Spring 3.0 already allows component stereotypes to be used in a
meta-annotation fashion, for example by creating a custom
@TransactionalService stereotype annotation which combines
@Transactional and @Service in a single, reusable, application-specific
annotation. However, the Spring TestContext Framework (TCF) currently
does not provide any support for test-related annotations to be used as
meta-annotations.

This commit overhauls the TCF with regard to how annotations are
retrieved and adds explicit support for the following annotations to be
used as meta-annotations in conjunction with the TCF.

- @ContextConfiguration
- @ContextHierarchy
- @ActiveProfiles
- @DirtiesContext
- @IfProfileValue
- @ProfileValueSourceConfiguration
- @BeforeTransaction
- @AfterTransaction
- @TransactionConfiguration
- @Rollback
- @TestExecutionListeners
- @Repeat
- @Timed
- @WebAppConfiguration

Note that meta-annotation support for @Transactional was already
available prior to this commit.

The following is a summary of the major changes included in this commit.

- Now using AnnotationUtils.getAnnotation() instead of
  Class.getAnnotation() where appropriate in the TestContext Framework.
- Now using AnnotationUtils.findAnnotation() instead of
  Class.isAnnotationPresent() where appropriate in the TestContext
  Framework.
- Introduced findAnnotationPrefersInteracesOverLocalMetaAnnotations() in
  AnnotationUtilsTests in order to verify the status quo.
- AnnotationUtils.findAnnotationDeclaringClass() and
  AnnotationUtils.findAnnotationDeclaringClassForTypes() now support
  meta annotations.
- Introduced MetaAnnotationUtils and AnnotationDescriptor in the
  spring-test module.
- Introduced UntypedAnnotationDescriptor in MetaAnnotationUtils.
- Introduced findAnnotationDescriptorForTypes() in MetaAnnotationUtils.
- ContextLoaderUtils now uses MetaAnnotationUtils for looking up
  @ActiveProfiles as a potential meta-annotation.
- TestContextManager now uses MetaAnnotationUtils for looking up
  @TestExecutionListeners as a potential meta-annotation.
- DirtiesContextTestExecutionListener now uses AnnotationUtils for
  looking up @DirtiesContext as a potential meta-annotation.
- Introduced DirtiesContextTestExecutionListenerTests.
- ProfileValueUtils now uses AnnotationUtils for looking up
  @IfProfileValue and @ProfileValueSourceConfiguration as potential
  meta-annotations.
- @BeforeTransaction and @AfterTransaction now support ANNOTATION_TYPE
  as a target, allowing them to be used as meta-annotations.
- TransactionalTestExecutionListener now uses AnnotationUtils for
  looking up @BeforeTransaction, @AfterTransaction, @Rollback, and
  @TransactionConfiguration as potential meta-annotations.
- Introduced TransactionalTestExecutionListenerTests.
- @Repeat and @Timed now support ANNOTATION_TYPE as a target, allowing
  them to be used as meta-annotations.
- SpringJUnit4ClassRunner now uses AnnotationUtils for looking up
  @Repeat and @Timed as potential meta-annotations.
- Moved all remaining logic for building the MergedContextConfiguration
  from the DefaultTestContext constructor to
  ContextLoaderUtils.buildMergedContextConfiguration().
- Verified meta-annotation support for @WebAppConfiguration and
  @ContextConfiguration.

Issue: SPR-7827

Issue: SPR-11034

Add getSource() method to ResolvableType and TypeDescriptor allowing
access to the underlying source field or method parameter when possible.

Primarily added to provide access to additional type information or
meta-data that alternative JVM languages may provide.

Issue: SPR-10887

Restore prior behavior of GenericTypeResolver.resolveTypeArguments to
never include null elements in the returned array.

Issue: SPR-11030

DefaultListableBeanFactory performs a fallback check for autowire candidates now, which GenericTypeAwareAutowireCandidateResolver implements to accept raw type matches if the target class has unresolvable type variables. Full generic matches are still preferred; the BeanFactory will only start looking for fallback matches if the first pass led to an empty result.

