Initial implementation and tests for JIRA feature requests SGF-207 and SGF-254 supporting inheritable Region templates when defining GemFire Regions using Spring Data GemFire XML configuration meta-data. This feature allows common Region configuration and attribute values to be defined once and then shared across multiple Region bean definitions in the Spring context for added convenience.

src/main/java/org/springframework/data/gemfire/config/AbstractRegionParser.java

@@ -49,9 +49,20 @@ abstract class AbstractRegionParser extends AbstractSingleBeanDefinitionParser {
 		return getRegionFactoryClass();
 	}
 
+	@Override
+	protected String getParentName(final Element element) {
+		String regionTemplate = element.getAttribute("template");
+		return (StringUtils.hasText(regionTemplate) ? regionTemplate : super.getParentName(element));
+	}
+
 	protected abstract Class<?> getRegionFactoryClass();
 
-	protected boolean isSubRegion(Element element) {
+	protected boolean isRegionTemplate(final Element element) {
+		String localName = element.getLocalName();
+		return (localName != null && localName.endsWith("-template"));
+	}
+
+	protected boolean isSubRegion(final Element element) {
 		String localName = element.getParentNode().getLocalName();
 		return (localName != null && localName.endsWith("region"));
 	}
@@ -59,6 +70,7 @@ abstract class AbstractRegionParser extends AbstractSingleBeanDefinitionParser {
 	@Override
 	protected void doParse(Element element, ParserContext parserContext, BeanDefinitionBuilder builder) {
 		super.doParse(element, builder);
+		builder.setAbstract(isRegionTemplate(element));
 		boolean subRegion = isSubRegion(element);
         doParseRegion(element, parserContext, builder, subRegion);
 	}

src/main/java/org/springframework/data/gemfire/config/GemfireNamespaceHandler.java

@@ -52,10 +52,15 @@ class GemfireNamespaceHandler extends NamespaceHandlerSupport {
 		registerBeanDefinitionParser("cache-server", new CacheServerParser());
 		registerBeanDefinitionParser("client-cache", new ClientCacheParser());
 		registerBeanDefinitionParser("client-region", new ClientRegionParser());
+		registerBeanDefinitionParser("client-region-template", new ClientRegionParser());
 		registerBeanDefinitionParser("lookup-region", new LookupRegionParser());
+		registerBeanDefinitionParser("region-template", new TemplateRegionParser());
 		registerBeanDefinitionParser("local-region", new LocalRegionParser());
+		registerBeanDefinitionParser("local-region-template", new LocalRegionParser());
 		registerBeanDefinitionParser("partitioned-region", new PartitionedRegionParser());
+		registerBeanDefinitionParser("partitioned-region-template", new PartitionedRegionParser());
 		registerBeanDefinitionParser("replicated-region", new ReplicatedRegionParser());
+		registerBeanDefinitionParser("replicated-region-template", new ReplicatedRegionParser());
 		registerBeanDefinitionParser("async-event-queue", new AsyncEventQueueParser());
 		registerBeanDefinitionParser("disk-store", new DiskStoreParser());
 		registerBeanDefinitionParser("gateway-hub", new GatewayHubParser());

src/main/java/org/springframework/data/gemfire/config/TemplateRegionParser.java

@@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
+/*
+ * Copyright 2010-2013 the original author or authors.
+ *
+ * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+ * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+ * You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *       http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+
+package org.springframework.data.gemfire.config;
+
+import org.springframework.beans.factory.support.BeanDefinitionBuilder;
+import org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.ParserContext;
+import org.springframework.data.gemfire.RegionAttributesFactoryBean;
+import org.springframework.data.gemfire.RegionFactoryBean;
+import org.w3c.dom.Element;
+
+/**
+ * The TemplateRegionParser class is a generic Region parser used to parse Region Template bean definitions in the
+ * Spring context configuration meta-data to encapsulate common Region 'attribute' configuration irrespective of the
+ * Region's Data Policy (e.g. REPLICATE, PARTITION).
+ *
+ * @author John Blum
+ * @see org.springframework.data.gemfire.RegionFactoryBean
+ * @see org.springframework.data.gemfire.config.AbstractRegionParser
+ * @since 1.5.0
+ */
+class TemplateRegionParser extends AbstractRegionParser {
+
+	@Override
+	protected Class<?> getRegionFactoryClass() {
+		return RegionFactoryBean.class;
+	}
+
+	@Override
+	protected void doParseRegion(Element element, ParserContext parserContext, BeanDefinitionBuilder builder,
+			boolean subRegion) {
+		BeanDefinitionBuilder regionAttributesBuilder = BeanDefinitionBuilder.genericBeanDefinition(
+			RegionAttributesFactoryBean.class);
+
+		doParseCommonRegionConfiguration(element, parserContext, builder, regionAttributesBuilder, subRegion);
+
+		builder.addPropertyValue("attributes", regionAttributesBuilder.getBeanDefinition());
+	}
+
+}