Spring Blog

We are pleased to
announce a preview release of Spring Web Flow for use with the Spring
1.2 release path.  With this release, we consider the web flow
system fit for development use.




Contained in this release are new features we expect to take web
applications with demanding page flow requirements to the next
level.  These include:

• The ability to capture the logical
  page flows of
  your application as self-contained modules reusable in multiple
  situations.
• The ability to nest flows ‘n’ levels
  deep (as
  subflows), where each flow is a "black-box" adhering to a well-defined
  contract for input/output.
• The ability to express page flows
  declaratively,
  with a pluggable flow definition format (currently Java-based and
  XML-based builder formats are provided.)
• The ability to affect the path
  through a flow in a
  dynamic fashion by reasoning on contextual data in any supported scope.
  
• The ability to track and respond to
  the lifecycle
  of a page flow.
• Automatic state management with the
  ability to
  store model data in several scopes (event, request, flow)
• The ability to centralize related
  action logic
  associated with a flow in one class.
• Support for application transaction
  synchronization, using a token-based mechanism.
• No hard-wired dependency on HTTP
  servlet
  request/response or any request URL, for use in other environments like
  Portlets, JSF, and Tapestry.
  - An expired flow detector, for automatic cleanup of abandoned flows.
• Out of the box helper actions for
  form data binding
  and validation.
• Out of the box Struts 1.x
  integration (sample
  forthcoming.)
• Out of the box Spring MVC
  integration.
• Designed for extensibility, with
  well-documented
  plug-in points for customization (custom state types, custom flow
  builders, etc.)
   

It’s Spring time




We are pleased to announce that Spring 1.2 RC1 has just been released. This release introduces a number of major new features:

• finer-grained distribution jar files, alongside the full spring.jar
  
  
  
• AOP Alliance interfaces are now contained in spring-aop.jar and spring.jar
  
  

  
  
  

• XML bean definition improvements ("ref" and "value" shortcut attributes
  
  
  etc)
  
  
  
• improved AOP TargetSourceCreator mechanism (supporting
  
  
  LazyInitTargetSource too)
  
  

  
  
  

• transaction annotation support for JDK 1.5+ (annotation called
  
  
  "Transactional")
  
  
  
• improved WebLogicJtaTransactionManager (transaction names, isolation
  
  
  levels)
  
  

  
  
  

• SqlRowSet support for JDBC (in conjunction with JdbcTemplate’s
  
  
  "queryForRowSet")
  
  
  
• Hibernate3 support (in orm.hibernate3; Hibernate 2.1 support is still
  
  
  available)
  
  

  
  
  

• JMX support for export of Spring beans as managed resources and for MBean
  
  
  access
  
  
  
• Commons Attributes and JDK 1.5+ annotations for JMX MBean export
  
  

  
  
  This release also contains many minor enhancements, for example:
  
  

  
  
  

• factored out BindingErrorProcessor strategy for ServletRequestDataBinder
  
  
  
• improved ParameterMethodNameResolver for Web MVC MultiActionController

We are pleased to announce that Spring Framework 1.1.5 has just been released.





This is the last bug fix and minor enhancement release in the 1.1.x series,
featuring many minor improvements such as:

• added overloaded "reject" and rejectValue" methods without default message to Errors interface and BindException
  
  
  
• added "lookup(name, requiredType)" convenience method to JndiTemplate, matching the JNDI object against the given type
  
  
  
• added "homeInterface" property to AbstractRemoteSlsbInvokerInterceptor, for specifying the home interface to narrow to
  
  
  
• introduced MailMessage interface as common interface for SimpleMailMessage and JavaMail MIME messages
  
  
  
• Log4jConfigurer accepts a "classpath:" URL or a "file:" URL as location too, not just a plain file path
  
  
  
• Log4jConfigurer accepts config files that do not reside in the file system, as long as there is no refresh interval
  
  

  
  
  

• added "int[] batchUpdate(String[] sql)" method to JdbcTemplate, for executing a group of SQL statements as a batch
  
  
  
• added C3P0NativeJdbcExtractor for C3P0 0.8.5 or later (for earlier C3P0 versions, use SimpleNativeJdbcExtractor)
  
  
  
