0% found this document useful (0 votes)

539 views

Spring Framework Reference Documentation PDF

Uploaded by

Vinay Kumar Deekonda

Available Formats

Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

0% found this document useful (0 votes)

539 views

Spring Framework Reference Documentation PDF

Uploaded by

Vinay Kumar Deekonda

Available Formats

Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

You are on page 1/ 685

9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Authors
Rod Johnson , Juergen Hoeller , Keith Donald , Colin Sampaleanu , Rob Harrop , Thomas Risberg , Alef Arendsen , Darren Davison , Dmitriy
Kopylenko , Mark Pollack , Thierry Templier , Erwin Vervaet , Portia Tung , Ben Hale , Adrian Colyer , John Lewis , Costin Leau , Mark Fisher , Sam
Brannen , Ramnivas Laddad , Arjen Poutsma , Chris Beams , Tareq Abedrabbo , Andy Clement , Dave Syer , Oliver Gierke , Rossen Stoyanchev ,
Phillip Webb , Rob Winch , Brian Clozel , Stephane Nicoll , Sebastien Deleuze

4.3.11.RELEASE

Copyright © 2004-2016
Copies of this document may be made for your own use and for distribution to others, provided that you do not charge any fee for such copies and further provided that
each copy contains this Copyright Notice, whether distributed in print or electronically.

Table of Contents

I. Overview of Spring Framework

1. Getting Started with Spring
2. Introduction to the Spring Framework
2.1. Dependency Injection and Inversion of Control
2.2. Framework Modules
2.2.1. Core Container
2.2.2. AOP and Instrumentation
2.2.3. Messaging
2.2.4. Data Access/Integration
2.2.5. Web
2.2.6. Test

2.3. Usage scenarios

2.3.1. Dependency Management and Naming Conventions
Spring Dependencies and Depending on Spring
Maven Dependency Management
Maven "Bill Of Materials" Dependency
Gradle Dependency Management
Ivy Dependency Management
Distribution Zip Files
2.3.2. Logging
Using Log4j 1.2 or 2.x
Avoiding Commons Logging
Using SLF4J with Log4j or Logback
Using JUL (java.util.logging)
Commons Logging on WebSphere

II. What’s New in Spring Framework 4.x

3. New Features and Enhancements in Spring Framework 4.0
3.1. Improved Getting Started Experience
3.2. Removed Deprecated Packages and Methods
3.3. Java 8 (as well as 6 and 7)
3.4. Java EE 6 and 7
3.5. Groovy Bean Deﬁnition DSL
3.6. Core Container Improvements

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 1/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
3.7. General Web Improvements
3.8. WebSocket, SockJS, and STOMP Messaging
3.9. Testing Improvements

4. New Features and Enhancements in Spring Framework 4.1

4.1. JMS Improvements
4.2. Caching Improvements
4.3. Web Improvements
4.4. WebSocket Messaging Improvements
4.5. Testing Improvements

5. New Features and Enhancements in Spring Framework 4.2

5.1. Core Container Improvements
5.2. Data Access Improvements
5.3. JMS Improvements
5.4. Web Improvements
5.5. WebSocket Messaging Improvements
5.6. Testing Improvements

6. New Features and Enhancements in Spring Framework 4.3

6.1. Core Container Improvements
6.2. Data Access Improvements
6.3. Caching Improvements
6.4. JMS Improvements
6.5. Web Improvements
6.6. WebSocket Messaging Improvements
6.7. Testing Improvements
6.8. Support for new library and server generations

III. Core Technologies

7. The IoC container
7.1. Introduction to the Spring IoC container and beans
7.2. Container overview
7.2.1. Configuration metadata
7.2.2. Instantiating a container
Composing XML-based configuration metadata
The Groovy Bean Definition DSL
7.2.3. Using the container

7.3. Bean overview

7.3.1. Naming beans
Aliasing a bean outside the bean deﬁnition
7.3.2. Instantiating beans
Instantiation with a constructor
Instantiation with a static factory method
Instantiation using an instance factory method

7.4. Dependencies
7.4.1. Dependency Injection
Constructor-based dependency injection
Setter-based dependency injection
Dependency resolution process
Examples of dependency injection

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 2/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
7.4.2. Dependencies and conﬁguration in detail
Straight values (primitives, Strings, and so on)
References to other beans (collaborators)
Inner beans
Collections
Null and empty string values
XML shortcut with the p-namespace
XML shortcut with the c-namespace
Compound property names
7.4.3. Using depends-on
7.4.4. Lazy-initialized beans
7.4.5. Autowiring collaborators
Limitations and disadvantages of autowiring
Excluding a bean from autowiring
7.4.6. Method injection
Lookup method injection
Arbitrary method replacement

7.5. Bean scopes

7.5.1. The singleton scope
7.5.2. The prototype scope
7.5.3. Singleton beans with prototype-bean dependencies
7.5.4. Request, session, global session, application, and WebSocket scopes
Initial web conﬁguration
Request scope
Session scope
Global session scope
Application scope
Scoped beans as dependencies
7.5.5. Custom scopes
Creating a custom scope
Using a custom scope

7.6. Customizing the nature of a bean

7.6.1. Lifecycle callbacks
Initialization callbacks
Destruction callbacks
Default initialization and destroy methods
Combining lifecycle mechanisms
Startup and shutdown callbacks
Shutting down the Spring IoC container gracefully in non-web applications
7.6.2. ApplicationContextAware and BeanNameAware
7.6.3. Other Aware interfaces

7.7. Bean deﬁnition inheritance

7.8. Container Extension Points
7.8.1. Customizing beans using a BeanPostProcessor
Example: Hello World, BeanPostProcessor-style
Example: The RequiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor
7.8.2. Customizing configuration metadata with a BeanFactoryPostProcessor
Example: the Class name substitution PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer
Example: the PropertyOverrideConfigurer
7.8.3. Customizing instantiation logic with a FactoryBean

7.9. Annotation-based container conﬁguration

7.9.1. @Required
7.9.2. @Autowired
7.9.3. Fine-tuning annotation-based autowiring with @Primary
7.9.4. Fine-tuning annotation-based autowiring with qualifiers
7.9.5. Using generics as autowiring qualifiers
7.9.6. CustomAutowireConfigurer
7.9.7. @Resource
7.9.8. @PostConstruct and @PreDestroy

7.10. Classpath scanning and managed components

7.10.1. @Component and further stereotype annotations
7.10.2. Meta-annotations
7.10.3. Automatically detecting classes and registering bean definitions
7.10.4. Using filters to customize scanning
7.10.5. Defining bean metadata within components
7.10.6. Naming autodetected components
7.10.7. Providing a scope for autodetected components
7.10.8. Providing qualifier metadata with annotations

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 3/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
7.11. Using JSR 330 Standard Annotations
7.11.1. Dependency Injection with @Inject and @Named
7.11.2. @Named and @ManagedBean: standard equivalents to the @Component annotation
7.11.3. Limitations of JSR-330 standard annotations

7.12. Java-based container conﬁguration

7.12.1. Basic concepts: @Bean and @Configuration
7.12.2. Instantiating the Spring container using AnnotationConfigApplicationContext
Simple construction
Building the container programmatically using register(Class<?>…)
Enabling component scanning with scan(String…)
Support for web applications with AnnotationConfigWebApplicationContext
7.12.3. Using the @Bean annotation
Declaring a bean
Bean dependencies
Receiving lifecycle callbacks
Specifying bean scope
Customizing bean naming
Bean aliasing
Bean description
7.12.4. Using the @Configuration annotation
Injecting inter-bean dependencies
Lookup method injection
Further information about how Java-based configuration works internally
7.12.5. Composing Java-based configurations
Using the @Import annotation
Conditionally include @Configuration classes or @Bean methods
Combining Java and XML configuration

7.13. Environment abstraction

7.13.1. Bean definition profiles
@Profile
XML bean definition profiles
Activating a profile
Default profile
7.13.2. PropertySource abstraction
7.13.3. @PropertySource
7.13.4. Placeholder resolution in statements

7.14. Registering a LoadTimeWeaver

7.15. Additional Capabilities of the ApplicationContext
7.15.1. Internationalization using MessageSource
7.15.2. Standard and Custom Events
Annotation-based Event Listeners
Asynchronous Listeners
Ordering Listeners
Generic Events
7.15.3. Convenient access to low-level resources
7.15.4. Convenient ApplicationContext instantiation for web applications
7.15.5. Deploying a Spring ApplicationContext as a Java EE RAR ﬁle

7.16. The BeanFactory

7.16.1. BeanFactory or ApplicationContext?
7.16.2. Glue code and the evil singleton

8. Resources
8.1. Introduction
8.2. The Resource interface
8.3. Built-in Resource implementations
8.3.1. UrlResource
8.3.2. ClassPathResource
8.3.3. FileSystemResource
8.3.4. ServletContextResource
8.3.5. InputStreamResource
8.3.6. ByteArrayResource

8.4. The ResourceLoader

8.5. The ResourceLoaderAware interface
8.6. Resources as dependencies

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 4/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
8.7. Application contexts and Resource paths
8.7.1. Constructing application contexts
Constructing ClassPathXmlApplicationContext instances - shortcuts
8.7.2. Wildcards in application context constructor resource paths
Ant-style Patterns
The Classpath*: portability classpath*: preﬁx
Other notes relating to wildcards
8.7.3. FileSystemResource caveats

9. Validation, Data Binding, and Type Conversion

9.1. Introduction
9.2. Validation using Spring’s Validator interface
9.3. Resolving codes to error messages
9.4. Bean manipulation and the BeanWrapper
9.4.1. Setting and getting basic and nested properties
9.4.2. Built-in PropertyEditor implementations
Registering additional custom PropertyEditors

9.5. Spring Type Conversion

9.5.1. Converter SPI
9.5.2. ConverterFactory
9.5.3. GenericConverter
ConditionalGenericConverter
9.5.4. ConversionService API
9.5.5. Conﬁguring a ConversionService
9.5.6. Using a ConversionService programmatically

9.6. Spring Field Formatting

9.6.1. Formatter SPI
9.6.2. Annotation-driven Formatting
Format Annotation API
9.6.3. FormatterRegistry SPI
9.6.4. FormatterRegistrar SPI
9.6.5. Conﬁguring Formatting in Spring MVC

9.7. Conﬁguring a global date & time format

9.8. Spring Validation
9.8.1. Overview of the JSR-303 Bean Validation API
9.8.2. Configuring a Bean Validation Provider
Injecting a Validator
Configuring Custom Constraints
Spring-driven Method Validation
Additional Configuration Options
9.8.3. Configuring a DataBinder
9.8.4. Spring MVC 3 Validation

10. Spring Expression Language (SpEL)

10.1. Introduction
10.2. Feature Overview
10.3. Expression Evaluation using Spring’s Expression Interface
10.3.1. The EvaluationContext interface
Type Conversion
10.3.2. Parser conﬁguration
10.3.3. SpEL compilation
Compiler conﬁguration
Compiler limitations

10.4. Expression support for deﬁning bean deﬁnitions

10.4.1. XML based conﬁguration
10.4.2. Annotation-based conﬁguration

10.5. Language Reference

10.5.1. Literal expressions
10.5.2. Properties, Arrays, Lists, Maps, Indexers
10.5.3. Inline lists
10.5.4. Inline Maps
10.5.5. Array construction
10.5.6. Methods

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 5/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
10.5.7. Operators
Relational operators
Logical operators
Mathematical operators
10.5.8. Assignment
10.5.9. Types
10.5.10. Constructors
10.5.11. Variables
The #this and #root variables
10.5.12. Functions
10.5.13. Bean references
10.5.14. Ternary Operator (If-Then-Else)
10.5.15. The Elvis Operator
10.5.16. Safe Navigation operator
10.5.17. Collection Selection
10.5.18. Collection Projection
10.5.19. Expression templating

10.6. Classes used in the examples

11. Aspect Oriented Programming with Spring

11.1. Introduction
11.1.1. AOP concepts
11.1.2. Spring AOP capabilities and goals
11.1.3. AOP Proxies

11.2. @AspectJ support

11.2.1. Enabling @AspectJ Support
Enabling @AspectJ Support with Java configuration
Enabling @AspectJ Support with XML configuration
11.2.2. Declaring an aspect
11.2.3. Declaring a pointcut
Supported Pointcut Designators
Combining pointcut expressions
Sharing common pointcut definitions
Examples
Writing good pointcuts
11.2.4. Declaring advice
Before advice
After returning advice
After throwing advice
After (finally) advice
Around advice
Advice parameters
Advice ordering
11.2.5. Introductions
11.2.6. Aspect instantiation models
11.2.7. Example

11.3. Schema-based AOP support

11.3.1. Declaring an aspect
11.3.2. Declaring a pointcut
11.3.3. Declaring advice
Before advice
After returning advice
After throwing advice
After (ﬁnally) advice
Around advice
Advice parameters
Advice ordering
11.3.4. Introductions
11.3.5. Aspect instantiation models
11.3.6. Advisors
11.3.7. Example

11.4. Choosing which AOP declaration style to use

11.4.1. Spring AOP or full AspectJ?
11.4.2. @AspectJ or XML for Spring AOP?

11.5. Mixing aspect types

11.6. Proxying mechanisms
11.6.1. Understanding AOP proxies

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 6/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
11.7. Programmatic creation of @AspectJ Proxies
11.8. Using AspectJ with Spring applications
11.8.1. Using AspectJ to dependency inject domain objects with Spring
Unit testing @Configurable objects
Working with multiple application contexts
11.8.2. Other Spring aspects for AspectJ
11.8.3. Configuring AspectJ aspects using Spring IoC
11.8.4. Load-time weaving with AspectJ in the Spring Framework
A first example
Aspects
'META-INF/aop.xml'
Required libraries (JARS)
Spring configuration
Environment-specific configuration

11.9. Further Resources

12. Spring AOP APIs

12.1. Introduction
12.2. Pointcut API in Spring
12.2.1. Concepts
12.2.2. Operations on pointcuts
12.2.3. AspectJ expression pointcuts
12.2.4. Convenience pointcut implementations
Static pointcuts
Dynamic pointcuts
12.2.5. Pointcut superclasses
12.2.6. Custom pointcuts

12.3. Advice API in Spring

12.3.1. Advice lifecycles
12.3.2. Advice types in Spring
Interception around advice
Before advice
Throws advice
After Returning advice
Introduction advice

12.4. Advisor API in Spring

12.5. Using the ProxyFactoryBean to create AOP proxies
12.5.1. Basics
12.5.2. JavaBean properties
12.5.3. JDK- and CGLIB-based proxies
12.5.4. Proxying interfaces
12.5.5. Proxying classes
12.5.6. Using 'global' advisors

12.6. Concise proxy deﬁnitions

12.7. Creating AOP proxies programmatically with the ProxyFactory
12.8. Manipulating advised objects
12.9. Using the "auto-proxy" facility
12.9.1. Autoproxy bean deﬁnitions
BeanNameAutoProxyCreator
DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator
AbstractAdvisorAutoProxyCreator
12.9.2. Using metadata-driven auto-proxying

12.10. Using TargetSources

12.10.1. Hot swappable target sources
12.10.2. Pooling target sources
12.10.3. Prototype target sources
12.10.4. ThreadLocal target sources

12.11. Deﬁning new Advice types

12.12. Further resources

IV. Testing
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 7/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

13. Introduction to Spring Testing

14. Unit Testing

14.1. Mock Objects
14.1.1. Environment
14.1.2. JNDI
14.1.3. Servlet API
14.1.4. Portlet API

14.2. Unit Testing support Classes

14.2.1. General testing utilities
14.2.2. Spring MVC

15. Integration Testing

15.1. Overview
15.2. Goals of Integration Testing
15.2.1. Context management and caching
15.2.2. Dependency Injection of test ﬁxtures
15.2.3. Transaction management
15.2.4. Support classes for integration testing

15.3. JDBC Testing Support

15.4. Annotations
15.4.1. Spring Testing Annotations
@BootstrapWith
@ContextConfiguration
@WebAppConfiguration
@ContextHierarchy
@ActiveProfiles
@TestPropertySource
@DirtiesContext
@TestExecutionListeners
@Commit
@Rollback
@BeforeTransaction
@AfterTransaction
@Sql
@SqlConfig
@SqlGroup
15.4.2. Standard Annotation Support
15.4.3. Spring JUnit 4 Testing Annotations
@IfProfileValue
@ProfileValueSourceConfiguration
@Timed
@Repeat
15.4.4. Meta-Annotation Support for Testing

15.5. Spring TestContext Framework

15.5.1. Key abstractions
TestContext
TestContextManager
TestExecutionListener
Context Loaders
15.5.2. Bootstrapping the TestContext framework
15.5.3. TestExecutionListener configuration
Registering custom TestExecutionListeners
Automatic discovery of default TestExecutionListeners
Ordering TestExecutionListeners
Merging TestExecutionListeners
15.5.4. Context management
Context configuration with XML resources
Context configuration with Groovy scripts
Context configuration with annotated classes
Mixing XML, Groovy scripts, and annotated classes
Context configuration with context initializers
Context configuration inheritance
Context configuration with environment profiles
Context configuration with test property sources
Loading a WebApplicationContext
Context caching

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 8/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Context hierarchies
15.5.5. Dependency injection of test ﬁxtures
15.5.6. Testing request and session scoped beans
15.5.7. Transaction management
Test-managed transactions
Enabling and disabling transactions
Transaction rollback and commit behavior
Programmatic transaction management
Executing code outside of a transaction
Conﬁguring a transaction manager
Demonstration of all transaction-related annotations
15.5.8. Executing SQL scripts
Executing SQL scripts programmatically
Executing SQL scripts declaratively with @Sql
15.5.9. TestContext Framework support classes
Spring JUnit 4 Runner
Spring JUnit 4 Rules
JUnit 4 support classes
TestNG support classes

15.6. Spring MVC Test Framework

15.6.1. Server-Side Tests
Static Imports
Setup Options
Performing Requests
Deﬁning Expectations
Filter Registrations
Differences between Out-of-Container and End-to-End Integration Tests
Further Server-Side Test Examples
15.6.2. HtmlUnit Integration
Why HtmlUnit Integration?
MockMvc and HtmlUnit
MockMvc and WebDriver
MockMvc and Geb
15.6.3. Client-Side REST Tests
Static Imports
Further Examples of Client-side REST Tests

15.7. PetClinic Example

16. Further Resources

V. Data Access
17. Transaction Management
17.1. Introduction to Spring Framework transaction management
17.2. Advantages of the Spring Framework’s transaction support model
17.2.1. Global transactions
17.2.2. Local transactions
17.2.3. Spring Framework’s consistent programming model

17.3. Understanding the Spring Framework transaction abstraction

17.4. Synchronizing resources with transactions
17.4.1. High-level synchronization approach
17.4.2. Low-level synchronization approach
17.4.3. TransactionAwareDataSourceProxy

17.5. Declarative transaction management

17.5.1. Understanding the Spring Framework’s declarative transaction implementation
17.5.2. Example of declarative transaction implementation
17.5.3. Rolling back a declarative transaction
17.5.4. Conﬁguring different transactional semantics for different beans
17.5.5. <tx:advice/> settings
17.5.6. Using @Transactional
@Transactional settings
Multiple Transaction Managers with @Transactional
Custom shortcut annotations
17.5.7. Transaction propagation
Required
RequiresNew

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 9/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Nested
17.5.8. Advising transactional operations
17.5.9. Using @Transactional with AspectJ

17.6. Programmatic transaction management

17.6.1. Using the TransactionTemplate
Specifying transaction settings
17.6.2. Using the PlatformTransactionManager

17.7. Choosing between programmatic and declarative transaction management

17.8. Transaction bound event
17.9. Application server-speciﬁc integration
17.9.1. IBM WebSphere
17.9.2. Oracle WebLogic Server

