why is DefaultAnnotationHandlerMapping deprecated?

Question

In Spring MVC, class DefaultAnnotationHandlerMapping is deprecated. Documentation ( http://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/javadoc-api/org/springframework/web/servlet/mvc/annotation/DefaultAnnotationHandlerMapping.html ) says:

Deprecated. in Spring 3.2 in favor of RequestMappingHandlerMapping

Why is it deprecated? What practical problems of this class were fixed in RequestMappingHandlerMapping?

Answer 1

Spring Framework is an open-source project hosted on GitHub so all this information is easy to find in the code:

1. Find the source file in question: click
2. Switch to "blame" view: click
3. Find all occurences of "@Deprecated" to find the associated commit: click
4. Commit message mentions "SPR-10005", find it on Spring JIRA: click
5. The JIRA ticket contains a link to the "what's new in version 3.1.3" document: click

The relevant part:

The new classes were developed in response to many requests to make annotation controller support classes more customizable and open for extension. Whereas previously you could configure a custom annotated controller method argument resolver, with the new support classes you can customize the processing for any supported method argument or return value type.