Spring p-namespace with Example

Last Updated : 26 Apr, 2025

Prerequisite: How to Create a Spring Bean in 3 Different Ways?

In this article, we are going to discuss the Spring p-namespace. Here I am going to assume that you know about How we can create Bean inside an XML configuration file. The first question that will come to your mind is what is Spring p-namespace and how it will be useful in creating Bean?

One of the most popular ways to create a spring bean is to define a bean in an XML configuration file. To understand the use of Spring p-namespace, we have to go through the traditional way of creating a bean in an XML configuration file. Let's create a bean for the java class below:

Java

package com.gfg.scripter;

public class Coder {
    private int id;
    private String name;
    private String qualification;
    private String dob;
 
    public void displayBasicInfo() {
        System.out.println("Coder name is " + name
                           + " and Id is " + id);
    }
    
    // Getters & Setters
}

Now we have to create an XML file named app-config.xml file and add it to the project classpath like below :

XML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
       xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
       xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
       https://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd">
 
    <bean id="coderTanu" class="com.gfg.scripter.Coder">
      <property name="id" value=100/>
      <property name="name" value="Tanu Jain"/>
      <property name="qualification" value="B.Tech - CSE"/>
      <property name="dob" value="27-07-1996"/>
    </bean>
 
</beans>

As you see, for each instance variable we have to use one xml tag i.e. <property> tag to inject bean dependency. So here is how Spring p-namespace will help us. In Spring XML, p-namespace is the XML shortcut for <property> tag to inject bean dependency. The p-namespace replaces <property> tag in XML configuration. Because of Spring p-namespace, the length of xml code will be reduced and it increases the readability of XML configuration. Let's see how :

XML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xmlns:p="http://www.springframework.org/schema/p"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd">
      
    <bean id="coderTanu" class="com.gfg.scripter.Coder" p:id=100 p:name="Tanu Jain" p:qualification="B.Tech - CSE" p:dob="27-07-1996"/>

</beans>

Note: To use Spring p-namespace, It needs to be declared with xmlns:p somewhere within the XML element or a parent element of which they are being used. It is not mandatory to use p. These are simply being used by convention. You could rewrite your XML to use anything - as long as they are defined to map to the same XML namespaces. To enable the p-namespace feature, we need to add the xmlns:p="http://www.springframework.org/schema/p" and refer to p-namespace using p to inject any dependency. Let's run a simple spring project to see the result using the above xml configuration :

Java

package com.gfg.scripter;

import org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext;
import org.springframework.context.support.ClassPathXmlApplicationContext;
import com.gfg.scripter.Coder;

public class GeeksDemo {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        AbstractApplicationContext  context = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("app-config.xml");
        Coder coder=(Coder)context.getBean("coderTanu");
        System.out.println("Id :" +coder.getId()+ "Name :"+coder.getName());
        context.close();
    }
}

Output:

Id : 100 Name : Tanu Jain

Note: We discussed passing the dependency through p-namespace but suppose we want to pass the reference of another bean, typically we use the ref attribute of <property/> tag but through p-namespace, we can do it via. p:[property-name]-ref="value" attribute just like below

XML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xmlns:p="http://www.springframework.org/schema/p"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd">
      
    <bean id="company" class="com.gfg.scripter.Company" p:name="Accenture" p:location="India"/>
    <bean id="employee" class="com.gfg.scripter.Employee" p:empName="Tanu Jain" p:company-ref="company"/>

</beans>