17.10. Solutions to common problems

17.10.1. Use of the wrong transaction manager for a speciﬁc DataSource

17.11. Further Resources

18. DAO support

18.1. Introduction
18.2. Consistent exception hierarchy
18.3. Annotations used for conﬁguring DAO or Repository classes

19. Data access with JDBC

19.1. Introduction to Spring Framework JDBC
19.1.1. Choosing an approach for JDBC database access
19.1.2. Package hierarchy

19.2. Using the JDBC core classes to control basic JDBC processing and error handling
19.2.1. JdbcTemplate
Examples of JdbcTemplate class usage
JdbcTemplate best practices
19.2.2. NamedParameterJdbcTemplate
19.2.3. SQLExceptionTranslator
19.2.4. Executing statements
19.2.5. Running queries
19.2.6. Updating the database
19.2.7. Retrieving auto-generated keys

19.3. Controlling database connections

19.3.1. DataSource
19.3.2. DataSourceUtils
19.3.3. SmartDataSource
19.3.4. AbstractDataSource
19.3.5. SingleConnectionDataSource
19.3.6. DriverManagerDataSource
19.3.7. TransactionAwareDataSourceProxy
19.3.8. DataSourceTransactionManager
19.3.9. NativeJdbcExtractor

19.4. JDBC batch operations

19.4.1. Basic batch operations with the JdbcTemplate
19.4.2. Batch operations with a List of objects
19.4.3. Batch operations with multiple batches

19.5. Simplifying JDBC operations with the SimpleJdbc classes

19.5.1. Inserting data using SimpleJdbcInsert
19.5.2. Retrieving auto-generated keys using SimpleJdbcInsert
19.5.3. Specifying columns for a SimpleJdbcInsert
19.5.4. Using SqlParameterSource to provide parameter values
19.5.5. Calling a stored procedure with SimpleJdbcCall
19.5.6. Explicitly declaring parameters to use for a SimpleJdbcCall
19.5.7. How to deﬁne SqlParameters
19.5.8. Calling a stored function using SimpleJdbcCall
19.5.9. Returning ResultSet/REF Cursor from a SimpleJdbcCall

19.6. Modeling JDBC operations as Java objects

19.6.1. SqlQuery
19.6.2. MappingSqlQuery

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 10/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
19.6.3. SqlUpdate
19.6.4. StoredProcedure

19.7. Common problems with parameter and data value handling

19.7.1. Providing SQL type information for parameters
19.7.2. Handling BLOB and CLOB objects
19.7.3. Passing in lists of values for IN clause
19.7.4. Handling complex types for stored procedure calls

19.8. Embedded database support

19.8.1. Why use an embedded database?
19.8.2. Creating an embedded database using Spring XML
19.8.3. Creating an embedded database programmatically
19.8.4. Selecting the embedded database type
Using HSQL
Using H2
Using Derby
19.8.5. Testing data access logic with an embedded database
19.8.6. Generating unique names for embedded databases
19.8.7. Extending the embedded database support

19.9. Initializing a DataSource

19.9.1. Initializing a database using Spring XML
Initialization of other components that depend on the database

20. Object Relational Mapping (ORM) Data Access

20.1. Introduction to ORM with Spring
20.2. General ORM integration considerations
20.2.1. Resource and transaction management
20.2.2. Exception translation

20.3. Hibernate
20.3.1. SessionFactory setup in a Spring container
20.3.2. Implementing DAOs based on plain Hibernate API
20.3.3. Declarative transaction demarcation
20.3.4. Programmatic transaction demarcation
20.3.5. Transaction management strategies
20.3.6. Comparing container-managed and locally deﬁned resources
20.3.7. Spurious application server warnings with Hibernate

20.4. JDO
20.4.1. PersistenceManagerFactory setup
20.4.2. Implementing DAOs based on the plain JDO API
20.4.3. Transaction management
20.4.4. JdoDialect

20.5. JPA
20.5.1. Three options for JPA setup in a Spring environment
LocalEntityManagerFactoryBean
Obtaining an EntityManagerFactory from JNDI
LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean
Dealing with multiple persistence units
20.5.2. Implementing DAOs based on JPA: EntityManagerFactory and EntityManager
20.5.3. Spring-driven JPA transactions
20.5.4. JpaDialect and JpaVendorAdapter
20.5.5. Setting up JPA with JTA transaction management

21. Marshalling XML using O/X Mappers

21.1. Introduction
21.1.1. Ease of conﬁguration
21.1.2. Consistent Interfaces
21.1.3. Consistent Exception Hierarchy

21.2. Marshaller and Unmarshaller

21.2.1. Marshaller
21.2.2. Unmarshaller
21.2.3. XmlMappingException

21.3. Using Marshaller and Unmarshaller

21.4. XML Schema-based Conﬁguration
21.5. JAXB

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 11/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
21.5.1. Jaxb2Marshaller
XML Schema-based Conﬁguration

21.6. Castor
21.6.1. CastorMarshaller
21.6.2. Mapping
XML Schema-based Conﬁguration

21.7. XMLBeans
21.7.1. XmlBeansMarshaller
XML Schema-based Conﬁguration

21.8. JiBX
21.8.1. JibxMarshaller
XML Schema-based Conﬁguration

21.9. XStream
21.9.1. XStreamMarshaller

VI. The Web

22. Web MVC framework
22.1. Introduction to Spring Web MVC framework
22.1.1. Features of Spring Web MVC
22.1.2. Pluggability of other MVC implementations

22.2. The DispatcherServlet

22.2.1. Special Bean Types In the WebApplicationContext
22.2.2. Default DispatcherServlet Conﬁguration
22.2.3. DispatcherServlet Processing Sequence

22.3. Implementing Controllers

22.3.1. Defining a controller with @Controller
22.3.2. Mapping Requests With @RequestMapping
Composed @RequestMapping Variants
@Controller and AOP Proxying
New Support Classes for @RequestMapping methods in Spring MVC 3.1
URI Template Patterns
URI Template Patterns with Regular Expressions
Path Patterns
Path Pattern Comparison
Path Patterns with Placeholders
Suffix Pattern Matching
Suffix Pattern Matching and RFD
Matrix Variables
Consumable Media Types
Producible Media Types
Request Parameters and Header Values
HTTP HEAD and HTTP OPTIONS
22.3.3. Defining @RequestMapping handler methods
Supported method argument types
Supported method return types
Binding request parameters to method parameters with @RequestParam
Mapping the request body with the @RequestBody annotation
Mapping the response body with the @ResponseBody annotation
Creating REST Controllers with the @RestController annotation
Using HttpEntity
Using @ModelAttribute on a method
Using @ModelAttribute on a method argument
Using @SessionAttributes to store model attributes in the HTTP session between requests
Using @SessionAttribute to access pre-existing global session attributes
Using @RequestAttribute to access request attributes
Working with "application/x-www-form-urlencoded" data
Mapping cookie values with the @CookieValue annotation
Mapping request header attributes with the @RequestHeader annotation
Method Parameters And Type Conversion
Customizing WebDataBinder initialization
Advising controllers with @ControllerAdvice and @RestControllerAdvice
Jackson Serialization View Support
Jackson JSONP Support
22.3.4. Asynchronous Request Processing
Exception Handling for Async Requests

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 12/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Intercepting Async Requests
HTTP Streaming
HTTP Streaming With Server-Sent Events
HTTP Streaming Directly To The OutputStream
Conﬁguring Asynchronous Request Processing
22.3.5. Testing Controllers

22.4. Handler mappings

22.4.1. Intercepting requests with a HandlerInterceptor

22.5. Resolving views

22.5.1. Resolving views with the ViewResolver interface
22.5.2. Chaining ViewResolvers
22.5.3. Redirecting to Views
RedirectView
The redirect: preﬁx
The forward: preﬁx
22.5.4. ContentNegotiatingViewResolver

22.6. Using ﬂash attributes

22.7. Building URIs
22.7.1. Building URIs to Controllers and methods
22.7.2. Working with "Forwarded" and "X-Forwarded-*" Headers
22.7.3. Building URIs to Controllers and methods from views

22.8. Using locales

22.8.1. Obtaining Time Zone Information
22.8.2. AcceptHeaderLocaleResolver
22.8.3. CookieLocaleResolver
22.8.4. SessionLocaleResolver
22.8.5. LocaleChangeInterceptor

22.9. Using themes

22.9.1. Overview of themes
22.9.2. Deﬁning themes
22.9.3. Theme resolvers

22.10. Spring’s multipart (ﬁle upload) support

22.10.1. Introduction
22.10.2. Using a MultipartResolver with Commons FileUpload
22.10.3. Using a MultipartResolver with Servlet 3.0
22.10.4. Handling a ﬁle upload in a form
22.10.5. Handling a ﬁle upload request from programmatic clients

22.11. Handling exceptions

22.11.1. HandlerExceptionResolver
22.11.2. @ExceptionHandler
22.11.3. Handling Standard Spring MVC Exceptions
22.11.4. Annotating Business Exceptions With @ResponseStatus
22.11.5. Customizing the Default Servlet Container Error Page

22.12. Web Security

22.13. Convention over conﬁguration support
22.13.1. The Controller ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping
22.13.2. The Model ModelMap (ModelAndView)
22.13.3. The View - RequestToViewNameTranslator

22.14. HTTP caching support

22.14.1. Cache-Control HTTP header
22.14.2. HTTP caching support for static resources
22.14.3. Support for the Cache-Control, ETag and Last-Modiﬁed response headers in Controllers
22.14.4. Shallow ETag support

22.15. Code-based Servlet container initialization

22.16. Configuring Spring MVC
22.16.1. Enabling the MVC Java Config or the MVC XML Namespace
22.16.2. Customizing the Provided Configuration
22.16.3. Conversion and Formatting
22.16.4. Validation
22.16.5. Interceptors
22.16.6. Content Negotiation
22.16.7. View Controllers
22.16.8. View Resolvers
22.16.9. Serving of Resources

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 13/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
22.16.10. Falling Back On the "Default" Servlet To Serve Resources
22.16.11. Path Matching
22.16.12. Message Converters
22.16.13. Advanced Customizations with MVC Java Conﬁg
22.16.14. Advanced Customizations with the MVC Namespace

23. View technologies

23.1. Introduction
23.2. Thymeleaf
23.3. Groovy Markup Templates
23.3.1. Conﬁguration
23.3.2. Example

23.4. Velocity & FreeMarker

23.4.1. Dependencies
23.4.2. Context conﬁguration
23.4.3. Creating templates
23.4.4. Advanced conﬁguration
velocity.properties
FreeMarker
23.4.5. Bind support and form handling
The bind macros
Simple binding
Form input generation macros
HTML escaping and XHTML compliance

23.5. JSP & JSTL

23.5.1. View resolvers
23.5.2. 'Plain-old' JSPs versus JSTL
23.5.3. Additional tags facilitating development
23.5.4. Using Spring’s form tag library
Conﬁguration
The form tag
The input tag
The checkbox tag
The checkboxes tag
The radiobutton tag
The radiobuttons tag
The password tag
The select tag
The option tag
The options tag
The textarea tag
The hidden tag
The errors tag
HTTP Method Conversion
HTML5 Tags

23.6. Script templates

23.6.1. Dependencies
23.6.2. How to integrate script based templating

23.7. XML Marshalling View

23.8. Tiles
23.8.1. Dependencies
23.8.2. How to integrate Tiles
UrlBasedViewResolver
ResourceBundleViewResolver
SimpleSpringPreparerFactory and SpringBeanPreparerFactory

23.9. XSLT
23.9.1. My First Words
Bean deﬁnitions
Standard MVC controller code
Document transformation

23.10. Document views (PDF/Excel)

23.10.1. Introduction
23.10.2. Conﬁguration and setup
Document view deﬁnitions
Controller code
Subclassing for Excel views
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 14/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Subclassing for PDF views

23.11. JasperReports
23.11.1. Dependencies
23.11.2. Configuration
Configuring the ViewResolver
Configuring the Views
About Report Files
Using JasperReportsMultiFormatView
23.11.3. Populating the ModelAndView
23.11.4. Working with Sub-Reports
Configuring Sub-Report Files
Configuring Sub-Report Data Sources
23.11.5. Configuring Exporter Parameters

23.12. Feed Views

23.13. JSON Mapping View
23.14. XML Mapping View

24. Integrating with other web frameworks

24.1. Introduction
24.2. Common conﬁguration
24.3. JavaServer Faces 1.2
24.3.1. SpringBeanFacesELResolver (JSF 1.2+)
24.3.2. FacesContextUtils

24.4. Apache Struts 2.x

24.5. Tapestry 5.x
24.6. Further Resources

25. Portlet MVC Framework

25.1. Introduction
25.1.1. Controllers - The C in MVC
25.1.2. Views - The V in MVC
25.1.3. Web-scoped beans

25.2. The DispatcherPortlet

25.3. The ViewRendererServlet
25.4. Controllers
25.4.1. AbstractController and PortletContentGenerator
25.4.2. Other simple controllers
25.4.3. Command Controllers
25.4.4. PortletWrappingController

25.5. Handler mappings

25.5.1. PortletModeHandlerMapping
25.5.2. ParameterHandlerMapping
25.5.3. PortletModeParameterHandlerMapping
25.5.4. Adding HandlerInterceptors
25.5.5. HandlerInterceptorAdapter
25.5.6. ParameterMappingInterceptor

25.6. Views and resolving them

25.7. Multipart (ﬁle upload) support
25.7.1. Using the PortletMultipartResolver
25.7.2. Handling a ﬁle upload in a form

25.8. Handling exceptions

25.9. Annotation-based controller conﬁguration
25.9.1. Setting up the dispatcher for annotation support
25.9.2. Deﬁning a controller with @Controller
25.9.3. Mapping requests with @RequestMapping
25.9.4. Supported handler method arguments
25.9.5. Binding request parameters to method parameters with @RequestParam
25.9.6. Providing a link to data from the model with @ModelAttribute
25.9.7. Specifying attributes to store in a Session with @SessionAttributes

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 15/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
25.9.8. Customizing WebDataBinder initialization
Customizing data binding with @InitBinder
Conﬁguring a custom WebBindingInitializer

25.10. Portlet application deployment

26. WebSocket Support

26.1. Introduction
26.1.1. WebSocket Fallback Options
26.1.2. A Messaging Architecture
26.1.3. Sub-Protocol Support in WebSocket
26.1.4. Should I Use WebSocket?

26.2. WebSocket API

26.2.1. Create and Configure a WebSocketHandler
26.2.2. Customizing the WebSocket Handshake
26.2.3. WebSocketHandler Decoration
26.2.4. Deployment Considerations
26.2.5. Configuring the WebSocket Engine
26.2.6. Configuring allowed origins

26.3. SockJS Fallback Options

26.3.1. Overview of SockJS
26.3.2. Enable SockJS
26.3.3. HTTP Streaming in IE 8, 9: Ajax/XHR vs IFrame
26.3.4. Heartbeat Messages
26.3.5. Servlet 3 Async Requests
26.3.6. CORS Headers for SockJS
26.3.7. SockJS Client

26.4. STOMP Over WebSocket Messaging Architecture

26.4.1. Overview of STOMP
26.4.2. Enable STOMP over WebSocket
26.4.3. Flow of Messages
26.4.4. Annotation Message Handling
26.4.5. Sending Messages
26.4.6. Simple Broker
26.4.7. Full-Featured Broker
26.4.8. Connections To Full-Featured Broker
26.4.9. Using Dot as Separator in @MessageMapping Destinations
26.4.10. Authentication
26.4.11. Token-based Authentication
26.4.12. User Destinations
26.4.13. Listening To ApplicationContext Events and Intercepting Messages
26.4.14. STOMP Client
26.4.15. WebSocket Scope
26.4.16. Conﬁguration and Performance
26.4.17. Runtime Monitoring
26.4.18. Testing Annotated Controller Methods

27. CORS Support

27.1. Introduction
27.2. Controller method CORS configuration
27.3. Global CORS configuration
27.3.1. JavaConfig
27.3.2. XML namespace

27.4. Advanced Customization

27.5. Filter based CORS support

VII. Integration
28. Remoting and web services using Spring
28.1. Introduction
28.2. Exposing services using RMI
28.2.1. Exporting the service using the RmiServiceExporter
28.2.2. Linking in the service at the client

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 16/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
28.3. Using Hessian or Burlap to remotely call services via HTTP
28.3.1. Wiring up the DispatcherServlet for Hessian and co.
28.3.2. Exposing your beans by using the HessianServiceExporter
28.3.3. Linking in the service on the client
28.3.4. Using Burlap
28.3.5. Applying HTTP basic authentication to a service exposed through Hessian or Burlap

28.4. Exposing services using HTTP invokers

28.4.1. Exposing the service object
28.4.2. Linking in the service at the client

28.5. Web services

28.5.1. Exposing servlet-based web services using JAX-WS
28.5.2. Exporting standalone web services using JAX-WS
28.5.3. Exporting web services using the JAX-WS RI’s Spring support
28.5.4. Accessing web services using JAX-WS

28.6. JMS
28.6.1. Server-side conﬁguration
28.6.2. Client-side conﬁguration

28.7. AMQP
28.8. Auto-detection is not implemented for remote interfaces
28.9. Considerations when choosing a technology
28.10. Accessing RESTful services on the Client
28.10.1. RestTemplate
Working with the URI
Dealing with request and response headers
Jackson JSON Views support
28.10.2. HTTP Message Conversion
StringHttpMessageConverter
FormHttpMessageConverter
ByteArrayHttpMessageConverter
MarshallingHttpMessageConverter
MappingJackson2HttpMessageConverter
MappingJackson2XmlHttpMessageConverter
SourceHttpMessageConverter
BufferedImageHttpMessageConverter
28.10.3. Async RestTemplate

29. Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) integration

29.1. Introduction
29.2. Accessing EJBs
29.2.1. Concepts
29.2.2. Accessing local SLSBs
29.2.3. Accessing remote SLSBs
29.2.4. Accessing EJB 2.x SLSBs versus EJB 3 SLSBs

29.3. Using Spring’s EJB implementation support classes

29.3.1. EJB 3 injection interceptor

30. JMS (Java Message Service)

30.1. Introduction
30.2. Using Spring JMS
30.2.1. JmsTemplate
30.2.2. Connections
Caching Messaging Resources
SingleConnectionFactory
CachingConnectionFactory
30.2.3. Destination Management
30.2.4. Message Listener Containers
SimpleMessageListenerContainer
DefaultMessageListenerContainer
30.2.5. Transaction management

30.3. Sending a Message

30.3.1. Using Message Converters
30.3.2. SessionCallback and ProducerCallback

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 17/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
30.4. Receiving a message
30.4.1. Synchronous Reception
30.4.2. Asynchronous Reception - Message-Driven POJOs
30.4.3. the SessionAwareMessageListener interface
30.4.4. the MessageListenerAdapter
30.4.5. Processing messages within transactions

30.5. Support for JCA Message Endpoints

30.6. Annotation-driven listener endpoints
30.6.1. Enable listener endpoint annotations
30.6.2. Programmatic endpoints registration
30.6.3. Annotated endpoint method signature
30.6.4. Response management

30.7. JMS namespace support

31. JMX
31.1. Introduction
31.2. Exporting your beans to JMX
31.2.1. Creating an MBeanServer
31.2.2. Reusing an existing MBeanServer
31.2.3. Lazy-initialized MBeans
31.2.4. Automatic registration of MBeans
31.2.5. Controlling the registration behavior

31.3. Controlling the management interface of your beans

31.3.1. the MBeanInfoAssembler Interface
31.3.2. Using Source-Level Metadata (Java annotations)
31.3.3. Source-Level Metadata Types
31.3.4. the AutodetectCapableMBeanInfoAssembler interface
31.3.5. Deﬁning management interfaces using Java interfaces
31.3.6. Using MethodNameBasedMBeanInfoAssembler

