You don’t just have to depend on a specific version of a dependency; you can specify a range of versions that would satisfy a given dependency. For example, you can specify that your project depends on version 3.8 or greater of JUnit, or anything between versions 1.2.10 and 1.2.14 of JUnit. You do this by surrounding one or more version numbers with the following characters:

For example, if you wished to access any JUnit version greater than or equal to 3.8 but less than 4.0, your dependency would be as shown in Example 3.5, “Specifying a Dependency Range: JUnit 3.8 - JUnit 4.0”.

<dependency>
  <groupId>junit</groupId>
  <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
  <version>[3.8,4.0)</version>
  <scope>test</scope>
</dependency>

If you want to depend on any version of JUnit no higher than 3.8.1, you would specify only an upper inclusive boundary, as shown in Example 3.6, “Specifying a Dependency Range: JUnit <= 3.8.1”.

<dependency>
  <groupId>junit</groupId>
  <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
  <version>[,3.8.1]</version>ex-de
  <scope>test</scope>
</dependency>

A version before or after the comma is not required, and means +/- infinity. For example, "[4.0,)" means any version greater than or equal to 4.0. "(,2.0)" is any version less than 2.0. "[1.2]" means only version 1.2, and nothing else.