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Spring putting dynamically generated values into placeholders

I am new to Spring. I now understand how to use placeholders to read values from a properties file:
<bean class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer">
<property name="location" value="classpath:properties.txt"/>
</bean>
<int-mqtt:outbound-channel-adapter id="mqtt-publish"
client-id="${clientID}"
client-factory="clientFactory"
auto-startup="true"
url="${url}"
default-qos="${qos}"
default-retained="${retain}"
default-topic="${topic}" />
Everything works fine with the code above... But... Is it possible for instance to replace the clientID by something generated at runtime (or from user input) instead of statically reading it from a properties file?

By runtime, do you mean dynamically for each message?
In that case, no, because the clientId is used while establishing the connection, which is done once (or when the connection to the server is lost).
If you mean to provide a dynamic value programmatically when the application context initializes, then, yes, the Spring Expression Language is the solution.
For example, #{myBean.myProperty} will call the getMyProperty() method on a bean myBean and #{myBean.someMethod()} will invoke someMethod().
Also see the dynamic-ftp sample, which uses placeholders at runtime by creating a new outbound adapter on demand using property placeholders, in a child application context.

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.

jsr 303 how to force it to use my resourcebundle?

I have validator class which uses
<bean id="messageSource" class="org.springframework.context.support.ReloadableResourceBundleMessageSource">
<property name="basename" value="/WEB-INF/messages" />
</bean>
Besides validator which does more complex validation I also use JSR303 like
#NotNull(message="null value is not allowed")
protected String postCode;
I want for JSR to use same file source messages.
#NotNull(message=<SOMEHOW GO TO MY messages_en_US.properties AND EXTRACT SOMETHING LIKE : user.poscode.null>)
Thanks!

By default JSR303 validator looks for a file called ValidationMessages.properties, which is bundled with the implementation you use.
If you want to add your own constraint validation messages you have to provide your own ValidationMessages.properties, and add to it the message.
You can look at Message interpolation, Hibernate validator docs.
But what I've just describe its Java EE standard behaviour I don't know if Spring behaves in the same way

I resolved the situation with help of another more focused question of mine on simillar topic. Anyone interested : javax.validation how to target different locale?
Please be aware however that there will be a need in two sets of files including resourcebundle and properties.

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.