Spring override properties at runtime and keep them persistent - java

I am using Spring 3.2.8 and keep my settings in a properties file. Now I want some of them override at runtime. ​​I want to keep the new values persistent by overwriting the old values in the properties file​​.
How can I do this in Spring? Some properties ​​I inject with # Value and others get with MessageSource.getMessage(String, Object [], Locale). The beans are already instantiated with these values​​. How can I access the properties, store them and update all beans system wide?
Thanks!

OK, given your follow up answers I would keep this fairly simple and use what you already know of Spring. I'll make some assumptions that annotation configuration is OK for you.
In my example, I'll assume all the properties that you want to configure relate to something called a ServerConfiguration and that initially these are read from server.properties on the classpath.
So part 1, I would define a bean called ServerProperties that has the original values from the server.properties injected into it.
So:
#Component
public class ServerProperties
{
#Value("${server.ip}");
private String ipAddress;
...
public void setIpAddress(String ipAddress)
{
this.ipAddress = ipAddress;
}
public String getIpAddress()
{
return this.ipAddress;
}
}
Secondly, anywhere that relies on these properties, I would inject an instance of ServerProperties rather than using #Value e.g:
#Component
public class ConfigureMe
{
#AutoWired
private ServerProperties serverProperties;
#PostConstruct
public void init()
{
if(serverProperties.getIpAddress().equals("localhost")
{
...
}
else
{
...
}
}
}
Thirdly I would expose a simple Controller into which ServerProperties is injected so that you can use your web page to update system properties e.g:
#Controller
public class UpdateProperties
{
#AutoWired
private ServerProperties serverProperties;
#RequestMapping("/updateProperties")
public String updateProperties()
{
serverProperties.setIpAddress(...);
return "done";
}
Finally, I would use #PreDestroy on ServerProperties to flush the current property values to file when the ApplicationContext is closed e.g:
#Component
public class ServerProperties
{
#PreDestroy
public void close()
{
...Open file and write properties to server.properties.
}
}
That should give you a framework for what you need. I'm sure it can be tweaked, but it will get you there.

Related

Spring Boot - Property placeholders remain unresolved despite setting values with System.setProperty

I have a bean with a constructor as follows. The password argument is resolved from the placeholder my.password, with a default value of DEFAULT. If the value of DEFAULT is passed, a warning is logged. Note - this Bean is contained within an imported third-party library.
#Bean
public class EncryptionBean {
public EncryptionBean(#Value("${my.password}") String password) {
if "DEFAULT".equals(password) {
// log warning message
} else {
// do stuff with the password
}
}
}
The password is retrieved at startup from an external system using a client SDK. This SDK object is itself provided as a Bean (also from a third-party library). After retrieving the password, I am setting it as a System property for the above EncryptionBean to have access to at the time of instantiation:
#Configuration
public class MyConfiguration {
#Autowired
public SDKObject sdkObject;
#PostConstruct
public void init() {
System.setProperty("my.password", sdkObject.retrievePassword());
// #Value("${my.password"}) should now be resolvable when EncryptionBean is instantiated
}
}
However, EncryptionBean is still being instantiated with a value of DEFAULT for my.password. I'm wondering if System.setProperty in #PostConstruct might be getting executed AFTER Spring has already instantiated the instance of EncryptionBean?
If so, is there a way to guarantee this property has been set before Spring instantiates EncryptionBean? I came across #DependsOn as a way to control the order Beans get instantiated by Spring, but since EncryptionBean comes from a third-party library, I haven't been able to make this annotation work.
Instead of setting a system property, you should create a Spring EnvironmentPostProcessor class to retrieve the password from the external source and add it to the Spring Environment. That would look something like this:
public class PasswordEnvironmentPostProcessor implements EnvironmentPostProcessor, ApplicationContextAware {
private ApplicationContext applicationContext;
#Override
public void postProcessEnvironment(ConfigurableEnvironment environment, SpringApplication application) {
SDKObject sdkObject = applicationContext.getBean(SDKObject.class);
Map<String, Object> properties = Collections.singletonMap("my.password", sdkObject.retrievePassword());
MapPropertySource propertySource = new MapPropertySource("password", properties);
environment.getPropertySources().addFirst(propertySource);
}
#Override
public void setApplicationContext(ApplicationContext applicationContext) throws BeansException {
this.applicationContext = applicationContext;
}
}
Then you'll need to register this class with Spring by adding an entry to the file META-INF/spring.factories that looks like this:
org.springframework.boot.env.EnvironmentPostProcessor=com.example.PaswordEnvironmentPostProcessor
Documentation for this is available here: https://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/docs/current/reference/htmlsingle/#howto.application.customize-the-environment-or-application-context.
I could not figure out a nice clean way to inject a property at runtime without a lot of boilerplate. But I came up with a clean way to do what you want to do without having to refresh the application context or messing with the 3rd party library implementation.
First we exclude the 3rd party bean from our application context:
#ComponentScan(excludeFilters = #ComponentScan.Filter(value = EncryptionBean.class, type = FilterType.ASSIGNABLE_TYPE))
#SpringBootApplication
public class SandboxApplication {
public static void main(String[] args) {
SpringApplication.run(SandboxApplication.class, args);
}
}
Then we create the Bean ourselves with the values we want.
#Configuration
public class MyConfiguration {
public final SDKObject sdkObject;
public MyConfiguration(SDKObject sdkObject) {
this.sdkObject = sdkObject;
}
#Bean
public EncryptionBean encryptionBean() {
return new EncryptionBean(sdkObject.retrievePassword());
}
}

