:star: New Features

• Remove unnecessary method.isAccessible() invocation #32548
• Improve names of classes generated by the SpEL compiler #32497
• Refine null-safety with NullAway build-time checks #32475
• Consistent handling of undeclared checked exceptions in CGLIB proxies #32469
• Resolve property-dependent parameter names for exception messages #32462
• Consistent ErrorHandler support in TaskScheduler variants #32460
• Add CBOR support to AllEncompassingFormHttpMessageConverter #32428
• Reject null return value from MethodReplacer for primitive return type #32412
• Make SpEL's OptimalPropertyAccessor private #32410
• NPE when using pathExtension predicate for routes that have no file extensions #32404
• Use Map#computeIfAbsent in SpEL support classes #32385
• Use ELContext instead of deprecated VariableResolver API in JspPropertyAccessor #32383
• Add web support for YAML via Jackson #32345
• Add DataSource configuration/exposure to LocalEntityManagerFactoryBean #32344
• ServletResponseHttpHeaders ignores content type in ServletResponse #32339
• Use ConcurrentHashMap.newKeySet where feasible #32294
• Avoid resizing of fixed-size HashSet/LinkedHashSet variants #32291
• Support backticks for quoted identifiers in spring-r2dbc #32285
• Avoid internal lifecycle synchronization for SingleConnectionFactory and SingleConnectionDataSource #32284
• DefaultMessageListenerContainer should be able to scale down using default config #32260
• Revise DefaultMessageListenerContainer for first-class virtual thread support #32252
• Optimize Request Predicate attribute merging #32245
• Add ThreadLocalAccessor for LocaleContext and RequestAttributes #32243
• Avoid ASYNC dispatch if possible in DefaultAsyncServerResponse #32223
• Deprecate LobHandler and SqlXmlHandler abstractions (including SqlLobValue and related support classes) #32179
• Revisit default lifecycle phases and timeouts (e.g. for ThreadPoolTaskScheduler) #32152
• Harmonize ChannelRegistration to use Executor rather than TaskExecutor #32129
• Deprecate HttpHeaders.writableHttpHeaders #32116
• JsonPathAssertions methods that take a type used as a lambda should be ordered consistently #32062
• Deprecate local variable support in SpEL's internal ExpressionState #32004
• Support sending large STOMP messages as fragmented frames on WebSocketStompClient #31970
• NamedParameterJdbcTemplate does not support backticks for quoted identifiers #31944
• Use UTF-8 by default for JSON multipart content in ContentRequestMatchers #31924
• Add interception of RFC-7807 responses #31822
• Provide more control over charset parameter when writing form data #31781
• Enhance WebTestClient to support JSONPath decoding to higher level objects #31653
• Enhance JsonPathExpectationsHelper to allow use of JSONPath Configuration #31651
• Support "--" end of options in SimpleCommandLineArgsParser #31513
• Make use of bean definition overriding more visible #31288
• Initial support for Servlet 6.1 #31159
• Initial support for JPA 3.2 #31157
• Support to propagate a savepoint operation via TransactionSynchronization #30509
• Resolve type variable recursively in GenericTypeResolver #30079
• Propagate WebClient attributes into underlying HTTP client request where possible #29958
• Provide a safe way to override and mock beans in the TestContext framework #29917
• Invoke methods via public interface/superclass in compiled SpEL expressions #29857
• Introduce null-safe index operator in SpEL #29847
• @Valid annotation can't establish dependency relationship between beans #29730
• Optimize constructor dependency injection performance for parameter name matches #28122
• Efficient webjars version resolution natively in Spring #27619
• Throw Exception when two primary beans are present in one factory #26612
• Allow creation of Beans that cannot be autowired by type unless qualified #26528
• Introduce IndexAccessor SPI to customize the SpEL Indexer #26478
• Introduce support for non-@Primary fallback beans #26241
• Optimize ConfigurationClassPostProcessor#enhanceConfigurationClasses method to shorten startup time #25738
• Inherited @Transactional methods should be able to use class-level TransactionManager qualifier from concrete class #24291
• TaskScheduler does not work with TaskDecorator #23755
• Synchronization during singleton creation may result in deadlock #23501
• Allow global default for @Transactional rollback behavior on checked exceptions #23473
• Add support for resolving multiple bounds in type variables #22902
• @Transactional annotation can't establish dependency relationship between beans #22526
• Asynchronous EntityManagerFactory bootstrapping to complete on context refresh completion [SPR-17334] #21868
• Provide a mechanism to be notified that a bean has been created [SPR-16822] #21362
• Reduce the effect of different base package configuration on component scanning performance and make the effect more intuitive [SPR-16649] #21190
• Support AssertJ variant in MockMvc [SPR-16637] #21178
• Support configuration of connection URL via EmbeddedDatabaseBuilder [SPR-16619] #21160
• Revisit storage of null attributes in AbstractFallbackTransaction/CacheAttributeSource [SPR-15513] #20072
• Asynchronous initialization of beans during startup [SPR-14920] #19487
• Autowiring with @Autowired/@Inject get much slower than with @Resource as the number of classes increases [SPR-13086] #17677
• Parallel bean initialization during startup [SPR-8767] #13410
• Support escaping prefix and separator in property placeholders [SPR-4953] #9628

