Spring framework helps develop various types of applications using the Java platforms. It provides an extensive level of infrastructure support. Spring also provides the “Plain Old Java Objects” (POJOs) mechanisms using which developers can easily create the Java SE programming model with the full and partial JAVA EE(Enterprise Edition).
Spring strives to facilitate the complex and unmanageable enterprise Java application development revolution by offering a framework that incorporates technologies, such as:
- Aspect-oriented Programming (AOP)
- Dependency Injection (DI)
- Plain Old Java Object (POJO)
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Spring framework provides plenty of features. It helps application developers to perform the following functions:
- Create a Java method that runs in a database transaction with no help from transaction APIs.
- Create a local Java method that defines a remote procedure with no help from remote APIs.
- Create a local Java method for a management operation with no help from JMX APIs.
- Create a local Java method for a message handler with no help from JMS APIs.
Spring is a lightweight framework. It provides the best mechanisms for different frameworks, such as Struts, Hibernate, EJB, JSF, and Tapestry. It helps solve real-time technical problems. Spring contains multiple modules, such as WEB MVC, IOC, DAO, AOP, Context, and ORM.
Spring also helps create scalable, secure, and robust business-based web applications. We can consider the Spring framework a cluster of sub frameworks such as Spring Web Flow, Spring ORM, and Spring MVC. In expansion to Java, Spring also sustains Kotlin and Groovy.
The Spring framework provides a base that controls all the other Spring-based projects, such as:
- Spring Boot
- Spring Cloud
- Spring GraphQL
Spring Framework in Java: Advantages
Using the Spring framework, developers can leverage the below-listed advantages:
- Pre-defined Templates
Spring framework contains various types of templates for Hibernate, JDBC, and JPA technologies. With the help of this approach, developers are not required to define complex code.
Example: JdbcTemplate – Here, we do not need to write the logic for creating a statement, committing the transaction, creating a connection, and exception handling. It saves the time-consuming approach.
- Loose Coupling
We can consider Spring applications to be loosely coupled as per the dependency injection mechanisms.
- Easy and Simple to Test
It is easy to test the entire application using a spring framework with a dependency injection mechanism. The EJB or Struts application requires the server to execute the application.
- Non-invasive
As per the Plain Old Java Object (POJO) technique, Spring is easy to implement as it does not force the developer to inherit certain classes or implementations on any interface.
- Fast Development
With the help of Dependency Injection, it is easy to integrate the framework and support the development of JavaEE-based applications.
- Strong Abstraction Support
Spring supports the strong abstraction capability for Java EE-based specifications, such as JMS, JDBC, JPA, and JTA.
- Spring’s Web Framework is Well-Organized
It is a web MVC framework that delivers a fantastic option to web frameworks for developing applications using Struts or different widespread web frameworks.
- Spring Delivers a Suitable API
It translates technology-specific anomalies thrown by JDBC, Hibernate, or JDO into uniform, uncontrolled exceptions.
- Lightweight IoC
It is lightweight, particularly when compared to EJB containers, for example. This helps create and deploy applications on computers with restricted memory and CPU resources.
- Constant Transaction Management
Spring provides an interface that can help scale down to a local transaction (for example, using a single database) and scale up to global transactions (for example, JTA).
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Spring Core
In the Spring framework, we have certain features as discussed below:
- Dependency Injection (DI)
Dependency Injection is the core of Spring Framework. We can define the concept of Spring with the Inversion of Control (IoC). DI allows the creation of dependent objects outside of a class and provides those objects to a class in different ways. Dependency Injection can be utilized while defining the parameters to the Constructor or by post-construction using Setter methods.
The dependency feature can be summarized into an association between two classes. For example, suppose class X is dependent on class Y. Now, it can create many problems in the real world, including system failure. Hence such dependencies need to be avoided. Spring IOC resolves such dependencies with Dependency Injection. Here, it indicates that class Y will get injected into class X by the IoC. DI thus makes the code easier to test and reuse.
While creating a complex Java application, application classes should be independent of other Java classes to improve the possibility of reusing these classes and to test them independently of other classes during unit testing. Dependency Injection enables these classes to be together, and at the same time, keeps them independent.