Spring Boot: Initially data parsing

I am searching for a way to read and parse a lot of data when the spring boot app is starting and be able to use these data later in other classes.
I started with a class DataRepository.java and annotated it with #Service to be able to inject it later. I'm planning to read the data here and to inject it in any other class I need the data.
But how can I achieve to parse the data just once and at app startup? The spring boot app should only be reachable if the parsing is done.
Your approach with #Service is 100% appropriate.
By default all beans are singletons, so if you parse data on bean creation (in constructor) it will be parsed only once, and this info can be used in other beans by simple injection.
Please note that if during data parsing you have to use other beans, you should be confident that all beans are completely constructed. For that you should use approach proposed by #jreznot:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/51783858/5289288
You can use ContextStartedEvent and handle it:
#Component
public class ContextStartedListener implements ApplicationListener<ContextStartedEvent> {
#Override
public void onApplicationEvent(ContextStartedEvent cse) {
System.out.println("Handling context start event. ");
}
}
See also: https://www.baeldung.com/spring-events
By default all beans in spring context are singletons. Spring guarantees that it will creates a bean just ones during context loading.
For example if you will have few contexts in your application it creates one instance for every context.
If you have just one context you can use these approaches:
initialize data in constructor. Data will initialized and ready to
use just after bean's instance creation.
#Component
public class DataRepository {
public DataRepository() {
... init data
}
}
use #Bean annotation withinit method. Allows you don't stick to Spring in
your data repository and initialize data after all beans were created.
public class DataRepository {
public void init() {
... init data
}
}
#Configuration
public class DataRepositoryConfiguration {
#Bean(initMethod = "init")
public DataRepository dataRepository() {
return new DataRepository();
}
use #Bean annotation and invoke init method. Allows you don't stick to
Spring in your data repository, but #Autowired field will uninitialized.
public class DataRepository {
public void init() {
... init data
}
}
#Configuration
public class DataRepositoryConfiguration {
#Bean
public DataRepository dataRepository() {
DataRepository dr = new new DataRepository();
dr.init();
return dr;
}
}
use #PostConstruct annotation. Initialize data after all beans was
created.
public class DataRepository {
#PostConstruct
public void init() {
... init data
}
}
Exception thrown during initializing will stop Spring's context initializing
You can use PostConstruct on any bean. For example
#Component
class DataLoad {
......
......
#PostConstruct
public void parseData() {
...... do your stuff here.......
}
}
With this the code inside parseData will be called only once. This is a very common way to do things in scenarios like when you want to load some configuration data from database at the start of the application and do it only once. In these cases you can #Autowired the repository class to the same class and use that in your #PostConstruct method and get data

How to assign a value from application.properties to a static variable?

