ways to inject a object of a class in spring controller? - java

I need to inject a object of a java class in spring controller through applicaionContext.xml. My controller will be ,
#Controller
public class SpringController{
private MyClass obj;
}
I know I can do it with #Autowired annotation.
Is this really good to create a object for a controller through applicaionContext.xml ? Also can I inject a object of a class in controller using the <property> tag inside a <bean> tag ?
Is this really possible ? or please forgive me if it is a stupid question.
I need to know the possible ways for how to inject a object of a class in Spring controller ?

You can of course use #Autowired annotation to autowire the relationships, which can reduce the need to define the properties and constructor arguments for the controller in your applicationContext.xml file. And also to add a dependency to a class, you don't need to modify the configuration files.
But it has some disadvantages too, like if you use #Autowired, there will not be any explicit documentation for the wiring details between Spring managed beans. And to know the relationships between the beans, you have to go through your managed beans. But, if you use configuration files to define the relationships, the relationship details can be found in one place.
You can inject an object of a class into your controller through your applicaionContext.xml as below:
Constructor based injection:
#Controller
public class SpringController{
private MyClass obj;
public SpringController(MyClass obj){
this.obj=obj;
}
}
<bean id="myClassImpl" class="x.y.z.MyClassImpl"></bean>
<bean id="springController" class="x.y.z.web.controllers.SpringController">
<constructor-arg ref="myClassImpl"></constructor-arg>
</bean>
Setter based injection:
#Controller
public class SpringController{
private MyClass obj;
public void setObj(MyClass obj){
this.obj=obj;
}
public MyClass getObj(){
return obj;
}
}
<bean id="myClassImpl" class="x.y.z.MyClassImpl"></bean>
<bean id="springController" class="x.y.z.web.controllers.SpringController">
<property name="obj" ref="myClassImpl"></property>
</bean>

If you want to inject an object in a controller and you particularly want to you use xml,then instead of component scanning of Controller you should create a bean of the controller class of singleton scope in the application context.
Your controller class need not be annotated with #Controller.
you then have to you extend some Controller also like AbstractCommandController, AbstractController, AbstractFormController, AbstractWizardFormController, BaseCommandController, CancellableFormController, MultiActionController SimpleFormController, UrlFilenameViewController
Now to inject a particular object you can use Either Constructor and Setter based injection.
or you can use Autowring by name or type to auto inject the object.
Make sure that you have also declared the bean of that object also in Application Context.
After a DispatcherServlet has received a request and has done its work to resolve locales, themes and suchlike, it then tries to resolve a Controller, using a HandlerMapping. When a Controller has been found to handle the request, the handleRequest method of the located Controller will be invoked; the located Controller is then responsible for handling the actual request and - if applicable - returning an appropriate ModelAndView.
Thats it.

Actually, injection with xml and annotation is same behind the scene. Xml is old fashion while annotations are newer.
Basically, there are 2 types of injection types.
byName
Autowiring by property name. Spring container looks at the properties
of the beans on which autowire attribute is set to byName in the XML
configuration file. It then tries to match and wire its properties
with the beans defined by the same names in the configuration file.
You can give explicit names to beans both with xml and annotation.
#Service("BeanName")
#Component("BeanName")
#Controller("BeanName")
<bean name="BeanName" class="someclass"></bean>
and inject beans by using #Qualifier annotation.
#Autowired
#Qualifier("BeanName")
and with xml
<bean id="MyBean2" class="MyBean2 class">
<property name="Property of MyBean2 which refers to injecting bean" ref="BeanName" />
</bean>
byType
Autowiring by property datatype. Spring container looks at the
properties of the beans on which autowire attribute is set to byType
in the XML configuration file. It then tries to match and wire a
property if its type matches with exactly one of the beans name in
configuration file. If more than one such beans exists, a fatal
exception is thrown.
Default auto wiring mode is byType, so spring will look for matching type in auto wiring. However, older versions of Spring has default behavior none on injection. If you want to inject byType using xml, you should tell spring contaioner explicitly.
For example MyBean2 has a reference to MyBean, by setting autowired attribute to byType it handles injection automatically.
<bean id="MyBean" class="MyBean class">
<property name="Property of MyBean2 which refers to injecting bean" ref="BeanName" />
</bean>
<bean id="MyBean2" class="MyBean2 class"
autowire="byType">
</bean>
It also depends on where the injection take place in your code. There are 2 types, setter getter injection and constructor injection.
Note : There is no difference in #Controller since they are already in spring context.
See also
Spring Beans Auto wiring

