Spring Framework 2.5.6

THE SPRING FRAMEWORK, release 2.5.6 (October 2008) -------------------------------------------------- http://www.springframework.org 1. INTRODUCTION Spring is a modular Java/J2EE application framework, based on code published in "Expert One-on-One J2EE Design and Development" by Rod Johnson (Wrox, 2002). Spring includes: * Powerful JavaBeans-based configuration management, applying Inversion-of-Control principles. This makes wiring up applications quick and easy. No more singletons littered throughout your codebase, no more arbitrary properties files: one consistent and elegant approach everywhere. This core bean factory can be used in any environment, from applets to J2EE containers. * Generic abstraction layer for transaction management, allowing for pluggable transaction managers, and making it easy to demarcate transactions without dealing with low-level issues. Generic strategies for JTA and a single JDBC DataSource are included. In contrast to plain JTA or EJB CMT, Spring's transaction support is not tied to J2EE environments. * JDBC abstraction layer that offers a meaningful exception hierarchy (no more pulling vendor codes out of SQLException), simplifies error handling, and greatly reduces the amount of code you'll need to write. You'll never need to write another finally block to use JDBC again. The JDBC-oriented exceptions comply to Spring's generic DAO exception hierarchy. * Integration with JDO, JPA, Hibernate, TopLink, and iBATIS SQL Maps: in terms of resource holders, DAO implementation support, and transaction strategies. First-class Hibernate and JDO support with many IoC convenience features, addressing many typical Hibernate/JDO integration issues. All of these comply to Spring's generic transaction and DAO exception hierarchies. * AOP functionality, fully integrated into Spring configuration management. You can AOP-enable any object managed by Spring, adding aspects such as declarative transaction management. With Spring, you can have declarative transaction management without EJB... even without JTA, if you're using a single database in Tomcat (or another web container without JTA support). * Flexible MVC web application framework, built on core Spring functionality. This dispatcher framework is highly configurable via strategy interfaces, and accommodates multiple view technologies: e.g. JSP, Tiles, Velocity, FreeMarker, iText. It comes in a Servlet and a Portlet edition, working closely with the underlying environment. Note that Spring can easily be combined with third-party web MVC frameworks too: e.g. Struts, JSF. You can use all of Spring's functionality in any J2EE server, and most of it also in non-managed environments. A central focus of Spring is to allow for reusable business and data access objects that are not tied to specific J2EE services. Such objects can be reused across J2EE environments (web or EJB), standalone applications, test environments, etc without any hassle. Spring has a layered architecture; all of its functionality builds on lower levels. So you can for example use the JavaBeans configuration management without using the MVC framework or AOP support. However, if you use the web MVC framework or the AOP support, you'll find that they build on the configuration framework, so you can apply your knowledge about it immediately. 2. RELEASE INFO The Spring Framework 2.5 requires JDK 1.4.2 and J2EE 1.3 (Servlet 2.3, JSP 1.2, JTA 1.0, EJB 2.0). JDK 1.6 is required for building the framework; for the full build including all aspects, AspectJ is required as well. Integration is provided with Log4J 1.2, CGLIB 2.1, AspectJ 1.5/1.6, Commons Attributes 2.2, JCA 1.0/1.5, JMX 1.2, Hibernate 3.1/3.2, TopLink 10/11, JDO 2.0/2.1, JPA 1.0, iBATIS SQL Maps 2.3, Hessian 2.1/3.1, JAX-RPC 1.1, JAX-WS 2.0/2.1, Quartz 1.5/1.6, EHCache 1.3/1.4, Commons FileUpload 1.2, Velocity 1.5, FreeMarker 2.3, JasperReports 1.3/2.0, JSTL 1.0/1.1, JSF 1.1/1.2, Struts 1.2/1.3, Tiles 1.2/2.0, etc. Basic release contents (~6 MB): * "dist" contains the Spring binary jar files Contents of the "-with-docs" distribution (~35 MB): * "dist" contains the Spring binary jar files, as well as corresponding source jars * "docs" contains the Spring reference documentation in PDF and HTML format, as well as the complete API javadocs Contents of the "-with-dependencies" distribution (~79 MB): * "dist" contains the Spring binary jar files, as well as corresponding source jars * "docs" contains the Spring reference documentation in PDF and HTML format, as well as the complete API javadocs * "lib" contains all third-party libraries needed for building the framework and/or running the samples * "src" contains the general Java source files for the framework * "mock" contains the general Java source files for Spring's mock and testing support classes * "test" contains the general Java source files for Spring's test suite * "tiger/src" contains the JDK-1.5-specific Java source files for the framework * "tiger/mock" contains the JDK-1.5-specific Java source files for Spring's mock and testing support classes * "tiger/test" contains the JDK-1.5-specific Java source files for Spring's test suite * "aspectj/src" contains the AspectJ-specific source files for the framework * "aspectj/test" contains the AspectJ-specific source files for Spring's test suite * "samples" contains various demo applications The "lib" directory is only included in the "-with-dependencies" download. Make sure to download this full distribution ZIP file if you want to run the sample applications and/or build the framework yourself. Ant build scripts for the framework and the samples are provided. The standard samples can be built with the included Ant runtime by invoking the corresponding "build.bat" files (see samples subdirectories). Latest info is available at the public website: http://www.springframework.org Project info at the SourceForge site: http://sourceforge.net/projects/springframework The Spring Framework is released under the terms of the Apache Software License (see license.txt). All libraries included in the "-with-dependencies" download are subject to their respective licenses. This product includes software developed by the Apache Software Foundation (http://www.apache.org). 3. DISTRIBUTION JAR FILES The "dist" directory contains the following distinct jar files for use in applications. Both module-specific jar files and a jar file with all of Spring are provided. The following list specifies the corresponding contents and third-party dependencies. Libraries in brackets are optional, i.e. just necessary for certain functionality. FULL JAR (dist): * "spring" (~2870 KB) - Convenient jar file combining all standard modules (except for the test module and the Spring MVC support) - Also includes the AOP Alliance interfaces (as a convenience)! - Does not include contents of spring-aspects.jar, spring-test.jar and spring-webmvc*.jar! MODULE JARS (dist/modules): * "spring-aop" (~320 KB) - Contents: AOP framework - Dependencies: spring-core, (spring-beans, AOP Alliance) * "spring-beans" (~480 KB) - Contents: JavaBeans support, bean container - Dependencies: spring-core * "spring-context" (~465 KB) - Contents: application context, JNDI, JMX, instrumentation, remoting, scripting, scheduling, validation - Dependencies: spring-beans, (spring-aop, JMX API, EJB API) * "spring-context-support" (~95 KB) - Contents: Quartz and CommonJ scheduling, UI templating, mail, caching - Dependencies: spring-context, (spring-aop, spring-jdbc) * "spring-core" (~280 KB) - Contents: core abstractions and utilities, source-level metadata support, repackaged ASM library - Dependencies: Commons Logging, (Commons Attributes) * "spring-jdbc" (~330 KB) - Contents: JDBC support - Dependencies: spring-beans, spring-tx * "spring-jms" (~190 KB) - Conten