:lady_beetle: Bug Fixes

• Transactional event listener invoked like standard event listener if @EnableTransactionManagement not active #32319
• Stop overriding thread name prefix for externally configured Executor in ChannelRegistration #32132
• WebClient and RestClient's defaultRequest(..) is not invoked early enough #32053
• Alias resolution in SimpleAliasRegistry depends on hash codes of alias values #32024
• Fix DefaultDataBuffer#getNativeBuffer() to set correct limit #32009
• DefaultDataBuffer#setNativeBuffer violates contract of DataBuffer #30984
• The method getNativeBuffer() in DefaultDataBuffer returns misconfigured ByteBuffer #30967
• ApplicationContext caches are not cleared as expected when beans are lazy initialized #30954
• A configuration class superclass that is skipped due to register bean phase conditions is ignored when another configuration class that extends it is processed #28676
• Configuration class parsing registers bean in parent class if overridden @Bean method defines an alternative name #28286
• Conditions to determine if @ComponentScan should be applied can be chosen from the wrong class #27077
• Fallback with placeholder is evaluated even if the fallback is not required #26268
• Name of scanned @Configuration class affects @Import to work or fail #24643
• Reject conditional @ComponentScan declarations that rely on the REGISTER_BEAN phase #23206
• Initialization blocked by multi-threaded event publishing [SPR-16357] #20904
• Invalid instance injected for generic type in case of partial type variable [SPR-16179] #20727

:notebook_with_decorative_cover: Documentation

• Polish Bean Overriding in Tests section of the reference guide #32411
• Improve Javadoc for substituteNamedParameters() in NamedParameterUtils regarding empty lists #32380
• StringUtils.uriDecode decodes strings with non-ASCII characters incorrectly #32360
• Improve documentation for SpEL indexing support #32355
• Document when the JPA infrastructure is ready for use #26153
• Refactor configuration code samples to be more relevant for modern Spring applications #22171

:hammer: Dependency Upgrades

• Upgrade to HtmlUnit 3.11.0 #30392
• Upgrade to Micrometer 1.13.0-RC1 #32595
• Upgrade to Reactor 2024.0.0-M1 #32591

:heart: Contributors

Thank you to all the contributors who worked on this release:

@FelixDes, @Flamme1004K, @LeMikaelF, @PhilKes, @Trympyrym, @ZeroCyan, @alidandach, @andrea-mauro, @azdanov, @deejay1, @injae-kim, @izeye, @jackmiking, @kilink, @nullzl, @quaff, @ttddyy, and @yuhangbin