Maven beginner question, get m2eclipse to download jar and add to build path?

Question

From what I have read, after adding the relevant maven repositories, maven should automatically download the necessary jars to satisfy dependencies in the pom.xml file.

However, no jars ever get downloaded for me after I add dependencies in eclipse. Am I missing some glaringly obvious step?

Answer 1

Dependencies jars aren't in your project but in your local maven repository.

These jars will be automatically used when you compile you project with maven (or m2eclipse).

If you don't have the needed jar yet, maven will download it for you.

Answer 2

I'd recommend to start from creating your project with m2eclipse. See more details in this article.

Basically, you need to make sure the following:

• your Eclipse project has a valid pom.xml and all dependencies are available (you should see errors on Maven console, in the Problems or Markers view or when opening pom.xml in m2eclipse's POM editor)
• Maven support is enabled for this project (you can use Maven / Enable Dependency Management from popup menu on that project)
• project configuration is in sync with pom.xml (you can use Maven / Update Project Configuration from the project popup menu)
• you can also use Maven / Update Dependencies to refresh your dependencies (e.g. when you got them in your Local Maven repo from the command line)