I ran into such problem. I was getting "Ambiguous mapping found". (I use xml configuration as well and i am injecting a bean into my controller)
Then looking at my console i realized that my controller was being instantiated twice.
In more detailed look i noticed that my annotation
#Controller(value = "aController")
(Note value = "aController")
was different from my xml configuration where i was instatiating the same controller with different bean id
<bean id="aControleRRRRR" class="package.ControllerClassName"
p:property-ref="beanToInject" />
(Note id="aControleRRRRR")
So in conclusion your #Controller name (value = "aController") needs to be exactly the same as the name you give in the XML configuration (id="aControleRRRRR"), so that Spring can manage to distinct that they refer to the same bean (instance)
Hope this helps

Related

Notify the Spring bean to be re-created

We have a problem where we need to force a spring session bean to be recreated with the initial configurations specified in configuration xml file.
And all autowired dependencies should point to newly created bean. Is that possible to do anyhow with Spring framework? Or could you suggest any method to do this?
I would suggest to create another temporary bean in your context, and use it in your conditional case. unfortunately, I will have to call getBean() method to reassign my reference to the temp bean.
For example:
In your configuration file, you will have to define two beans:
<bean id="originalBean" class="x.y.z.MyBean" />
<bean id="temporaryBean" class="x.y.z.MyBean" />
And in your beans that reference that bean you will have to autowire using the #Qualifer
#Autowired
#Qualifier("originalBean")
private MyBean myBean;
And in your conditional use case you will reassign that reference to the temporaryBean
if(conditioalCase) {
myBean = ApplicationContext.getBean("temporaryBean");
}

Refrence Spring Beans Generated From an Interface in XML Bean Definition

I have some code that generates a class from an interface. I need to reference that interface in a Spring XML configuration. Is there a Spring 3 annotations I can use on the interface such that I can reference the generated implementation using <constructor-arg ref="myBeanInterface"/>?
I can reference it using <constructor-arg value="com.mysite.myBeanInterface"/>, however I want to refrence a bean name instead of an explicit class.
Details: The beans are generated by an extension of AbstractFactoryBean. I do not have access to the bean generating code.
Use the name of your factory bean. If you have something like:
<bean id="myBean class="MyBeanInterfaceFactoryBean>
...
</bean>
Then to inject the bean that was generated by the factory bean, just use myBean.

Explicitly inject a bean marked #Component

So for some reason half our project's beans are marked with #Component and injected into other objects marked #Component with the #Autowired annotation, while the other half is wired up explicitly with appliciationContext.xml bean declarations and properties with ref beans values.
Question is, in those xml bean declarations, can I inject one of the objects marked #Component? If so, what will its bean reference name be?
For example;
Some classes are annotated like so;
#Component
public class BeanAImpl{ ... }
Then in applicationContext.xml other classes are wired explicitly as they are not annotated;
<bean id="beanB" class="com.myapp.BeanBImpl"></bean>
Can I inject both 'kinds' of beans in applicationContext.xml?
<bean id="beanUser" class="com.myapp.BeanUserImpl">
<property name="beanA">HOW_TO_GET_REF_TO_BEANA?</property>
<property name="beanB"><ref bean="beanB"/></property>
</bean>
Default name for #Component of type BeanAImpl is beanAImpl, you can use it in XML as you do with manually declared beans (also note that <property> allows shorter syntax):
<property name="beanA" ref = "beanAImpl" />
Alternatively, you can explicitly set a name as #Component("beanA").
Here is what Spring says:
When a component is autodetected as part of the scanning process, its bean name will be generated by the BeanNameGenerator strategy known to that scanner.
If you don't want to rely on the default bean-naming strategy, you may provide a custom bean-naming strategy. First, implement the BeanNameGenerator interface, and be sure to include a default no-arg constructor. Then, provide the fully-qualified class name when configuring the scanner:
<context:component-scan base-package="org.example"
name-generator="org.example.MyNameGenerator" />
The deafault implementation is just the class name starting with loer case.
Instead of #Component, I think you want to use #Resource(name="your_id_here"), and then you can <ref> it like you're doing with beanB. Give it a shot.
Source: http://static.springsource.org/spring/docs/3.0.0.M3/reference/html/ch04s11.html#beans-resource-annotation

