Groovy String.toURL is deprecated - why and what should we use instead?

Question

In current groovy versions, the method DefaultGroovyMethods.toURL(String) is marked as deprecated, but without any explanation.

Why is it deprecated and what should we use instead? I wanted to use it to easily get a file from HTTP like this:

def xml = "http://url.to/file.xml".toURL().text

Answer 1

toURL() invoked on String comes from this class, not from DefaultGroovyMethods, so everything works fine and correct method is invoked.