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What's the Spring way of accessing properties from an entity?

I'm new to Spring and I'm building an application where some entities (JPA/Hibernate) need access to a property from application.properties. I do have a configuration class in which this is trivial:
#Configuration
public class FactoryBeanAppConfig {
#Value("${aws.accessKeyId}")
private String awsAccessKeyId;
#Value("${aws.secretKey}")
private String awsSecretKey;
}
but since entities do not have and I think they should not have the annotations such as #Configuration or #Component, what's the Spring way for them to access the property?
Now, I know I can create my own class, my own bean, and make it as a simple wrapper around the properties; but is that the Spring way to do it or is there another way?

specify Property file location using #PropertySource
Something like below
#PropertySource("classpath:/application.proerties")
You also need to add below bean in your config
#Bean
public static PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer propertyConfigIn() {
return new PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer();
}

There is no "Spring way", since JPA entities and Spring have nothing to do with each other. Most importantly, JPA entities are not Spring beans, so Spring doesn't know or care about them as they're not managed by Spring.
You can try to hack around, trying in vain to access Spring's configuration from code that should not be trying to access it, or you can accept the truth that your design is broken and you're trying to do something that's not meant to be done.
As was proposed several times, use a service class for this. It's managed by Spring, so it can access the Spring config, and it can handle entities, so there's no crossing boundaries.

First create a public static variable in some bean managed by Spring, then make the following use of the #Value annotation.
public static String variable;
#Value("${variable}")
private void setVariable(String value) {
variable = value;
}
It will be set at runtime on startup, now you can access it from entities and everywhere else because it is just a public static var.

You can use #PropertySource to load the properties file as follows
#Configuration
#PropertySource("classpath:/com/organization/config/application.proerties")
public class FactoryBeanAppConfig {
...
}

Entities should not acces environment properties. If you are using your entity through a service, then the service can access the properties to act on the entity.

Is it allowed to have instance variables in Spring Services?

I have a spring service that provides configuration data. When the service is invoked by the GUI, it loads the configuration data from the database. It turns out that this happens quite often during the rendering of a single request. I want to optimize this by caching the configuration data. However, I am not sure if this is a good programming style or if it is "allowed" to have an instance variable in a service.
Here is some example code of what I am thinking of doing:
#Serivce("MyConfigService")
public class MyConfigServiceImpl implements MyConfigService {
private Config cachedConfig;
#Override
public Config loadConfig() {
if (cachedConfig != null) {
// load config
cachedConfig = loadedConfig;
}
return cachedConfig;
}
#Override
public saveConfig(Config config) {
cachedConfig = null;
// save the configuration
}
}

Having a instance variable (not managed by spring) introduces the possibility of the service becoming thread unsafe. So I try to avoid them, or make sure they are thread safe.
You may want to look at #configurable and #postconstuct annotations to achieve your goals.

Are instance variables allowed in Spring service layer classes? Sure.
Is it a good idea to use one to save a reference to the Config object here?
Maybe, maybe not.
You're not showing how Config normally gets loaded... Does the same Config instance get returned to all users? i.e. - When User1 calls saveConfig then User2 calls loadConfig User2 gets the Config object User1 saved.
If so, you should be able to cache the value with no problems.
Also, instead of implementing it yourself, you could use Spring's annotation-based caching.

Instance variables is what Spring IoC container is all about; what is dubious in your design is that you have your own lazy-loading logic in loadConfig—that's the concern you must leave to Spring via lazy-init=true (or similar, I don't remember exactly). The design will also probably involve lookup methods and posibly request-scoped beans.

Should dependency be injected once or in every object

I'm trying to change some legacy code to use DI with Spring framework. I have a concrete case for which I'm wondering which is the most proper way to implement it.
It is a java desktop application. There is a DataManager interface used to query / change data from the data store. Currently there is only one implementation using a XML file for store, but in the future it is possible to add SQL implementation. Also for unit testing I may need to mock it.
Currently every peace of code that needs the data manager retrieves it by using a factory. Here is the source code of the factory:
public class DataManagerFactory
{
private static DataManagerIfc dataManager;
public static DataManagerIfc getInstance()
{
// Let assume synchronization is not needed
if(dataManager == null)
dataManager = new XMLFileDataManager();
return dataManager;
}
}
Now I see 3 ways to change the application to use DI and Spring.
I. Inject the dependency only in the factory and do not change any other code.
Here is the new code:
public class DataManagerFactory
{
private DataManagerIfc dataManager;
public DataManagerFactory(DataManagerIfc dataManager)
{
this.dataManager = dataManager;
}
public DataManagerIfc getDataManager()
{
return dataManager;
}
public static DataManagerIfc getInstance()
{
return getFactoryInstance().getDataManager();
}
public static DataManagerFactory getFactoryInstance()
{
ApplicationContext context =
new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext(new String[] {"com/mypackage/SpringConfig.xml"});
return context.getBean(DataManagerFactory.class);
}
}
And the XML with the bean description:
<bean id="dataManagerFactory"
class="com.mypackage.DataManagerFactory">
<constructor-arg ref="xmlFileDataManager"/>
</bean>
<bean id="xmlFileDataManager"
class="com.mypackage.datamanagers.xmlfiledatamanager.XMLFileDataManager">
</bean>
II. Change every class that is using the data manager so it takes it through the constructor and store it as a class variable. Make Spring bean definitions only for the "root" classes from where the chain of creation starts.
III. Same as II. but for every class that is using the data manager create a Spring bean definition and instantiate every such class by using the Spring Ioc container.
As I'm new to the DI concept, I will appreciate every advice what will be the correct and "best practice" solution.
Many thanks in advance.