Issue: SPR-10993
Issue: SPR-11004

Support repeatable @PropertySource annotations in Java 8 and add
@PropertySources container annotation for Java 6/7. Also add an
ignoreResourceNotFound attribute to @PropertySource allowing missing
property resources to be silently ignored.

This commit also introduces some generally useful methods to
AnnotationUtils for working with @Repeatable annotations.

Issue: SPR-8371

The key contract is MvcUrls. An instance is automatically created with
the Spring MVC namespace and the MVC Java config but can also be easily
created in any configuration.

Some example tests can be found in DefaultMvcUrlsTests.

Issue: SPR-10665, SPR-8826

MvcUriComponentsBuilder allows creating URIs that point to Spring MVC
controller methods annotated with @RequestMapping. It builds them by
exposing a mock method invocation API similar to Mockito, records the
method invocations and thus builds up the URI by inspecting the mapping
annotations and the parameters handed into the method invocations.

Introduced a new SPI UriComponentsContributor that should be implemented 
by HandlerMethodArgumentResolvers that actually contribute path segments 
or query parameters to a URI. While the newly introduced 
MvcUriComponentsBuilder looks up those UriComponentsContributor instances 
from the MVC configuration.

The MvcUriComponentsBuilderFactory (name to be discussed - MvcUris maybe?) 
prevents the multiple lookups by keeping the UriComponentsBuilder 
instances in an instance variable. So an instance of the factory could 
be exposed as Spring bean or through a HandlerMethodArgumentResolver to 
be injected into Controller methods.

Issue: SPR-10665, SPR-8826

Restore the ability to create a TypeDescriptor for a collection or
map where the generics may be null.

Issue: SPR-11006

Refactor TypeDescriptor to use ResolvableType in order to retain full
generic type information, in the process fixing MultiValueMap support
in MapToMapConverter.

Issue: SPR-9499

Fix 'missing serialVersionUID' warnings, support for void.class types
and refine resolve() algorithm to support narrowed types.

Issue: SPR-10973

- Support for serialization
- Allow programmatic creation of an array from a given component type
- Allow programmatic creation with given generics
- Extract generics from Class types using Class.getTypeParameters()
- Move TypeVariableResolver to an inner class (and make method private)
- Refine 'resolve()' algorithm

Issue: SPR-10973

Includes revisions of MethodParameter and DependencyDescriptor (in particular towards a reference to the containing class). Also refines several ResolvableType method signatures.

Issue: SPR-9965

We're consistently resolving class names now, and the entire algorithm moved from GenericTypeResolver to the internal AutowireUtils helper in the bean factory package.

Issue: SPR-10411

Fix ResolvableType.isAssignableFrom to correctly deal with <?> style
generics.

Issue: SPR-10973

Refactor AbstractMessageConverterMethodArgumentResolver and
BridgeMethodResolver to use ResolvableType in preference to deprecated
GenericTypeResolver calls.

Issue: SPR-10980

Refactor GenericTypeResolver to make use of ResolvableType
for generic resolution.

Issue: SPR-10978

Add a new ResolvableType Class which encapsulates java.lang.reflect.Type,
providing access to supertypes, interfaces and generic parameters along
with the ability to ultimately resolve to a java.lang.Class.

ResolvableTypes may be obtained from fields, method parameters, method
returns, classes or directly from a java.lang.reflect.Type. Most methods
will themselves return ResolvableTypes, allowing easy navigation.

For example:

	private HashMap<Integer, List<String>> myMap;

	public void example() {
 		ResolvableType t = ResolvableType.forField(
 					getClass().getDeclaredField("myMap"));
 		t.getSuperType(); // AbstractMap<Integer, List<String>>;
 		t.asMap(); // Map<Integer, List<String>>
 		t.getGeneric(0).resolve(); // Integer
 		t.getGeneric(1).resolve(); // List
 		t.getGeneric(1); // List<String>
 		t.resolveGeneric(1, 0); // String
 	}

Issue: SPR-10973

Fix ASM AnnotationAttributesReadingVisitor to correctly deal with
subclasses enums.

Issue: SPR-10914

Added test to StandardReflectionParameterNameDiscoverer that
demonstrates discovering of parameter names on an interface.