• added "maxRows" bean property to JdbcTemplate, allowing to specify the maximum number of rows to be fetched
  
  
  
• added "fetchSize" and "maxRows" bean properties to RdbmsOperation, passing the values to the internal JdbcTemplate
  
  
  
• added ClobStringTypeHandler, BlobByteArrayTypeHandler and BlobSerializableTypeHandler for iBATIS SQL Maps 2.0.9
  
  
  
• ResourceHolderSupport throws TransactionTimedOutException if no time-to-live left (before attempting an operation)
  
  
  
• TransactionSynchronization objects can influence their execution order through implementing the Ordered interface
  
  
  
• JtaTransactionManager is able to work with a JTA TransactionManager only (i.e. without a UserTransaction handle)
  
  

  
  
  

• upgraded MockHttpServletRequest to Servlet API 2.4 (added getRemotePort, getLocalName, getLocalAddr, getLocalPort)
  
  
  
• upgraded MockPageContext to JSP API 2.0 (added getExpressionEvaluator, getVariableResolver, overloaded include)
  
  
  
• added "contextOverride" option to ServletContextPropertyPlaceholderConfigurer, letting web.xml override local settings
  
  
  
• added "searchContextAttributes" option to
  ServletContextPropertyPlaceholderConfigurer, resolving context attributes
  
  
  
• added "clear" and "isEmpty" methods to ModelAndView, allowing to clear the view of a given ModelAndView object
  
  
  
• added JasperReportsMultiFormatView, allowing to specify the output format dynamically via a discriminator in the model
  
  
  
• JSP EL expressions in Spring’s JSP tags will be parsed with JSP 2.0 ExpressionEvaluator on JSP 2.0 (Jakarta JSTL else)
  
  
  
• changed "spring:transform" tag’s "value" attribute from String to Object, to allow for expressions resolved by JSP 2.0
  
  
  

We
are pleased to announce that Spring
Framework 1.1.4 has
just
been released. This is a bugfix and minor enhancement release in the
1.1 series.




Among the new
features are:

• added LazyInitTargetSource, lazily accessing a singleton from a BeanFactory (lazily initializing on first call)
• added ServiceLocatorFactoryBean, allowing to map custom service locator interface methods to BeanFactory.getBean calls
• reworked ResourcePatternResolver to extend ResourceLoader, for ResourcePatternResolver checks in ResourceLoaderAware
• made BindException serializable, provided that the contained target object is serializable

We
are pleased to announce that Spring
Framework 1.1.3 has
just
been released. This is a bugfix and minor enhancement release in the
1.1 series; most importantly, JDK 1.3 compatibility is fully restored.

Among the new features in this release are:

        <ul>
          <li>added

"setResourceLoader" method to
GenericApplicationContext, for overriding the default resource loading
strategy

We
are pleased to announce that Spring
Framework 1.1.2 has
just
been released. This is a bugfix and minor enhancement release.

 


Among the new features in this release are

        <ul>
          <li>added

support for multi-dimensional
collections to BeanWrapperImpl (e.g. "map[myKey][0]" or
"map[myKey][0].name")

We
are pleased to announce that Spring
Framework 1.1.1 has
just
been released. This is a bugfix and minor enhancement release.

 


Among the new features in this release are:

        <ul>
          <li>&quot;import&quot;

element for XML bean
definitions

We
are pleased to announce that Spring
Framework 1.1 (final)
has
just been released.
Since 1.1 RC2, some API clarifications have happened and a number of
bugs have been fixed.

There is also a variety of minor new features:

• reworked BeanWrapperImpl’s
  property-specific custom
  editor handling to allow registration for uninitialized subpaths


• added "applyBeanPropertyValues"
  method to
  AutowireCapableBeanFactory, for populating an existing bean instance




• added "(abstract)" marker for
  properties bean
  definitions respectively "abstract" attribute for XML bean definitions
  
  




• added support for SqlReturnType
  interface which
  allows to return custom types from stored procedures


• added auto-conversion of
  java.util.Date and
  java.util.Calendar to java.sql.Date/Time/Timestamp for JDBC parameters


• added support for WebSphere 4 to
  WebSphereNativeJdbcExtractor, autodetecting WebSphere 5 and 4 now




