[Springframework-developer] Recent changes

[Rod J. <rod...@in...>]

All,

I've added a new HierarchicalBeanFactory interface. This is now implemented
by AbstractBeanFactory and extended by ApplicationContext. The functionality
was already there; I wanted it to be accessible without depending on an
abstract implementation class.

I've added several new methods to BeanFactoryUtils. These make it possible
to find all bean names *including beans defined in ancestors*. The
getBeanDefinitionNames() method etc on ListableBeanFactory apply only to the
current factory, and don't include ancestors. I didn't want to change this
behaviour, as it's a reasonable default, but I did need the option of
finding beans by type defined in a parent factory to support my new AOP
functionality. I didn't want to get into a HierarchicalListableBeanFactory,
which sounded a bit too fancy (plus might conflict with the clarity of the
existing methods) so I went for adding static helper methods.

Regards,
Rod