31.4. Controlling the ObjectNames for your beans

31.4.1. Reading ObjectNames from Properties
31.4.2. Using the MetadataNamingStrategy
31.4.3. Conﬁguring annotation based MBean export

31.5. JSR-160 Connectors

31.5.1. Server-side Connectors
31.5.2. Client-side Connectors
31.5.3. JMX over Burlap/Hessian/SOAP

31.6. Accessing MBeans via Proxies

31.7. Notifications
31.7.1. Registering Listeners for Notifications
31.7.2. Publishing Notifications

31.8. Further Resources

32. JCA CCI

32.1. Introduction
32.2. Configuring CCI
32.2.1. Connector configuration
32.2.2. ConnectionFactory configuration in Spring
32.2.3. Configuring CCI connections
32.2.4. Using a single CCI connection

32.3. Using Spring’s CCI access support

32.3.1. Record conversion
32.3.2. the CciTemplate
32.3.3. DAO support
32.3.4. Automatic output record generation
32.3.5. Summary
32.3.6. Using a CCI Connection and Interaction directly
32.3.7. Example for CciTemplate usage

32.4. Modeling CCI access as operation objects

32.4.1. MappingRecordOperation
32.4.2. MappingCommAreaOperation
32.4.3. Automatic output record generation
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 18/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
32.4.4. Summary
32.4.5. Example for MappingRecordOperation usage
32.4.6. Example for MappingCommAreaOperation usage

32.5. Transactions

33. Email
33.1. Introduction
33.2. Usage
33.2.1. Basic MailSender and SimpleMailMessage usage
33.2.2. Using the JavaMailSender and the MimeMessagePreparator

33.3. Using the JavaMail MimeMessageHelper

33.3.1. Sending attachments and inline resources
Attachments
Inline resources
33.3.2. Creating email content using a templating library
A Velocity-based example

34. Task Execution and Scheduling

34.1. Introduction
34.2. The Spring TaskExecutor abstraction
34.2.1. TaskExecutor types
34.2.2. Using a TaskExecutor

34.3. The Spring TaskScheduler abstraction

34.3.1. the Trigger interface
34.3.2. Trigger implementations
34.3.3. TaskScheduler implementations

34.4. Annotation Support for Scheduling and Asynchronous Execution

34.4.1. Enable scheduling annotations
34.4.2. The @Scheduled annotation
34.4.3. The @Async annotation
34.4.4. Executor qualiﬁcation with @Async
34.4.5. Exception management with @Async

34.5. The task namespace

34.5.1. The 'scheduler' element
34.5.2. The 'executor' element
34.5.3. The 'scheduled-tasks' element

34.6. Using the Quartz Scheduler

34.6.1. Using the JobDetailFactoryBean
34.6.2. Using the MethodInvokingJobDetailFactoryBean
34.6.3. Wiring up jobs using triggers and the SchedulerFactoryBean

35. Dynamic language support

35.1. Introduction
35.2. A first example
35.3. Defining beans that are backed by dynamic languages
35.3.1. Common concepts
The <lang:language/> element
Refreshable beans
Inline dynamic language source files
Understanding Constructor Injection in the context of dynamic-language-backed beans
35.3.2. JRuby beans
35.3.3. Groovy beans
Customizing Groovy objects via a callback
35.3.4. BeanShell beans

35.4. Scenarios
35.4.1. Scripted Spring MVC Controllers
35.4.2. Scripted Validators

35.5. Bits and bobs

35.5.1. AOP - advising scripted beans
35.5.2. Scoping

35.6. Further Resources

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 19/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

36. Cache Abstraction

36.1. Introduction
36.2. Understanding the cache abstraction
36.3. Declarative annotation-based caching
36.3.1. @Cacheable annotation
Default Key Generation
Custom Key Generation Declaration
Default Cache Resolution
Custom cache resolution
Synchronized caching
Conditional caching
Available caching SpEL evaluation context
36.3.2. @CachePut annotation
36.3.3. @CacheEvict annotation
36.3.4. @Caching annotation
36.3.5. @CacheConﬁg annotation
36.3.6. Enable caching annotations
36.3.7. Using custom annotations

36.4. JCache (JSR-107) annotations

36.4.1. Features summary
36.4.2. Enabling JSR-107 support

36.5. Declarative XML-based caching

36.6. Conﬁguring the cache storage
36.6.1. JDK ConcurrentMap-based Cache
36.6.2. Ehcache-based Cache
36.6.3. Caffeine Cache
36.6.4. Guava Cache
36.6.5. GemFire-based Cache
36.6.6. JSR-107 Cache
36.6.7. Dealing with caches without a backing store

36.7. Plugging-in different back-end caches

36.8. How can I set the TTL/TTI/Eviction policy/XXX feature?

VIII. Appendices
37. Migrating to Spring Framework 4.x

38. Spring Annotation Programming Model

39. Classic Spring Usage

39.1. Classic ORM usage
39.1.1. Hibernate
The HibernateTemplate
Implementing Spring-based DAOs without callbacks

39.2. JMS Usage

39.2.1. JmsTemplate
39.2.2. Asynchronous Message Reception
39.2.3. Connections
39.2.4. Transaction Management

40. Classic Spring AOP Usage

40.1. Pointcut API in Spring
40.1.1. Concepts
40.1.2. Operations on pointcuts
40.1.3. AspectJ expression pointcuts
40.1.4. Convenience pointcut implementations
Static pointcuts
Dynamic pointcuts
40.1.5. Pointcut superclasses
40.1.6. Custom pointcuts

40.2. Advice API in Spring

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 20/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
40.2.1. Advice lifecycles
40.2.2. Advice types in Spring
Interception around advice
Before advice
Throws advice
After Returning advice
Introduction advice

40.3. Advisor API in Spring

40.4. Using the ProxyFactoryBean to create AOP proxies
40.4.1. Basics
40.4.2. JavaBean properties
40.4.3. JDK- and CGLIB-based proxies
40.4.4. Proxying interfaces
40.4.5. Proxying classes
40.4.6. Using 'global' advisors

40.5. Concise proxy deﬁnitions

40.6. Creating AOP proxies programmatically with the ProxyFactory
40.7. Manipulating advised objects
40.8. Using the "autoproxy" facility
40.8.1. Autoproxy bean deﬁnitions
BeanNameAutoProxyCreator
DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator
AbstractAdvisorAutoProxyCreator
40.8.2. Using metadata-driven auto-proxying

40.9. Using TargetSources

40.9.1. Hot swappable target sources
40.9.2. Pooling target sources
40.9.3. Prototype target sources
40.9.4. ThreadLocal target sources

40.10. Deﬁning new Advice types

40.11. Further resources

41. XML Schema-based conﬁguration

41.1. Introduction
41.2. XML Schema-based configuration
41.2.1. Referencing the schemas
41.2.2. the util schema
<util:constant/>
<util:property-path/>
<util:properties/>
<util:list/>
<util:map/>
<util:set/>
41.2.3. the jee schema
<jee:jndi-lookup/> (simple)
<jee:jndi-lookup/> (with single JNDI environment setting)
<jee:jndi-lookup/> (with multiple JNDI environment settings)
<jee:jndi-lookup/> (complex)
<jee:local-slsb/> (simple)
<jee:local-slsb/> (complex)
<jee:remote-slsb/>
41.2.4. the lang schema
41.2.5. the jms schema
41.2.6. the tx (transaction) schema
41.2.7. the aop schema
41.2.8. the context schema
<property-placeholder/>
<annotation-config/>
<component-scan/>
<load-time-weaver/>
<spring-configured/>
<mbean-export/>
41.2.9. the tool schema
41.2.10. the jdbc schema
41.2.11. the cache schema

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 21/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
41.2.12. the beans schema

42. Extensible XML authoring

42.1. Introduction
42.2. Authoring the schema
42.3. Coding a NamespaceHandler
42.4. BeanDeﬁnitionParser
42.5. Registering the handler and the schema
42.5.1. 'META-INF/spring.handlers'
42.5.2. 'META-INF/spring.schemas'

42.6. Using a custom extension in your Spring XML conﬁguration

42.7. Meatier examples
42.7.1. Nesting custom tags within custom tags
42.7.2. Custom attributes on 'normal' elements

42.8. Further Resources

Part I. Overview of Spring Framework

The Spring Framework is a lightweight solution and a potential one-stop-shop for building your enterprise-ready applications. However, Spring is
modular, allowing you to use only those parts that you need, without having to bring in the rest. You can use the IoC container, with any web
framework on top, but you can also use only the Hibernate integration code or the JDBC abstraction layer. The Spring Framework supports
declarative transaction management, remote access to your logic through RMI or web services, and various options for persisting your data. It offers
a full-featured MVC framework, and enables you to integrate AOP transparently into your software.

Spring is designed to be non-intrusive, meaning that your domain logic code generally has no dependencies on the framework itself. In your
integration layer (such as the data access layer), some dependencies on the data access technology and the Spring libraries will exist. However, it
should be easy to isolate these dependencies from the rest of your code base.

This document is a reference guide to Spring Framework features. If you have any requests, comments, or questions on this document, please post
them on the user mailing list. Questions on the Framework itself should be asked on StackOverﬂow (see https://spring.io/questions).

1. Getting Started with Spring

This reference guide provides detailed information about the Spring Framework. It provides comprehensive documentation for all features, as well as
some background about the underlying concepts (such as "Dependency Injection") that Spring has embraced.

If you are just getting started with Spring, you may want to begin using the Spring Framework by creating a Spring Boot based application. Spring
Boot provides a quick (and opinionated) way to create a production-ready Spring based application. It is based on the Spring Framework, favors
convention over conﬁguration, and is designed to get you up and running as quickly as possible.

You can use start.spring.io to generate a basic project or follow one of the "Getting Started" guides like the Getting Started Building a RESTful Web
Service one. As well as being easier to digest, these guides are very task focused, and most of them are based on Spring Boot. They also cover
other projects from the Spring portfolio that you might want to consider when solving a particular problem.

2. Introduction to the Spring Framework

The Spring Framework is a Java platform that provides comprehensive infrastructure support for developing Java applications. Spring handles the
infrastructure so you can focus on your application.

Spring enables you to build applications from "plain old Java objects" (POJOs) and to apply enterprise services non-invasively to POJOs. This
capability applies to the Java SE programming model and to full and partial Java EE.

Examples of how you, as an application developer, can beneﬁt from the Spring platform:

Make a Java method execute in a database transaction without having to deal with transaction APIs.
Make a local Java method an HTTP endpoint without having to deal with the Servlet API.
Make a local Java method a message handler without having to deal with the JMS API.
Make a local Java method a management operation without having to deal with the JMX API.

2.1 Dependency Injection and Inversion of Control

A Java application — a loose term that runs the gamut from constrained, embedded applications to n-tier, server-side enterprise applications —
typically consists of objects that collaborate to form the application proper. Thus the objects in an application have dependencies on each other.

Although the Java platform provides a wealth of application development functionality, it lacks the means to organize the basic building blocks into a
coherent whole, leaving that task to architects and developers. Although you can use design patterns such as Factory, Abstract Factory, Builder,
Decorator, and Service Locator to compose the various classes and object instances that make up an application, these patterns are simply that:
best practices given a name, with a description of what the pattern does, where to apply it, the problems it addresses, and so forth. Patterns are
formalized best practices that you must implement yourself in your application.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 23/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The Spring Framework Inversion of Control (IoC) component addresses this concern by providing a formalized means of composing disparate
components into a fully working application ready for use. The Spring Framework codiﬁes formalized design patterns as ﬁrst-class objects that you
can integrate into your own application(s). Numerous organizations and institutions use the Spring Framework in this manner to engineer robust,
maintainable applications.

Background

"The question is, what aspect of control are [they] inverting?" Martin Fowler posed this question about Inversion of Control (IoC) on his site in
2004. Fowler suggested renaming the principle to make it more self-explanatory and came up with Dependency Injection.

2.2 Framework Modules
The Spring Framework consists of features organized into about 20 modules. These modules are grouped into Core Container, Data
Access/Integration, Web, AOP (Aspect Oriented Programming), Instrumentation, Messaging, and Test, as shown in the following diagram.

Figure 2.1. Overview of the Spring Framework

The following sections list the available modules for each feature along with their artifact names and the topics they cover. Artifact names correlate to
artifact IDs used in Dependency Management tools.

2.2.1 Core Container
The Core Container consists of the spring-core , spring-beans , spring-context , spring-context-support , and
spring-expression (Spring Expression Language) modules.

The spring-core and spring-beans modules provide the fundamental parts of the framework, including the IoC and Dependency Injection
features. The BeanFactory is a sophisticated implementation of the factory pattern. It removes the need for programmatic singletons and allows
you to decouple the conﬁguration and speciﬁcation of dependencies from your actual program logic.

The Context ( spring-context ) module builds on the solid base provided by the Core and Beans modules: it is a means to access objects in a
framework-style manner that is similar to a JNDI registry. The Context module inherits its features from the Beans module and adds support for
internationalization (using, for example, resource bundles), event propagation, resource loading, and the transparent creation of contexts by, for
example, a Servlet container. The Context module also supports Java EE features such as EJB, JMX, and basic remoting. The
ApplicationContext interface is the focal point of the Context module. spring-context-support provides support for integrating common
third-party libraries into a Spring application context for caching (EhCache, Guava, JCache), mailing (JavaMail), scheduling (CommonJ, Quartz) and
template engines (FreeMarker, JasperReports, Velocity).

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 24/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The spring-expression module provides a powerful Expression Language for querying and manipulating an object graph at runtime. It is an
extension of the unified expression language (unified EL) as specified in the JSP 2.1 specification. The language supports setting and getting
property values, property assignment, method invocation, accessing the content of arrays, collections and indexers, logical and arithmetic operators,
named variables, and retrieval of objects by name from Spring’s IoC container. It also supports list projection and selection as well as common list
aggregations.

2.2.2 AOP and Instrumentation

The spring-aop module provides an AOP Alliance-compliant aspect-oriented programming implementation allowing you to deﬁne, for example,
method interceptors and pointcuts to cleanly decouple code that implements functionality that should be separated. Using source-level metadata
functionality, you can also incorporate behavioral information into your code, in a manner similar to that of .NET attributes.

The separate spring-aspects module provides integration with AspectJ.

The spring-instrument module provides class instrumentation support and classloader implementations to be used in certain application
servers. The spring-instrument-tomcat module contains Spring’s instrumentation agent for Tomcat.

2.2.3 Messaging
Spring Framework 4 includes a spring-messaging module with key abstractions from the Spring Integration project such as Message ,
MessageChannel , MessageHandler , and others to serve as a foundation for messaging-based applications. The module also includes a set of
annotations for mapping messages to methods, similar to the Spring MVC annotation based programming model.

2.2.4 Data Access/Integration
The Data Access/Integration layer consists of the JDBC, ORM, OXM, JMS, and Transaction modules.

The spring-jdbc module provides a JDBC-abstraction layer that removes the need to do tedious JDBC coding and parsing of database-vendor
speciﬁc error codes.

The spring-tx module supports programmatic and declarative transaction management for classes that implement special interfaces and for all
your POJOs (Plain Old Java Objects).

The spring-orm module provides integration layers for popular object-relational mapping APIs, including JPA, JDO, and Hibernate. Using the
spring-orm module you can use all of these O/R-mapping frameworks in combination with all of the other features Spring offers, such as the
simple declarative transaction management feature mentioned previously.

The spring-oxm module provides an abstraction layer that supports Object/XML mapping implementations such as JAXB, Castor, XMLBeans,
JiBX and XStream.

The spring-jms module (Java Messaging Service) contains features for producing and consuming messages. Since Spring Framework 4.1, it
provides integration with the spring-messaging module.

2.2.5 Web
The Web layer consists of the spring-web , spring-webmvc , spring-websocket , and spring-webmvc-portlet modules.

The spring-web module provides basic web-oriented integration features such as multipart ﬁle upload functionality and the initialization of the IoC
container using Servlet listeners and a web-oriented application context. It also contains an HTTP client and the web-related parts of Spring’s
remoting support.

The spring-webmvc module (also known as the Web-Servlet module) contains Spring’s model-view-controller (MVC) and REST Web Services
implementation for web applications. Spring’s MVC framework provides a clean separation between domain model code and web forms and
integrates with all of the other features of the Spring Framework.

The spring-webmvc-portlet module (also known as the Web-Portlet module) provides the MVC implementation to be used in a Portlet
environment and mirrors the functionality of the Servlet-based spring-webmvc module.

2.2.6 Test

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 25/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The spring-test module supports the unit testing and integration testing of Spring components with JUnit or TestNG. It provides consistent
loading of Spring ApplicationContext s and caching of those contexts. It also provides mock objects that you can use to test your code in
isolation.

2.3 Usage scenarios
The building blocks described previously make Spring a logical choice in many scenarios, from embedded applications that run on resource-
constrained devices to full-ﬂedged enterprise applications that use Spring’s transaction management functionality and web framework integration.

Figure 2.2. Typical full-ﬂedged Spring web application

Spring’s declarative transaction management features make the web application fully transactional, just as it would be if you used EJB container-
managed transactions. All your custom business logic can be implemented with simple POJOs and managed by Spring’s IoC container. Additional
services include support for sending email and validation that is independent of the web layer, which lets you choose where to execute validation
rules. Spring’s ORM support is integrated with JPA, Hibernate and JDO; for example, when using Hibernate, you can continue to use your existing
mapping ﬁles and standard Hibernate SessionFactory conﬁguration. Form controllers seamlessly integrate the web-layer with the domain
model, removing the need for ActionForms or other classes that transform HTTP parameters to values for your domain model.

Figure 2.3. Spring middle-tier using a third-party web framework

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 26/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Sometimes circumstances do not allow you to completely switch to a different framework. The Spring Framework does not force you to use
everything within it; it is not an all-or-nothing solution. Existing front-ends built with Struts, Tapestry, JSF or other UI frameworks can be integrated
with a Spring-based middle-tier, which allows you to use Spring transaction features. You simply need to wire up your business logic using an
ApplicationContext and use a WebApplicationContext to integrate your web layer.

Figure 2.4. Remoting usage scenario

When you need to access existing code through web services, you can use Spring’s Hessian- , Burlap- , Rmi- or JaxRpcProxyFactory
classes. Enabling remote access to existing applications is not difﬁcult.

Figure 2.5. EJBs - Wrapping existing POJOs

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 27/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

The Spring Framework also provides an access and abstraction layer for Enterprise JavaBeans, enabling you to reuse your existing POJOs and
wrap them in stateless session beans for use in scalable, fail-safe web applications that might need declarative security.

2.3.1 Dependency Management and Naming Conventions

Dependency management and dependency injection are different things. To get those nice features of Spring into your application (like dependency
injection) you need to assemble all the libraries needed (jar ﬁles) and get them onto your classpath at runtime, and possibly at compile time. These
dependencies are not virtual components that are injected, but physical resources in a ﬁle system (typically). The process of dependency
management involves locating those resources, storing them and adding them to classpaths. Dependencies can be direct (e.g. my application
depends on Spring at runtime), or indirect (e.g. my application depends on commons-dbcp which depends on commons-pool ). The indirect
dependencies are also known as "transitive" and it is those dependencies that are hardest to identify and manage.

If you are going to use Spring you need to get a copy of the jar libraries that comprise the pieces of Spring that you need. To make this easier Spring
is packaged as a set of modules that separate the dependencies as much as possible, so for example if you don’t want to write a web application
you don’t need the spring-web modules. To refer to Spring library modules in this guide we use a shorthand naming convention spring-* or
spring-*.jar, where * represents the short name for the module (e.g. spring-core , spring-webmvc , spring-jms , etc.). The actual
jar ﬁle name that you use is normally the module name concatenated with the version number (e.g. spring-core-4.3.11.RELEASE.jar).

