Spring Data Rest and spring-data-rest-hal-browser integration using Spring Boot

Question

Problem

The Spring Data REST Reference Documentation says that

dependencies {
    compile 'org.springframework.data:spring-data-rest-hal-browser'
}

is enough to integrate HAL browser with Spring Data Rest while using Spring Boot but Gradle complains this dependency cannot be found unless I specify particular version so I fixed it by specifying the latest one available in central repository (there is no other version available in the repository). After specifying the version the dependency is resolved but I get an error during Spring Boot container initialization:

Caused by: org.springframework.beans.BeanInstantiationException: Failed to instantiate [org.springframework.data.repository.support.Repositories]: Factory method 'repositories' threw exception; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'cameraRepository': Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is java.lang.AbstractMethodError: org.springframework.data.repository.core.support.RepositoryFactorySupport.getTargetRepository(Lorg/springframework/data/repository/core/RepositoryInformation;)Ljava/lang/Object;
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.SimpleInstantiationStrategy.instantiate(SimpleInstantiationStrategy.java:189)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.ConstructorResolver.instantiateUsingFactoryMethod(ConstructorResolver.java:588)
    ... 151 more
Caused by: org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'cameraRepository': Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is java.lang.AbstractMethodError: org.springframework.data.repository.core.support.RepositoryFactorySupport.getTargetRepository(Lorg/springframework/data/repository/core/RepositoryInformation;)Ljava/lang/Object;
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1572)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:539)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:476)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory$1.getObject(AbstractBeanFactory.java:303)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.java:230)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:299)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:199)
    at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.getBean(AbstractApplicationContext.java:966)
    at org.springframework.data.repository.support.Repositories.cacheRepositoryFactory(Repositories.java:95)
    at org.springframework.data.repository.support.Repositories.populateRepositoryFactoryInformation(Repositories.java:88)
    at org.springframework.data.repository.support.Repositories.<init>(Repositories.java:81)
    at org.springframework.data.rest.webmvc.config.RepositoryRestMvcConfiguration.repositories(RepositoryRestMvcConfiguration.java:182)
    at org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.data.rest.SpringBootRepositoryRestMvcConfiguration$$EnhancerBySpringCGLIB$$b6ea42c0.CGLIB$repositories$11(<generated>)
    at org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.data.rest.SpringBootRepositoryRestMvcConfiguration$$EnhancerBySpringCGLIB$$b6ea42c0$$FastClassBySpringCGLIB$$ec6a4119.invoke(<generated>)
    at org.springframework.cglib.proxy.MethodProxy.invokeSuper(MethodProxy.java:228)
    at org.springframework.context.annotation.ConfigurationClassEnhancer$BeanMethodInterceptor.intercept(ConfigurationClassEnhancer.java:309)
    at org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.data.rest.SpringBootRepositoryRestMvcConfiguration$$EnhancerBySpringCGLIB$$b6ea42c0.repositories(<generated>)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMetssorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:57)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:606)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.SimpleInstantiationStrategy.instantiate(SimpleInstantiationStrategy.java:162)
    ... 152 more
Caused by: java.lang.AbstractMethodError: org.springframework.data.repository.core.support.RepositoryFactorySupport.getTargetRepository(Lorg/springframework/data/repository/core/RepositoryInformation;)Ljava/lang/Object;
    at org.springframework.data.repository.core.support.RepositoryFactorySupport.getRepository(RepositoryFactorySupport.java:185)
    at org.springframework.data.repository.core.support.RepositoryFactoryBeanSupport.initAndReturn(RepositoryFactoryBeanSupport.java:251)
    at org.springframework.data.repository.core.support.RepositoryFactoryBeanSupport.afterPropertiesSet(RepositoryFactoryBeanSupport.java:237)
    at org.springframework.data.jpa.repository.support.JpaRepositoryFactoryBean.afterPropertiesSet(JpaRepositoryFactoryBean.java:92)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.invokeInitMethods(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1631)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1568)
    ... 173 more

However my application initializes successfully and works as expected if I remove spring-data-rest-hal-browser:2.4.0.RELEASE dependency.

Question

How can I setup my build.gradle correctly to have my application integrated with HAL browser properly?

---

build.gradle

buildscript {
    ext {
        springBootVersion = '1.2.7.RELEASE'
    }

    repositories {
        mavenCentral()
    }
}

dependencies {
    classpath("org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-gradle-plugin:${springBootVersion}")
    classpath('io.spring.gradle:dependency-management-plugin:0.5.2.RELEASE')
}

[...]

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
    flatDir {
       dirs 'lib'
    }
}

dependencies {
    compile('org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-actuator')
    compile('org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-data-jpa')
    compile('org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-data-rest')
    compile('org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-remote-shell')
    compile('org.springframework.data:spring-data-rest-hal-browser:2.4.0.RELEASE')
    compile('org.projectlombok:lombok:1.16.6')
    compile name: 'ojdbc6'
    testCompile('org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-test')
    testCompile('org.springframework.restdocs:spring-restdocs-mockmvc:1.0.0.RELEASE')
}

Answer 1

The package was renamed to spring-data-rest-hal-explorer. Here's an example of a modern configuration of HAL with Spring Boot 2 with automatic version management.

Maven example:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.data</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-data-rest-hal-explorer</artifactId>
</dependency>

Gradle example:

plugins {
    id "io.spring.dependency-management" version <<version>>
}

dependencies {
    implementation('org.springframework.data:spring-data-rest-hal-explorer')
}