Installing Spring Boot CLI

Spring Boot CLI is a command-line interface tool that allows developers to create and run Spring applications without needing an external development environment.

This tutorial will teach you how to install Spring Boot CLI on macOS and Windows. Let’s begin with macOS.

Installing Spring Boot CLI on macOS

To install Spring Boot CLI on macOS, you must have the Java Development Kit (JDK) installed on your system. You can check if you have JDK installed by running the following command in your terminal:

java -version

If you do not have JDK installed, you can download and install it from the Oracle website.

Once you have JDK installed, you can install Spring Boot CLI by following these steps:

  1. Download the Spring Boot CLI distribution from the Spring Boot website.
  1. Extract the distribution archive, i.e. spring-2.4.4.RELEASE-bin.tar.gz to the directory, you wish to install Spring Boot CLI.
  2. Open your terminal and navigate to the directory where you extracted the distribution archive.
  3. Add the bin directory to your PATH by running the following command:
export PATH=$PATH:<path to Spring Boot CLI bin directory>

For example, if you extracted the Spring Boot CLI distribution to your home directory, you would run the following command:

export PATH=$PATH:~/spring-2.4.4.RELEASE/bin
  1. Test the installation by running the following command:
spring --version

You should see the version number of Spring Boot CLI displayed in the terminal.

Installing Spring Boot CLI on Windows

Before starting the installation process, make sure you have the following prerequisites installed on your machine:

  1. Java Development Kit (JDK) – Spring Boot CLI requires the JDK to be installed on your machine. You can download the latest JDK from the Oracle website. To install JDK on your computer, follow this tutorial: Setting up Java Development Kit(JDK).
  2. Git – Spring Boot CLI uses Git to download the necessary dependencies and libraries. You can download Git from the official website.

Now that you have the prerequisites installed, let’s begin the installation process:

Step 1: Download the Spring Boot CLI installer

Go to the Spring Boot website (https://spring.io/) and click on the “Get Started” button. On the next page, click on the “Install” tab and select “Spring Boot CLI” from the list of options.

Step 2: Install Spring Boot CLI

Double-click on the downloaded installer file to start the installation process. Follow the prompts to install Spring Boot CLI on your machine.

Step 3: Verify the installation

Open a command prompt and type the following command:

spring --version

This will display the version of Spring Boot CLI that you have installed. If you see the version number, it means Spring Boot CLI has been successfully installed on your machine.

When to Use Spring Boot CLI?

There are several ways to use Spring Boot CLI:

  1. Running a Spring Boot project: You can use Spring Boot CLI to create and run a Spring Boot project. To do this, you can use the “spring init” command followed by the name of your project. This will create a basic Spring Boot project with the necessary dependencies and configuration files.
  2. Running a Spring Boot application: Once you have created a Spring Boot project, you can use Spring Boot CLI to run the application. To do this, you can use the “spring run” command followed by the name of your project. This will start the application and make it available to access via the browser.
  3. Testing a Spring Boot application: Spring Boot CLI also allows you to test your Spring Boot application. To do this, you can use the “spring test” command followed by the name of your project. This will run all the test cases in your project and report the results.
  4. Building a Spring Boot application: You can use Spring Boot CLI to build a Spring Boot application for deployment. To do this, you can use the “spring build” command followed by the name of your project. This will create a deployable package (e.g. a JAR or WAR file) that you can use to run your application on a different environment.

To learn more about Spring Boot and how to build RESTful Web Services, check out Spring Boot Tutorials page.

Happy learning!