# Contributing to Spring Boot
Spring Boot is released under the non-restrictive Apache 2.0 license. If you would like
to contribute something, or simply want to hack on the code this document should help
you get started.

## Working with the code
If you don't have an IDE preference we would recommend that you use
[Spring Tools Suite](http://www.springsource.com/developer/sts) or
[Eclipse](http://eclipse.org) when working with the code. We use the
[m2eclipe](http://eclipse.org/m2e/) eclipse plugin for maven support. Other IDEs
and tools should also work without issue.

### Building from source
To build the source you will need to install
[Apache Maven](http://maven.apache.org/run-maven/index.html) v3.0 or above. The project
can be build using the standard maven command:

	$ mvn clean install

If you are rebuilding often, you might also want to skip the tests until you are ready
to submit a pull request:

	$ mvn clean install -DskipTests

### Importing into eclipse with m2eclipse
We recommend the [m2eclipe](http://eclipse.org/m2e/) eclipse plugin when working with
eclipse. If you don't already have m2eclipse installed it is available from the "eclipse
marketplace".

Spring Boot includes project specific source formatting settings, in order to have these
work with m2eclipse, we provide an additional eclipse plugin that you can install:

* Select `Install new software` from the `help` menu
* Click `Add...` to add a new repository
* Click the `Archive...` button
* Select `org.eclipse.m2e.maveneclipse.site-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT-site.zip`
  from the `eclipse` folder in this checkout
* Install "Maven Integration for the maven-eclipse-plugin"

_NOTE: This plugin is optional. Projects can be imported without the plugin, your code
changes just won't be automatically formatted._

With the requisite eclipse plugins installed you can select
`import existing maven projects` from the `file` menu to import the code. You will
need to import the root `spring-boot` pom and the `spring-boot-samples` pom separately.

### Importing into eclipse without m2eclipse
If you prefer not to use m2eclipse you can generate eclipse project meta-data using the
following command:

	$ mvn eclipse:eclipse

The generated eclipse projects can be imported by selecting `import existing projects`
from the `file` menu.

### Importing into other IDEs
Maven is well supported by most Java IDEs. Refer to you vendor documentation.

### Integration tests
The sample application are used as integration tests during the build (when you 
`mvn install`). Due to the fact that they make use of the `spring-boot-maven-plugin` 
they cannot be called directly, and so instead are launched via the 
`maven-invoker-plugin`. If you encounter build failures running the integration tests, 
check the `build.log` file in the appropriate sample directory.