Spring 3.2.x with Java 8

Question

We are currently using spring 3.2.9. We are thinking of upgrading that to a newer version. When I checked the documentation it says that Along with 4.0 M1, we’ve released Spring Framework 3.2.3, containing fixes for recently reported issues but also coming with OpenJDK 8 runtime support. Spring Framework 3.2.x will support deployment on JDK 8 runtimes for applications compiled against JDK 7 (with -target 1.7) or earlier. Does that imply that I can't compile on Java 8? Should I use spring version 4.0.x if I wanna compile with Java 8?

Accepted Answer

There is a best effort support of JDK8 in the 3.2.x line, as of 3.2.9+.

See SPR-11656 for initial support in 3.2.9 and SPR-11979 for bytecode support improvements in 3.2.10. Please note the support limitations explained in the comments.

For comprehensive support of JDK8, please upgrade to Spring 4.x - there's a dedicated wiki page explaining the upgrade path, and the Spring team made great efforts to make that upgrade experience really easy.

Spring 3.2.x with Java 8

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