⭐ New features

• Add support to use Java 14 records as items #3693
• Add JpaCursorItemReader implementation #901
• Add setter for standalone attribute in StaxEventItemWriter #758
• Add ability to start reading from a custom offset in KafkaItemReader #737
• Add encoding parameter in StaxEventItemReader #807
• Add job name tag to spring.batch.job.active metric #3750
• Add getUniqueJobParametersBuilder() method in JobLauncherTestUtils #767
• Add JobParametersIncrementer implementation based on a DataFieldMaxValueIncrementer #1521
• Add SynchronizedItemStreamWriter #842
• Add beanRowMapper method to JdbcPagingItemReaderBuilder #819
• Add support for named queries in JpaPagingItemReader #1667
• Add support for annotation based JobExecutionListener in the JobBuilder #817
• Meta-annotate @SpringBatchTest with @ExtendWith(SpringExtension.class) #3647
• Set proxyBeanMethods to false on ModularBatchConfiguration and SimpleBatchConfiguration #3715

🚀 Enhancements

• Add connection parameter to AbstractCursorItemReader#cleanupOnClose #735
• BulkOperations API Implementation for Remove Operations in MongoItemWriter #3737
• StaxEventItemReader#isFragmentRootElementName method should be protected #1020
• Let FlatFileItemReader comment detection logic be customizable #1134
• Performance issues in SimpleJobRepository.getStepExecutionCount #3657
• Slow SQL in JdbcStepExecutionDao on Postgres #3634
• Improve TransactionAwareBufferedWriter efficiency #1166
• Improve performance in JdbcStepExecutionDao #3710
• Make RepositoryItemWriter use CrudRepository#saveAll by default #3720
• Use BulkOperations API in MongoItemWriter #3713
• Add ability to amend trusted classes in Jackson2ExecutionContextStringSerializer #3765
• Improve formatting of IllegalArgumentException message thrown by DefaultExecutionContextSerializer #3636

🐞 Bug fixes

• Unable to set partitionOffsets in KafkaItemReaderBuilder #3761
• SimpleCompletionPolicy should have getChunkSize() method #3738
• Unable to set usePersist parameter with JpaItemWriterBuilder #3655
• MongoItemReaderBuilder shouldn't be throwing an error related to the limit in query when pageSize is provided #3673
• MySQL does not support millisecond accuracy in timestamps #2202
• JobLauncherTestUtils doesn't always launch new job instance because generated job parameters aren't unique #821
• Unable to set connectionAutoCommit parameter with JdbcCursorItemReaderBuilder #3717
• Incorrect Jackson configuration #3729
• Setting resource should be optional for JsonItemReaderBuilder #3731
• Resource should be optional in StaxEventItemReaderBuilder #3736
• StaxEventItemReaderBuilder failing to set name for Reader at build #3753
• Conditional (Java configured) steps cannot be scoped #857
• Order of Transition Elements Does Not Adhere to Documentation #3638
• AbstractSqlPagingQueryProvider Does Not Handle Whitespace Besides the Space Character When Removing Keywords #765
• setScriptEvaluator method in ScriptItemProcessor removed in Spring Batch 4 #768
• Incorrect error message when no FieldSetMapper is provided #766
• AbstractCursorItemReader#doClose() method is not reentrant #868
• The constructor of JsonItemReader should call setExecutionContextName() #3681
• FaultTolerantChunkProcessor does not collect metrics like SimpleChunkProcessor #3664
• FlatFileItemReaderBuilder reports error "Only one LineTokenizer option may be configured" when none are. #3688
• Default value of comment prefix in FlatFileItemReaderBuilder is inconsistent with FlatFileItemReader #753
• Empty String as delimiter is ignored #770
• Regression due to the fix of BATCH-2442 #775
• FlatFileItemReaderBuilder does not overrule comment prefixes in returned FlatFileItemReader #779
• FlatFileItemWriterBuilder requires a Resource #887
• List should be final in CompositeItemStream #1628
• Job scoped steps can not be used within FlowBuilder #670

📔 Documentation

• Fix typo in spring-batch-intro.adoc #3755
• Add flag to show both configuration styles (Java and XML) in reference docs #572
• Fix documentation of JobExecutionNotRunningException #3679
• Updated spring-doc-resources version to 0.2.2
• Incorrect reference to stop method in documentation #3643
• Improve Javadoc of ItemProcessor regarding the nullability of input items #3648
• Misleading code example in reference documentation #3692
• The ItemProcessor section in reference docs should be a top level section #3644
• Use local storage rather than a cookie #3653
• Add flag to show both configuration styles (Java and XML) in reference docs #572
• Upgrade versions of Asciidoctor #3703
• Add micrometer metrics tags in reference documentation #3751
• Add section in docs about how to disable batch metrics #3684
• Document non-identifying job parameters #3633
• Multiple Job unit testing with @SpringBatchTest #3699
• Unable to use Job Scope beans in a multi-threaded or partitioned step #1335
• Incorrect table name in Meta-Data Schema appendix #761
• Incorrect description of AggregateItemReader in "Appendix A" #1793
• It's unclear and confusing that using <skippable-exception-class> element #1061
• Wording Fix: domain.adoc #814
• Documentation: XSD specifies incorrect type for RetryPolicy #769
• Fix dead link to Github in contribution guide #3642

🔨 Dependency Upgrades

• Upgrade to Spring Framework 5.3.0
• Upgrade to Spring Data 2020.0.0
• Upgrade to Spring Integration 5.4.0
• Upgrade to Spring AMQP 2.3.0
• Upgrade to Spring for Apache Kafka 2.6.2
• Upgrade to micrometer 1.5.6

⚠️ Deprecations

• Deprecate JobExecution#stop() #1605
• Deprecate MultiResourceItemReader#getCurrentResource #3776
• Deprecate AbstractNeo4jItemReader #3777
• Deprecate org.springframework.batch.item.file.transform.Alignment enum #3778
• Deprecate org.springframework.batch.item.xml.StaxUtils #3779
• Deprecate the Map-based JobRepository/JobExplorer implementations #3780
• Deprecate ScheduledJobParametersFactory #3781
• Deprecate support for SqlFire database #815

❤️ Contributors

We'd like to thank all contributors who helped making this release possible! A special thank to @dimitrisli and @parikshitdutta
for their numerous contributions to this release!