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Getting bean descriptions from a spring application context xml without initializing the beans?

Is there a decent way to read a spring application context from xml without initializing the beans right away, so they can be mocked or not, before they are actually created?
Yes, I know about lazy-init, but the actual applicationContext.xml is taboo for me.
The situation is that I have to create some JUnit tests on an application which has been created in a way that puts some difficulties in the way:
the configuration file must not be altered, nor the code that is to be tested
there are a lot of beans, some of them rather complex and hard to mock
part of the test is to use as many of the beans un-mocked as possible
some of the beans implement InitializingBean, verifying the environment on initialization and throw errors when Jenkins tries to build.
new FileSystemXmlApplicationContext("config.xml") immediately initializes the beans and throws errors if not in an appropriate environment.
What I have tried:
I have tried Powermock whenNew to mock the offending beans but to do that I would have to know the class which actually creates the beans. As this class belongs to the spring framework, it may change with future versions. When using #PrepareEverythingForTest it results in an StackOverflow exception. The application is real life, not a small piece of code from some tutorial.
I also searched for something like ForceLazyFileSystemXmlApplicationContext but didn't find anything.
Pleas don't start nagging about bad design, I know about that.

You can write your own applicationContext for your testing purpose. There you need to write your own BeanFactory. In that factory you can replace some of beans with mocks.

I just remembered about an option. Evaluate if you can use spring profiles. It will allow to choose a different implementation based on profiles.
Example:
<!-- This is the default myBean -->
<beans>
<bean id="myBean" class="mypackage.MyBean" />
</beans>
<!-- This is the mocked myBean for testing purposes, it will take place when testingProfile is active -->
<beans profile="testingProfile">
<bean id="myBean" class="mypackage.MyBeanMock" />
</beans>
You can indicate which profile to use via properties or environment variables. Example, if you are using maven in your project you could run the tests as:
mvn test -Dspring.profiles.active="testingProfile"
Take a look at:
http://www.baeldung.com/spring-profiles
https://spring.io/blog/2011/02/11/spring-framework-3-1-m1-released/

How to inject application context into AspectJ aspects?

How can I inject beans into a real AspectJ aspect using an annotation based application context?
I've created an aspect with AspectJ that implements ApplicationContextAware to access spring beans. Whenever the new-operator of a specified class is invoked, the aspect should inject a spring bean into the newly created instance.
To inject the application context into the aspect, Spring needs a handle to this aspect. The aspect itself is not created by spring but by the AspectJ runtime.
In an xml based application context one can achieve this by
<bean class="SomeAspectClass"
factory-method="aspectOf">
</bean>
But how can I do this in an annotation based context?
My current workaround is to provide an xml based context that contains just this bean definition and merge it into my annotation based application context. But I just want to solve this with my annotation based context.

As avery aspect has a static method 'aspectOf' to access its unique instance, just use reflection to invoke 'aspectOf' and get this instance.

Referencing a value from a spring config

First a bit of setup info:
I have a multi-tenant spring based application. The multi-tenant enabling library is an in-house developed tool where I work that I have to use. How it works is that there is an interceptor that sets in front of the servlet for the application. Upon a request hitting the servlet it loads a tenant specific spring config for "stuff" needed for the tenant specified on the url hitting the servlet.
As stated, the above is just a bit of background. Now to the issue/question:
What I want to do is to create, in the tenant configuration that is loaded, a value that I can use to inject where I need. So, is there a way I can just define a constant in a spring config and then reference it via #Value or #Resource in java code?
There will be no bean implementation behind it, it would just be purely and only a key/value that I can reference where needed in my application by name. So, something to the effect of:
<bean name="MyIdentifier">
<property name="theId" value="1001" />
</bean>
And then can I do something like?
#Value{MyIdentifier.theId}
String theId;
And have Spring be aware of and inject the value. The problem is that doing something like above Spring complains there is no implementation for the bean. Notice, no class specified for the bean. The reason I want to do this is every tenant config file will contain this bean, but the actual value will vary per tenant.
Is there some other type to use in the config to do this? If so, what schemas have to be on the config?
I am guessing I am either trying to make Spring do something not intended, or, this is so simple I cannot see it since I have stared at it too long. Anyway, thanks for the help.

