Explain the difference between inversion of control and dependency injection in the Spring framework.

Inversion of Control (IoC) is a principle where the control of creating and binding objects is delegated to an external container or framework, rather than being implemented directly in the application code. In Spring, this means that the container manages the lifecycle of beans.

Dependency Injection (DI) is a specific implementation of IoC, where the dependencies of an object are provided to it from outside (via constructor, setter, or fields), rather than being created inside the object.

Simply put:

• IoC is a general principle where control is transferred to the framework.
• DI is a way to implement IoC, where dependencies are injected into objects.

In Spring, the IoC container creates and binds objects, and DI ensures the transfer of necessary dependencies into these objects.