Maven dependency for whole org.springframework

Question

How to set Maven dependency for all org.springframework ?

I mean, how to do it in couple lines,instead of providing dependency for every module,e.g.:

Answer 1

There's no wildcards whatsoever in the Maven dependencies, and there's no artifact that gathers all Spring modules anymore. Does your project really use all Spring modules anyway?

Answer 2

As noted in other answers, you only want to use what you actually need, e.g. if you need the Spring Web framework, then get that. However, you can greatly simplify and reduce the set of dependencies listed in your pom.xml by doing a bit of dependency analysis and only specifying the highest level of required dependency.

So for example, suppose you have the following dependencies (note that I'm using the artifact IDs for the Spring EBR repository instead of Maven Central; see this article for more info on the difference):

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
    <artifactId>org.springframework.context</artifactId>
    <version>${org.springframework-version}</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
    <artifactId>org.springframework.web.servlet</artifactId>
    <version>${org.springframework-version}</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
    <artifactId>org.springframework.transaction</artifactId>
    <version>${org.springframework-version}</version>
</dependency>

As it happens, though, the Spring Web stuff actually already has a dependency on the context library, so you can just remove the context reference:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
    <artifactId>org.springframework.web.servlet</artifactId>
    <version>${org.springframework-version}</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
    <artifactId>org.springframework.transaction</artifactId>
    <version>${org.springframework-version}</version>
</dependency>

This will get you the context library without specifically referencing it, since it's brought in implicitly by the dependency in the Web library.

If you have IntelliJ or m2eclipse or something like that in your IDE, you can get these dependencies displayed right in the IDE, either through a dependency hierarchy display or even in a dependency graph, which is basically a UML chart.

For stand-alone Maven, I think you just do:

mvn dependencies:list

More on the dependencies plugin is on the plugin site.

This approach keeps your dependencies very explicit and your application footprint much smaller, which is basically what everyone else is warning about, but can reduce the number of dependencies you have to list in your pom.xml, which is what I think you're trying to solve.

Answer 3

Spring-context internally resolves other dependencies. Please find below the dependency tree.

[INFO] com.example:springpractice:jar:1.0-SNAPSHOT
[INFO] \- org.springframework:spring-context:jar:4.3.7.RELEASE:compile
[INFO]    +- org.springframework:spring-aop:jar:4.3.7.RELEASE:compile
[INFO]    +- org.springframework:spring-beans:jar:4.3.7.RELEASE:compile
[INFO]    +- org.springframework:spring-core:jar:4.3.7.RELEASE:compile
[INFO]    |  \- commons-logging:commons-logging:jar:1.2:compile
[INFO]    \- org.springframework:spring-expression:jar:4.3.7.RELEASE:compile

Answer 4

This answer is aimed to newer version 4.X.X

If you want to handle versions of dependencies more efficiently use this code before your <dependencies></dependencies> tags.

<dependencyManagement>
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-framework-bom</artifactId>
            <version>4.2.2.RELEASE</version>
            <type>pom</type>
            <scope>import</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
</dependencyManagement>

Benefit of using the BOM is that you no longer need to specify the version of dependency. So your dependencies should looks like:

<dependencies>
    <!-- Spring framework -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-context</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-web</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

Answer 5

You can do it like

<properties>
    <org.springframework.version>3.0.5.RELEASE</org.springframework.version>
</properties>

<dependencies>
    <!-- Core utilities used by other modules. Define this if you use Spring 
        Utility APIs (org.springframework.core.*/org.springframework.util.*) -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
        <version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
    </dependency>

    <!-- Expression Language (depends on spring-core) Define this if you use 
        Spring Expression APIs (org.springframework.expression.*) -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-expression</artifactId>
        <version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
    </dependency>

    <!-- Bean Factory and JavaBeans utilities (depends on spring-core) Define 
        this if you use Spring Bean APIs (org.springframework.beans.*) -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-beans</artifactId>
        <version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
    </dependency>

    <!-- Aspect Oriented Programming (AOP) Framework (depends on spring-core, 
        spring-beans) Define this if you use Spring AOP APIs (org.springframework.aop.*) -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-aop</artifactId>
        <version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
    </dependency>

    <!-- Application Context (depends on spring-core, spring-expression, spring-aop, 
        spring-beans) This is the central artifact for Spring's Dependency Injection 
        Container and is generally always defined -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-context</artifactId>
        <version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
    </dependency>

    <!-- Various Application Context utilities, including EhCache, JavaMail, 
        Quartz, and Freemarker integration Define this if you need any of these integrations -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-context-support</artifactId>
        <version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
    </dependency>

    <!-- Transaction Management Abstraction (depends on spring-core, spring-beans, 
        spring-aop, spring-context) Define this if you use Spring Transactions or 
        DAO Exception Hierarchy (org.springframework.transaction.*/org.springframework.dao.*) -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-tx</artifactId>
        <version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
    </dependency>

    <!-- JDBC Data Access Library (depends on spring-core, spring-beans, spring-context, 
        spring-tx) Define this if you use Spring's JdbcTemplate API (org.springframework.jdbc.*) -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-jdbc</artifactId>
        <version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
    </dependency>

    <!-- Object-to-Relation-Mapping (ORM) integration with Hibernate, JPA, 
        and iBatis. (depends on spring-core, spring-beans, spring-context, spring-tx) 
        Define this if you need ORM (org.springframework.orm.*) -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-orm</artifactId>
        <version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
    </dependency>

    <!-- Object-to-XML Mapping (OXM) abstraction and integration with JAXB, 
        JiBX, Castor, XStream, and XML Beans. (depends on spring-core, spring-beans, 
        spring-context) Define this if you need OXM (org.springframework.oxm.*) -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-oxm</artifactId>
        <version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
    </dependency>

    <!-- Web application development utilities applicable to both Servlet and 
        Portlet Environments (depends on spring-core, spring-beans, spring-context) 
        Define this if you use Spring MVC, or wish to use Struts, JSF, or another 
        web framework with Spring (org.springframework.web.*) -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-web</artifactId>
        <version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
    </dependency>

    <!-- Spring MVC for Servlet Environments (depends on spring-core, spring-beans, 
        spring-context, spring-web) Define this if you use Spring MVC with a Servlet 
        Container such as Apache Tomcat (org.springframework.web.servlet.*) -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
        <version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
    </dependency>

    <!-- Spring MVC for Portlet Environments (depends on spring-core, spring-beans, 
        spring-context, spring-web) Define this if you use Spring MVC with a Portlet 
        Container (org.springframework.web.portlet.*) -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-webmvc-portlet</artifactId>
        <version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
    </dependency>

    <!-- Support for testing Spring applications with tools such as JUnit and 
        TestNG This artifact is generally always defined with a 'test' scope for 
        the integration testing framework and unit testing stubs -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-test</artifactId>
        <version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
        <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>

Answer 6

There is no way, and there should be none. You should only use the jars you really need, no need for all spring jars. For 2.x there used to be a spring.jar but in every project I've seen that used, it caused version collision problems.

If you are using any subprojects from Spring, watch it that sometimes they still pull Spring 2.5 (e.g. Spring Batch and I think Spring Web Flow as well), in this case you should use the exclusions tag in your pom.xml.

Not the most convenient to assemble it the first time, but then you can reuse it in your other projects.