What is the difference between repository and depe

问题:

How are they different? Or are they the same?

回答1:

Repository is a collection of artifacts (eg: jars). You can think of it as a mere storage / cache of various artifacts.

Dependency is a situation where your project dependent on another artifact to perform its task (eg: compile, run, unit test)

On a maven project you typically declare what artifacts you need on the <dependency> section of your pom, and you can also declare what repositories maven should lookup the dependency from at the <repositories> section.

By default maven will lookup the artifacts on the central repository. But it's common for an organization to have an internal repository containing in-house developed artifacts. Hence typically <repositories> section on the pom is configured with this.

http://maven.apache.org/guides/index.html

回答2:

The repository is where your libraries (aka artifacts) are stored. Dependencies are the names of the libaries that your corrent project depends on