Spring set abstract bean property value

I need to chance spring bean property values on runtime. Currently I'm doing it this way
Object bean = context.getBean(beanName);
BeanWrapper wrapper = PropertyAccessorFactory.forBeanPropertyAccess(bean);
wrapper.setPropertyValue(propertyName, newValue);
But some beans are configured as abstract
<bean id="abstractFoo" abstract="true" class="com.Foo" />
<bean id="bar" class="com.Bar">
<constructor-arg><bean parent="abstractFoo" /></constructor-arg>
</bean>
and in that case context.getBean("abstractFoo") throws BeanIsAbstractException
This is really simplified example, but I hope you get the idea.
Any idea how to change property value of abstract bean (in this case 'abstractFoo')?
We're using spring 2.5.4
Edit
Changed a XML example to be more specific. abstractFoo is declared abstract because of security reasons.
Spring application context contains bean definitions, and Spring instantiates bean objects defined by these definitions.
Your current code obtains an object that was created from the named bean definition, and changes its property. However, abstract beans are never instantiated as objects, they exist only in the form of definitions which are inherited by definitions of concrete beans.
So, if you want to change properties of abstract beans, you need to change their definitions, that can be done using BeanFactoryPostProcessor. Note, however, that post-processors are applied during container startup, so if you want it to be actually "runtime", you this approach is not applicable.
Disclaimer: this is untested; off the top of my head. Not sure if it will work after the init phase.
You need to get in instance of a ConfigurableListableBeanFactory. Your appcontext probably is one, so you can probably cast it.
From there, get the bean definition and change the property.
ConfigurableListableBeanFactory clbf = (ConfigurableListableBeanFactory)context;
BeanDefinition fooDefinition = clbf.getBeanDefinition("abstractFoo");
MutablePropertyValues pv = fooDefinition.getPropertyValues();
pv.add(propertyName, newValue);
Maybe you need to re-register your beandefinition with the ConfigurableListableBeanFactory after that. I'm not 100% sure; you'll have to test that.
Keep in mind that if it works, it will only work for beans that are instantiated after the change.

Can spring container inject collaborators using custom methods?

Normally dependencies are injected via setters by the following configuration (http://static.springsource.org/sprin...beans-beanname) :
<bean id="exampleBean" class="examples.ExampleBean">
<!-- setter injection using the nested <ref/> element -->
<property name="beanOne"><ref bean="anotherExampleBean"/></property>
<!-- setter injection using the neater 'ref' attribute -->
<property name="beanTwo" ref="yetAnotherBean"/>
<property name="integerProperty" value="1"/>
</bean>
<bean id="anotherExampleBean" class="examples.AnotherBean"/>
<bean id="yetAnotherBean" class="examples.YetAnotherBean"/>
Lets say the class examples.ExampleBean has a collection listeners objects, and the method addListener(SomeListenerInterface) is the only possible way add listeners. Can I inject listeners declaratively in xml like its done with property setters?
You could probably conjure up some baroque mechanism for doing this all in XML, but the cleanest way to do this is to use a FactoryBean. You write a class which implement FactoryBean, and which is responsible for constructing and configuring your target object (see Spring docs). Your FactoryBean would have the required getters/setters/autowiring, and injects them into the target object.
This is often the cleanest way to handle non-javabeans in Spring, particularly if you cannot modify the target class.
Here goes property Element definition
Property elements correspond to JavaBean setter methods exposed by the bean classes.
To get your goal, you can use #Autowired annotation. It works even when using an arbitrary name
#Autowired
public void inject(SomeListenerInterface someListenerInterface) {
this.someListenerInterface = someListenerInterface;
}

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