Each release of the Spring Framework will publish artifacts to the following places:

Maven Central, which is the default repository that Maven queries, and does not require any special configuration to use. Many of the common
libraries that Spring depends on also are available from Maven Central and a large section of the Spring community uses Maven for dependency
management, so this is convenient for them. The names of the jars here are in the form spring-*-<version>.jar and the Maven groupId
is org.springframework .
In a public Maven repository hosted specifically for Spring. In addition to the final GA releases, this repository also hosts development snapshots
and milestones. The jar file names are in the same form as Maven Central, so this is a useful place to get development versions of Spring to use
with other libraries deployed in Maven Central. This repository also contains a bundle distribution zip file that contains all Spring jars bundled
together for easy download.

So the ﬁrst thing you need to decide is how to manage your dependencies: we generally recommend the use of an automated system like Maven,
Gradle or Ivy, but you can also do it manually by downloading all the jars yourself.

Below you will ﬁnd the list of Spring artifacts. For a more complete description of each module, see Section 2.2, “Framework Modules”.

Table 2.1. Spring Framework Artifacts

GroupId ArtifactId Description

org.springframework spring-aop Proxy-based AOP support

org.springframework spring-aspects AspectJ based aspects

org.springframework spring-beans Beans support, including Groovy

org.springframework spring-context Application context runtime, including scheduling and remoting abstractions

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 28/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

GroupId ArtifactId Description

org.springframework spring-context-support Support classes for integrating common third-party libraries into a Spring application
context

org.springframework spring-core Core utilities, used by many other Spring modules

org.springframework spring-expression Spring Expression Language (SpEL)

org.springframework spring-instrument Instrumentation agent for JVM bootstrapping

org.springframework spring-instrument- Instrumentation agent for Tomcat

tomcat

org.springframework spring-jdbc JDBC support package, including DataSource setup and JDBC access support

org.springframework spring-jms JMS support package, including helper classes to send/receive JMS messages

org.springframework spring-messaging Support for messaging architectures and protocols

org.springframework spring-orm Object/Relational Mapping, including JPA and Hibernate support

org.springframework spring-oxm Object/XML Mapping

org.springframework spring-test Support for unit testing and integration testing Spring components

org.springframework spring-tx Transaction infrastructure, including DAO support and JCA integration

org.springframework spring-web Foundational web support, including web client and web-based remoting

org.springframework spring-webmvc HTTP-based Model-View-Controller and REST endpoints for Servlet stacks

org.springframework spring-webmvc-portlet MVC implementation to be used in a Portlet environment

org.springframework spring-websocket WebSocket and SockJS infrastructure, including STOMP messaging support

Spring Dependencies and Depending on Spring

Although Spring provides integration and support for a huge range of enterprise and other external tools, it intentionally keeps its mandatory
dependencies to an absolute minimum: you shouldn’t have to locate and download (even automatically) a large number of jar libraries in order to use
Spring for simple use cases. For basic dependency injection there is only one mandatory external dependency, and that is for logging (see below for
a more detailed description of logging options).

Next we outline the basic steps needed to configure an application that depends on Spring, first with Maven and then with Gradle and finally using
Ivy. In all cases, if anything is unclear, refer to the documentation of your dependency management system, or look at some sample code - Spring
itself uses Gradle to manage dependencies when it is building, and our samples mostly use Gradle or Maven.

Maven Dependency Management

If you are using Maven for dependency management you don’t even need to supply the logging dependency explicitly. For example, to create an
application context and use dependency injection to conﬁgure an application, your Maven dependencies will look like this:

<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-context</artifactId>
<version>4.3.11.RELEASE</version>
<scope>runtime</scope>
</dependency>
</dependencies>

That’s it. Note the scope can be declared as runtime if you don’t need to compile against Spring APIs, which is typically the case for basic
dependency injection use cases.

The example above works with the Maven Central repository. To use the Spring Maven repository (e.g. for milestones or developer snapshots), you
need to specify the repository location in your Maven conﬁguration. For full releases:

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 29/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

<repositories>
<repository>
<id>io.spring.repo.maven.release</id>
<url>http://repo.spring.io/release/</url>
<snapshots><enabled>false</enabled></snapshots>
</repository>
</repositories>

For milestones:

<repositories>
<repository>
<id>io.spring.repo.maven.milestone</id>
<url>http://repo.spring.io/milestone/</url>
<snapshots><enabled>false</enabled></snapshots>
</repository>
</repositories>

And for snapshots:

<repositories>
<repository>
<id>io.spring.repo.maven.snapshot</id>
<url>http://repo.spring.io/snapshot/</url>
<snapshots><enabled>true</enabled></snapshots>
</repository>
</repositories>

Maven "Bill Of Materials" Dependency

It is possible to accidentally mix different versions of Spring JARs when using Maven. For example, you may ﬁnd that a third-party library, or another
Spring project, pulls in a transitive dependency to an older release. If you forget to explicitly declare a direct dependency yourself, all sorts of
unexpected issues can arise.

To overcome such problems Maven supports the concept of a "bill of materials" (BOM) dependency. You can import the spring-framework-bom
in your dependencyManagement section to ensure that all spring dependencies (both direct and transitive) are at the same version.

<dependencyManagement>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-framework-bom</artifactId>
<version>4.3.11.RELEASE</version>
<type>pom</type>
<scope>import</scope>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
</dependencyManagement>

An added beneﬁt of using the BOM is that you no longer need to specify the <version> attribute when depending on Spring Framework artifacts:

<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-context</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-web</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependencies>

Gradle Dependency Management

To use the Spring repository with the Gradle build system, include the appropriate URL in the repositories section:

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 30/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

repositories {
mavenCentral()
// and optionally...
maven { url "http://repo.spring.io/release" }
}

You can change the repositories URL from /release to /milestone or /snapshot as appropriate. Once a repository has been
conﬁgured, you can declare dependencies in the usual Gradle way:

dependencies {
compile("org.springframework:spring-context:4.3.11.RELEASE")
testCompile("org.springframework:spring-test:4.3.11.RELEASE")
}

Ivy Dependency Management

If you prefer to use Ivy to manage dependencies then there are similar conﬁguration options.

To conﬁgure Ivy to point to the Spring repository add the following resolver to your ivysettings.xml :

You can change the root URL from /release/ to /milestone/ or /snapshot/ as appropriate.

Once conﬁgured, you can add dependencies in the usual way. For example (in ivy.xml ):

<dependency org="org.springframework"
name="spring-core" rev="4.3.11.RELEASE" conf="compile->runtime"/>

Distribution Zip Files

Although using a build system that supports dependency management is the recommended way to obtain the Spring Framework, it is still possible to
download a distribution zip ﬁle.

Distribution zips are published to the Spring Maven Repository (this is just for our convenience, you don’t need Maven or any other build system in
order to download them).

To download a distribution zip open a web browser to http://repo.spring.io/release/org/springframework/spring and select the appropriate subfolder
for the version that you want. Distribution ﬁles end -dist.zip , for example spring-framework-{spring-version}-RELEASE-dist.zip. Distributions are
also published for milestones and snapshots.

2.3.2 Logging
Logging is a very important dependency for Spring because a) it is the only mandatory external dependency, b) everyone likes to see some output
from the tools they are using, and c) Spring integrates with lots of other tools all of which have also made a choice of logging dependency. One of the
goals of an application developer is often to have unified logging configured in a central place for the whole application, including all external
components. This is more difficult than it might have been since there are so many choices of logging framework.

The mandatory logging dependency in Spring is the Jakarta Commons Logging API (JCL). We compile against JCL and we also make JCL Log
objects visible for classes that extend the Spring Framework. It’s important to users that all versions of Spring use the same logging library: migration
is easy because backwards compatibility is preserved even with applications that extend Spring. The way we do this is to make one of the modules
in Spring depend explicitly on commons-logging (the canonical implementation of JCL), and then make all the other modules depend on that at
compile time. If you are using Maven for example, and wondering where you picked up the dependency on commons-logging , then it is from
Spring and speciﬁcally from the central module called spring-core .

The nice thing about commons-logging is that you don’t need anything else to make your application work. It has a runtime discovery algorithm
that looks for other logging frameworks in well known places on the classpath and uses one that it thinks is appropriate (or you can tell it which one if
you need to). If nothing else is available you get pretty nice looking logs just from the JDK (java.util.logging or JUL for short). You should ﬁnd that
your Spring application works and logs happily to the console out of the box in most situations, and that’s important.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 31/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Using Log4j 1.2 or 2.x

Log4j 1.2 is EOL in the meantime. Also, Log4j 2.3 is the last Java 6 compatible release, with newer Log4j 2.x releases requiring Java
7+.

Many people use Log4j as a logging framework for configuration and management purposes. It is efficient and well-established, and in fact it is what
we use at runtime when we build Spring. Spring also provides some utilities for configuring and initializing Log4j, so it has an optional compile-time
dependency on Log4j in some modules.

To make Log4j 1.2 work with the default JCL dependency ( commons-logging ) all you need to do is put Log4j on the classpath, and provide it with
a conﬁguration ﬁle ( log4j.properties or log4j.xml in the root of the classpath). So for Maven users this is your dependency declaration:

<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
<version>4.3.11.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>log4j</groupId>
<artifactId>log4j</artifactId>
<version>1.2.17</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>

And here’s a sample log4j.properties for logging to the console:

log4j.rootCategory=INFO, stdout
log4j.appender.stdout=org.apache.log4j.ConsoleAppender
log4j.appender.stdout.layout=org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout
log4j.appender.stdout.layout.ConversionPattern=%d{ABSOLUTE} %5p %t %c{2}:%L - %m%n

log4j.category.org.springframework.beans.factory=DEBUG

To use Log4j 2.x with JCL, all you need to do is put Log4j on the classpath and provide it with a configuration file ( log4j2.xml ,
log4j2.properties , or other supported configuration formats). For Maven users, the minimal dependencies needed are:

<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.logging.log4j</groupId>
<artifactId>log4j-core</artifactId>
<version>2.6.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.logging.log4j</groupId>
<artifactId>log4j-jcl</artifactId>
<version>2.6.2</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>

If you also wish to enable SLF4J to delegate to Log4j, e.g. for other libraries which use SLF4J by default, the following dependency is also needed:

<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.logging.log4j</groupId>
<artifactId>log4j-slf4j-impl</artifactId>
<version>2.6.2</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>

Here is an example log4j2.xml for logging to the console:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<Configuration status="WARN">
<Appenders>
<Console name="Console" target="SYSTEM_OUT">
<PatternLayout pattern="%d{HH:mm:ss.SSS} [%t] %-5level %logger{36} - %msg%n"/>
</Console>
</Appenders>
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 32/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
</Appenders>
<Loggers>
<Logger name="org.springframework.beans.factory" level="DEBUG"/>
<Root level="error">
<AppenderRef ref="Console"/>
</Root>

</Loggers>
</Configuration>

Avoiding Commons Logging

Unfortunately, the runtime discovery algorithm in the standard commons-logging API, while convenient for the end-user, can be problematic. If
you’d like to avoid JCL’s standard lookup, there are basically two ways to switch it off:

1. Exclude the dependency from the spring-core module (as it is the only module that explicitly depends on commons-logging )
2. Depend on a special commons-logging dependency that replaces the library with an empty jar (more details can be found in the SLF4J FAQ)

To exclude commons-logging, add the following to your dependencyManagement section:

<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
<version>4.3.11.RELEASE</version>
<exclusions>
<exclusion>
<groupId>commons-logging</groupId>
<artifactId>commons-logging</artifactId>
</exclusion>
</exclusions>
</dependency>
</dependencies>

Now this application is currently broken because there is no implementation of the JCL API on the classpath, so to ﬁx it a new one has to be
provided. In the next section we show you how to provide an alternative implementation of JCL using SLF4J.

Using SLF4J with Log4j or Logback

The Simple Logging Facade for Java (SLF4J) is a popular API used by other libraries commonly used with Spring. It is typically used with Logback
which is a native implementation of the SLF4J API.

SLF4J provides bindings to many common logging frameworks, including Log4j, and it also does the reverse: bridges between other logging
frameworks and itself. So to use SLF4J with Spring you need to replace the commons-logging dependency with the SLF4J-JCL bridge. Once you
have done that then logging calls from within Spring will be translated into logging calls to the SLF4J API, so if other libraries in your application use
that API, then you have a single place to conﬁgure and manage logging.

A common choice might be to bridge Spring to SLF4J, and then provide explicit binding from SLF4J to Log4j. You need to supply several
dependencies (and exclude the existing commons-logging ): the JCL bridge, the SLF4j binding to Log4j, and the Log4j provider itself. In Maven
you would do that like this

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 33/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
<artifactId>slf4j-log4j12</artifactId>
<version>1.7.21</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>log4j</groupId>
<artifactId>log4j</artifactId>
<version>1.2.17</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>

A more common choice amongst SLF4J users, which uses fewer steps and generates fewer dependencies, is to bind directly to Logback. This
removes the extra binding step because Logback implements SLF4J directly, so you only need to depend on just two libraries, namely
jcl-over-slf4j and logback ):

<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
<artifactId>jcl-over-slf4j</artifactId>
<version>1.7.21</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>ch.qos.logback</groupId>
<artifactId>logback-classic</artifactId>
<version>1.1.7</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>

Using JUL (java.util.logging)

Commons Logging will delegate to java.util.logging by default, provided that no Log4j is detected on the classpath. So there is no special
dependency to set up: just use Spring with no external dependency for log output to java.util.logging , either in a standalone application (with
a custom or default JUL setup at the JDK level) or with an application server’s log system (and its system-wide JUL setup).

Commons Logging on WebSphere

Spring applications may run on a container that itself provides an implementation of JCL, e.g. IBM’s WebSphere Application Server (WAS). This
does not cause issues per se but leads to two different scenarios that need to be understood:

In a "parent ﬁrst" ClassLoader delegation model (the default on WAS), applications will always pick up the server-provided version of Commons
Logging, delegating to the WAS logging subsystem (which is actually based on JUL). An application-provided variant of JCL, whether standard
Commons Logging or the JCL-over-SLF4J bridge, will effectively be ignored, along with any locally included log provider.

With a "parent last" delegation model (the default in a regular Servlet container but an explicit conﬁguration option on WAS), an application-provided
Commons Logging variant will be picked up, enabling you to set up a locally included log provider, e.g. Log4j or Logback, within your application. In
case of no local log provider, regular Commons Logging will delegate to JUL by default, effectively logging to WebSphere’s logging subsystem like in
the "parent ﬁrst" scenario.

All in all, we recommend deploying Spring applications in the "parent last" model since it naturally allows for local providers as well as the server’s
log subsystem.

Part II. What’s New in Spring Framework 4.x

This chapter provides an overview of the new features and improvements that have been introduced with Spring Framework 4.3. If you are
interested in more details, please see the Issue Tracker tickets that were resolved as part of the 4.3 development process.

3. New Features and Enhancements in Spring Framework 4.0

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 34/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The Spring Framework was first released in 2004; since then there have been significant major revisions: Spring 2.0 provided XML namespaces and
AspectJ support; Spring 2.5 embraced annotation-driven configuration; Spring 3.0 introduced a strong Java 5+ foundation across the framework
codebase, and features such as the Java-based @Configuration model.

Version 4.0 is the latest major release of the Spring Framework and the ﬁrst to fully support Java 8 features. You can still use Spring with older
versions of Java, however, the minimum requirement has now been raised to Java SE 6. We have also taken the opportunity of a major release to
remove many deprecated classes and methods.

A migration guide for upgrading to Spring 4.0 is available on the Spring Framework GitHub Wiki.

3.1 Improved Getting Started Experience

The new spring.io website provides a whole series of "Getting Started" guides to help you learn Spring. You can read more about the guides in the
Chapter 1, Getting Started with Spring section in this document. The new website also provides a comprehensive overview of the many additional
projects that are released under the Spring umbrella.

If you are a Maven user you may also be interested in the helpful bill of materials POM ﬁle that is now published with each Spring Framework
release.

3.2 Removed Deprecated Packages and Methods

All deprecated packages, and many deprecated classes and methods have been removed with version 4.0. If you are upgrading from a previous
release of Spring, you should ensure that you have ﬁxed any deprecated calls that you were making to outdated APIs.

For a complete set of changes, check out the API Differences Report.

Note that optional third-party dependencies have been raised to a 2010/2011 minimum (i.e. Spring 4 generally only supports versions released in
late 2010 or later now): notably, Hibernate 3.6+, EhCache 2.1+, Quartz 1.8+, Groovy 1.8+, and Joda-Time 2.0+. As an exception to the rule, Spring 4
requires the recent Hibernate Validator 4.3+, and support for Jackson has been focused on 2.0+ now (with Jackson 1.8/1.9 support retained for the
time being where Spring 3.2 had it; now just in deprecated form).

3.3 Java 8 (as well as 6 and 7)

Spring Framework 4.0 provides support for several Java 8 features. You can make use of lambda expressions and method references with Spring’s
callback interfaces. There is first-class support for java.time (JSR-310), and several existing annotations have been retrofitted as
@Repeatable . You can also use Java 8’s parameter name discovery (based on the -parameters compiler flag) as an alternative to compiling
your code with debug information enabled.

Spring remains compatible with older versions of Java and the JDK: concretely, Java SE 6 (speciﬁcally, a minimum level equivalent to JDK 6 update
18, as released in January 2010) and above are still fully supported. However, for newly started development projects based on Spring 4, we
recommend the use of Java 7 or 8.

3.4 Java EE 6 and 7
Java EE version 6 or above is now considered the baseline for Spring Framework 4, with the JPA 2.0 and Servlet 3.0 speciﬁcations being of
particular relevance. In order to remain compatible with Google App Engine and older application servers, it is possible to deploy a Spring 4
application into a Servlet 2.5 environment. However, Servlet 3.0+ is strongly recommended and a prerequisite in Spring’s test and mock packages
for test setups in development environments.

If you are a WebSphere 7 user, be sure to install the JPA 2.0 feature pack. On WebLogic 10.3.4 or higher, install the JPA 2.0 patch that
comes with it. This turns both of those server generations into Spring 4 compatible deployment environments.

On a more forward-looking note, Spring Framework 4.0 supports the Java EE 7 level of applicable speciﬁcations now: in particular, JMS 2.0, JTA 1.2,
JPA 2.1, Bean Validation 1.1, and JSR-236 Concurrency Utilities. As usual, this support focuses on individual use of those speciﬁcations, e.g. on
Tomcat or in standalone environments. However, it works equally well when a Spring application is deployed to a Java EE 7 server.

Note that Hibernate 4.3 is a JPA 2.1 provider and therefore only supported as of Spring Framework 4.0. The same applies to Hibernate Validator 5.0
as a Bean Validation 1.1 provider. Neither of the two are ofﬁcially supported with Spring Framework 3.2.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 35/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

3.5 Groovy Bean Deﬁnition DSL

Beginning with Spring Framework 4.0, it is possible to define external bean configuration using a Groovy DSL. This is similar in concept to using
XML bean definitions but allows for a more concise syntax. Using Groovy also allows you to easily embed bean definitions directly in your bootstrap
code. For example:

def reader = new GroovyBeanDefinitionReader(myApplicationContext)

reader.beans {
dataSource(BasicDataSource) {
driverClassName = "org.hsqldb.jdbcDriver"
url = "jdbc:hsqldb:mem:grailsDB"
username = "sa"
password = ""
settings = [mynew:"setting"]
}
sessionFactory(SessionFactory) {
dataSource = dataSource
}
myService(MyService) {
nestedBean = { AnotherBean bean ->
dataSource = dataSource
}
}
}

For more information consult the GroovyBeanDefinitionReader javadocs.

