Spring 3.0 Features - Spring 3 new features

The Spring 3 new features:

In this section we will understand the features of Spring 3.0 Framework. The Spring 3.0 Framework is released with the support of Java 5. So, you can use all the latest features of Java 5 with Spring 3 framework.

The first version of Spring Framework was released in the year 2002. And it was developed and released to simplify the development of Enterprise Java applications. Since then it have undergone the major releases Spring 2.0,  Spring 2.5 and now Spring 3.0. The Spring Framework is used by many frameworks. You can use the existing frameworks such as JSF, Struts 2, Flex with Spring DS to quickly develop and deploy large scale enterprise applications. The Spring framework simplifies the development of complex enterprise applications.

The Spring Framework simplifies the development, testing, deployment of the application much easier.

Spring 3 what's new

Let's see what all new features are available in the Spring 3 framework.

Features of Spring 3.0 Framework:

• Java 5 Support: The core API of Spring 3.0 framework is using JDK 5, so JDK 5 or above is required to run Spring 3.0 based applications. The Spring 3.0 framework provides annotation-based configuration support. JDK 5 features such as generics, annotations and varargs can used in Spring 3.0 Framework based applications. The Spring 3.0 framework is based on JDK 1.5 and it fully supports JDK 6. The Spring 3.0 is fully compatible with the JEE1.4 and EE5.
   
• Expression language - Spring Expression Language (SpEL): In this release of Spring framework Expression language support is present. The Spring Expression Language  can be used while defining the XML and Annotation based bean definition.
   
• Support for Comprehensive REST Webservices: Spring 3.0 framework supports REST web services.
   
• Java EE 6 Support: Spring 3.0 supports many features of JEE 6 such as JAP 2.0 and JSF 2.0.
   
• Annotation based formatting support: Spring comes with Annotation based formatting support. For example bean fields can be automatically formatted and converted using different annotations. For example you can use the  @DateFimeFormat(iso=ISO.DATE) and @NumberFormat(style=Style.CURRENCY) annotations to convert the date  and currency formats.
• New module organization and build system:
  The modules in the Spring 3.0 framework have been revised and it managed separately with one source-tree per module jar:
  
  * org.springframework.aop
  * org.springframework.beans
  * org.springframework.context
  * org.springframework.context.support
  * org.springframework.expression
  * org.springframework.instrument
  * org.springframework.jdbc
  * org.springframework.jms
  * org.springframework.orm
  * org.springframework.oxm
  * org.springframework.test
  * org.springframework.transaction
  * org.springframework.web
  * org.springframework.web.portlet
  * org.springframework.web.servlet
  * org.springframework.web.struts

In the next section we will download, create a new project in Eclipse IDE, install the library files and then develop a "Hello World" example program.

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