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The new jdiff task generates a report of API differences between the current version (i.e. the value of `version` in gradle.properties) and any older version of the framework, as specified by -DOLD_VERSION at the command line, or defaulting to `previousVersion` in gradle.properties. Running the command requires a separate clone directory pinned to the desired old version, as specified by -DOLD_VERSION_ROOT at the command line. This creates challenges from a build automation perspective, largely because Gradle doesn't (yet) have APIs for working with Git. This task may be further automated and included in nightly CI runs, but in the meantime, a number of reports back to 3.1.3.RELEASE have been generated manually and uploaded to [1], where one can now find the following entries in the directory listing: - 3.1.3.RELEASE_to_3.2.0.RC1 - 3.2.0.M1_to_3.2.0.M2 - 3.2.0.M2_to_3.2.0.RC1 - 3.2.0.RC1_to_3.2.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT Ideally, the final entry there would be kept up-to-date on a daily basis - again we may revisit doing so in the future. Going forward, reports will be generated and uploaded manually on an as needed basis and as part of the release process. The goal of these reports are as follows: - to ease the process of ensuring backward compatibility - to aid in code reviews, particularly when reviewing large pull requests - to ease the process of creating migration guides for project maintainers, i.e. to help us remember what's changed - to allow ambitious end-users to discover what's been changing at the API level without without needing to wait for detailed "what's new in version X" and/or migration guide documentation See documentation in jdiff.gradle for usage details. Note that the jdiff-1.1.1 distribution as downloaded from [2] has been added wholesale to the source tree under gradle/jdiff instead of uploading JDiff jars to repo.springsource.org as we would normally do. This is due to some unfortunate limitations in the implementation of the jdiff ant task that require a phisical JDIFF_HOME directory. Checking in the jars and various resources represents the simplest and most pragmatic solution to this problem, though ambitious contributors are free to do what's necessary to arrive at a more elegant arrangement. [1]: http://static.springframework.org/spring-framework/docs [2]: http://sourceforge.net/projects/javadiff/files/latest/download Issue: SPR-9957
Spring Framework
The Spring Framework provides a comprehensive programming and configuration model for modern Java-based enterprise applications - on any kind of deployment platform. A key element of Spring is infrastructural support at the application level: Spring focuses on the "plumbing" of enterprise applications so that teams can focus on application-level business logic, without unnecessary ties to specific deployment environments.
The framework also serves as the foundation for Spring Integration, Spring Batch and the rest of the Spring family of projects. Browse the repositories under the SpringSource organization on GitHub for a full list.
.NET and Python variants are available as well.
Downloading artifacts
See downloading Spring artifacts for Maven repository information. Unable to use Maven or other transitive dependency management tools? See building a distribution with dependencies.
Documentation
See the current Javadoc and reference docs.
Getting support
Check out the Spring forums and the spring and spring-mvc tags on Stack Overflow. Commercial support is available too.
Issue Tracking
Report issues via the Spring Framework JIRA. Understand our issue management process by reading about the lifecycle of an issue. Think you've found a bug? Please consider submitting a reproduction project via the spring-framework-issues GitHub repository. The readme there provides simple step-by-step instructions.
Building from source
The Spring Framework uses a Gradle-based build system. In the instructions
below, ./gradlew is invoked from the root of the source tree and serves as
a cross-platform, self-contained bootstrap mechanism for the build. The only
prerequisites are Git and JDK 1.7+.
check out sources
git clone git://github.com/SpringSource/spring-framework.git
compile and test, build all jars, distribution zips and docs
./gradlew build
install all spring-* jars into your local Maven cache
./gradlew install
import sources into your IDE
Run ./import-into-eclipse.sh or read import-into-idea.md as appropriate.
... and discover more commands with ./gradlew tasks. See also the Gradle
build and release FAQ.
Contributing
Pull requests are welcome; see the contributor guidelines for details.
Staying in touch
Follow @springframework and its team members on Twitter. In-depth articles can be found at the SpringSource team blog, and releases are announced via our news feed.
License
The Spring Framework is released under version 2.0 of the Apache License.