[ANNOUNCEMENT] HttpComponents HttpClient 4.3-beta2 release

[Oleg Kalnichevski <ol...@apache.org>]

This is the second BETA release of HttpClient 4.3. The most notable
features and improvements in the 4.3 branch are: 

* Support for Java 7 try-with-resources for resource management
(connection release.)

* Added fluent Builder classes for HttpEntity, HttpRequest, HttpClient
and SSLContext instances. 

* Deprecation of preference and configuration API based on HttpParams
interface in favor of constructor injection and plain configuration
objects.

* Reliance on object immutability instead of access synchronization for
thread safety. Several old classes whose instances can be shared by
multiple request exchanges have been replaced by immutable equivalents. 

* DefaultHttpClient,  DecompressingHttpClient, CachingHttpClient and
similar classes are deprecated in favor of builder classes that produce
immutable HttpClient instances. 

* HttpClient builders now dynamically construct a request execution
pipeline tailored specifically to the user configuration by physically
excluding unnecessary protocol components.

* There is now an option to construct a minimal HttpClient
implementation that can only execute basic HTTP message exchanges
without redirects, authentication, state management or proxy support.
This feature might be of particular use in web crawler development. 

* There is now option to avoid strict URI syntax for request URIs by
executing HTTP requests with an explicitly specified target host.
HttpClient will no longer attempt to parse the request URI if it does
not need to extract the target host from it.

* Better OSGi integration when running inside an OSGi containter.

The summary of the new HttpClient configuration and preference API can
be found here:

http://wiki.apache.org/HttpComponents/HttpClientConfiguration

This release also includes all fixes from the stable 4.2.x release
branch.

-------------------
Download -
<http://hc.apache.org/downloads.cgi>

Release notes -
<http://www.apache.org/dist/httpcomponents/httpclient/RELEASE_NOTES.txt>

HttpComponents site -
<http://hc.apache.org/>

-------------------

About Apache HttpClient

Although the java.net package provides basic functionality for accessing
resources via HTTP, it doesn't provide the full flexibility or
functionality needed by many applications. HttpClient seeks to fill this
void by providing an efficient, up-to-date, and feature-rich package
implementing the client side of the most recent HTTP standards and
recommendations.

Designed for extension while providing robust support for the base HTTP
protocol, HttpClient may be of interest to anyone building HTTP-aware
client applications such as web browsers, web service clients, or
systems that leverage or extend the HTTP protocol for distributed
communication.



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