Deprecations

Spring Boot uses @Deprecation annotations and Javadoc tags to indicate that a method, constructor or class will be removed in a future release. As much as possible, deprecated code will remain for at least one subsequent release. For example, a method deprecated in Spring Boot 2.2 will still be available in Spring Boot 2.3 but will be removed in Spring Boot 2.4.

The Javadoc used for deprecations uses the following form:

/**
 * ...
 * @deprecated since <version> for removal in <version> in favor of <alternative>.
 */

Very occasionally we will also deprecate code without an alternative. For example, we may choose to remove support for a third-party project that is no longer maintained. In those situations, the following form is used:

/**
 * ...
 * @deprecated since <version> for removal in <version> <reason>
 */

The version numbers documented are of the form <major>.<minor>.<patch>.