What is the purpose of the dependency management…

The <dependencyManagement> section in Maven is used for centralized management of dependency versions across a project hierarchy.

Main reasons for its use:

Version consistency: Ensures that all modules inheriting from the parent pom.xml with the <dependencyManagement> section will use the same version of a dependency. This prevents version conflicts and simplifies updates.
Elimination of duplication: By defining a dependency version once in the parent POM, child modules can simply specify <groupId> and <artifactId>, without repeating <version>.
Simplified management: Changing the dependency version in one place (the parent POM) propagates to all child modules using that dependency.
Control over transitive dependencies: Helps manage versions of transitive dependencies that may be brought in explicitly declared dependencies.

It's important to understand the difference between <dependencies> and <dependencyManagement>:

<dependencies>: Declares dependencies that are necessary for the module. These dependencies will be included during the build.
<dependencyManagement>: Declares potential dependencies and their versions, but does not automatically include them in the build. Modules must explicitly declare the dependency in their <dependencies> section to use it.

Example of usage in a parent POM:

<dependencyManagement>
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
            <version>5.3.23</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.junit.jupiter</groupId>
            <artifactId>junit-jupiter-api</artifactId>
            <version>5.9.2</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
</dependencyManagement>

Example of usage in a child POM:

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
        <!-- Version will be taken from the parent's dependencyManagement -->
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.junit.jupiter</groupId>
        <artifactId>junit-jupiter-api</artifactId>
        <!-- Version and scope will be taken from the parent's dependencyManagement -->
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

What is the purpose of the dependency management section in Maven?