We're pleased to announce that Spring 1.2 RC2 has just been released.

This release introduces one major new feature:

• support for JCA's Common Client Interface (CCI), including support for CCI local transactions

Furthermore, there are various minor enhancements, for example:

• deprecated ListableBeanFactory's getBeanDefinitionNames(type)", in favor of "getBeanNamesForType"
  
• added "value"/"value-ref" shortcut attributes to XML "entry" tag for maps
  
• added "alias" root element for XML bean definition files, for aliases for beans in other files
  
  
• JdbcAccessor lazily initializes the SQLExceptionTranslator by default now
  
• added further configuration options to LocalSessionFactoryBean for Hibernate3
  
• added "defaultDestinationName" property to JmsTemplate, for a dynamic default destination
  
  
• refined Resource support for compatibility with JDK 1.3's classic VM and with JRockit's jar paths
  
• refactored static PathMatcher class into PathMatcher interface and AntPathMatcher implementation
  
• added ConfigurableMimeFileTypeMap, with extensive MIME type mappings out-of-the-box
  
  
• added "context.i18n" package, with LocaleContext abstraction and global LocaleContextHolder
  
• DispatcherServlet exposes the current LocaleResolver through the global LocaleContextHolder
  
• added RemoteInvocationTraceInterceptor, logging remote calls and exceptions on the server
  
  
• updated JasperReports support for JR 0.6.6, using JRDefaultCompiler as default report compiler
  
• reworked AbstractJasperReportsView to work on JasperPrint instance rather than JasperReport instance
  
• added support for reports with embedded SQL statements to AbstractJasperReportsView

For a detailed list of enhancements and bug fixes, see the changelog.

This release candidate is considered stable and recommended for development use. We expect Spring 1.2 final to be released in about two weeks.