Use option 3.
The first option keeps your code untestable. You won't be able to easily mock the static factory method so that it returns a mock DataManager.
The second option will force you to have the root classes know all the dependencies of all the non-root classes in order to make the code testable.
The third option really uses dependency injection, where each bean only know about its direct dependencies, and is injected by the DI container.

Well... why did you write the factory in the first place? Spring is not intended to make you change how you write code (not just to suit Spring that is), so keeping the factory is correct as it uses well-known pattern. Injecting the dependency into the factory will retain that behaviour.

Option 3 is the correct route to take. By using such a configuration you can usefully take components of your configuration and use them in new configurations, and everything will work as expected.
As a rule of thumb, I would expect one call to Spring to instantiate the application context and get the top-level bean. I wouldn't expect to make repeated calls to the Spring framework to get multiple beans. Everything should be injected at the correct level to reflect responsibilities etc.
Beware (since you're new to this) that you don't plumb in your data manager into every class available! This is quite a common mistake to make, and if you've not abstracted out and centralised responsibilities sufficiently, you'll find you're configuring classes with lots of managers. When you see you're doing this it's a good time to step back and look at your abstractions and componentisation.

Conditionally creating beans in spring

Right now I'm exposing the service layer of my application using spring remoting's RMI/SOAP/JMS/Hessian/Burlap/HttpInvoker exporters. What I'd like is to allow the user to somehow define which of these remoting mechanisms they'd like enabled (rather than enabling all of them), then only create those exporter beans.
I was hoping that spring's application context xml's had support for putting in conditional blocks around portions of the xml. However, from what I've seen so far there's nothing in the standard spring distribution that allows you to do something like this.
Are there any other ways to achieve what I'm trying to do?

I am going to assume that you are looking to configure your application based on your environment, as in... for production I want to use this beans, in dev these other ...
As Ralph is saying, since Spring 3.1 you have profiles... But the key, is that you understand that you should put your environment based beans in different configuration files... so you could have something like dev-beans.xml, prod-beans.xml... Then in your main spring file, then you just invoke the appropriate one based on the environment that you are using... So profiles are only technique to do so... But you can also use other techniques, like have a system environmental variable, or pass a parameter in your build to decide which beans you want to use

You could realize this by using a Spring #Configuration bean, so you can construct your beans in java code. (see http://static.springsource.org/spring/docs/3.1.x/spring-framework-reference/html/beans.html#beans-java)
#Configuration
public class AppConfig {
#Bean
public MyService myService() {
if ( userSettingIshessian ) {
return new HessianExporter();
}else {
return new BurlapExporter();
}
}
}
Of course you need to get the user setting from somewhere, a system parameter would be easy, or config file, or something else.

Spring 3.1 has the concept of Profiles. My you can use them.

is there an elegant way to inject a spring managed bean into a java custom/simple tag

I have a bunch of java custom tags that use spring managed beans.. since i cant find a way to inject into a custom tag, i created a helper class that provides static methods to "getTheObjectINeedBean()" for all the spring bean objects i need.. I do not like this approach at all.
i really want to be able to inject a spring managed bean into the custom tag
Is there a way? As far as my research goes, I understand there is no way to do this, because the custom tag is container managed
Thanks,
Billy

You are correct there isn't a simple way to use dependency-injection in jstl tags, because they are not managed by spring, and cannot be. However there are (at least) two workarounds:
#Configurable - aspectJ allows you to plug a weaver at load-time/compile-time, so that even objects that are not instantiated by spring can be spring aware. See here
You can create a base tag class for your project, and call an init(..) method from every doStartTag(..) method. There, you can get the ServletContext from the pageContext, and thus obtain the spring ApplicationContext (via ApplicationContextUtils). Then:
AutowireCapableBeanFactory factory = appCtx.getAutowireCapableBeanFactory();
factory.autowireBean(this);
Neither options are perfect as they require either some additional code, or some "black magic"

To expand on #Bozho's post, I have gotten this to work like so: (in spring 3.0 there is no ApplicationContextUtils that I could find)
public class LocationTag extends RequestContextAwareTag {
#Autowired
PathComponent path;
...
#Override
protected int doStartTagInternal() throws Exception {
if (path == null) {
log.debug("Autowiring the bean");
WebApplicationContext wac = getRequestContext().getWebApplicationContext();
AutowireCapableBeanFactory acbf = wac.getAutowireCapableBeanFactory();
acbf.autowireBean(this);
}
return SKIP_BODY;
}
}

The solution as described above works but some background and additional code snippets are, quite likely, useful.
1) The doStartTagInternal method is invoked from the doStartTag method.
2) I was forced to set the pageContext first before invoking the doStartTag
3) I did a lookup of the bean as opposed to the autowiring. To me this seems more straightforward: (YourBeanProxy) autowireCapableBeanFactory.getBean("yourBeanName")
Hopefully this additional info is useful.