- Support for Aspect-Oriented Programming
AOP provides more modularity to the cross-cutting challenges in applications.
Here are the functions we can use in our applications as per certain real-time challenges:
- Logging
- Caching
- Transaction management
- Authentication
AOP has the in-built object-oriented programming capabilities to define the structure of the program, where OOP modularity is established in classes.
In AOP, the primary unit of modularity is a factor (cross-cutting concern). This allows users to use AOP to build custom aspects and declarative enterprise services. The IoC container does not depend on AOP; it provides the custom enabled based capabilities which allow writing logic as per the programming method.
However, Aspect-Oriented Programming integrated with the Spring IoC delivers a robust middleware solution.
- Data Access Framework
Database communication problems are one of the common challenges which developers encounter when creating applications. Spring facilitates the database communication strategy by delivering immediate support for widespread data access frameworks in Java, such as Hibernate, JDBC, and Java Persistence API (JPA).
Additionally, it suggests resource management, exception handling, and resource wrapping for all the supported data access frameworks, further streamlining the development revolution.
- Transaction Management Framework
Java Transaction API (JTA), the Spring Transaction Management Framework, is not restricted to nested and global types of transactions. Spring presents an abstraction mechanism for Java that permits users to:
- Work with local, international, and nested transactions wise logics
- Savepoints
- Simplify transaction management across the application
The Spring Data Access Framework instantly combines with the Transaction Management Framework with help for messaging and caching. This allows developers to build feature-rich transactional systems that span across the applications without relying on EJB or JTA.
- Spring MVC Framework
The Spring MVC allows developers to develop applications utilizing the popular MVC pattern. It is a request-based framework that enables developers to develop custom MVC implementations that efficiently serve their needs.
The core component of Spring MVC is the DispatcherServlet class, which manages user requests and then delivers them to the right controller. This permits the controller to process the request, create the model, and then deliver the data to the end-user via a restricted view.
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- Spring Web Service
This Spring Web Service component supplies a streamlined way to build and handle web service endpoints in the application. It delivers a layered approach that can be controlled using XML. It can also be used to deliver mapping for web requests to a specific object.
- Spring Test Frameworks
Testing is a key component of application development. Spring streamlines testing within the framework with components like:
- Mock objects
- TestContext framework
- Spring MVC Test
- Core Container
This includes the essential modules that are the cornerstone of the Spring framework.
- Core (spring-core) is the framework’s core that controls features such as Inversion of Control and dependency injection.
- Beans (spring-beans) deliver BeanFactory, an advanced execution of the factory pattern.
- Context (spring-context) produces on Core and Beans and delivers a medium to access restricted objects. ApplicationContext interface is the core part of the Context module, and the spring-context support provides help for third-party interactions such as caching, mailing, and template engines.
- SpEL (spring-expression) allows users to use the Spring Expression Language to query and control the object graph at execution time.
- Data Access/Integration
This contains the modules used to manage data access and transaction processing in an application.
- JDBC (spring-jdbc) delivers a JDBC abstraction layer that eliminates the need to split JDBC coding when dealing using databases.
- ORM (spring-orm) are essential integration layers for overall object-relational mapping API, for example, JDO Hibernate, JPA, etc.
- OXM (spring-oxm) is the abstraction layer that supports Object/XML mapping implementations, for example, JAXB, XStream, etc.
- JMS (spring-jms) is the Java Messaging Service module that constructs and consumes messages that instantly incorporate the Spring messaging module.
- Transaction (spring-tx) offers programmatic and declarative transaction management for classes that include unique interfaces and POJOs.
Conclusion
We hope this article helped you understand Spring Framework and its advantages. In this article, we discussed the various types of definitions and benefits of the Spring core framework using several examples. This article will be helpful to professional developers from application development from the .net and JAVA backgrounds, application architectures, cloud specialists, testers, and other learners looking for uses of various types of mechanisms of the Spring framework.
Besides pursuing varied courses by Simplilearn, you can also sign up on our SkillUp platform, a Simplilearn initiative. This platform offers several free online courses to help with the basics of multiple programming languages, including Java programming language. You can also opt for our Java runtime Spring framework Full-Stack Web Development Certification Course to become a full-stack technologist and improve your career prospects.