Remove Tiles 2 support [SPR-13229]

[spring-projects-issues]

Juergen Hoeller opened SPR-13229 and commented

After the deprecation in Spring 4.2 (#16828), let's eventually remove Tiles 2 support in Spring 4.3.

Tiles 3.0 went GA in May 2012. However, arguably it was only properly usable with Spring as of 3.0.3 in November 2013. That'll be 2.5 years ago by the time of our 4.3 GA.

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Issue Links:

• Deprecate Tiles 2 support [SPR-12214] #16828 Deprecate Tiles 2 support

Referenced from: commits b75f5fa, 4027bda, 57b3ee3

[spring-projects-issues]

Kiril Nugmanov commented

Created pull request 847

[spring-projects-issues]

Rob Winch commented

Juergen Hoeller This change means that users can no longer use Thymeleaf / Tiles support since Thymeleaf only support Tiles 2. Given Thymleaf is so popular, is this something you view acceptable? Perhaps we could ensure that Thymleaf adds Tiles 3 support before we remove this (i.e. re-introduce it until then)?

[spring-projects-issues]

Juergen Hoeller commented

Rob Winch, good point, I wasn't aware of Thymeleaf in that respect. However, Tiles 2.2 dates back to 2010, so it really is rather old from a mid-2016 perspective...

Does Thymeleaf actually rely on Spring's Tiles support directly? Or is just about the inconsistency between Spring not shipping Tiles 2 support anymore whereas it still has to be used with Thymeleaf?

Juergen

[spring-projects-issues]

Juergen Hoeller commented

In any case, this might be reason enough to reintroduce our Tiles 2 support in its deprecated form... We will definitely remove it in Spring Framework 5.0 though, even if other frameworks still don't support Tiles 3 at that time. Otherwise we'll never get rid of it :-(

[spring-projects-issues]

Rob Winch commented

Does Thymeleaf actually rely on Spring's Tiles support directly? Or is just about the inconsistency between Spring not shipping Tiles 2 support anymore whereas it still has to be used with Thymeleaf?

Juergen Hoeller I discovered the error when running the Spring Security's tests against the SNAPSHOT of Spring Framework. The stacktrace is below. At minimum, it appears that Thymeleaf relies on Spring's Tiles 2 support for configuration.