I am using Spring MVC. I have a UserService class annotated with #Service that has a lot of static variables. I would like to instantiate them with values from the application.properties file.
For example in application.properties I have: SVN_URL = http://some.url/repositories
Then in the class there is: #Value("${SVN_URL}") private static String SVN_URL
I get the Instantiation of bean failed; nested exception is java.lang.ExceptionInInitializerError
I have also tried #Autowired private static Environment env;
And then: private static String SVN_URL=env.getProperty("SVN_URL");
It gives the same error.
Think about your problem for a second. You don't have to keep any properties from application.properties in static fields. The "workaround" suggested by Patrick is very dirty:
you have no idea when this static field is modified
you don't know which thread modifies it's value
any thread at any time can change value of this static field and you are screwed
initializing private static field that way has no sense to me
Keep in mind that when you have bean controlled by #Service annotation you delegate its creation to Spring container. Spring controls this bean lifecycle by creating only one bean that is shared across the whole application (of course you can change this behavior, but I refer to a default one here). In this case any static field has no sense - Spring makes sure that there is only one instance of UserService. And you get the error you have described, because static fields initialization happens many processor-cycles before Spring containers starts up. Here you can find more about when static fields are initialized.
Suggestion
It would be much better to do something like this:
#Service
public class UserService {
private final String svnUrl;
#Autowired
public UserService(#Value("${SVN_URL}") String svnUrl) {
this.svnUrl = svnUrl;
}
}
This approach is better for a few reasons:
constructor injection describes directly what values are needed to initialize the object
final field means that this value wont be changed after it gets initialized in a constructor call (you are thread safe)
Using #ConfigurationProperties
There is also another way to load multiple properties to a single class. It requires using prefix for all values you want to load to your configuration class. Consider following example:
#ConfigurationProperties(prefix = "test")
public class TestProperties {
private String svnUrl;
private int somePort;
// ... getters and setters
}
Spring will handle TestProperties class initialization (it will create a testProperties bean) and you can inject this object to any other bean initialized by Spring container. And here is what exemplary application.properties file look like:
test.svnUrl=https://svn.localhost.com/repo/
test.somePort=8080
Baeldung created a great post on this subject on his blog, I recommend reading it for more information.
Alternative solution
If you need somehow to use values in static context it's better to define some public class with public static final fields inside - those values will be instantiated when classloader loads this class and they wont be modified during application lifetime. The only problem is that you won't be able to load these values from Spring's application.properties file, you will have to maintain them directly in the code (or you could implement some class that loads values for these constants from properties file, but this sounds so verbose to the problem you are trying to solve).
Spring does not allow to inject value into static variables.
A workaround is to create a non static setter to assign your value into the static variable:
#Service
public class UserService {
private static String SVN_URL;
#Value("${SVN_URL}")
public void setSvnUrl(String svnUrl) {
SVN_URL = svnUrl;
}
}
Accessing application.properties in static member functions is not allowed but here is a work around,
application.properties
server.ip = 127.0.0.1
PropertiesExtractor.java
public class PropertiesExtractor {
private static Properties properties;
static {
properties = new Properties();
URL url = new PropertiesExtractor().getClass().getClassLoader().getResource("application.properties");
try{
properties.load(new FileInputStream(url.getPath()));
} catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
public static String getProperty(String key){
return properties.getProperty(key);
}
}
Main.class
public class Main {
private static PropertiesExtractor propertiesExtractor;
static{
try {
propertiesExtractor = new PropertiesExtractor();
} catch (UnknownHostException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
public static getServerIP(){
System.out.println(propertiesExtractor.getProperty("server.ip")
