Appendix A. Setting up Spring

The Spring Framework and container is packaged in several JAR files. Spring is a library of classes that will be packaged with and used by your Spring-enabled applications. Installing Spring involves adding one or more JAR files to your application’s classpath. It does not have an executable runtime. Therefore, Spring is more akin to a library like Jakarta Commons than an application server like JBoss.

How you make Spring available to your application’s classpath will vary depending on how you build and run your application. You may choose to add the Spring JAR files to your system’s classpath or to a project classpath in your favorite IDE. If you’re building your application using Ant or Maven, be certain to include Spring in your build’s dependencies so that it will be included in the project’s target deployment.