3.6 Core Container Improvements

There have been several general improvements to the core container:

Spring now treats generic types as a form of qualifier when injecting Beans. For example, if you are using a Spring Data Repository you can
now easily inject a specific implementation: @Autowired Repository<Customer> customerRepository .
If you use Spring’s meta-annotation support, you can now develop custom annotations that expose specific attributes from the source
annotation.
Beans can now be ordered when they are autowired into lists and arrays. Both the @Order annotation and Ordered interface are supported.
The @Lazy annotation can now be used on injection points, as well as on @Bean definitions.
The @Description annotation has been introduced for developers using Java-based configuration.
A generalized model for conditionally filtering beans has been added via the @Conditional annotation. This is similar to @Profile support
but allows for user-defined strategies to be developed programmatically.
CGLIB-based proxy classes no longer require a default constructor. Support is provided via the objenesis library which is repackaged inline and
distributed as part of the Spring Framework. With this strategy, no constructor at all is being invoked for proxy instances anymore.
There is managed time zone support across the framework now, e.g. on LocaleContext .

3.7 General Web Improvements

Deployment to Servlet 2.5 servers remains an option, but Spring Framework 4.0 is now focused primarily on Servlet 3.0+ environments. If you are
using the Spring MVC Test Framework you will need to ensure that a Servlet 3.0 compatible JAR is in your test classpath.

In addition to the WebSocket support mentioned later, the following general improvements have been made to Spring’s Web modules:

You can use the new @RestController annotation with Spring MVC applications, removing the need to add @ResponseBody to each of
your @RequestMapping methods.
The AsyncRestTemplate class has been added, allowing non-blocking asynchronous support when developing REST clients.
Spring now offers comprehensive timezone support when developing Spring MVC applications.

3.8 WebSocket, SockJS, and STOMP Messaging

A new spring-websocket module provides comprehensive support for WebSocket-based, two-way communication between client and server in
web applications. It is compatible with JSR-356, the Java WebSocket API, and in addition provides SockJS-based fallback options (i.e. WebSocket
emulation) for use in browsers that don’t yet support the WebSocket protocol (e.g. Internet Explorer < 10).

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 36/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
A new spring-messaging module adds support for STOMP as the WebSocket sub-protocol to use in applications along with an annotation
programming model for routing and processing STOMP messages from WebSocket clients. As a result an @Controller can now contain both
@RequestMapping and @MessageMapping methods for handling HTTP requests and messages from WebSocket-connected clients. The new
spring-messaging module also contains key abstractions formerly from the Spring Integration project such as Message , MessageChannel ,
MessageHandler , and others to serve as a foundation for messaging-based applications.

For further details, including a more thorough introduction, see the Chapter 26, WebSocket Support section.

3.9 Testing Improvements
In addition to pruning of deprecated code within the spring-test module, Spring Framework 4.0 introduces several new features for use in unit
and integration testing.

Almost all annotations in the spring-test module (e.g., @ContextConfiguration , @WebAppConfiguration ,

@ContextHierarchy , @ActiveProfiles , etc.) can now be used as meta-annotations to create custom composed annotations and reduce
configuration duplication across a test suite.
Active bean definition profiles can now be resolved programmatically, simply by implementing a custom ActiveProfilesResolver and
registering it via the resolver attribute of @ActiveProfiles .
A new SocketUtils class has been introduced in the spring-core module which enables you to scan for free TCP and UDP server ports
on localhost. This functionality is not specific to testing but can prove very useful when writing integration tests that require the use of sockets,
for example tests that start an in-memory SMTP server, FTP server, Servlet container, etc.
As of Spring 4.0, the set of mocks in the org.springframework.mock.web package is now based on the Servlet 3.0 API. Furthermore,
several of the Servlet API mocks (e.g., MockHttpServletRequest , MockServletContext , etc.) have been updated with minor
enhancements and improved configurability.

4. New Features and Enhancements in Spring Framework 4.1

Version 4.1 included a number of improvements, as described in the following sections:

Section 4.1, “JMS Improvements”

Section 4.2, “Caching Improvements”
Section 4.3, “Web Improvements”
Section 4.4, “WebSocket Messaging Improvements”
Section 4.5, “Testing Improvements”

4.1 JMS Improvements
Spring 4.1 introduces a much simpler infrastructure to register JMS listener endpoints by annotating bean methods with @JmsListener . The XML
namespace has been enhanced to support this new style ( jms:annotation-driven ), and it is also possible to fully conﬁgure the infrastructure
using Java conﬁg ( @EnableJms , JmsListenerContainerFactory ). It is also possible to register listener endpoints programmatically using
JmsListenerConfigurer .

Spring 4.1 also aligns its JMS support to allow you to beneﬁt from the spring-messaging abstraction introduced in 4.0, that is:

Message listener endpoints can have a more ﬂexible signature and beneﬁt from standard messaging annotations such as @Payload ,
@Header , @Headers , and @SendTo . It is also possible to use a standard Message in lieu of javax.jms.Message as method argument.
A new JmsMessageOperations interface is available and permits JmsTemplate like operations using the Message abstraction.

Finally, Spring 4.1 provides additional miscellaneous improvements:

Synchronous request-reply operations support in JmsTemplate

Listener priority can be speciﬁed per <jms:listener/> element
Recovery options for the message listener container are conﬁgurable using a BackOff implementation
JMS 2.0 shared consumers are supported

4.2 Caching Improvements
Spring 4.1 supports JCache (JSR-107) annotations using Spring’s existing cache conﬁguration and infrastructure abstraction; no changes are
required to use the standard annotations.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 37/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Spring 4.1 also improves its own caching abstraction signiﬁcantly:

Caches can be resolved at runtime using a CacheResolver . As a result the value argument deﬁning the cache name(s) to use is no longer
mandatory.
More operation-level customizations: cache resolver, cache manager, key generator
A new @CacheConfig class-level annotation allows common settings to be shared at the class level without enabling any cache operation.
Better exception handling of cached methods using CacheErrorHandler

Spring 4.1 also has a breaking change in the Cache interface as a new putIfAbsent method has been added.

4.3 Web Improvements
The existing support for resource handling based on the ResourceHttpRequestHandler has been expanded with new abstractions
ResourceResolver , ResourceTransformer , and ResourceUrlProvider . A number of built-in implementations provide support for
versioned resource URLs (for effective HTTP caching), locating gzipped resources, generating an HTML 5 AppCache manifests, and more. See
Section 22.16.9, “Serving of Resources”.
JDK 1.8’s java.util.Optional is now supported for @RequestParam , @RequestHeader , and @MatrixVariable controller method
arguments.
ListenableFuture is supported as a return value alternative to DeferredResult where an underlying service (or perhaps a call to
AsyncRestTemplate ) already returns ListenableFuture .
@ModelAttribute methods are now invoked in an order that respects inter-dependencies. See SPR-6299.
Jackson’s @JsonView is supported directly on @ResponseBody and ResponseEntity controller methods for serializing different amounts
of detail for the same POJO (e.g. summary vs. detail page). This is also supported with View-based rendering by adding the serialization view
type as a model attribute under a special key. See the section called “Jackson Serialization View Support” for details.
JSONP is now supported with Jackson. See the section called “Jackson JSONP Support”.
A new lifecycle option is available for intercepting @ResponseBody and ResponseEntity methods just after the controller method returns
and before the response is written. To take advantage declare an @ControllerAdvice bean that implements ResponseBodyAdvice . The
built-in support for @JsonView and JSONP take advantage of this. See Section 22.4.1, “Intercepting requests with a HandlerInterceptor”.
There are three new HttpMessageConverter options:
Gson — lighter footprint than Jackson; has already been in use in Spring Android.
Google Protocol Buffers — efficient and effective as an inter-service communication data protocol within an enterprise but can also be
exposed as JSON and XML for browsers.
Jackson based XML serialization is now supported through the jackson-dataformat-xml extension. When using @EnableWebMvc or
<mvc:annotation-driven/> , this is used by default instead of JAXB2 if jackson-dataformat-xml is in the classpath.
Views such as JSPs can now build links to controllers by referring to controller mappings by name. A default name is assigned to every
@RequestMapping . For example FooController with method handleFoo is named "FC#handleFoo". The naming strategy is pluggable.
It is also possible to name an @RequestMapping explicitly through its name attribute. A new mvcUrl function in the Spring JSP tag library
makes this easy to use in JSP pages. See Section 22.7.3, “Building URIs to Controllers and methods from views”.
ResponseEntity provides a builder-style API to guide controller methods towards the preparation of server-side responses, e.g.
ResponseEntity.ok() .
RequestEntity is a new type that provides a builder-style API to guide client-side REST code towards the preparation of HTTP requests.
MVC Java config and XML namespace:
View resolvers can now be configured including support for content negotiation, see Section 22.16.8, “View Resolvers”.
View controllers now have built-in support for redirects and for setting the response status. An application can use this to configure redirect
URLs, render 404 responses with a view, send "no content" responses, etc. Some use cases are listed here.
Path matching customizations are frequently used and now built-in. See Section 22.16.11, “Path Matching”.
Groovy markup template support (based on Groovy 2.3). See the GroovyMarkupConfigurer and respecitve ViewResolver and `View'
implementations.

4.4 WebSocket Messaging Improvements

SockJS (Java) client-side support. See SockJsClient and classes in same package.
New application context events SessionSubscribeEvent and SessionUnsubscribeEvent published when STOMP clients subscribe
and unsubscribe.
New "websocket" scope. See Section 26.4.15, “WebSocket Scope”.
@SendToUser can target only a single session and does not require an authenticated user.
@MessageMapping methods can use dot "." instead of slash "/" as path separator. See SPR-11660.
STOMP/WebSocket monitoring info collected and logged. See Section 26.4.17, “Runtime Monitoring”.
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 38/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Signiﬁcantly optimized and improved logging that should remain very readable and compact even at DEBUG level.
Optimized message creation including support for temporary message mutability and avoiding automatic message id and timestamp creation.
See Javadoc of MessageHeaderAccessor .
Close STOMP/WebSocket connections that have no activity within 60 seconds after the WebSocket session is established. See SPR-11884.

4.5 Testing Improvements
Groovy scripts can now be used to configure the ApplicationContext loaded for integration tests in the TestContext framework.
See the section called “Context configuration with Groovy scripts” for details.
Test-managed transactions can now be programmatically started and ended within transactional test methods via the new TestTransaction
API.
See the section called “Programmatic transaction management” for details.
SQL script execution can now be configured declaratively via the new @Sql and @SqlConfig annotations on a per-class or per-method
basis.
See Section 15.5.8, “Executing SQL scripts” for details.
Test property sources which automatically override system and application property sources can be configured via the new
@TestPropertySource annotation.
See the section called “Context configuration with test property sources” for details.
Default TestExecutionListener s can now be automatically discovered.
See the section called “Automatic discovery of default TestExecutionListeners” for details.
Custom TestExecutionListener s can now be automatically merged with the default listeners.
See the section called “Merging TestExecutionListeners” for details.
The documentation for transactional testing support in the TestContext framework has been improved with more thorough explanations and
additional examples.
See Section 15.5.7, “Transaction management” for details.
Various improvements to MockServletContext , MockHttpServletRequest , and other Servlet API mocks.
AssertThrows has been refactored to support Throwable instead of Exception .
In Spring MVC Test, JSON responses can be asserted with JSON Assert as an extra option to using JSONPath much like it has been possible
to do for XML with XMLUnit.
MockMvcBuilder recipes can now be created with the help of MockMvcConfigurer . This was added to make it easy to apply Spring
Security setup but can be used to encapsulate common setup for any 3rd party framework or within a project.
MockRestServiceServer now supports the AsyncRestTemplate for client-side testing.

5. New Features and Enhancements in Spring Framework 4.2

Version 4.2 included a number of improvements, as described in the following sections:

Section 5.1, “Core Container Improvements”

Section 5.2, “Data Access Improvements”
Section 5.3, “JMS Improvements”
Section 5.4, “Web Improvements”
Section 5.5, “WebSocket Messaging Improvements”
Section 5.6, “Testing Improvements”

5.1 Core Container Improvements

Annotations such as @Bean get detected and processed on Java 8 default methods as well, allowing for composing a configuration class from
interfaces with default @Bean methods.
Configuration classes may declare @Import with regular component classes now, allowing for a mix of imported configuration classes and
component classes.
Configuration classes may declare an @Order value, getting processed in a corresponding order (e.g. for overriding beans by name) even
when detected through classpath scanning.
@Resource injection points support an @Lazy declaration, analogous to @Autowired , receiving a lazy-initializing proxy for the requested
target bean.
The application event infrastructure now offers an annotation-based model as well as the ability to publish any arbitrary event.
Any public method in a managed bean can be annotated with @EventListener to consume events.
@TransactionalEventListener provides transaction-bound event support.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 39/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Spring Framework 4.2 introduces ﬁrst-class support for declaring and looking up aliases for annotation attributes. The new @AliasFor
annotation can be used to declare a pair of aliased attributes within a single annotation or to declare an alias from one attribute in a custom
composed annotation to an attribute in a meta-annotation.
The following annotations have been retroﬁtted with @AliasFor support in order to provide meaningful aliases for their value attributes:
@Cacheable , @CacheEvict , @CachePut , @ComponentScan , @ComponentScan.Filter , @ImportResource , @Scope ,
@ManagedResource , @Header , @Payload , @SendToUser , @ActiveProfiles , @ContextConfiguration , @Sql ,
@TestExecutionListeners , @TestPropertySource , @Transactional , @ControllerAdvice , @CookieValue ,
@CrossOrigin , @MatrixVariable , @RequestHeader , @RequestMapping , @RequestParam , @RequestPart ,
@ResponseStatus , @SessionAttributes , @ActionMapping , @RenderMapping , @EventListener ,
@TransactionalEventListener .
For example, @ContextConfiguration from the spring-test module is now declared as follows:

public @interface ContextConfiguration {

@AliasFor("locations")
String[] value() default {};

@AliasFor("value")
String[] locations() default {};

// ...
}

Similarly, composed annotations that override attributes from meta-annotations can now use @AliasFor for ﬁne-grained control over
exactly which attributes are overridden within an annotation hierarchy. In fact, it is now possible to declare an alias for the value attribute
of a meta-annotation.
For example, one can now develop a composed annotation with a custom attribute override as follows.

@ContextConfiguration
public @interface MyTestConfig {

@AliasFor(annotation = ContextConfiguration.class, attribute = "value")

String[] xmlFiles();

// ...
}

See Spring Annotation Programming Model.

Numerous improvements to Spring’s search algorithms used for finding meta-annotations. For example, locally declared composed annotations
are now favored over inherited annotations.
Composed annotations that override attributes from meta-annotations can now be discovered on interfaces and on abstract, bridge, & interface
methods as well as on classes, standard methods, constructors, and fields.
Maps representing annotation attributes (and AnnotationAttributes instances) can be synthesized (i.e., converted) into an annotation.
The features of field-based data binding ( DirectFieldAccessor ) have been aligned with the current property-based data binding
( BeanWrapper ). In particular, field-based binding now supports navigation for Collections, Arrays, and Maps.
DefaultConversionService now provides out-of-the-box converters for Stream , Charset , Currency , and TimeZone . Such
converters can be added individually to any arbitrary ConversionService as well.
DefaultFormattingConversionService comes with out-of-the-box support for the value types in JSR-354 Money & Currency (if the
'javax.money' API is present on the classpath): namely, MonetaryAmount and CurrencyUnit . This includes support for applying
@NumberFormat .
@NumberFormat can now be used as a meta-annotation.
JavaMailSenderImpl has a new testConnection() method for checking connectivity to the server.
ScheduledTaskRegistrar exposes scheduled tasks.
Apache commons-pool2 is now supported for a pooling AOP CommonsPool2TargetSource .
Introduced StandardScriptFactory as a JSR-223 based mechanism for scripted beans, exposed through the lang:std element in XML.
Supports e.g. JavaScript and JRuby. (Note: JRubyScriptFactory and lang:jruby are deprecated now, in favor of using JSR-223.)

5.2 Data Access Improvements

javax.transaction.Transactional is now supported via AspectJ.
SimpleJdbcCallOperations now supports named binding.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 40/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Full support for Hibernate ORM 5.0: as a JPA provider (automatically adapted) as well as through its native API (covered by the new
org.springframework.orm.hibernate5 package).
Embedded databases can now be automatically assigned unique names, and <jdbc:embedded-database> supports a new
database-name attribute. See "Testing Improvements" below for further details.

5.3 JMS Improvements
The autoStartup attribute can be controlled via JmsListenerContainerFactory .
The type of the reply Destination can now be conﬁgured per listener container.
The value of the @SendTo annotation can now use a SpEL expression.
The response destination can be computed at runtime using JmsResponse
@JmsListener is now a repeatable annotation to declare several JMS containers on the same method (use the newly introduced
@JmsListeners if you’re not using Java8 yet).

5.4 Web Improvements
HTTP Streaming and Server-Sent Events support, see the section called “HTTP Streaming”.
Built-in support for CORS including global (MVC Java config and XML namespace) and local (e.g. @CrossOrigin ) configuration. See
Chapter 27, CORS Support for details.
HTTP caching updates:
new CacheControl builder; plugged into ResponseEntity , WebContentGenerator , ResourceHttpRequestHandler .
improved ETag/Last-Modified support in WebRequest .
Custom mapping annotations, using @RequestMapping as a meta-annotation.
Public methods in AbstractHandlerMethodMapping to register and unregister request mappings at runtime.
Protected createDispatcherServlet method in AbstractDispatcherServletInitializer to further customize the
DispatcherServlet instance to use.
HandlerMethod as a method argument on @ExceptionHandler methods, especially handy in @ControllerAdvice components.
java.util.concurrent.CompletableFuture as an @Controller method return value type.
Byte-range request support in HttpHeaders and for serving static resources.
@ResponseStatus detected on nested exceptions.
UriTemplateHandler extension point in the RestTemplate .
DefaultUriTemplateHandler exposes baseUrl property and path segment encoding options.
the extension point can also be used to plug in any URI template library.
OkHTTP integration with the RestTemplate .
Custom baseUrl alternative for methods in MvcUriComponentsBuilder .
Serialization/deserialization exception messages are now logged at WARN level.
Default JSON prefix has been changed from "{} && " to the safer ")]}', " one.
New RequestBodyAdvice extension point and built-in implementation to support Jackson’s @JsonView on @RequestBody method
arguments.
When using GSON or Jackson 2.6+, the handler method return type is used to improve serialization of parameterized types like List<Foo> .
Introduced ScriptTemplateView as a JSR-223 based mechanism for scripted web views, with a focus on JavaScript view templating on
Nashorn (JDK 8).

5.5 WebSocket Messaging Improvements

Expose presence information about connected users and subscriptions:
new SimpUserRegistry exposed as a bean named "userRegistry".
sharing of presence information across cluster of servers (see broker relay conﬁg options).
Resolve user destinations across cluster of servers (see broker relay conﬁg options).
StompSubProtocolErrorHandler extension point to customize and control STOMP ERROR frames to clients.
Global @MessageExceptionHandler methods via @ControllerAdvice components.
Heart-beats and a SpEL expression 'selector' header for subscriptions with SimpleBrokerMessageHandler .
STOMP client for use over TCP and WebSocket; see Section 26.4.14, “STOMP Client”.
@SendTo and @SendToUser can contain destination variable placeholders.
Jackson’s @JsonView supported for return values on @MessageMapping and @SubscribeMapping methods.
ListenableFuture and CompletableFuture as return value types from @MessageMapping and @SubscribeMapping methods.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 41/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
MarshallingMessageConverter for XML payloads.

