How can I use my own parent.pom instead of the "spring-boot-starter-parent"?

Question

I am new to Spring, Spring boot, and Spring boot starter.

For my different apps I use an own parent.pom for what the have in common. The parent.pom contains the version numbers as properties and dependencies that use the properties as version numbers.

When using my parent.pom maven states that I have to use the "spring-boot-starter-parent".

How can I use my own parent.pom instead of the "spring-boot-starter-parent"?

Meanwhile I changed the pom to this:

<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

    <groupId>com.websystique.springboot</groupId>
    <artifactId>SpringBootRestApiExample</artifactId>
    <version>1.0.0</version>
    <name>SpringBootRestApiExample</name>

    <parent>
        <groupId>my</groupId>
        <artifactId>parent</artifactId>
        <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
        <relativePath>../parent/pom.xml</relativePath>
    </parent>

    <properties>
        <java.version>1.8</java.version>
    </properties>

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
            <version>2.0.1.RELEASE</version>
            <type>pom</type>
            <scope>import</scope>
        </dependency>   
        <!-- Add typical dependencies for a web application -->
        <!-- Adds Tomcat and Spring MVC, along others -->
    </dependencies>
    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>2.0.1.RELEASE</version>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>
</project>

But now I get this warning:

dependencies.dependency.scope' for org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-parent:pom must be one of [provided, compile, runtime, test, system] but is 'import'. @ line 27, column 1

Answer 1

You don't have to use spring-boot-starter-parent, it's just that it has an extensive dependencyManagement section that ensures all the Spring Boot dependencies you use in child projects have mutually compatible versions.

I typically declare spring-boot-starter-parent as the parent POM of my parent POM. This way, you get the best of both options.