• added
  WebLogicServerTransactionManagerFactoryBean,
  to be used with WebLogicJtaTransactionManager on WebLogic 7.0


• added support for direct JTA
  synchronization to
  AbstractLobType, as alternative to Spring transaction synchronization


• added "flush" method to
  HibernateOperations/HibernateTemplate and JdoOperations/JdoTemplate,
  for eager flushing


• added
  "getReportQueryIteratorByQuery" method to OJB
  PersistenceBrokerOperations and PersistenceBrokerTemplate




• deprecated AbstractJndiLocator base
  class in favor
  of new JndiObjectLocator base class with explicit "lookup" method


• added JndiObjectTargetSource which
  performs a fresh
  JNDI lookup for each call, allowing for hot redeployment in JNDI


• added "cache" flag to
  JndiDestinationResolver, to
  allow for turning off the caching of Destination objects from JNDI


• added support for ObjectMessage to
  SimpleMessageConverter, converting between Serializable objects and
  ObjectMessages




• added RemoteConnectFailureException
  and
  RemoteLookupFailureException as RemoteAccessException subclasses


• added JndiRmiServiceExporter,
  JndiRmiClientInterceptor, JndiRmiProxyFactoryBean (for RMI-IIOP resp.
  CORBA)


• added "lookupStubOnStartup",
  "cacheStub" and
  "refreshStubOnConnectFailure" flags to RmiClientInterceptor


• added "lookupHomeOnStartup" and
  "refreshHomeOnConnectFailure" flags to
  AbstractRemoteSlsbInvokerInterceptor




• added
  "createMimeMessage(InputStream)" method to
  JavaMailSender, building a MimeMessage from raw MIME content


• MimeMessageHelper creates
  "multipart/related" now,
  to make mails with inline images compatible with Outlook Express


• added "validateAddresses" property
  to
  MimeMessageHelper (off by default), delegating to JavaMail 1.3’s
  "validate"




• added "http10Compatible" flag to
  RedirectView, to be
  turned off for sending HTTP 1.1 status code 303 rather than 302


• added "buildPdfMetadata" callback
  to
  AbstractPdfView, for adding meta fields like author to the iText PDF
  Document


• added LookupDispatchActionSupport
  class to Struts
  support, analogous to ActionSupport but for LookupDispatchActions

We are pleased to announce that Spring
Framework 1.1 Release Candidate 2
is available. This will be the
last release candidate for 1.1; release 1.1 final can be expected very
soon.




Among the new features in this release are:

• the
  new HTTP invoker remoting
  strategy, which uses Java serialization over HTTP (combining the
  strengths of RMI and Hessian)


• RemoteInvocationFactory
  and
  RemoteInvocationExecutor strategies for HTTP/RMI invoker, for
  additional invocation context


• basic
  JSF support in the form of a
  JSF VariableResolver implementation that is aware of Spring-managed
  middle tier beans


• form
  simplification macros for
  Velocity and FreeMarker, providing HTML input macros etc for easy form
  building


• DispatcherServlet
  looks for handler
  adapters, handler mappings, exception res., view res. in ancestor
  contexts as well


• HibernateTransactionManager
  and
  HibernateInterceptor support per-transaction entity interceptor
  instances


• WebLogicJtaTransactionManager
  which
  can resume a WebLogic JTA transaction even if it was marked
  rollback-only


• MimeMessageHelper
  provides
  "addInline" methods for adding inline elements with content IDs
  (referenced via "cid:xxx")


• Errors
  interface provides
  "pushNestedPath"/"popNestedPath" methods, for convenient handling of
  temporary nested paths


• Spring’s
  Resource objects support a
  "createRelative" operation, for resource paths relative to the given
  one

A couple of months ago, in the days before I had a blog, there was a discussion by Cedric and Bob about “Getter Injection.”

The basic concept is that the IoC container can override abstract or concrete methods on managed objects on deployment. The container is injecting a method, such as a getter method, rather than a reference or primitive as in Setter Injection. As it happened, I was already working on a container method override mechanism for Spring 1.1, which has since been released in Spring 1.1 RC1. It’s an interesting concept, and definitely part of a complete IoC container. However, I believe that the concept is more general and needs a more general name. Also, that it should only be used in a fairly narrow range of scenarios.