Spring Module

As of Spring version 3.1, Spring comes with 20 modules, packaged into 20 JAR files.

 

JAR File	Description
aop	This module contains all the classes you need to use Spring’s AOP features within your application. You also need to include this JAR in your application if you plan to use other features in Spring that use AOP, such as declarative transaction management. Moreover, classes that support integration with AspectJ are packed in this module too.
asm	ASM (asm.ow2.org) is a Java bytecode manipulation framework. Spring depends on this library to analyze the bytecode of Spring beans, dynamically modify them, and generate new bytecode during runtime.
aspects	This module contains all the classes for advanced integration with the AspectJ AOP library. For example, if you are using Java classes for your Spring configuration and need AspectJ-style annotation-driven transaction management, you will need this module.
beans	This module contains all the classes for supporting Spring’s manipulation of Spring beans. Most of the classes here support Spring’s bean factory implementation. For example, the classes required to parse the Spring’s XML configuration file and Java annotations were packed into this module.
context	This module contains classes that provide many extensions to the Spring core. You will find that all classes need to use Spring’s ApplicationContext feature, along with classes for EJB, Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI), and Java Management Extensions (JMX) integration. Also contained in this module are the Spring remoting classes, classes for integration with dynamic scripting languages (e.g., JRuby, Groovy, BeanShell), the Beans Validation (JSR-303) API, scheduling and task execution, and so on.
context.support	This module contains further extensions to the spring-context module. On the user interface side, there are classes for mail support and integration with templating engines such as Velocity, FreeMarker, and JasperReports. Also, integration with various task execution and scheduling libraries including CommonJ and Quartz are packaged here.
core	This is the core module that you will need for every Spring application. In this JAR file, you will find all the classes that are shared among all other Spring modules, for example, classes for accessing configuration files. Also, in this JAR, you will find a selection of extremely useful utility classes that are used throughout the Spring codebase and that you can use in your own application.
expression	This module contains all support classes for Spring Expression Language (SpEL).
instrument	This module includes Spring’s instrumentation agent for Java Virtual Machine (JVM) bootstrapping. This JAR file is required for using load-time weaving with AspectJ in a Spring application.
instrument.tomcat	This module includes Spring’s instrumentation agent for JVM bootstrapping in the Tomcat server.
jdbc	This module includes all classes for JDBC support. You will need this module for all applications that require database access. Classes for supporting data sources, JDBC data types, JDBC templates, native JDBC connections, and so on, are packed in this module.
jms	This module includes all classes for JMS support.
orm	This module extends Spring’s standard JDBC feature set with support for popular ORM tools including Hibernate, iBATIS (but not MyBatis), JDO, and JPA. Many of the classes in this JAR depend on classes contained in spring-jdbc.jar, so you definitely need to include that in your application as well.
oxm	This modules provide support for OXM (object to XML mapping). Classes for abstraction of XML marshaling and unmarshaling and support for popular tools like Castor, JAXB, XMLBeans, XStream, and so on, are packed into this module.
web.struts	This module include all classes for integration between Spring and the Struts web framework.
test	Spring provides a set of mock classes to aid in testing your applications. Many of these mock classes are used within the Spring test suite, so they are well-tested and make testing your applications much simpler. Certainly we have found great use for the mock HttpServletRequest and HttpServletResponse classes in unit tests for our web applications. On the other hand, Spring provides a tight integration with the JUnit unit testing framework, and many classes that support the development of JUnit test cases are provided in this module; for example, the SpringJUnit4ClassRunner provides a simple way to bootstrap the Spring ApplicationContext in a unit test environment.
transaction	This module provides all classes for supporting Spring’s transaction infrastructure. You will find classes from the transaction abstraction layer to support of the Java Transaction API (JTA) and integration with application servers from major vendors.
web	This module contains the core classes for using Spring in your web applications, including classes for loading an ApplicationContext feature automatically, file upload support classes, and a bunch of useful classes for performing repetitive tasks such as parsing int values from the query string.
web.servlet	This module contains all the classes for Spring’s own MVC framework. If you are using a separate MVC framework for your application, then you won’t need any of the classes from this JAR file.
web.portlet	This module provides support for using Spring MVC in developing portlets for deployment to a portal server environment.