Which maven dependencies to include for spring 3.0?

Solution 1:

There was a really nice post on the Spring Blog from Keith Donald detailing howto Obtain Spring 3 Aritfacts with Maven, with comments detailing when you'd need each of the dependencies...

<!-- Shared version number properties -->
<properties>
    <org.springframework.version>3.0.0.RELEASE</org.springframework.version>
</properties>
<!-- 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>

Solution 2:

Spring (nowadays) makes it easy to add Spring to a project by using just one dependency, e.g.

<dependency>
 <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
 <artifactId>spring-context</artifactId>
 <version>3.1.2.RELEASE</version>
</dependency> 

This will resolve to

[INFO] The following files have been resolved:
[INFO]    aopalliance:aopalliance:jar:1.0:compile
[INFO]    commons-logging:commons-logging:jar:1.1.1:compile
[INFO]    org.springframework:spring-aop:jar:3.1.2.RELEASE:compile
[INFO]    org.springframework:spring-asm:jar:3.1.2.RELEASE:compile
[INFO]    org.springframework:spring-beans:jar:3.1.2.RELEASE:compile
[INFO]    org.springframework:spring-context:jar:3.1.2.RELEASE:compile
[INFO]    org.springframework:spring-core:jar:3.1.2.RELEASE:compile
[INFO]    org.springframework:spring-expression:jar:3.1.2.RELEASE:compile

Have a look at the Spring Framework documentation page for more information.