5.6 Testing Improvements
JUnit-based integration tests can now be executed with JUnit rules instead of the SpringJUnit4ClassRunner . This allows Spring-based
integration tests to be run with alternative runners like JUnit’s Parameterized or third-party runners such as the MockitoJUnitRunner .
See the section called “Spring JUnit 4 Rules” for details.
The Spring MVC Test framework now provides first-class support for HtmlUnit, including integration with Selenium’s WebDriver, allowing for
page-based web application testing without the need to deploy to a Servlet container.
See Section 15.6.2, “HtmlUnit Integration” for details.
AopTestUtils is a new testing utility that allows developers to obtain a reference to the underlying target object hidden behind one or more
Spring proxies.
See Section 14.2.1, “General testing utilities” for details.
ReflectionTestUtils now supports setting and getting static fields, including constants.
The original ordering of bean definition profiles declared via @ActiveProfiles is now retained in order to support use cases such as Spring
Boot’s ConfigFileApplicationListener which loads configuration files based on the names of active profiles.
@DirtiesContext supports new BEFORE_METHOD , BEFORE_CLASS , and BEFORE_EACH_TEST_METHOD modes for closing the
ApplicationContext before a test — for example, if some rogue (i.e., yet to be determined) test within a large test suite has corrupted the
original configuration for the ApplicationContext .
@Commit is a new annotation that may be used as a direct replacement for @Rollback(false) .
@Rollback may now be used to configure class-level default rollback semantics.
Consequently, @TransactionConfiguration is now deprecated and will be removed in a subsequent release.
@Sql now supports execution of inlined SQL statements via a new statements attribute.
The ContextCache that is used for caching ApplicationContext s between tests is now a public API with a default implementation that
can be replaced for custom caching needs.
DefaultTestContext , DefaultBootstrapContext , and DefaultCacheAwareContextLoaderDelegate are now public classes in
the support subpackage, allowing for custom extensions.
TestContextBootstrapper s are now responsible for building the TestContext .
In the Spring MVC Test framework, MvcResult details can now be logged at DEBUG level or written to a custom OutputStream or
Writer . See the new log() , print(OutputStream) , and print(Writer) methods in MockMvcResultHandlers for details.
The JDBC XML namespace supports a new database-name attribute in <jdbc:embedded-database> , allowing developers to set unique
names for embedded databases –- for example, via a SpEL expression or a property placeholder that is influenced by the current active bean
definition profiles.
Embedded databases can now be automatically assigned a unique name, allowing common test database configuration to be reused in different
ApplicationContext s within a test suite.
See Section 19.8.6, “Generating unique names for embedded databases” for details.
MockHttpServletRequest and MockHttpServletResponse now provide better support for date header formatting via the
getDateHeader and setDateHeader methods.

6. New Features and Enhancements in Spring Framework 4.3

Version 4.3 included a number of improvements, as described in the following sections:

Section 6.1, “Core Container Improvements”

Section 6.2, “Data Access Improvements”
Section 6.3, “Caching Improvements”
Section 6.4, “JMS Improvements”
Section 6.5, “Web Improvements”
Section 6.6, “WebSocket Messaging Improvements”
Section 6.7, “Testing Improvements”
Section 6.8, “Support for new library and server generations”

6.1 Core Container Improvements

Core container exceptions provide richer metadata to evaluate programmatically.
Java 8 default methods get detected as bean property getters/setters.
Lazy candidate beans are not being created in case of injecting a primary bean.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 42/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
It is no longer necessary to specify the @Autowired annotation if the target bean only deﬁnes one constructor.
@Configuration classes support constructor injection.
Any SpEL expression used to specify the condition of an @EventListener can now refer to beans (e.g. @beanName.method() ).
Composed annotations can now override array attributes in meta-annotations with a single element of the component type of the array. For
example, the String[] path attribute of @RequestMapping can be overridden with String path in a composed annotation.
@PersistenceContext / @PersistenceUnit selects a primary EntityManagerFactory bean if declared as such.
@Scheduled and @Schedules may now be used as meta-annotations to create custom composed annotations with attribute overrides.
@Scheduled is properly supported on beans of any scope.

6.2 Data Access Improvements

jdbc:initialize-database and jdbc:embedded-database support a conﬁgurable separator to be applied to each script.

6.3 Caching Improvements
Spring 4.3 allows concurrent calls on a given key to be synchronized so that the value is only computed once. This is an opt-in feature that should be
enabled via the new sync attribute on @Cacheable . This features introduces a breaking change in the Cache interface as a
get(Object key, Callable<T> valueLoader) method has been added.

Spring 4.3 also improves the caching abstraction as follows:

SpEL expressions in caches-related annotations can now refer to beans (i.e. @beanName.method() ).
ConcurrentMapCacheManager and ConcurrentMapCache now support the serialization of cache entries via a new storeByValue
attribute.
@Cacheable , @CacheEvict , @CachePut , and @Caching may now be used as meta-annotations to create custom composed annotations
with attribute overrides.

6.4 JMS Improvements
@SendTo can now be speciﬁed at the class level to share a common reply destination.
@JmsListener and @JmsListeners may now be used as meta-annotations to create custom composed annotations with attribute
overrides.

6.5 Web Improvements
Built-in support for HTTP HEAD and HTTP OPTIONS.
New @GetMapping , @PostMapping , @PutMapping , @DeleteMapping , and @PatchMapping composed annotations for
@RequestMapping .
See Composed @RequestMapping Variants for details.
New @RequestScope , @SessionScope , and @ApplicationScope composed annotations for web scopes.
See Request scope, Session scope, and Application scope for details.
New @RestControllerAdvice annotation with combined @ControllerAdvice with @ResponseBody semantics.
@ResponseStatus is now supported at the class level and inherited by all methods.
New @SessionAttribute annotation for access to session attributes (see example).
New @RequestAttribute annotation for access to request attributes (see example).
@ModelAttribute allows preventing data binding via binding=false attribute (see reference).
@PathVariable may be declared as optional (for use on @ModelAttribute methods).
Consistent exposure of Errors and custom Throwables to MVC exception handlers.
Consistent charset handling in HTTP message converters, including a UTF-8 default for multipart text content.
Static resource handling uses the conﬁgured ContentNegotiationManager for media type determination.
RestTemplate and AsyncRestTemplate support strict URI variable encoding via DefaultUriTemplateHandler .
AsyncRestTemplate supports request interception.

6.6 WebSocket Messaging Improvements

@SendTo and @SendToUser can now be speciﬁed at class-level to share a common destination.
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 43/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

6.7 Testing Improvements
The JUnit support in the Spring TestContext Framework now requires JUnit 4.12 or higher.
New SpringRunner alias for the SpringJUnit4ClassRunner .
Test related annotations may now be declared on interfaces — for example, for use with test interfaces that make use of Java 8 based interface
default methods.
An empty declaration of @ContextConfiguration can now be completely omitted if default XML files, Groovy scripts, or @Configuration
classes are detected.
@Transactional test methods are no longer required to be public (e.g., in TestNG and JUnit 5).
@BeforeTransaction and @AfterTransaction methods are no longer required to be public and may now be declared on Java 8
based interface default methods.
The ApplicationContext cache in the Spring TestContext Framework is now bounded with a default maximum size of 32 and a least
recently used eviction policy. The maximum size can be configured by setting a JVM system property or Spring property called
spring.test.context.cache.maxSize .
New ContextCustomizer API for customizing a test ApplicationContext after bean definitions have been loaded into the context but
before the context has been refreshed. Customizers can be registered globally by third parties, foregoing the need to implement a custom
ContextLoader .
@Sql and @SqlGroup may now be used as meta-annotations to create custom composed annotations with attribute overrides.
ReflectionTestUtils now automatically unwraps proxies when setting or getting a field.
Server-side Spring MVC Test supports expectations on response headers with multiple values.
Server-side Spring MVC Test parses form data request content and populates request parameters.
Server-side Spring MVC Test supports mock-like assertions for invoked handler methods.
Client-side REST test support allows indicating how many times a request is expected and whether the order of declaration for expectations
should be ignored (see Section 15.6.3, “Client-Side REST Tests”).
Client-side REST Test supports expectations for form data in the request body.

6.8 Support for new library and server generations

Hibernate ORM 5.2 (still supporting 4.2/4.3 and 5.0/5.1 as well, with 3.6 deprecated now)
Hibernate Validator 5.3 (minimum remains at 4.3)
Jackson 2.8 (minimum raised to Jackson 2.6+ as of Spring 4.3)
OkHttp 3.x (still supporting OkHttp 2.x side by side)
Tomcat 8.5 as well as 9.0 milestones
Netty 4.1
Undertow 1.4
WildFly 10.1

Furthermore, Spring Framework 4.3 embeds the updated ASM 5.1, CGLIB 3.2.4, and Objenesis 2.4 in spring-core.jar .

Part III. Core Technologies
This part of the reference documentation covers all of those technologies that are absolutely integral to the Spring Framework.

Foremost amongst these is the Spring Framework’s Inversion of Control (IoC) container. A thorough treatment of the Spring Framework’s IoC
container is closely followed by comprehensive coverage of Spring’s Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) technologies. The Spring Framework has
its own AOP framework, which is conceptually easy to understand, and which successfully addresses the 80% sweet spot of AOP requirements in
Java enterprise programming.

Coverage of Spring’s integration with AspectJ (currently the richest - in terms of features - and certainly most mature AOP implementation in the
Java enterprise space) is also provided.

Chapter 7, The IoC container

Chapter 8, Resources
Chapter 9, Validation, Data Binding, and Type Conversion
Chapter 10, Spring Expression Language (SpEL)

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 44/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Chapter 11, Aspect Oriented Programming with Spring
Chapter 12, Spring AOP APIs

7. The IoC container

§ 7.1 Introduction to the Spring IoC container and beans

This chapter covers the Spring Framework implementation of the Inversion of Control (IoC) [1] principle. IoC is also known as dependency injection
(DI). It is a process whereby objects deﬁne their dependencies, that is, the other objects they work with, only through constructor arguments,
arguments to a factory method, or properties that are set on the object instance after it is constructed or returned from a factory method. The
container then injects those dependencies when it creates the bean. This process is fundamentally the inverse, hence the name Inversion of Control
(IoC), of the bean itself controlling the instantiation or location of its dependencies by using direct construction of classes, or a mechanism such as
the Service Locator pattern.

The org.springframework.beans and org.springframework.context packages are the basis for Spring Framework’s IoC container.
The BeanFactory interface provides an advanced conﬁguration mechanism capable of managing any type of object. ApplicationContext is
a sub-interface of BeanFactory . It adds easier integration with Spring’s AOP features; message resource handling (for use in internationalization),
event publication; and application-layer speciﬁc contexts such as the WebApplicationContext for use in web applications.

In short, the BeanFactory provides the conﬁguration framework and basic functionality, and the ApplicationContext adds more enterprise-
speciﬁc functionality. The ApplicationContext is a complete superset of the BeanFactory , and is used exclusively in this chapter in
descriptions of Spring’s IoC container. For more information on using the BeanFactory instead of the ApplicationContext, refer to
Section 7.16, “The BeanFactory”.

In Spring, the objects that form the backbone of your application and that are managed by the Spring IoC container are called beans. A bean is an
object that is instantiated, assembled, and otherwise managed by a Spring IoC container. Otherwise, a bean is simply one of many objects in your
application. Beans, and the dependencies among them, are reﬂected in the conﬁguration metadata used by a container.

7.2 Container overview
The interface org.springframework.context.ApplicationContext represents the Spring IoC container and is responsible for
instantiating, configuring, and assembling the aforementioned beans. The container gets its instructions on what objects to instantiate, configure, and
assemble by reading configuration metadata. The configuration metadata is represented in XML, Java annotations, or Java code. It allows you to
express the objects that compose your application and the rich interdependencies between such objects.

Several implementations of the ApplicationContext interface are supplied out-of-the-box with Spring. In standalone applications it is common
to create an instance of ClassPathXmlApplicationContext or FileSystemXmlApplicationContext . While XML has been the traditional
format for defining configuration metadata you can instruct the container to use Java annotations or code as the metadata format by providing a
small amount of XML configuration to declaratively enable support for these additional metadata formats.

In most application scenarios, explicit user code is not required to instantiate one or more instances of a Spring IoC container. For example, in a web
application scenario, a simple eight (or so) lines of boilerplate web descriptor XML in the web.xml file of the application will typically suffice (see
Section 7.15.4, “Convenient ApplicationContext instantiation for web applications”). If you are using the Spring Tool Suite Eclipse-powered
development environment this boilerplate configuration can be easily created with few mouse clicks or keystrokes.

The following diagram is a high-level view of how Spring works. Your application classes are combined with conﬁguration metadata so that after the
ApplicationContext is created and initialized, you have a fully conﬁgured and executable system or application.

Figure 7.1. The Spring IoC container

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 45/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

7.2.1 Configuration metadata
As the preceding diagram shows, the Spring IoC container consumes a form of configuration metadata; this configuration metadata represents how
you as an application developer tell the Spring container to instantiate, configure, and assemble the objects in your application.

Conﬁguration metadata is traditionally supplied in a simple and intuitive XML format, which is what most of this chapter uses to convey key concepts
and features of the Spring IoC container.

XML-based metadata is not the only allowed form of configuration metadata. The Spring IoC container itself is totally decoupled from
the format in which this configuration metadata is actually written. These days many developers choose Java-based configuration for
their Spring applications.

For information about using other forms of metadata with the Spring container, see:

Annotation-based configuration: Spring 2.5 introduced support for annotation-based configuration metadata.
Java-based configuration: Starting with Spring 3.0, many features provided by the Spring JavaConfig project became part of the core Spring
Framework. Thus you can define beans external to your application classes by using Java rather than XML files. To use these new features, see
the @Configuration , @Bean , @Import and @DependsOn annotations.

Spring configuration consists of at least one and typically more than one bean definition that the container must manage. XML-based configuration
metadata shows these beans configured as <bean/> elements inside a top-level <beans/> element. Java configuration typically uses @Bean
annotated methods within a @Configuration class.

These bean definitions correspond to the actual objects that make up your application. Typically you define service layer objects, data access objects
(DAOs), presentation objects such as Struts Action instances, infrastructure objects such as Hibernate SessionFactories , JMS Queues ,
and so forth. Typically one does not configure fine-grained domain objects in the container, because it is usually the responsibility of DAOs and
business logic to create and load domain objects. However, you can use Spring’s integration with AspectJ to configure objects that have been
created outside the control of an IoC container. See Using AspectJ to dependency-inject domain objects with Spring.

The following example shows the basic structure of XML-based conﬁguration metadata:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<bean id="..." class="...">

</bean>

<bean id="..." class="...">

</bean>

</beans>

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 46/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The id attribute is a string that you use to identify the individual bean definition. The class attribute defines the type of the bean and uses the
fully qualified classname. The value of the id attribute refers to collaborating objects. The XML for referring to collaborating objects is not shown in
this example; see Dependencies for more information.

7.2.2 Instantiating a container
Instantiating a Spring IoC container is straightforward. The location path or paths supplied to an ApplicationContext constructor are actually
resource strings that allow the container to load conﬁguration metadata from a variety of external resources such as the local ﬁle system, from the
Java CLASSPATH , and so on.

ApplicationContext context =
new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext(new String[] {"services.xml", "daos.xml"});

After you learn about Spring’s IoC container, you may want to know more about Spring’s Resource abstraction, as described in
Chapter 8, Resources, which provides a convenient mechanism for reading an InputStream from locations deﬁned in a URI syntax. In
particular, Resource paths are used to construct applications contexts as described in Section 8.7, “Application contexts and
Resource paths”.

The following example shows the service layer objects (services.xml) conﬁguration ﬁle:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<bean id="petStore" class="org.springframework.samples.jpetstore.services.PetStoreServiceImpl">

</beans>

The following example shows the data access objects daos.xml ﬁle:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<bean id="itemDao" class="org.springframework.samples.jpetstore.dao.jpa.JpaItemDao">

</bean>

</beans>

In the preceding example, the service layer consists of the class PetStoreServiceImpl , and two data access objects of the type
JpaAccountDao and JpaItemDao (based on the JPA Object/Relational mapping standard). The property name element refers to the name
of the JavaBean property, and the ref element refers to the name of another bean deﬁnition. This linkage between id and ref elements
expresses the dependency between collaborating objects. For details of conﬁguring an object’s dependencies, see Dependencies.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 47/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Composing XML-based conﬁguration metadata

It can be useful to have bean definitions span multiple XML files. Often each individual XML configuration file represents a logical layer or module in
your architecture.

You can use the application context constructor to load bean definitions from all these XML fragments. This constructor takes multiple Resource
locations, as was shown in the previous section. Alternatively, use one or more occurrences of the <import/> element to load bean definitions
from another file or files. For example:

<bean id="bean1" class="..."/>

In the preceding example, external bean definitions are loaded from three files: services.xml , messageSource.xml , and
themeSource.xml . All location paths are relative to the definition file doing the importing, so services.xml must be in the same directory or
classpath location as the file doing the importing, while messageSource.xml and themeSource.xml must be in a resources location below
the location of the importing file. As you can see, a leading slash is ignored, but given that these paths are relative, it is better form not to use the
slash at all. The contents of the files being imported, including the top level <beans/> element, must be valid XML bean definitions according to
the Spring Schema.

It is possible, but not recommended, to reference files in parent directories using a relative "../" path. Doing so creates a dependency
on a file that is outside the current application. In particular, this reference is not recommended for "classpath:" URLs (for example,
"classpath:../services.xml"), where the runtime resolution process chooses the "nearest" classpath root and then looks into its parent
directory. Classpath configuration changes may lead to the choice of a different, incorrect directory.
You can always use fully qualified resource locations instead of relative paths: for example, "file:C:/config/services.xml" or
"classpath:/config/services.xml". However, be aware that you are coupling your application’s configuration to specific absolute
locations. It is generally preferable to keep an indirection for such absolute locations, for example, through "${…}" placeholders that are
resolved against JVM system properties at runtime.

The import directive is a feature provided by the beans namespace itself. Further conﬁguration features beyond plain bean deﬁnitions are available
in a selection of XML namespaces provided by Spring, e.g. the "context" and the "util" namespace.

The Groovy Bean Deﬁnition DSL

As a further example for externalized configuration metadata, bean definitions can also be expressed in Spring’s Groovy Bean Definition DSL, as
known from the Grails framework. Typically, such configuration will live in a ".groovy" file with a structure as follows:

beans {
dataSource(BasicDataSource) {
driverClassName = "org.hsqldb.jdbcDriver"
url = "jdbc:hsqldb:mem:grailsDB"
username = "sa"
password = ""
settings = [mynew:"setting"]
}
sessionFactory(SessionFactory) {
dataSource = dataSource
}
myService(MyService) {
nestedBean = { AnotherBean bean ->
dataSource = dataSource
}
}
}

This configuration style is largely equivalent to XML bean definitions and even supports Spring’s XML configuration namespaces. It also allows for
importing XML bean definition files through an "importBeans" directive.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 48/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

7.2.3 Using the container

The ApplicationContext is the interface for an advanced factory capable of maintaining a registry of different beans and their dependencies.
Using the method T getBean(String name, Class<T> requiredType) you can retrieve instances of your beans.

The ApplicationContext enables you to read bean deﬁnitions and access them as follows:

// create and configure beans

ApplicationContext context = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("services.xml", "daos.xml");

// retrieve configured instance

PetStoreService service = context.getBean("petStore", PetStoreService.class);

// use configured instance

List<String> userList = service.getUsernameList();

With Groovy conﬁguration, bootstrapping looks very similar, just a different context implementation class which is Groovy-aware (but also
understands XML bean deﬁnitions):

ApplicationContext context = new GenericGroovyApplicationContext("services.groovy", "daos.groovy");

The most ﬂexible variant is GenericApplicationContext in combination with reader delegates, e.g. with XmlBeanDefinitionReader for
XML ﬁles:

GenericApplicationContext context = new GenericApplicationContext();

new XmlBeanDefinitionReader(context).loadBeanDefinitions("services.xml", "daos.xml");
context.refresh();

Or with GroovyBeanDefinitionReader for Groovy ﬁles:

GenericApplicationContext context = new GenericApplicationContext();

new GroovyBeanDefinitionReader(context).loadBeanDefinitions("services.groovy", "daos.groovy");
context.refresh();

Such reader delegates can be mixed and matched on the same ApplicationContext , reading bean deﬁnitions from diverse conﬁguration
sources, if desired.

