Apache Commons Lang

Apache Commons Lang does not have anything to to with "LANGuages" but actually with the Java built-in java.lang API.

The extra tools and classes this library adds to java.lang will help developers extend Java's core with more functionality and features that many might argue deserved to be in it in the first place.

Some of these extra utilities address:
- object reflection
- object creation
- object serialization
- string manipulation
- numerical methods
- working with System properties
- support for a nested exception structure
- enhancements to the Date methods
- multi-threaded programming
- business mathematical classes
- inheritable enum types
- methods building

What is new in this release:

• NEW FEATURES:
• Added org.apache.commons.lang3.SystemUtils.IS_JAVA_1_8
• FIXED BUGS:
• NumberUtils#isNumber() returns false for "0.0", "0.4790", et al

What is new in version 3.3.1:

• Added methods for removing all invalid characters according to XML 1.0 and XML 1.1 in an input string to StringEscapeUtils.
• Added APIs MutableBoolean setTrue() and setFalse()
• Added SerializationUtils.roundtrip(T extends Serializable) to serialize then deserialize
• There should be a DifferenceBuilder with a ReflectionDifferenceBuilder implementation
• Added the Jaro-Winkler string distance algorithm to StringUtils.
• New class ClassPathUtils with methods for turning FQN into resource path
• Validate: add inclusiveBetween and exclusiveBetween overloads for primitive types

What is new in version 3.2.1:

• Issues resolved:
• Fixed missing Hamcrest dependency in Ant Build
• Build fails with test failures when building with JDK 8
• Test failure in LocaleUtilsTest when building with JDK 8
• Test failure in FastDateParserTest and FastDateFormat_ParserTest when building with JDK8

What is new in version 3.1:

• Lang 3.0 and onwards now targets Java 5.0, making use of features that arrived with Java 5.0 such as generics, variable arguments, autoboxing, concurrency and formatted output.

What is new in version 3.0.1:

• SerializationUtils.clone: Fallback to context classloader if class not found in current classloader.
• The CHAR_ARRAY cache in CharUtils duplicates the cache in java.lang.Character.
• Use internal Java's Number caches instead creating new objects.

What is new in version 3.0:

• MutableBigDecimal and MutableBigInteger.
• Wish : method unaccent.
• ObjectUtils.coalesce.
• LeftOf/RightOfNumber in Range convenience methods necessary.
• Add ClassUtils.isAssignable() variants with autoboxing.
• StringUtils.emptyToNull.
• Enhance StrSubstitutor to support nested ${var-${subvr}} expansion
• StrSubstitutor now supports substitution in variable names.
• A generic implementation of the Lazy initialization pattern.
• Addition of ContextedException and ContextedRuntimeException.
• Add StringEscapeUtils.escapeText() methods.
• Add support for the handling of ExecutionExceptions.
• Add support for background initialization.
• Add a concurrent package.
• Validate: support for validating blank strings.
• Add ArrayUtils.toArray to create generic arrays.
• Add ability to create a Future for a constant.
• Add methods to Validate to check whether the index is valid for the array/list/string.
• Add TypeUtils class to provide utility code for working with generic types.
• Added isAssignableFrom and isInstanceOf validation methods.
• Added validState validation method.
• New TimedSemaphore class.
• Provide an implementation of the ThreadFactory interface.
• Create a basic Pair<L, R> class.
• DateUtils equal & compare functions up to most significant field.
• Add Builder Interface / Update Builders to Implement It.
• Support lazy initialization using atomic variables
• Extend exception handling in ConcurrentUtils to runtime exceptions.
• StringUtils.endsWithAny method
• Add normalizeSpace to StringUtils
• Provide documentation about the new concurrent package
• BooleanUtils.toBooleanObject to support single character input
• Add AnnotationUtils
• Provide a very basic ConcurrentInitializer implementation
• Add StringUtils.defaultIfBlank()
• Add a Null-safe compare() method to ObjectUtils
• Documented potential NPE if auto-boxing occurs for some BooleanUtils methods
• Add support for ConcurrentMap.putIfAbsent()
• Add hashCodeMulti varargs method

What is new in version 2.4:

• Deprecations:
• ObjectUtils.appendIdentityToString(StringBuffer, Object) - has very odd semantics, use ObjectUtils.identityToString(StringBuffer, Object) instead.
• Public static java.util.Date add(java.util.Date, int, int) - it is not intended for this method to be public.
• New Features:
• ClassUtils.getShortClassName(String) inefficient.
• Add new splitByWholeSeparatorPreserveAllTokens() methods to StringUtils.
• Split camel case strings.
• Adding a StringUtils.replace method that takes an array or List of replacement strings.
• Memory usage improvement for StringUtils#getLevenshteinDistance().
• Bug fixes:
• Javadoc Example for EqualsBuilder is questionable.
• Documentation bug for ignoreEmptyTokens accessors in StrTokenizer.
• NumberUtils.min(floatArray) returns wrong value if floatArray[0] happens to be Float.NaN .
• EqualsBuilder don't compare BigDecimals correctly.
• DateUtils.round() often fails.