}
}
static String profile;
#Value("${spring.profiles.active:Unknown}")
private void activeProfile(String newprofile) {
profile = newprofile;
};
In order to gain static access to Spring Boot properties you can create a Properties Holder Component which implements the Command Line Runner interface. The command line runner interface executes run() upon component instantiation by Spring Boot.
Since we have autowired access to our properties object in the PropertiesHolder component, it is possible to assign the autowired properties to a static Properties class variable upon CommandLineRunner execution of the run() method.
At this point any class can statically call PropertiesHolder.getProperties() to access the contents of Spring Boot properties values.
PropertiesHolder.class:
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.boot.CommandLineRunner;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Component;
#Component
public class PropertiesHolder implements CommandLineRunner {
//Spring Boot Autowired Properties Object
#Autowired MyProperties myAutowiredProperties;
//Statically assigned Properties Object
private static MyProperties properties;
//Hide constructor (optional)
private PropertiesHolder(){}
public static MyProperties getProperties() throws NullPointerException{
if(PropertiesHolder.properties == null)
throw new NullPointerException("Properites have not been initialized by Spring Application before call.");
return PropertiesHolder.properties;
}
//Use to assign autowired properties to statically allocated properties
public static void makeAvailable(MyProperties myAutowiredProperties){
PropertiesHolder.properties = myAutowiredProperties;
}
//Spring Boot command line runner autoexecuted upon component creation
//which initializes the static properties access
public void run(String... args) {
PropertiesHolder.makeAvailable(myAutowiredProperties);
}
}
MyProperties.class
import lombok.Data;
import org.springframework.boot.context.properties.ConfigurationProperties;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Component;
//Example: your_properties_file_prefix.properties
#ConfigurationProperties(prefix = "YOUR_PROPERTIES_FILE_PREFIX")
#Component
#Data
public class MyProperties {
private String property1;
private String property2;
private String property3;
}
At least one more simple solution with configuration file:
#Configuration
public class YourStaticPropertyConfiuration {
public static String PROPERTY_NAME;
#Value("${propertyName}")
public void setProperty(final String propertyName) {
PROPERTY_NAME = propertyName;
}
}
Use PROPERTY_NAME anywhere as static variable
For all those who, for whatever reason, want to provide setting properties imported from files as static properties, here is a solution that is as simple and safe as possible.
The Problem:
Spring Boot unfortunately doesn't provide a simple way to import properties from a file and bind them as static properties to a class. One possible solution to achieve that anyway would be to set the static properties using `#Value` annotations like this:
public class GlobalProperties {
public static String NAME;
#Value("${configs.boss.name}")
public void setName(String name) {
NAME = name;
}
}
However, this approach would mean that the static properties cannot be declared as final.And we certainly don't want that.
The Solution:
application.yml:
configs:
boss:
name: "Leeloo Multipass"
ConfigProperties.java:
#Validated
#ConfigurationProperties(prefix = "configs")
public record ConfigProperties(#NotNull Boss boss) {
public static final String BOSS_NAME = BOSS.NAME;
private static class Boss {
private static String NAME;
public Boss(String name) {
NAME = name;
}
}
}
The solution is based on the assumption that Spring Boot builds the configuration objects first, and the properties' configuration objects first of all. So at the time Spring Boot adds the prepared objects as Bean to the context, the nested classes are already setup and the static properties initialization of ConfigProperties can access the static properties of the nested classes (which still are not final, but also not accessible from outside). This way it is possible to provide all properties declared as static final. Unless Spring Boot doesn't decide to change its internal initialization process, everything is cream & cookie.
This approach was tested with Spring Boot 3 and Java 17. It is of course possible to provide the properties additionally via the configs-bean. For that, the properties of the nested classes must be explicitly specified and their corresponding getters must be implemented. In this case, some simplification can be achieved by using records instead of classes.

