How Spring loads properties file in memory? - java

Am really new to spring, so please don't get angry and bear with me for a while.
I'm trying to understand how application.properties or any other external config file values gets associated with the places where config file's keys (value="${log4j.configuration}") are mentioned to consume their values from file itself.
For example below is spring bean xml file:
<bean id = "propertiesToBeTaken"
class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer">
<property name="locations">
<list>
<value>classpath*:application.properties</value>
<value>classpath*:*keys.properties</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>
<bean id="log4jLoader" class="my.loader.Log4jLoader">
<property name="log4jCongif" value="${log4j.configuration}" />
</bean>
As you can see, propertiesToBeTaken is an instance of class org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer.
And in second case ,log4jLoader is an instance of class my.loader.Log4jLoader, where log4j.configuration key's value is assigned to Log4jLoader class's instance variable log4jCongif.
My questions are below:
There is no locations variable in class PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer, then what is locations here and from where it came ? How can I relate locations to class's instance propertiesToBeTaken?
If lets say, application.properties key value pairs gets loaded into memory, then who or I mean which method loads that ? And even if it gets loaded then how those key value pairs of application.properties file are accessible to Log4jLoader's instance variables...?
Last but I think it could very stupid question, In class log4jLoader class, there is a setLog4jConfig(String log4jpropertiesLocation), but I really cant see who is calling this method. Just correct me here, Its not true, that In spring what ever the beans of object we have created, calls automatically class's instance methods. RIGHT ? I need to search more in code. CORRECT ?
Please put some light on my doubts here. Read about this alot on spring docs and online as well, but could not understand. Really want to understand how it's happening.
Thanks

Answers to your questions:
locations in bean config XML is referring to the setLocations method of PropertiesLoaderSupport class which Set locations of properties files to be loaded. PropertiesLoaderSupport is parent class of PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer in multi-level inheritance. See Official Document
When PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer gets instantiated by Spring IoC, these properties are set in the bean, now any other bean in the config XML asks for property values using ${key.name}, spring injects the value from the bean having value for this key. In your case Log4jLoader requires ${log4j.configuration} so it's value will be injected by PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer or it's any parent class.
setLog4jConfig spring calls this method when it has to give value to one of the property of the class Log4jLoader. In your case because of <property name="log4jCongif" value="${log4j.configuration}" /> configuration spring will call setter method of the property log4jCongif to inject the value. Yes spring can call instance methods (specially setter) as per the configuration.

Related

Spring context:property-placeholder for a boolean value

I am working on an application where I have two classes both implementing a common interface. So in time of bean declaration, I am going to mark one of them primary in my app-context.xml file. I can achieve this by simply declaring the primary bean like this:
<bean id="oracleImpl" class="com.me.dao.OracleImpl" primary="true">
</bean>
Now I don't want to hard code which of the beans is going to be the primary bean, rather want to read the true/false value from a properties file. So I went like this:
<context:property-placeholder location="classpath:jdbc.properties"/>
<bean id="oracleImpl" class="com.me.dao.OracleImpl" primary="${oracle.primary}">
</bean>
<bean id="pgsqlImpl" class="com.me.dao.PgsqlImpl" primary="${pgsql.primary}">
</bean>
The values of oracle.primary and pgsql.primary are defined in the file jdbc.properties along with other jdbc (non-boolean) properties.
But it doesn't work and says, "'${oracle.primary}' is not a valid value for 'boolean'"
I have a feeling it is something to do with the xsd validators. Browsing through this site and google gave me this much idea, but got no real solution. Can any body help?
This will not work.
As of 3.2.5.RELEASE only the following bean definition elemets support property placeholder:
parent name
bean class name
factory bean name
factory method name
scope
property values
indexed constructor arguments
generic constructor arguments
See the BeanDefinitionVisitor's visitBeanDefinition method for the details. This method is used by the PlaceholderConfigurerSupport.
I would recommend you to create a feature request in the spring issue management system.
PS: if you create an issue please add a comment to the issues url.

Property expansion with PropertiesFactoryBean

I wish to expose a Properties Spring bean whose values have been expanded via the typical property expansion mechanism. I'm using Spring 3.1. Let me digress.
Given the following properties file:
server.host=myhost.com
service.url=http://${server.host}/some/endpoint
And this portion of Spring XML config file:
<bean id="appProperties" class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertiesFactoryBean">
<property name="locations">
<list>
<value>classpath:default.properties</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>
<context:property-placeholder properties-ref="appProperties" />
I can write the following working code:
#Component
public class MyComponent {
#Autowired
#Qualifier("appProperties")
private Properties appProperties;
#Value("${service.url}")
private String serviceUrl;
// remainder omitted
}
The only problem is that if I obtain the service.url value from appProperties I get http://${server.host}/some/endpoint - ie the value is unexpanded. However, if I get the value of service.url from serviceUrl, the value has been expanded: http://myhost.com/some/endpoint.
Does anyone know of a good way to expose a Properties instance as a Spring bean whose values have been expanded?
Alternatively, if anyone can point me to a Spring bean (must be Spring 3.1) that will do the expansion for me, I'll accept this too! (Interestingly, if you manually pull the property values from the Environment or PropertySource you'll find that these too are unexpanded.)
Thanks,
Muel.
I'm pretty late to this, but it's been viewed enough times that i figured it warranted a quick response. What you're seeing is an artifact of how Spring handles property expansion. When the need for property expansion is found, only previously loaded sources are checked, not the currently loading property source. When the file loads, there are no previous sources, so ${server.host} does not expand. When you later reference ${server.url} via the #Value annotation, the property file source is loaded and can be searched as you expected. This is why the #Value annotation gets full expansion but the result queried from the property file does not.

