In this document I will explain how to set up the Spring Boot environment in VS Code. You will find the instructions to install and configure,
- JDK 19
- Gradle 7.6
- Visual Studio Code (VS Code)
I will also create and run a basic spring boot application.
Introduction
Spring boot is an open source, production-ready java development framework suitable for stand-alone applications, which run on Java Virtual Machine (JVM). Spring boot is quite popular framework to develop the Restful microservices, Model-View-Controller (MVC) applications, etc.
Visual Studio Code is a free, lightweight Integrated Development Environment (IDE) by Microsoft. It is a great addition to Java code editing tools, and a good alternate to IntelliJ, eclipse etc.
Gradle is a build automation tool for multiple language development. It makes the development tasks much easier, such as compile, build, test, package, etc.
Let’s start setting up the environment..
Operating System
The instructions written in this document is valid for Windows 10 or above.
Java 19:
We start with installing the latest available (at the time of writing) JDK 19. Go to JDK 19 download page, and download Windows x64 msi Installer
and install.
Gradle
I will install the latest available Gradle version, i.e. 7.6, because earlier versions (like 7.5) are not compatible with JDK19. We will download the archive file from this link,
Select “v7.6” and then Download: binary only
. This will download the Gradle-7.6-bin.zip
file.
Create a new directory C:\Gradle
(or any preferred location). Uncompress the Gradle-7.6-bin.zip
file in C:\Gradle
.
Environment Variables
You can use any command line tool to set environment variables. Here, we'll use Windows PowerShell. First, let's check the existing value of JAVA_HOME
to see if it is already set. Open Windows PowerShell and type:
$Env:JAVA_HOME
Note: $
is the part of the command.
If it returns an empty string, it infers JAVA_HOME
is not set. Let’s set it now,
$Env:JAVA_HOME = "C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-19"
Now set GRADLE_HOME
value,
$Env:GRADLE_HOME = "C:\Gradle\gradle-7.6"
Add JAVA_HOME
and GRADLE_HOME
to PATH
variable, so that the shell recognise java
and gradle
commands,
$Env:PATH += $Env:JAVA_HOME + ";\bin"
$Env:PATH += $Env:GRADLE_HOME + ";\bin"
Verify environment variable values,
echo $Env:JAVA_HOME
echo $Env:GRADLE_HOME
echo $Env:PATH
Set environment variable using windows system properties,
We can also set the envirnment variable in Windows System Properties. For that, in Windows Start menu search for “Edit the system environment variable”,
Add JAVA_HOME
and Gradle_Home
system environment variables,
Add JAVA_HOME\bin
and GRADLE_HOME\bin
to the system PATH
variable.
Spring Boot environment
Install VS Code
Install Visual studio Code (VS Code) from following link,
https://code.visualstudio.com/download
VS Code Extensions:
For better productivity, we may install following extensions in VS Code,
Extension pack Java
Spring boot Extension pack
Gradle for java
You can install extension by clicking "Extensions" on left menu and search required ones,
Configure JDK 19 in VS Code
we will In order to create springo boot application
In VS Code go to File/Preferences/Settings
, and then select Extensions
from the left menu. Expand the Extension to find a menu for Java
. Scroll down to click on Edit in Settings.json
.
OR
You can use command Pallet, Shift + Ctrl + P
or just press F1
Search for “Preferences: Open User Settings (JSON)” and add JDK and gradle home path and spring initializr service URL in json body,
"Java.jdt.ls.java.home" = “C:\\Program Files\\Java\\jdk-19”
"java.import.gradle.home": "C:\\Gradle\\gradle-7.6"
"spring.initializr.serviceUrl": "https://start.spring.io/"
Note: On Windows backslashes must be escaped, so C:\
must be written as C:\\
Spring initializr service URL is required to launch spring boot initializr. By default its value is empty, if we do not set it, and create a spring boot project using spring initializer we will get,
“Failed to create a project. Failed to fetch metadata.”
Create Sprint Boot Application
Now we all set to launch spring initializer to create a new spring boot application,
Press Shift + Ctrl + P
or F1
to open the command palette
Following are my project settings for this example,
Specify Spring version: 3.0.1
Specify project language: Java
Input Group Id for your project: com.example.mygroup
Input artifact Id: myfirstspringbootapp
Specify packaging type: Jar
Specify Java version: 19
Search for dependencies: let’s select Lombok, Spring Web (for web, Restful application using MVC). you can select other dependencies as well.
Press Enter
Select the destination directory to save the project. Spring Initializr will generate a templated project for spring boot application. This is how it looks after we finalize initialization.
We can see src
and test
directories with their respective java classes. We also see the build.gradle file which consists of all the dependencies, plugins, and different tasks.
You can run this app now. Open the src.java.com.example.mygroup.myfirstspringbootapp/MyfirstspringbootappApplication.java
file and run,
We will see Spring boot application started.
This is just a start to something great you can achieve with spring boot, Java and Gradle. Hope this will help you to take the first step toward that direction.
To deepen your understanding of Spring Boot Microservices and Docker containers, I highly recommend reading this article: Quick Start to Spring Boot Microservices and Docker. By following that blog, you will be creating a spring boot application, and add a controller to process HTTEP GET requests. You will also learn about how to package your spring boot application using docker container.