The Spring MVC programming model now provides explicit Servlet 3 async support. @RequestMapping methods can return one of: java.util.concurrent.Callable to complete processing in a separate thread managed by a task executor within Spring MVC. org.springframework.web.context.request.async.DeferredResult to complete processing at a later time from a thread not known to Spring MVC, e.g. in response to some external event (JSM, AMQP, etc.) org.springframework.web.context.request.async.AsyncTask to wrap a Callable and customize the timeout value or the task executor to use. See Introducing Servlet 3 Async Support (SpringSource team blog).

A ContentNeogtiationStrategy is now available for resolving the requested media types from an incoming request. The available implementations are based on path extension, request parameter, 'Accept' header, and a fixed default content type. Equivalent options were previously available only in the ContentNegotiatingViewResolver but are now available throughout. ContentNegotiationManager is the central class to use when configuring content negotiation options. It accepts one or more ContentNeogtiationStrategy instances and delegates to them. It can be plugged into RequestMappingHandlerMapping, RequestMappingHandlerAdapter, ExceptionHandlerExceptionResolver, and ContentNegotiatingViewResolver. The MVC namespace and the MVC Java config provide convenient options to configure all that. The introduction of ContentNegotiationManger also enables smart suffix pattern matching for incoming requests. See commit message

Classes annotated with @ControllerAdvice can contain @ExceptionHandler, @InitBinder, and @ModelAttribute methods and those will apply to @RequestMapping methods across controller hierarchies as opposed to the controller hierarchy within which they are declared. @ControllerAdvice is a component annotation allowing implementation classes to be auto-detected through classpath scanning.

A new @MatrixVariable annotation adds support for extracting matrix variables from the request URI. For more details see .

A convenient base class with an @ExceptionHandler method that handles standard Spring MVC exceptions and returns a ResponseEntity that allowing customizing and writing the response with HTTP message converters. This servers as an alternative to the DefaultHandlerExceptionResolver, which does the same but returns a ModelAndView instead. See the revised including information on customizing the default Servlet container error page.

The RestTemplate can now read an HTTP response to a generic type (e.g. List<Account>). There are three new exchange() methods that accept ParameterizedTypeReference, a new class that enables capturing and passing generic type info. In support of this feature, the HttpMessageConverter is extended by GenericHttpMessageConverter adding a method for reading content given a specified parameterized type. The new interface is implemented by the MappingJacksonHttpMessageConverter and also by a new Jaxb2CollectionHttpMessageConverter that can read read a generic Collection where the generic type is a JAXB type annotated with @XmlRootElement or @XmlType.

The Jackson Json 2 library is now supported. Due to packaging changes in the Jackson library, there are separate classes in Spring MVC as well. Those are MappingJackson2HttpMessageConverter and MappingJackson2JsonView. Other related configuration improvements include support for pretty printing as well as a JacksonObjectMapperFactoryBean for convenient customization of an ObjectMapper in XML configuration.

An @RequestBody or an @RequestPart argument can now be followed by an Errors argument making it possible to handle validation errors (as a result of an @Valid annotation) locally within the @RequestMapping method. @RequestBody now also supports a required flag.

The HTTP request method PATCH may now be used in @RequestMapping methods as well as in the RestTemplate in conjunction with Apache HttpComponents HttpClient version 4.2 or later. The JDK HttpURLConnection does not support the PATCH method.

Mapped interceptors now support URL patterns to be excluded. The MVC namespace and the MVC Java config both expose these options.