Setting Values of enum via Spring Integration

I have a system where I have an enum of Shops for example. These shows each have their own ShopCommand property (some of which share the same type of command class). from a method in the command class I then want to call send on a Spring Integration gateway. Where I'm confused is how to actually insantiate this gateway in spring. Ideally what I want is to construct the enum via XML configuration with command property being created also in spring, which has the property outGateway set via Spring. I'm not sure if I've made myself very clear with this descrition, if clarification is needed then just ask!
I think this is what you are asking for:
Say I have an enum for ShopType
public enum ShopType {
GROCERY, DEPARTMENT, MALL;
}
Then I have some Store bean that I want to setup via spring configuration. You can instantiate and use the enum like this:
<bean id="DEPTARTMENT_STORE" class="my.package.ShopType" factory-method="valueOf">
<constructor-arg value="DEPARTMENT"/>
</bean>
<bean id="searsStore" class="my.package.Store">
<property name="shopType" ref="DEPTARTMENT_STORE"/>
</bean>
The factory-method points to a static method that is used to create the object. So you can use the enum's method "valueOf" as a factory method.

Spring Config file consisting of List of Implementations

I Am very new to Spring. I have an Interface (MessageHandler ) which has a get method, this method returns a list of Implementations of another interface (messageChecker).
public interface MessageHandler {
public void process(BufferedReader br);
public void setMessageCheckerList(List mcList);
[B]public List getMessageCheckerList();[/B]
}
In my Spring XML configuration , i have something like this ,along with other beans
<bean id="messageHandler" class="com.XXX.messagereceiver.MessageHandlerImpl">
<property name="messageCheckerList" ref="checkerList"/>
</bean>
<bean id="checkerList" class="java.util.ArrayList">
<constructor-arg>
<list>
<ref bean="HL7Checker"/>
</list>
</constructor-arg>
</bean>
<bean id="HL7Checker" class="com.XXX.messagereceiver.HL7CheckerImpl">
<property name="messageExecutor" ref="kahootzExecutor"/>
</bean>
Here i am passing a checkerlist - which is a list of Implementations ( For now i have only 1) of the Interface (messageChecker)
Checkerlist is containing references to Bean Id's which are actual implementaions.
HL7Checker is an implementation of an Interface messageChecker.
But when i run the main program, When i inject the bean "messageHandler" and call the getMessageCheckerList, It returns a null value. These getter and setter methods are working fine without using spring.
I am not sure what seems to be the problem.
I don't know the answer for you troubles, but I would check:
is the setter setMessageCheckerList(List) in messageHandler bean called? (either using some debugger or some trace output like System.out...). If it's not, there's probably something wrong with your Spring XML configuration setup. The bean definition you posted requires the property to be set and Spring wouldn't create the messageHandler bean without setting the property.
who calls the setMessageCheckerList(List) setter? Or even more precise, what code writes to the field which stores the value of the property? Maybe the field is initialized properly by Spring but gets overwritten to null later on?
are you sure you call the getMessageCheckerList on the very same object Spring has configured for you (that is, the messageHandler bean). The definition you have posted clearly states an instance of MessageHandlerImpl is created by Spring, but it doesn't prevent other instances to be created in other ways. So maybe the instance created by Spring holds the proper value, but you run the get... on a wrong instance?

In Spring can you alter property placeholder values using a BeanDefinitionDecorator?

I have a BeanDefinitionDecorator that makes modifications to properties that a user would set on a bean. It works fine; except if the bean is using placeholders. I am trying to find a strategy to modify those values while still have access to the original value at runtime. An example of what this would look like in XML:
<bean id="bean">
<property name="jdbcUrl" value="${jdbc.url}" />
<d:spyDecorator />
</bean>
I know that user would be writing the jdbcUrl property as "jdbc:myDatabase". What I want to do is change their property to "jdbc:spy:myDatabase". This is easy if they are just using string literals for the property value, but if they are using property placeholders I am not sure how to change the value -- because I need the original value in order to supply the new value. They key is to keep the property rewriting transparent to the user.
Are there any possible solutions for this?
I think your namespace handler can register a BeanFactoryPostProcessor (implementing Orderer with order = Integer.MAX_VALUE to be the last post processor applied). Then your BeanDefinitionDecorator will register the beans being decorated for processing with that post processor (implement it in the post processor somehow), and post processor will apply the actual property modification to that beans.
You can use PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer to substitute property values for placeholders in bean properties, aliases, and other places. Note that the replacements happen AFTER the bean definitions have been loaded, so this mechanism does not apply to <import> elements
For example:
...
<bean id="ppc"
class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer">
<property name="locations">
<list>
<value>classpath:build.properties</value>
<value>classpath:default-emmet-substitution.properties</value>
<value>classpath:default-danno-substitution.properties</value>
<value>classpath:default-dannotate-substitution.properties</value>
<value>classpath:substitution.properties</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>
...
For more information refer to this section of the Spring Framework docs.
EDIT - I guess from your comment you are already familiar with how placeholder replacement works, and are using PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer to do the replacements. So now you need to choose between these strategies, or some combination:
Do the placeholder replacements yourself in your custom BeanDefinitionDecorator. That would work, though you'd be duplicating a lot of code.
Have the custom BeanDefinitionDecorator modify the placeholder names to different ones that will pull in different values; e.g. "${jdbc.url}" becomes "${spy.jdbc.url}".
Extend the PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer class to modify the substituted property values; i.e. override convertProperty or convertProperties. That has the potential problem that all placeholders will get the modified values ... not just the ones in beans that you have decorated.
Create a new PropertyResourceConfigurer class to substitute different property values depending on the context. Essentially, the processProperties needs to work like the method does in a PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer, but do something different if it sees bean properties or whatever that tell it to do the "spy" substitution.
A combination of 2) and 3) looks the most promising.

Categories