Foreach Common Java Libraries 2.0.0 Release Notes

By Davy

The Foreach Common Java Libraries (FCJL) are a set of small libraries, with limited dependencies and limited scope. Some of these libraries are used by Across, and had to be updated for Jakarta EE (a requirement for Spring Boot 3 and thus for Across 6). We made 2.0 and 3.0 releases, and a new module common-file-manager was added.

Overview

The last (public) release of these libraries was 1.1. There was also an internal-only 1.2 release (for MF), that was not published to Maven Central. The 1.x branch was still based on Spring Framework 4 and Hibernate 4, but was compatible with Across 5 (Spring Boot 2, with Spring Framework 5 and Hibernate 5).

We made a 2.0 branch where all dependencies are aligned with Spring Boot 2.7.18 (the last (public) Spring Boot 2 release) and a 3.0 branch where all dependencies are aligned with Spring Boot 3.2. Note that FCJL itself does not depend on Spring Boot: the spring-boot-starter-parent is simply and only used to get a consistent set of dependency versions.

In both the 2.0 and 3.0 branches, a new module is introduced: common-file-manager: This is an evolution of the Across file-manager-module, where all dependencies on Across have been removed.

Across 5.5.1 will update the dependencies on FCJL from 1.1 to 2.0.0, but that should have zero impact.

FCJL releases can be found on Maven Central:

https://central.sonatype.com/search?q=g:com.foreach.libs

Lastly, a Bill-of-Materials (BOM) pom.xml was introduced, so that other libraries and applications can easily import a consist set of libraries. The next section explains how use the commons-bom.

Using FCJL as dependencies in Maven

You will need to add a version property in the <properties> of your root pom.xml (typically in the top-level directory). If you are using Spring Boot 2 (Across 5):

<foreach-common-bom.version>2.0.0</foreach-common-bom.version>

or for Spring Boot 3 (Across 6):

<foreach-common-bom.version>3.0.0</foreach-common-bom.version>

Then in the <dependencyManagement> section under <dependencies>, add:

<dependency>
	<groupId>com.foreach.libs</groupId>
	<artifactId>common-bom</artifactId>
	<version>${foreach-common-bom.version}</version>
	<type>pom</type>
	<scope>import</scope>
</dependency>

Adding a dependency is then as simple as adding:

<dependency>
	<groupId>com.foreach.libs</groupId>
	<artifactId>common-file-manager</artifactId>
</dependency>

Removed modules

The common-test module was removed in 2.0.0: It provides only one class and that did not compile with the version of Mockito from Spring Boot 2.7.18. Across 5.5.0 had a dependency on this module, but it was not actually used. If it turns out that somebody still needs this, we can take another look at what the best option forward is.

common-file-manager

The Across file-manager-module actually consisted of three layers:

  1. The lowest layer consists of the FileManager and FileRepository interfaces and all the implementations (local files, (S)FTP, Amazon S3 and Azure Blob storage).

  2. The middle layer depends on the FileManager etc, and introduces the FileReference JPA entity. Unfortunately, it is hard to factor out because of all the dependencies it has on the across-hibernate-module and the properties-module . This isn’t used by projects C nor G, but it is used by project MI. FileReferenceProperties does not appear to be used anywhere.

  3. The top layer consists of the admin UI, based on entity-module and admin-web-module, which allows for browsing the file repositories. Obviously we won’t migrate this as is: in fact we won’t provide a web UI at all. You have many alternatives:

    • You can just use the native tools, such as the Azure Storage Exporer.

    • Use the IntelliJ Remote File Systems plugin, which supports local files, SFTP, and object storage for all major providers.

    • That plugin does not appear to support plain FTP, but there are many browsers for that, such as FileZilla (which supports FTP, FTP over TLS (FTPS) and SFTP)

So for now, we factored out only layer 1, into the common-file-manager module. Layer 2 could become common-file-manager-jpa, and as mentioned before, layer 3 will not be migrated.

Why are we keeping this?

  • This module provides a nice abstraction over file-systems, with some fairly specific semantics, such as the caching repository that delegates to an actual repository.

  • It is needed for some projects, when they remove their dependency on Across.

Migration steps:

  1. Start by configuring maven with the right dependencies as above, and don’t forget to remove the dependency on the old file-manager-module .

  2. The Java package name for the classes has been changed, so replace:

     com.foreach.across.modules.filemanager

    with:

     com.foreach.common.filemanager

    You obviously need to do this in all .java files, but there might be configuration files that might contain this package name, and that need to be adapted as well.

  3. file-manager-module created a FileManager bean automatically, but now you will need to create your own instance of FileManager(Impl) and add your repositories to that. Or you might use the FileRepositorys directly if you don’t need the FileManager/FileRepositoryRegistry functionality.

  4. Remove the fileManagerModule entry from your application.yml files (and/or -dev variants etc), as it will not be picked up anymore. You will need to replace this with your own configuration.

Git repository is moved

The legacy repository for FCJL is at Bitbucket: https://bitbucket.org/beforeach/common-java-libraries. This will not be updated anymore.

The internal repository where development happens is at: https://gitlab.eindhoven.io-internal.dev/antwerpen/common/foreach-common-java-libraries

And that is mirrored to the public GitHub repository at: https://github.com/ForeachOS/foreach-common-java-libraries

There is also an old Jira project, but that is not used anymore: https://foreach.atlassian.net/browse/FJCL