I am using Maven (and the Maven Eclipse Integration) to manage the dependencies for my Java projects in Eclipse. The automatic download feature for JAR files from the Maven repositories is a real time saver. Unfortunately, it does not include API documentation and source code.
How can I set up Maven to automatically also get the source and javadoc attachments and register them properly with Eclipse?
I am sure m2eclipse Maven plugin for Eclipse - the other way around - can do that. You can configure it to download both the source files and javadoc automatically for you.
This is achieved by going into Window > Preferences > Maven and checking the "Download Artifact Sources" and "Download Artifact JavaDoc" options.
The other answers on this work, but if you want to avoid having to remember command line arguments, you can also just add to the downloadSources and downloadJavadocs config to the maven-eclipse-plugin section of your pom.xml:
<project>
...
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-eclipse-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<downloadSources>true</downloadSources>
<downloadJavadocs>true</downloadJavadocs>
... other stuff ...
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
...
</project>
I prefer not to put source/Javadoc download settings into the project pom.xml file as I feel these are user preferences, not project properties. Instead, I place them in a profile in my settings.xml file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<settings xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.0.0"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/settings-1.0.0.xsd">
<profiles>
<profile>
<id>sources-and-javadocs</id>
<properties>
<downloadSources>true</downloadSources>
<downloadJavadocs>true</downloadJavadocs>
</properties>
</profile>
</profiles>
<activeProfiles>
<activeProfile>sources-and-javadocs</activeProfile>
</activeProfiles>
</settings>
in my version of Eclipse helios with m2Eclipse there is no
window --> maven --> Download Artifact Sources (select check)
Under window is only "new window", "new editor" "open perspective" etc.
If you right click on your project, then chose maven--> download sources
Nothing happens. no sources get downloaded, no pom files get updated, no window pops up asking which sources.
Doing mvn xxx outside of eclipse is dangerous - some commands dont work with m2ecilpse - I did that once and lost the entire project, had to reinstall eclipse and start from scratch.
Im still looking for a way to get ecilpse and maven to find and use the source of external jars like servlet-api.
Checking download source/javadoc in Eclipse-Maven preference, sometimes is not enough. In the event maven failed to download them for some reason (a network blackout?), maven creates some *.lastUpdated files, then will never download again. My empirical solution was to delete the artifact directory from .m2/repository, and restart the eclipse workspace with download source/javadoc checked and update projects at startup checked as well. After the workspace has been restarted, maybe some projects can be marked in error, while eclipse progress is downloading, then any error will be cleared. Maybe this procedure is not so "scientific", but for me did succeded.
I've added the pom configuration to the maven-eclipse plugin to download source and javadocs, but I figure/hope that will happen for new dependencies, not existing ones.
For existing dependencies, I browsed in package explorer down to the "Maven Dependencies" and right-clicked on commons-lang-2.5.jar, selected Maven | Download Sources and... nothing appeared to happen (no progress bar or indication that it was doing anything). It did, however, download as I'm able to jump to source in commons-lang now.
overthink suggested using the setup in the pom:
<project>
...
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-eclipse-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<downloadSources>true</downloadSources>
<downloadJavadocs>true</downloadJavadocs>
... other stuff ...
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plgins>
</build>
...
First i thought this still won't attach the javadoc and sources (as i tried unsuccessfully with that -DdownloadSources option before).
But surprise - the .classpath file IS getting its sources and javadoc attached when using the POM variant!
I had a similar problem, and the solution that worked best for me was to include the source in the same jar as the compiled code (so a given directory in the jar would include both Foo.java and Foo.class). Eclipse automatically associates the source with the compiled code, and automatically provides the JavaDoc from the source. Obviously, that's only helpful if you control the artifact.
A Small addition to the answer, if your project is not a maven project still you can get the source code of the jars, by using this plugin provided in eclipse Java Source Attacher