You can then use getBean to retrieve instances of your beans. The ApplicationContext interface has a few other methods for retrieving
beans, but ideally your application code should never use them. Indeed, your application code should have no calls to the getBean() method at
all, and thus no dependency on Spring APIs at all. For example, Spring’s integration with web frameworks provides dependency injection for various
web framework components such as controllers and JSF-managed beans, allowing you to declare a dependency on a speciﬁc bean through
metadata (e.g. an autowiring annotation).

7.3 Bean overview
A Spring IoC container manages one or more beans. These beans are created with the conﬁguration metadata that you supply to the container, for
example, in the form of XML <bean/> deﬁnitions.

Within the container itself, these bean deﬁnitions are represented as BeanDefinition objects, which contain (among other information) the
following metadata:

A package-qualified class name: typically the actual implementation class of the bean being defined.
Bean behavioral configuration elements, which state how the bean should behave in the container (scope, lifecycle callbacks, and so forth).
References to other beans that are needed for the bean to do its work; these references are also called collaborators or dependencies.
Other configuration settings to set in the newly created object, for example, the number of connections to use in a bean that manages a
connection pool, or the size limit of the pool.

This metadata translates to a set of properties that make up each bean deﬁnition.

Table 7.1. The bean deﬁnition

Property Explained in…

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 49/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

class Section 7.3.2, “Instantiating beans”

name Section 7.3.1, “Naming beans”

scope Section 7.5, “Bean scopes”

constructor arguments Section 7.4.1, “Dependency Injection”

properties Section 7.4.1, “Dependency Injection”

autowiring mode Section 7.4.5, “Autowiring collaborators”

lazy-initialization mode Section 7.4.4, “Lazy-initialized beans”

initialization method the section called “Initialization callbacks”

destruction method the section called “Destruction callbacks”

In addition to bean definitions that contain information on how to create a specific bean, the ApplicationContext implementations also permit
the registration of existing objects that are created outside the container, by users. This is done by accessing the ApplicationContext’s BeanFactory
via the method getBeanFactory() which returns the BeanFactory implementation DefaultListableBeanFactory .
DefaultListableBeanFactory supports this registration through the methods registerSingleton(..) and
registerBeanDefinition(..) . However, typical applications work solely with beans defined through metadata bean definitions.

Bean metadata and manually supplied singleton instances need to be registered as early as possible, in order for the container to
properly reason about them during autowiring and other introspection steps. While overriding of existing metadata and existing
singleton instances is supported to some degree, the registration of new beans at runtime (concurrently with live access to factory) is
not ofﬁcially supported and may lead to concurrent access exceptions and/or inconsistent state in the bean container.

7.3.1 Naming beans
Every bean has one or more identifiers. These identifiers must be unique within the container that hosts the bean. A bean usually has only one
identifier, but if it requires more than one, the extra ones can be considered aliases.

In XML-based configuration metadata, you use the id and/or name attributes to specify the bean identifier(s). The id attribute allows you to
specify exactly one id. Conventionally these names are alphanumeric ('myBean', 'fooService', etc.), but may contain special characters as well. If you
want to introduce other aliases to the bean, you can also specify them in the name attribute, separated by a comma ( , ), semicolon ( ; ), or white
space. As a historical note, in versions prior to Spring 3.1, the id attribute was defined as an xsd:ID type, which constrained possible characters.
As of 3.1, it is defined as an xsd:string type. Note that bean id uniqueness is still enforced by the container, though no longer by XML parsers.

You are not required to supply a name or id for a bean. If no name or id is supplied explicitly, the container generates a unique name for that bean.
However, if you want to refer to that bean by name, through the use of the ref element or Service Locator style lookup, you must provide a name.
Motivations for not supplying a name are related to using inner beans and autowiring collaborators.

Bean Naming Conventions

The convention is to use the standard Java convention for instance ﬁeld names when naming beans. That is, bean names start with a
lowercase letter, and are camel-cased from then on. Examples of such names would be (without quotes) 'accountManager' ,
'accountService' , 'userDao' , 'loginController' , and so forth.

Naming beans consistently makes your conﬁguration easier to read and understand, and if you are using Spring AOP it helps a lot when
applying advice to a set of beans related by name.

With component scanning in the classpath, Spring generates bean names for unnamed components, following the rules above:
essentially, taking the simple class name and turning its initial character to lower-case. However, in the (unusual) special case when
there is more than one character and both the ﬁrst and second characters are upper case, the original casing gets preserved. These
are the same rules as deﬁned by java.beans.Introspector.decapitalize (which Spring is using here).

Aliasing a bean outside the bean deﬁnition

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 50/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
In a bean definition itself, you can supply more than one name for the bean, by using a combination of up to one name specified by the id attribute,
and any number of other names in the name attribute. These names can be equivalent aliases to the same bean, and are useful for some
situations, such as allowing each component in an application to refer to a common dependency by using a bean name that is specific to that
component itself.

Specifying all aliases where the bean is actually defined is not always adequate, however. It is sometimes desirable to introduce an alias for a bean
that is defined elsewhere. This is commonly the case in large systems where configuration is split amongst each subsystem, each subsystem having
its own set of object definitions. In XML-based configuration metadata, you can use the <alias/> element to accomplish this.

<alias name="fromName" alias="toName"/>

In this case, a bean in the same container which is named fromName , may also, after the use of this alias deﬁnition, be referred to as toName .

For example, the configuration metadata for subsystem A may refer to a DataSource via the name subsystemA-dataSource . The configuration
metadata for subsystem B may refer to a DataSource via the name subsystemB-dataSource . When composing the main application that uses
both these subsystems the main application refers to the DataSource via the name myApp-dataSource . To have all three names refer to the
same object you add to the MyApp configuration metadata the following aliases definitions:

<alias name="subsystemA-dataSource" alias="subsystemB-dataSource"/>

Now each component and the main application can refer to the dataSource through a name that is unique and guaranteed not to clash with any
other deﬁnition (effectively creating a namespace), yet they refer to the same bean.

Java-conﬁguration

If you are using Java-conﬁguration, the @Bean annotation can be used to provide aliases see Section 7.12.3, “Using the @Bean annotation”
for details.

7.3.2 Instantiating beans
A bean definition essentially is a recipe for creating one or more objects. The container looks at the recipe for a named bean when asked, and uses
the configuration metadata encapsulated by that bean definition to create (or acquire) an actual object.

If you use XML-based conﬁguration metadata, you specify the type (or class) of object that is to be instantiated in the class attribute of the
<bean/> element. This class attribute, which internally is a Class property on a BeanDefinition instance, is usually mandatory. (For
exceptions, see the section called “Instantiation using an instance factory method” and Section 7.7, “Bean deﬁnition inheritance”.) You use the
Class property in one of two ways:

Typically, to specify the bean class to be constructed in the case where the container itself directly creates the bean by calling its constructor
reﬂectively, somewhat equivalent to Java code using the new operator.
To specify the actual class containing the static factory method that will be invoked to create the object, in the less common case where the
container invokes a static factory method on a class to create the bean. The object type returned from the invocation of the static factory
method may be the same class or another class entirely.

Inner class names. If you want to conﬁgure a bean deﬁnition for a static nested class, you have to use the binary name of the nested
class.

For example, if you have a class called Foo in the com.example package, and this Foo class has a static nested class called Bar ,
the value of the 'class' attribute on a bean deﬁnition would be…

com.example.Foo$Bar

Notice the use of the $ character in the name to separate the nested class name from the outer class name.

Instantiation with a constructor

When you create a bean by the constructor approach, all normal classes are usable by and compatible with Spring. That is, the class being
developed does not need to implement any specific interfaces or to be coded in a specific fashion. Simply specifying the bean class should suffice.
However, depending on what type of IoC you use for that specific bean, you may need a default (empty) constructor.

The Spring IoC container can manage virtually any class you want it to manage; it is not limited to managing true JavaBeans. Most Spring users
prefer actual JavaBeans with only a default (no-argument) constructor and appropriate setters and getters modeled after the properties in the

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 51/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
container. You can also have more exotic non-bean-style classes in your container. If, for example, you need to use a legacy connection pool that
absolutely does not adhere to the JavaBean speciﬁcation, Spring can manage it as well.

With XML-based conﬁguration metadata you can specify your bean class as follows:

<bean id="exampleBean" class="examples.ExampleBean"/>

<bean name="anotherExample" class="examples.ExampleBeanTwo"/>

For details about the mechanism for supplying arguments to the constructor (if required) and setting object instance properties after the object is
constructed, see Injecting Dependencies.

Instantiation with a static factory method

When deﬁning a bean that you create with a static factory method, you use the class attribute to specify the class containing the static factory
method and an attribute named factory-method to specify the name of the factory method itself. You should be able to call this method (with
optional arguments as described later) and return a live object, which subsequently is treated as if it had been created through a constructor. One
use for such a bean deﬁnition is to call static factories in legacy code.

The following bean definition specifies that the bean will be created by calling a factory-method. The definition does not specify the type (class) of the
returned object, only the class containing the factory method. In this example, the createInstance() method must be a static method.

public class ClientService {

private static ClientService clientService = new ClientService();
private ClientService() {}

public static ClientService createInstance() {

return clientService;
}
}

For details about the mechanism for supplying (optional) arguments to the factory method and setting object instance properties after the object is
returned from the factory, see Dependencies and conﬁguration in detail.

Instantiation using an instance factory method

Similar to instantiation through a static factory method, instantiation with an instance factory method invokes a non-static method of an existing bean
from the container to create a new bean. To use this mechanism, leave the class attribute empty, and in the factory-bean attribute, specify the
name of a bean in the current (or parent/ancestor) container that contains the instance method that is to be invoked to create the object. Set the
name of the factory method itself with the factory-method attribute.

<bean id="serviceLocator" class="examples.DefaultServiceLocator">

</bean>

public class DefaultServiceLocator {

private static ClientService clientService = new ClientServiceImpl();

private DefaultServiceLocator() {}

public ClientService createClientServiceInstance() {

return clientService;
}
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 52/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
One factory class can also hold more than one factory method as shown here:

<bean id="serviceLocator" class="examples.DefaultServiceLocator">

</bean>

public class DefaultServiceLocator {

private static ClientService clientService = new ClientServiceImpl();

private static AccountService accountService = new AccountServiceImpl();

private DefaultServiceLocator() {}

public ClientService createClientServiceInstance() {

return clientService;
}

public AccountService createAccountServiceInstance() {

return accountService;
}

This approach shows that the factory bean itself can be managed and conﬁgured through dependency injection (DI). See Dependencies and
conﬁguration in detail.

In Spring documentation, factory bean refers to a bean that is conﬁgured in the Spring container that will create objects through an
instance or static factory method. By contrast, FactoryBean (notice the capitalization) refers to a Spring-speciﬁc FactoryBean .

7.4 Dependencies
A typical enterprise application does not consist of a single object (or bean in the Spring parlance). Even the simplest application has a few objects
that work together to present what the end-user sees as a coherent application. This next section explains how you go from deﬁning a number of
bean deﬁnitions that stand alone to a fully realized application where objects collaborate to achieve a goal.

7.4.1 Dependency Injection
Dependency injection (DI) is a process whereby objects deﬁne their dependencies, that is, the other objects they work with, only through constructor
arguments, arguments to a factory method, or properties that are set on the object instance after it is constructed or returned from a factory method.
The container then injects those dependencies when it creates the bean. This process is fundamentally the inverse, hence the name Inversion of
Control (IoC), of the bean itself controlling the instantiation or location of its dependencies on its own by using direct construction of classes, or the
Service Locator pattern.

Code is cleaner with the DI principle and decoupling is more effective when objects are provided with their dependencies. The object does not look
up its dependencies, and does not know the location or class of the dependencies. As such, your classes become easier to test, in particular when
the dependencies are on interfaces or abstract base classes, which allow for stub or mock implementations to be used in unit tests.

DI exists in two major variants, Constructor-based dependency injection and Setter-based dependency injection.

Constructor-based dependency injection

Constructor-based DI is accomplished by the container invoking a constructor with a number of arguments, each representing a dependency. Calling
a static factory method with speciﬁc arguments to construct the bean is nearly equivalent, and this discussion treats arguments to a constructor
and to a static factory method similarly. The following example shows a class that can only be dependency-injected with constructor injection.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 53/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Notice that there is nothing special about this class, it is a POJO that has no dependencies on container speciﬁc interfaces, base classes or
annotations.

public class SimpleMovieLister {

// the SimpleMovieLister has a dependency on a MovieFinder

private MovieFinder movieFinder;

// a constructor so that the Spring container can inject a MovieFinder

public SimpleMovieLister(MovieFinder movieFinder) {
this.movieFinder = movieFinder;
}

// business logic that actually uses the injected MovieFinder is omitted...

Constructor argument resolution

Constructor argument resolution matching occurs using the argument’s type. If no potential ambiguity exists in the constructor arguments of a bean
definition, then the order in which the constructor arguments are defined in a bean definition is the order in which those arguments are supplied to
the appropriate constructor when the bean is being instantiated. Consider the following class:

package x.y;

public class Foo {

public Foo(Bar bar, Baz baz) {

// ...
}

No potential ambiguity exists, assuming that Bar and Baz classes are not related by inheritance. Thus the following conﬁguration works ﬁne, and
you do not need to specify the constructor argument indexes and/or types explicitly in the <constructor-arg/> element.

<bean id="bar" class="x.y.Bar"/>

<bean id="baz" class="x.y.Baz"/>

</beans>

When another bean is referenced, the type is known, and matching can occur (as was the case with the preceding example). When a simple type is
used, such as <value>true</value> , Spring cannot determine the type of the value, and so cannot match by type without help. Consider the
following class:

package examples;

public class ExampleBean {

// Number of years to calculate the Ultimate Answer

private int years;

// The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything

private String ultimateAnswer;

public ExampleBean(int years, String ultimateAnswer) {

this.years = years;
this.ultimateAnswer = ultimateAnswer;
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 54/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
In the preceding scenario, the container can use type matching with simple types if you explicitly specify the type of the constructor argument using
the type attribute. For example:

<bean id="exampleBean" class="examples.ExampleBean">

<constructor-arg type="int" value="7500000"/>
<constructor-arg type="java.lang.String" value="42"/>
</bean>

Use the index attribute to specify explicitly the index of constructor arguments. For example:

<bean id="exampleBean" class="examples.ExampleBean">

<constructor-arg index="0" value="7500000"/>
<constructor-arg index="1" value="42"/>
</bean>

In addition to resolving the ambiguity of multiple simple values, specifying an index resolves ambiguity where a constructor has two arguments of the
same type. Note that the index is 0 based.

You can also use the constructor parameter name for value disambiguation:

<bean id="exampleBean" class="examples.ExampleBean">

<constructor-arg name="years" value="7500000"/>
<constructor-arg name="ultimateAnswer" value="42"/>
</bean>

Keep in mind that to make this work out of the box your code must be compiled with the debug ﬂag enabled so that Spring can look up the
parameter name from the constructor. If you can’t compile your code with debug ﬂag (or don’t want to) you can use @ConstructorProperties JDK
annotation to explicitly name your constructor arguments. The sample class would then have to look as follows:

package examples;

public class ExampleBean {

// Fields omitted

@ConstructorProperties({"years", "ultimateAnswer"})
public ExampleBean(int years, String ultimateAnswer) {
this.years = years;
this.ultimateAnswer = ultimateAnswer;
}

Setter-based dependency injection

Setter-based DI is accomplished by the container calling setter methods on your beans after invoking a no-argument constructor or no-argument
static factory method to instantiate your bean.

The following example shows a class that can only be dependency-injected using pure setter injection. This class is conventional Java. It is a POJO
that has no dependencies on container speciﬁc interfaces, base classes or annotations.

public class SimpleMovieLister {

// the SimpleMovieLister has a dependency on the MovieFinder

private MovieFinder movieFinder;

// a setter method so that the Spring container can inject a MovieFinder

public void setMovieFinder(MovieFinder movieFinder) {
this.movieFinder = movieFinder;
}

// business logic that actually uses the injected MovieFinder is omitted...

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 55/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The ApplicationContext supports constructor-based and setter-based DI for the beans it manages. It also supports setter-based DI after some
dependencies have already been injected through the constructor approach. You conﬁgure the dependencies in the form of a BeanDefinition ,
which you use in conjunction with PropertyEditor instances to convert properties from one format to another. However, most Spring users do
not work with these classes directly (i.e., programmatically) but rather with XML bean deﬁnitions, annotated components (i.e., classes annotated
with @Component , @Controller , etc.), or @Bean methods in Java-based @Configuration classes. These sources are then converted
internally into instances of BeanDefinition and used to load an entire Spring IoC container instance.

Constructor-based or setter-based DI?

Since you can mix constructor-based and setter-based DI, it is a good rule of thumb to use constructors for mandatory dependencies and
setter methods or conﬁguration methods for optional dependencies. Note that use of the @Required annotation on a setter method can be
used to make the property a required dependency.

The Spring team generally advocates constructor injection as it enables one to implement application components as immutable objects and to
ensure that required dependencies are not null . Furthermore constructor-injected components are always returned to client (calling) code in
a fully initialized state. As a side note, a large number of constructor arguments is a bad code smell, implying that the class likely has too many
responsibilities and should be refactored to better address proper separation of concerns.

Setter injection should primarily only be used for optional dependencies that can be assigned reasonable default values within the class.
Otherwise, not-null checks must be performed everywhere the code uses the dependency. One beneﬁt of setter injection is that setter methods
make objects of that class amenable to reconﬁguration or re-injection later. Management through JMX MBeans is therefore a compelling use
case for setter injection.

Use the DI style that makes the most sense for a particular class. Sometimes, when dealing with third-party classes for which you do not have
the source, the choice is made for you. For example, if a third-party class does not expose any setter methods, then constructor injection may
be the only available form of DI.

Dependency resolution process

The container performs bean dependency resolution as follows:

The ApplicationContext is created and initialized with configuration metadata that describes all the beans. Configuration metadata can be
specified via XML, Java code, or annotations.
For each bean, its dependencies are expressed in the form of properties, constructor arguments, or arguments to the static-factory method if you
are using that instead of a normal constructor. These dependencies are provided to the bean, when the bean is actually created.
Each property or constructor argument is an actual definition of the value to set, or a reference to another bean in the container.
Each property or constructor argument which is a value is converted from its specified format to the actual type of that property or constructor
argument. By default Spring can convert a value supplied in string format to all built-in types, such as int , long , String , boolean , etc.

The Spring container validates the configuration of each bean as the container is created. However, the bean properties themselves are not set until
the bean is actually created. Beans that are singleton-scoped and set to be pre-instantiated (the default) are created when the container is created.
Scopes are defined in Section 7.5, “Bean scopes”. Otherwise, the bean is created only when it is requested. Creation of a bean potentially causes a
graph of beans to be created, as the bean’s dependencies and its dependencies' dependencies (and so on) are created and assigned. Note that
resolution mismatches among those dependencies may show up late, i.e. on first creation of the affected bean.

Circular dependencies

If you use predominantly constructor injection, it is possible to create an unresolvable circular dependency scenario.

For example: Class A requires an instance of class B through constructor injection, and class B requires an instance of class A through
constructor injection. If you conﬁgure beans for classes A and B to be injected into each other, the Spring IoC container detects this circular
reference at runtime, and throws a BeanCurrentlyInCreationException .

One possible solution is to edit the source code of some classes to be conﬁgured by setters rather than constructors. Alternatively, avoid
constructor injection and use setter injection only. In other words, although it is not recommended, you can conﬁgure circular dependencies
with setter injection.

