automatic import of existing maven dependencies

Question

I have maven dependency with available source code. Is it possible to import it as maven project in eclipse automatically?

I can manually create new maven project in eclipse, unpack source code in its source directory and pom file.

Are there any plugin or other tool that does such work?

Answer 1

Use the Maven Eclipse plugin and tell it to download sources and javadocs for you:

<project>
  [...]
  <build>
    [...]
    <plugins>
      [...]
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-eclipse-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>2.8</version>
        <configuration>
          <downloadSources>true</downloadSources>
          <downloadJavadocs>true</downloadJavadocs>
        </configuration>
      </plugin>
      [...]
    </plugins>
    [...]
  </build>
  [...]
</project>