com 
http://www.gemedicalsystems.com