Changing Spring Boot Properties Programmatically

I'm trying to write tests for an application that uses #RefreshScope. I would like to add a test that actually changes out properties and asserts that the application responds correctly. I have figured out how to trigger the refresh (autowiring in RefreshScope and calling refresh(...)), but I haven't figured out a way to modify the properties. If possible, I'd like to write directly to the properties source (rather than having to work with files), but I'm not sure where to look.
Update
Here's an example of what I'm looking for:
public class SomeClassWithAProperty {
#Value{"my.property"}
private String myProperty;
public String getMyProperty() { ... }
}
public class SomeOtherBean {
public SomeOtherBean(SomeClassWithAProperty classWithProp) { ... }
public String getGreeting() {
return "Hello " + classWithProp.getMyProperty() + "!";
}
}
#Configuration
public class ConfigClass {
#Bean
#RefreshScope
SomeClassWithAProperty someClassWithAProperty() { ...}
#Bean
SomeOtherBean someOtherBean() {
return new SomeOtherBean(someClassWithAProperty());
}
}
public class MyAppIT {
private static final DEFAULT_MY_PROP_VALUE = "World";
#Autowired
public SomeOtherBean otherBean;
#Autowired
public RefreshScope refreshScope;
#Test
public void testRefresh() {
assertEquals("Hello World!", otherBean.getGreeting());
[DO SOMETHING HERE TO CHANGE my.property TO "Mars"]
refreshScope.refreshAll();
assertEquals("Hello Mars!", otherBean.getGreeting());
}
}
You could do this (I assume you mistakenly omitted the JUnit annotations at the top of your sample, so I'll add them back for you):
#RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class)
#SpringApplicationConfiguration(classes = Application.class)
public class MyAppIT {
#Autowired
public ConfigurableEnvironment environment;
#Autowired
public SomeOtherBean otherBean;
#Autowired
public RefreshScope refreshScope;
#Test
public void testRefresh() {
assertEquals("Hello World!", otherBean.getGreeting());
EnvironmentTestUtils.addEnvironment(environment, "my.property=Mars");
refreshScope.refreshAll();
assertEquals("Hello Mars!", otherBean.getGreeting());
}
}
But you aren't really testing your code, only the refresh scope features of Spring Cloud (which are already tested extensively for this kind of behaviour).
I'm pretty sure you could have got this from the existing tests for refresh scope as well.
Properties used in the application must be variables annotated with #Value. These variables must belong to a class that is managed by Spring, like in a class with the #Component annotation.
If you want to change the value of the properties file, you can set up different profiles and have various .properties files for each profile.
We should note that these files are meant to be static and loaded once, so changing them programmatically is sort of out of the scope of ther intended use. However, you could set up a simple REST endpoint in a spring boot app that modifies the file on the host's file system (most likely in the jar file you are deploying) and then calls Refresh on the original spring boot app.

How to inject config settings into autowired spring beans?

I have a bean for an webservice client in my project which requires some configuration settings to be injected. We are using Spring 3.1. Currently the best idea that came up was using the #Value annotation like this:
#Service
public class MyWebServiceClient {
private String endpointUrl;
#Required
#Value("${mywebserviceClient.endpointUrl}")
public void setEndpointUrl(String endpointUrl) {
this.endpointUrl = endpointUrl;
}
}
However I don't really like hardcoding the property name into the class. It also has the problem that there is no way to have more than one client with different settings in the same context (as there is only one property and this is hardcoded). Is there a more elegant way of doing this with autowiring or should I resort to plain old xml configuration for doing this?
I would use JavaConfig to do this.
More specifically, I would use JavaConfig to create multiple instances of MyWebServiceClient, and have the config be #Value'd with the proper endpoint property keys.
Something like this:
#Configuration
public class MyWebServiceConfig {
#Required
#Value("${myWebserviceClient1.endpointUrl")
private String webservice1Url;
#Required
#Value("${myWebserviceClient2.endpointUrl")
private String webservice2Url;
#Required
#Value("${myWebserviceClient3.endpointUrl")
private String webservice3Url;
#Bean
public MyWebServiceClient webserviceClient1() {
MyWebServiceClient client = createWebServiceClient();
client.setEndpointUrl(webservice1Url);
return client;
}
#Bean
public MyWebServiceClient webserviceClient2() {
MyWebServiceClient client = createWebServiceClient();
client.setEndpointUrl(webservice2Url);
return client;
}
#Bean
public MyWebServiceClient webserviceClient3() {
MyWebServiceClient client = createWebServiceClient();
client.setEndpointUrl(webservice3Url);
return client;
}
}
With this, you should have 3 instances of MyWebServiceClient in your ApplicationContext available via the names of the methods annotated with #Bean.
Here is some more documentation to JavaConfig for your convenience.

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