You can not create bean tag in configuration file without providing class implementation. If you want to inject the value of fields, you have to go for properties file instead.
Create property file as below:
application.properties
theId=1001
Load property file in your configuration:
<bean class="org.springframework.context.support.PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer">
<property name="ignoreUnresolvablePlaceholders" value="true"/>
<property name="locations">
<list>
<value>classpath:application.properties</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>
And access the property in your concrete class:
#Value("${theId}")
String theId;

Can a Spring Batch job bean be lazily initialized?

In Spring, beans can be configured to be lazily initialized. Spring Batch jobs are also (Spring-managed) beans. That is, when I configure something like
<sb:job id="dummyJob" job-repository="jobRepository">
<sb:step id="dummyStep">
<sb:tasklet ref="dummyTasklet" />
</sb:step>
</sb:job>
I actually configure a new (Job-typed) bean inside the Spring container.
My issue is I really want my Job beans to be lazily initialized. As they are regular Spring-managed beans, I'd expect I can instruct the Spring context to make them lazy. This is because I have a large number of beans and there are many cases in which, during one execution of my Spring-based application, I only run one job.
But there's no lazy-init property I can set on my <sb:job... \> configuration. Is there any way I can force lazy initialization? If I configure my <beans\> root with default-lazy-init="true", will this also apply to the Job beans?

You have two options here:
Configure your job manually. This would allow you to use the regular lazy-init attributes Spring exposes.
Use the JobScope now available in Spring Batch 3. Spring Batch 3 will be available soon, but the JobScope was available in the last milestone.

Just to elaborate on Michael Minella's answer.
I had a similar requirement to lazy initialize the job repository.
I am working with Spring Batch 2.1.9.
The following is working for me.
<bean id="jobRepository"
class="org.springframework.batch.core.repository.support.JobRepositoryFactoryBean"
lazy-init="true">
<property name="dataSource" ref="jobDataSource"/>
<property name="transactionManager" ref="jobTransactionManager"/>
</bean>
Note one pitfall I had run into: do not set the databaseType i.e. avoid the following:
<property name="databaseType" value="SQLSERVER"/>
This is bad because it disable the auto-discovery of the database type and breaked my JUnits that works on H2.

Is there any way to enable or disable the Spring bean definition in applicationContext.xml file?

Is there any way to enable or disable a java bean definition in application context?
<bean id="enBean" classs="com.en.bean.BeanName">
<property name="prop1"/>
</bean>
Or, is there any way to load the bean conditionally defined in application context?

There is a new feature #Profile in spring 3.1 that would do the job
From here
Spring 3.1 introduces the concept of environment profiles. A common
use case is the setting up of beans that are different between
development, QA and production environments. A typical example is
going against a standalone DataSource in development versus looking up
the DataSource from JNDI in production. Another example is a beans
profile for profiling that can easily be turned on or off. You can add
a profile attribute on a beans element in XML or add #Profile
annotation in code. Note that a Spring bean can be assigned to
multiple profiles.
<beans profile="dev">
...
</beans>
#Profile("dev")
public class Bean {
...
}
These profiles can be activated through the spring.profiles.active
property which may be specified through an environment variable, a JVM
system property, a Servlet in web.xml or JNDI. These
profiles can also be activated through code using
Environment.setActiveProfiles(String ...). To make bean profiles work,
nested beans elements are now allowed in the Spring XML, although
constrained only at the end of the file. Note that it's recommended to
keep your bean topology as close as possible between environments, so
your application gets properly tested across environments. You also
use the Environment.containsProperty() method to search for properties
across the different property sources. This property resolution also
works for ${placeholder} variables in XML bean definitions.