See release notes:
https://jira.codehaus.org/secure/ReleaseNote.jspa?projectId=10242&version=20415

Issue: SPR-11855

Issue: SPR-11777

Prior to this commit, AntPathMatcher had been refactored for SPR-6741.
During that process, a key feature has been removed:
When comparing two patterns, pattern elements (*, {}, etc) are counted
to score those patterns. When a pattern ends with ".*", the ending
wildcard should not be counted against pattern elements for this
pattern.

This commit reintroduces that behavior.

Issue: SPR-6741

Issue: SPR-6741

Prior to this commit, "**" and "*" pattern elements had
the same priority when comparing two patterns.
So when comparing several patterns, the computed order was:
1- /hotels/{hotel}/bookings/{booking}
2- /hotels/**
3- /hotels/{hotel}/bookings/{booking}/customer/{customer}

This commit updates the comparator so that patterns ending
with "**" (a.k.a "catch-all" patterns) are less specific than
the others; in the previous example, the 2nd pattern would
then end up last.

This commit also optimizes the comparator implementation.

Issue: SPR-6741

Since SPR-11486 and SPR-10163, Path Matching options can be configured
to customize path matching options for RequestMappingHandlerMapping.
Prior to this commit, the defined pathMatcher and pathHelper instances
were only used in RequestMappingHandlerMapping.

This commit now registers pathMatcher and pathHelper beans under
well-known names and share them with several HandlerMappings beans,
such as ViewControllerMappings and ResourcesMappings.

Issue: SPR-11753

* patch-2:
  Fix method comment for getRequiredProperty(String)

This commit provides a proper documentation for the @ComponentScan
annotation as a java config alternative to <context:component-scan/>

Issue: SPR-11846

Issue: SPR-11854

This commit adds a new function to the Spring tag library for preparing
links to @Controller methods. For more details see the Javadoc of
MvcUriComponentsBuilder.fromMappingName.

Issue: SPR-5779

This commit adds support for Groovy Markup templates.
Spring's support requires Groovy 2.3.1+.

To use it, simply create a GroovyMarkupConfigurer and a
GroovyMarkupViewResolver beans in the web application context.

Issue: SPR-11789

Issue: SPR-11862

* SPR-8045:
  polishing
  Using SmartLifecycle to register MBeans

Reorganized class structure to match our code style (setter for
properties at the top of the class, public method before private
implementation).

Removed DisposableBean as it the lifecycle is already taking care
of removing MBeans on stop.

Cleaned test suite

Issue: SPR-8045

Prior to this commit, MBeans were registered in a post construct
call of MBeanExporter. This commit moves that logic after the
initialization phase using the SmartLifecycle callback.

Issue: SPR-8045

Issue: SPR-117711

Enable JSONP support by wrapping the JSON output into
a callback when a JSONP query parameter specifying the
function name to use as callback is detected.

Default query parameter names recognized as JSONP ones
are "jsonp" and "callback". This list can be customized if
needed.

This commit also fixes JSONView support by removing
the view name specified in the model from the output.

Issue: SPR-8346

Before this change @ModelAttribute methods were not invoked in any
particular order other than ensuring global @ControllerAdvice methods
are called first and local @Controller methods second.

This change introduces a simple algorithm that selects the next
@ModelAttribute method to invoke by making a pass over all methods and
looking for one that has no dependencies (i.e. @ModelAttribute
input arguments) or has all dependencies resolved (i.e. available in
the model). The process is repeated until no more @ModelAttribute
methods remain.

If the next @ModelAttribute method cannot be determined because all
remaining methods have unresolved dependencies, the first available
method is picked anyway just as before, i.e. with required
dependencies created through the default constructor.

Examples in ModelFactoryOrderingTests.

Issue: SPR-6299

Reference documentation consistently refers to Apache HttpComponents instead of outdated Commons HttpClient

Includes overhaul of remaining references to J2SE and J2EE, consistently replacing them with "the JDK" and "Java EE".

Issue: SPR-11853

Issue: SPR-11842

AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory's getTypeForFactoryBean considers FactoryBean<Object> declarations as non-indicative (just like raw declarations)

Issue: SPR-11842

Issue: SPR-11828

Issue: SPR-11764

Issue: SPR-11766

Includes support for arbitrary deep nesting levels in DependencyDescriptor's getDependencyType() and MethodParameter's getNestedParameterType().

Issue: SPR-11833

Issue: SPR-11833

ConfigurationClassParser falls back to ASM-based resolution of member classes in case of NoClassDefFoundError

Issue: SPR-11844

* patch01:
  Reference manual polishing