Issue: SPR-9643

Added extension to Future with capabilities for registering callbacks
when the future is complete.

- Added ListenableFuture, ListenableFutureCallback,
  ListenableFutureCallbackRegistry, and ListenableFutureTask.
- Using ListenableFuture in AsyncRestOperations/AsyncRestTemplate.
- Added AsyncListenableTaskExecutor, implemented in
  SimpleAsyncTaskExecutor.
- Added FutureAdapter and ListenableFutureAdapter.

Issue: SPR-1528

Update AntPathMatcher Comparator to treat `/**` in the same way as
`null` paths.

Prior to this commit the pattern `/**` would be picked in preference
to patterns with 3 or more PathVariable (e.g. `/matches/{matchId}/
periods/{periodId}/teams/{teamId}/results`).

Issue: SPR-10550

Refine AntPathMatcher.combine rules to allow direct concatenation of
patterns when pattern1 does not contain '*.'. Prior to this commit
direct concatenation was allowed when pattern1 did not contain '.',
this prevented calls of the form:

	pathMatcher.combine("/1.0", "/foo/test")

from working as expected.

This commit also applies some general cleanup to the `combine` method.

Issue: SPR-10554

Issue: SPR-10819

MimeType is available in core-spring and does not include support
for quality parameters and media used in HTTP content negotiation.
The MediaType sub-class in org.springframework.http adds q-parameters.

PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer's "ignoreUnresolvablePlaceholders" setting reliably applies to nested placeholders as well

Issue: SPR-10549

Previously building with JDK > 1.8 b88 caused test failures due to errors
with custom compilers like Jibx and Jasper reports.

This commit adds a new TestGroup named CUSTOM_COMPILATION that allows the
CI server to continue to run these tests but allow committers to ignore
these tests.

Fix PathResourceTests so that paths are accessed in a platform
independent manor.

Issue: SPR-10770

Issue: SPR-10631

Add ByteBufferConverter that is registered by default with the
DefaultConversionService. Allows conversion from/to a ByteBuffer and
byte[] or to any type that can be converted via a byte[].

Issue: SPR-10712

Prior to this commit the Spring Framework did not provide a public means
for scanning for available server ports. However, the Spring Framework
internally used a FreePortScanner in integration tests within its own
test suite. Furthermore, Spring Integration 2.2 provides similar support
in a SocketUtils class in the spring-integration-test module.

This commit introduces SocketUtils in spring-core to replace the
FreePortScanner which was previously only used internally within
Spring's test suite. This new implementation is inspired by both Spring
Framework's FreePortScanner and Spring Integration's SocketUtils and
consequently attempts to merge the best of both previous
implementations.

Issue: SPR-8032

Develop new org.springframework.core.io.Resource implementation
backed by java.nio.file.Path. Primarily developed to allow custom
file system implementations to be used with Spring.

Since the minimum requirement for Spring is still Java 6 the
existing FileSystemResource can't be retrofitted (and no #getPath
method can be added to the Resource interface).

Unlike FileSystemResource, PathResource delegates to the underlying
file system instead of StringUtils. It has therefore slightly
different semantics. First, when building relative resources via
createRelative the relative path will apply to this path (like URL or
Unix). Second, equality is delegated to the underlying file system
provider so it's case-insensitive on Windows.

Issue: SPR-10608

 - Update Apache license headers
 - Remove trailing whitespace
 - Edit original commit comment to use 'Issue:' syntax
 - Revert use of diamond operator (<>) in main sources

See committer guidelines at
https://github.com/SpringSource/spring-framework/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md

Issue: SPR-10579

JOpt 4.4 has enumerable options, so this change can be made
if we upgrade. The only awkward thing is that JOpt allows
aliases for options, so we have to pick one to avoid double
counting. This implementation picks the last one in the list
which is the alphebtically last of the long options, if there
are any (e.g. "o1", "option1" returns "option1"). Most of the
time there will only be one or two aliases for each option so
it won't matter.

Issue: SPR-10579

Add a test to ensure that the CI server does not accidentally build
with the wrong JDK version.

Issue: SPR-10569

Issue: SPR-10514