java.lang.IllegalStateException: Failed to load ApplicationContext
	at org.springframework.test.context.cache.DefaultCacheAwareContextLoaderDelegate.loadContext(DefaultCacheAwareContextLoaderDelegate.java:124)
	at org.springframework.test.context.support.DefaultTestContext.getApplicationContext(DefaultTestContext.java:83)
	at org.springframework.test.context.web.ServletTestExecutionListener.setUpRequestContextIfNecessary(ServletTestExecutionListener.java:183)
	at org.springframework.test.context.web.ServletTestExecutionListener.prepareTestInstance(ServletTestExecutionListener.java:123)
	at org.springframework.test.context.TestContextManager.prepareTestInstance(TestContextManager.java:228)
	at org.springframework.test.context.junit4.SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.createTest(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.java:224)
	at org.springframework.test.context.junit4.SpringJUnit4ClassRunner$1.runReflectiveCall(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.java:283)
	at org.junit.internal.runners.model.ReflectiveCallable.run(ReflectiveCallable.java:12)
	at org.springframework.test.context.junit4.SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.methodBlock(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.java:285)
	at org.springframework.test.context.junit4.SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.runChild(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.java:243)
	at org.springframework.test.context.junit4.SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.runChild(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.java:90)
	at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner$3.run(ParentRunner.java:290)
	at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner$1.schedule(ParentRunner.java:71)
	at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.runChildren(ParentRunner.java:288)
	at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.access$000(ParentRunner.java:58)
	at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner$2.evaluate(ParentRunner.java:268)
	at org.springframework.test.context.junit4.statements.RunBeforeTestClassCallbacks.evaluate(RunBeforeTestClassCallbacks.java:61)
	at org.springframework.test.context.junit4.statements.RunAfterTestClassCallbacks.evaluate(RunAfterTestClassCallbacks.java:70)
	at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.run(ParentRunner.java:363)
	at org.springframework.test.context.junit4.SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.run(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.java:187)
	at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.testing.junit.JUnitTestClassExecuter.runTestClass(JUnitTestClassExecuter.java:105)
	at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.testing.junit.JUnitTestClassExecuter.execute(JUnitTestClassExecuter.java:56)
	at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.testing.junit.JUnitTestClassProcessor.processTestClass(JUnitTestClassProcessor.java:64)
	at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.testing.SuiteTestClassProcessor.processTestClass(SuiteTestClassProcessor.java:50)
	at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
	at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
	at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
	at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:497)
	at org.gradle.messaging.dispatch.ReflectionDispatch.dispatch(ReflectionDispatch.java:35)
	at org.gradle.messaging.dispatch.ReflectionDispatch.dispatch(ReflectionDispatch.java:24)
	at org.gradle.messaging.dispatch.ContextClassLoaderDispatch.dispatch(ContextClassLoaderDispatch.java:32)
	at org.gradle.messaging.dispatch.ProxyDispatchAdapter$DispatchingInvocationHandler.invoke(ProxyDispatchAdapter.java:93)
	at com.sun.proxy.$Proxy2.processTestClass(Unknown Source)
	at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.testing.worker.TestWorker.processTestClass(TestWorker.java:106)
	at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
	at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
	at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
	at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:497)
	at org.gradle.messaging.dispatch.ReflectionDispatch.dispatch(ReflectionDispatch.java:35)
	at org.gradle.messaging.dispatch.ReflectionDispatch.dispatch(ReflectionDispatch.java:24)
	at org.gradle.messaging.remote.internal.hub.MessageHub$Handler.run(MessageHub.java:360)
	at org.gradle.internal.concurrent.ExecutorPolicy$CatchAndRecordFailures.onExecute(ExecutorPolicy.java:54)
	at org.gradle.internal.concurrent.StoppableExecutorImpl$1.run(StoppableExecutorImpl.java:40)
	at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142)
	at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)
	at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
Caused by: org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanDefinitionStoreException: Failed to parse configuration class [org.springframework.security.samples.mvc.config.WebMvcConfiguration]; nested exception is java.lang.IllegalStateException: Failed to introspect annotated methods on class org.springframework.security.samples.mvc.config.WebMvcConfiguration
	at org.springframework.context.annotation.ConfigurationClassParser.parse(ConfigurationClassParser.java:181)
	at org.springframework.context.annotation.ConfigurationClassPostProcessor.processConfigBeanDefinitions(ConfigurationClassPostProcessor.java:321)
	at org.springframework.context.annotation.ConfigurationClassPostProcessor.postProcessBeanDefinitionRegistry(ConfigurationClassPostProcessor.java:243)
	at org.springframework.context.support.PostProcessorRegistrationDelegate.invokeBeanDefinitionRegistryPostProcessors(PostProcessorRegistrationDelegate.java:273)
	at org.springframework.context.support.PostProcessorRegistrationDelegate.invokeBeanFactoryPostProcessors(PostProcessorRegistrationDelegate.java:98)
	at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.invokeBeanFactoryPostProcessors(AbstractApplicationContext.java:678)
	at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:520)
	at org.springframework.test.context.web.AbstractGenericWebContextLoader.loadContext(AbstractGenericWebContextLoader.java:133)
	at org.springframework.test.context.web.AbstractGenericWebContextLoader.loadContext(AbstractGenericWebContextLoader.java:60)
	at org.springframework.test.context.support.AbstractDelegatingSmartContextLoader.delegateLoading(AbstractDelegatingSmartContextLoader.java:109)
	at org.springframework.test.context.support.AbstractDelegatingSmartContextLoader.loadContext(AbstractDelegatingSmartContextLoader.java:261)
	at org.springframework.test.context.cache.DefaultCacheAwareContextLoaderDelegate.loadContextInternal(DefaultCacheAwareContextLoaderDelegate.java:98)
	at org.springframework.test.context.cache.DefaultCacheAwareContextLoaderDelegate.loadContext(DefaultCacheAwareContextLoaderDelegate.java:116)
	... 45 more
Caused by: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Failed to introspect annotated methods on class org.springframework.security.samples.mvc.config.WebMvcConfiguration
	at org.springframework.core.type.StandardAnnotationMetadata.getAnnotatedMethods(StandardAnnotationMetadata.java:163)
	at org.springframework.context.annotation.ConfigurationClassParser.doProcessConfigurationClass(ConfigurationClassParser.java:291)
	at org.springframework.context.annotation.ConfigurationClassParser.processConfigurationClass(ConfigurationClassParser.java:231)
	at org.springframework.context.annotation.ConfigurationClassParser.parse(ConfigurationClassParser.java:198)
	at org.springframework.context.annotation.ConfigurationClassParser.parse(ConfigurationClassParser.java:167)
	... 57 more
Caused by: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/springframework/web/servlet/view/tiles2/TilesConfigurer
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:760)
	at java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(SecureClassLoader.java:142)
	at java.net.URLClassLoader.defineClass(URLClassLoader.java:467)
	at java.net.URLClassLoader.access$100(URLClassLoader.java:73)
	at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:368)
	at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:362)
	at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
	at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:361)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:424)
	at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Launcher.java:331)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:357)
	at java.lang.Class.getDeclaredMethods0(Native Method)
	at java.lang.Class.privateGetDeclaredMethods(Class.java:2701)
	at java.lang.Class.getDeclaredMethods(Class.java:1975)
	at org.springframework.core.type.StandardAnnotationMetadata.getAnnotatedMethods(StandardAnnotationMetadata.java:152)
	... 61 more
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.springframework.web.servlet.view.tiles2.TilesConfigurer
	at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:381)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:424)
	at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Launcher.java:331)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:357)
	... 77 more

We will definitely remove it in Spring Framework 5.0 though, even if other frameworks still don't support Tiles 3 at that time.

I think that makes sense. I went ahead and created a ticket for Thymeleaf to support Tiles 3 thymeleaf/thymeleaf-extras-tiles2#24

[spring-projects-issues]

Juergen Hoeller commented

I'm bringing our Tiles 2 support back to master, with an extra bold deprecation note in the javadoc of each class, moving this issue to the 5.0 timeframe for eventual pruning there then.

Juergen