Unlike the typical case (with no circular dependencies), a circular dependency between bean A and bean B forces one of the beans to be
injected into the other prior to being fully initialized itself (a classic chicken/egg scenario).

You can generally trust Spring to do the right thing. It detects conﬁguration problems, such as references to non-existent beans and circular
dependencies, at container load-time. Spring sets properties and resolves dependencies as late as possible, when the bean is actually created. This
means that a Spring container which has loaded correctly can later generate an exception when you request an object if there is a problem creating
that object or one of its dependencies. For example, the bean throws an exception as a result of a missing or invalid property. This potentially

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 56/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
delayed visibility of some conﬁguration issues is why ApplicationContext implementations by default pre-instantiate singleton beans. At the
cost of some upfront time and memory to create these beans before they are actually needed, you discover conﬁguration issues when the
ApplicationContext is created, not later. You can still override this default behavior so that singleton beans will lazy-initialize, rather than be
pre-instantiated.

If no circular dependencies exist, when one or more collaborating beans are being injected into a dependent bean, each collaborating bean is totally
configured prior to being injected into the dependent bean. This means that if bean A has a dependency on bean B, the Spring IoC container
completely configures bean B prior to invoking the setter method on bean A. In other words, the bean is instantiated (if not a pre-instantiated
singleton), its dependencies are set, and the relevant lifecycle methods (such as a configured init method or the InitializingBean callback method)
are invoked.

Examples of dependency injection

The following example uses XML-based configuration metadata for setter-based DI. A small part of a Spring XML configuration file specifies some
bean definitions:

<bean id="exampleBean" class="examples.ExampleBean">

<property name="beanOne">
<ref bean="anotherExampleBean"/>
</property>

<bean id="anotherExampleBean" class="examples.AnotherBean"/>

public class ExampleBean {

private AnotherBean beanOne;

private YetAnotherBean beanTwo;
private int i;

public void setBeanOne(AnotherBean beanOne) {

this.beanOne = beanOne;
}

public void setBeanTwo(YetAnotherBean beanTwo) {

this.beanTwo = beanTwo;
}

public void setIntegerProperty(int i) {

this.i = i;
}

In the preceding example, setters are declared to match against the properties speciﬁed in the XML ﬁle. The following example uses constructor-
based DI:

<bean id="exampleBean" class="examples.ExampleBean">

<constructor-arg>
<ref bean="anotherExampleBean"/>
</constructor-arg>

<constructor-arg ref="yetAnotherBean"/>

<constructor-arg type="int" value="1"/>

</bean>

<bean id="anotherExampleBean" class="examples.AnotherBean"/>

<bean id="yetAnotherBean" class="examples.YetAnotherBean"/>
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 57/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

public class ExampleBean {

private AnotherBean beanOne;

private YetAnotherBean beanTwo;
private int i;

public ExampleBean(
AnotherBean anotherBean, YetAnotherBean yetAnotherBean, int i) {
this.beanOne = anotherBean;
this.beanTwo = yetAnotherBean;
this.i = i;
}

The constructor arguments speciﬁed in the bean deﬁnition will be used as arguments to the constructor of the ExampleBean .

Now consider a variant of this example, where instead of using a constructor, Spring is told to call a static factory method to return an instance of
the object:

<bean id="exampleBean" class="examples.ExampleBean" factory-method="createInstance">

<constructor-arg ref="anotherExampleBean"/>
<constructor-arg ref="yetAnotherBean"/>
<constructor-arg value="1"/>
</bean>

<bean id="anotherExampleBean" class="examples.AnotherBean"/>

public class ExampleBean {

// a private constructor
private ExampleBean(...) {
...
}

// a static factory method; the arguments to this method can be

// considered the dependencies of the bean that is returned,
// regardless of how those arguments are actually used.
public static ExampleBean createInstance (
AnotherBean anotherBean, YetAnotherBean yetAnotherBean, int i) {

ExampleBean eb = new ExampleBean (...);

// some other operations...
return eb;
}

Arguments to the static factory method are supplied via <constructor-arg/> elements, exactly the same as if a constructor had actually
been used. The type of the class being returned by the factory method does not have to be of the same type as the class that contains the static
factory method, although in this example it is. An instance (non-static) factory method would be used in an essentially identical fashion (aside from
the use of the factory-bean attribute instead of the class attribute), so details will not be discussed here.

7.4.2 Dependencies and conﬁguration in detail

As mentioned in the previous section, you can define bean properties and constructor arguments as references to other managed beans
(collaborators), or as values defined inline. Spring’s XML-based configuration metadata supports sub-element types within its <property/> and
<constructor-arg/> elements for this purpose.

Straight values (primitives, Strings, and so on)

The value attribute of the <property/> element speciﬁes a property or constructor argument as a human-readable string representation.
Spring’s conversion service is used to convert these values from a String to the actual type of the property or argument.

<bean id="myDataSource" class="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource" destroy-method="close">

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 58/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
<bean id="myDataSource" class="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource" destroy-method="close">

<property name="driverClassName" value="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver"/>
<property name="url" value="jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/mydb"/>
<property name="username" value="root"/>
<property name="password" value="masterkaoli"/>
</bean>

The following example uses the p-namespace for even more succinct XML conﬁguration.

<bean id="myDataSource" class="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource"

destroy-method="close"
p:driverClassName="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver"
p:url="jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/mydb"
p:username="root"
p:password="masterkaoli"/>

</beans>

The preceding XML is more succinct; however, typos are discovered at runtime rather than design time, unless you use an IDE such as IntelliJ IDEA
or the Spring Tool Suite (STS) that support automatic property completion when you create bean deﬁnitions. Such IDE assistance is highly
recommended.

You can also conﬁgure a java.util.Properties instance as:

<property name="properties">
<value>
jdbc.driver.className=com.mysql.jdbc.Driver
jdbc.url=jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/mydb
</value>
</property>
</bean>

The Spring container converts the text inside the <value/> element into a java.util.Properties instance by using the JavaBeans
PropertyEditor mechanism. This is a nice shortcut, and is one of a few places where the Spring team do favor the use of the nested
<value/> element over the value attribute style.

The idref element

The idref element is simply an error-proof way to pass the id (string value - not a reference) of another bean in the container to a
<constructor-arg/> or <property/> element.

<bean id="theTargetBean" class="..."/>

<bean id="theClientBean" class="...">

The above bean deﬁnition snippet is exactly equivalent (at runtime) to the following snippet:

<bean id="theTargetBean" class="..." />

<bean id="client" class="...">

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 59/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
<property name="targetName" value="theTargetBean"/>
</bean>

The ﬁrst form is preferable to the second, because using the idref tag allows the container to validate at deployment time that the referenced,
named bean actually exists. In the second variation, no validation is performed on the value that is passed to the targetName property of the
client bean. Typos are only discovered (with most likely fatal results) when the client bean is actually instantiated. If the client bean is a
prototype bean, this typo and the resulting exception may only be discovered long after the container is deployed.

The local attribute on the idref element is no longer supported in the 4.0 beans xsd since it does not provide value over a regular
bean reference anymore. Simply change your existing idref local references to idref bean when upgrading to the 4.0
schema.

A common place (at least in versions earlier than Spring 2.0) where the <idref/> element brings value is in the conﬁguration of AOP interceptors
in a ProxyFactoryBean bean deﬁnition. Using <idref/> elements when you specify the interceptor names prevents you from misspelling an
interceptor id.

References to other beans (collaborators)

The ref element is the final element inside a <constructor-arg/> or <property/> definition element. Here you set the value of the
specified property of a bean to be a reference to another bean (a collaborator) managed by the container. The referenced bean is a dependency of
the bean whose property will be set, and it is initialized on demand as needed before the property is set. (If the collaborator is a singleton bean, it
may be initialized already by the container.) All references are ultimately a reference to another object. Scoping and validation depend on whether
you specify the id/name of the other object through the bean , local, or parent attributes.

Specifying the target bean through the bean attribute of the <ref/> tag is the most general form, and allows creation of a reference to any bean
in the same container or parent container, regardless of whether it is in the same XML ﬁle. The value of the bean attribute may be the same as the
id attribute of the target bean, or as one of the values in the name attribute of the target bean.

Specifying the target bean through the parent attribute creates a reference to a bean that is in a parent container of the current container. The
value of the parent attribute may be the same as either the id attribute of the target bean, or one of the values in the name attribute of the
target bean, and the target bean must be in a parent container of the current one. You use this bean reference variant mainly when you have a
hierarchy of containers and you want to wrap an existing bean in a parent container with a proxy that will have the same name as the parent bean.

<bean id="accountService" 
class="org.springframework.aop.framework.ProxyFactoryBean">
<property name="target">
<ref parent="accountService"/> 
</property>

</bean>

The local attribute on the ref element is no longer supported in the 4.0 beans xsd since it does not provide value over a regular
bean reference anymore. Simply change your existing ref local references to ref bean when upgrading to the 4.0 schema.

Inner beans
A <bean/> element inside the <property/> or <constructor-arg/> elements deﬁnes a so-called inner bean.

<bean id="outer" class="...">

<property name="target">

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 60/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
<bean class="com.example.Person"> 
<property name="name" value="Fiona Apple"/>
<property name="age" value="25"/>
</bean>
</property>
</bean>

An inner bean definition does not require a defined id or name; if specified, the container does not use such a value as an identifier. The container
also ignores the scope flag on creation: Inner beans are always anonymous and they are always created with the outer bean. It is not possible to
inject inner beans into collaborating beans other than into the enclosing bean or to access them independently.

As a corner case, it is possible to receive destruction callbacks from a custom scope, e.g. for a request-scoped inner bean contained within a
singleton bean: The creation of the inner bean instance will be tied to its containing bean, but destruction callbacks allow it to participate in the
request scope’s lifecycle. This is not a common scenario; inner beans typically simply share their containing bean’s scope.

Collections
In the <list/> , <set/> , <map/> , and <props/> elements, you set the properties and arguments of the Java Collection types List ,
Set , Map , and Properties , respectively.

<bean id="moreComplexObject" class="example.ComplexObject">

<property name="adminEmails">
<props>
<prop key="administrator">[email protected]</prop>
<prop key="support">[email protected]</prop>
<prop key="development">[email protected]</prop>
</props>
</property>

<property name="someList">
<list>
<value>a list element followed by a reference</value>
<ref bean="myDataSource" />
</list>
</property>

<property name="someMap">
<map>
<entry key="an entry" value="just some string"/>
<entry key ="a ref" value-ref="myDataSource"/>
</map>
</property>

<property name="someSet">
<set>
<value>just some string</value>
<ref bean="myDataSource" />
</set>
</property>
</bean>

The value of a map key or value, or a set value, can also again be any of the following elements:

bean | ref | idref | list | set | map | props | value | null

Collection merging
The Spring container also supports the merging of collections. An application developer can deﬁne a parent-style <list/> , <map/> , <set/> or
<props/> element, and have child-style <list/> , <map/> , <set/> or <props/> elements inherit and override values from the parent
collection. That is, the child collection’s values are the result of merging the elements of the parent and child collections, with the child’s collection
elements overriding values speciﬁed in the parent collection.

This section on merging discusses the parent-child bean mechanism. Readers unfamiliar with parent and child bean deﬁnitions may wish to read the
relevant section before continuing.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 61/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The following example demonstrates collection merging:

<beans>
<bean id="parent" abstract="true" class="example.ComplexObject">
<property name="adminEmails">
<props>
<prop key="administrator">[email protected]</prop>
<prop key="support">[email protected]</prop>
</props>
</property>
</bean>
<bean id="child" parent="parent">
<property name="adminEmails">

<props merge="true">
<prop key="sales">[email protected]</prop>
<prop key="support">[email protected]</prop>
</props>
</property>
</bean>
<beans>

Notice the use of the merge=true attribute on the <props/> element of the adminEmails property of the child bean deﬁnition. When the
child bean is resolved and instantiated by the container, the resulting instance has an adminEmails Properties collection that contains the
result of the merging of the child’s adminEmails collection with the parent’s adminEmails collection.

[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]

The child Properties collection’s value set inherits all property elements from the parent <props/> , and the child’s value for the support
value overrides the value in the parent collection.

This merging behavior applies similarly to the <list/> , <map/> , and <set/> collection types. In the speciﬁc case of the <list/> element,
the semantics associated with the List collection type, that is, the notion of an ordered collection of values, is maintained; the parent’s values
precede all of the child list’s values. In the case of the Map , Set , and Properties collection types, no ordering exists. Hence no ordering
semantics are in effect for the collection types that underlie the associated Map , Set , and Properties implementation types that the container
uses internally.

Limitations of collection merging

You cannot merge different collection types (such as a Map and a List ), and if you do attempt to do so an appropriate Exception is thrown.
The merge attribute must be specified on the lower, inherited, child definition; specifying the merge attribute on a parent collection definition is
redundant and will not result in the desired merging.

Strongly-typed collection
With the introduction of generic types in Java 5, you can use strongly typed collections. That is, it is possible to declare a Collection type such
that it can only contain String elements (for example). If you are using Spring to dependency-inject a strongly-typed Collection into a bean,
you can take advantage of Spring’s type-conversion support such that the elements of your strongly-typed Collection instances are converted to
the appropriate type prior to being added to the Collection .

public class Foo {

private Map<String, Float> accounts;

public void setAccounts(Map<String, Float> accounts) {

this.accounts = accounts;
}
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 62/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
<entry key="six" value="3.99"/>
</map>
</property>
</bean>
</beans>

When the accounts property of the foo bean is prepared for injection, the generics information about the element type of the strongly-typed
Map<String, Float> is available by reﬂection. Thus Spring’s type conversion infrastructure recognizes the various value elements as being of
type Float , and the string values 9.99, 2.75 , and 3.99 are converted into an actual Float type.

Null and empty string values

Spring treats empty arguments for properties and the like as empty Strings . The following XML-based conﬁguration metadata snippet sets the
email property to the empty String value ("").

The preceding example is equivalent to the following Java code:

exampleBean.setEmail("")

The <null/> element handles null values. For example:

The above conﬁguration is equivalent to the following Java code:

exampleBean.setEmail(null)

XML shortcut with the p-namespace

The p-namespace enables you to use the bean element’s attributes, instead of nested <property/> elements, to describe your property values
and/or collaborating beans.

Spring supports extensible configuration formats with namespaces, which are based on an XML Schema definition. The beans configuration format
discussed in this chapter is defined in an XML Schema document. However, the p-namespace is not defined in an XSD file and exists only in the
core of Spring.

The following example shows two XML snippets that resolve to the same result: The ﬁrst uses standard XML format and the second uses the p-
namespace.

<bean name="classic" class="com.example.ExampleBean">

<bean name="p-namespace" class="com.example.ExampleBean"

p:email="[email protected]"/>
</beans>

The example shows an attribute in the p-namespace called email in the bean deﬁnition. This tells Spring to include a property declaration. As
previously mentioned, the p-namespace does not have a schema deﬁnition, so you can set the name of the attribute to the property name.

This next example includes two more bean deﬁnitions that both have a reference to another bean:

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 63/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

<bean name="john-classic" class="com.example.Person">

<bean name="jane" class="com.example.Person">

As you can see, this example includes not only a property value using the p-namespace, but also uses a special format to declare property
references. Whereas the first bean definition uses <property name="spouse" ref="jane"/> to create a reference from bean john to bean
jane , the second bean definition uses p:spouse-ref="jane" as an attribute to do the exact same thing. In this case spouse is the property
name, whereas the -ref part indicates that this is not a straight value but rather a reference to another bean.

The p-namespace is not as ﬂexible as the standard XML format. For example, the format for declaring property references clashes
with properties that end in Ref , whereas the standard XML format does not. We recommend that you choose your approach carefully
and communicate this to your team members, to avoid producing XML documents that use all three approaches at the same time.

XML shortcut with the c-namespace

Similar to the the section called “XML shortcut with the p-namespace”, the c-namespace, newly introduced in Spring 3.1, allows usage of inlined
attributes for conﬁguring the constructor arguments rather then nested constructor-arg elements.

Let’s review the examples from the section called “Constructor-based dependency injection” with the c: namespace:

<bean id="bar" class="x.y.Bar"/>

</beans>

The c: namespace uses the same conventions as the p: one (trailing -ref for bean references) for setting the constructor arguments by their
names. And just as well, it needs to be declared even though it is not deﬁned in an XSD schema (but it exists inside the Spring core).

For the rare cases where the constructor argument names are not available (usually if the bytecode was compiled without debugging information),
one can use fallback to the argument indexes:

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 64/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Due to the XML grammar, the index notation requires the presence of the leading _ as XML attribute names cannot start with a
number (even though some IDE allow it).

In practice, the constructor resolution mechanism is quite efﬁcient in matching arguments so unless one really needs to, we recommend using the
name notation through-out your conﬁguration.

Compound property names

You can use compound or nested property names when you set bean properties, as long as all components of the path except the ﬁnal property
name are not null . Consider the following bean deﬁnition.

<bean id="foo" class="foo.Bar">

The foo bean has a fred property, which has a bob property, which has a sammy property, and that ﬁnal sammy property is being set to the
value 123 . In order for this to work, the fred property of foo , and the bob property of fred must not be null after the bean is constructed,
or a NullPointerException is thrown.

7.4.3 Using depends-on
If a bean is a dependency of another that usually means that one bean is set as a property of another. Typically you accomplish this with the
<ref/> element in XML-based conﬁguration metadata. However, sometimes dependencies between beans are less direct; for example, a static
initializer in a class needs to be triggered, such as database driver registration. The depends-on attribute can explicitly force one or more beans to
be initialized before the bean using this element is initialized. The following example uses the depends-on attribute to express a dependency on a
single bean:

<bean id="beanOne" class="ExampleBean" depends-on="manager"/>

To express a dependency on multiple beans, supply a list of bean names as the value of the depends-on attribute, with commas, whitespace and
semicolons, used as valid delimiters:

<bean id="beanOne" class="ExampleBean" depends-on="manager,accountDao">

<bean id="manager" class="ManagerBean" />

The depends-on attribute in the bean definition can specify both an initialization time dependency and, in the case of singleton
beans only, a corresponding destroy time dependency. Dependent beans that define a depends-on relationship with a given bean
are destroyed first, prior to the given bean itself being destroyed. Thus depends-on can also control shutdown order.

7.4.4 Lazy-initialized beans
By default, ApplicationContext implementations eagerly create and configure all singleton beans as part of the initialization process. Generally,
this pre-instantiation is desirable, because errors in the configuration or surrounding environment are discovered immediately, as opposed to hours
or even days later. When this behavior is not desirable, you can prevent pre-instantiation of a singleton bean by marking the bean definition as lazy-
initialized. A lazy-initialized bean tells the IoC container to create a bean instance when it is first requested, rather than at startup.

In XML, this behavior is controlled by the lazy-init attribute on the <bean/> element; for example:

<bean id="lazy" class="com.foo.ExpensiveToCreateBean" lazy-init="true"/>

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 65/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
When the preceding conﬁguration is consumed by an ApplicationContext , the bean named lazy is not eagerly pre-instantiated when the
ApplicationContext is starting up, whereas the not.lazy bean is eagerly pre-instantiated.

However, when a lazy-initialized bean is a dependency of a singleton bean that is not lazy-initialized, the ApplicationContext creates the lazy-
initialized bean at startup, because it must satisfy the singleton’s dependencies. The lazy-initialized bean is injected into a singleton bean elsewhere
that is not lazy-initialized.

You can also control lazy-initialization at the container level by using the default-lazy-init attribute on the <beans/> element; for example:

7.4.5 Autowiring collaborators
The Spring container can autowire relationships between collaborating beans. You can allow Spring to resolve collaborators (other beans)
automatically for your bean by inspecting the contents of the ApplicationContext . Autowiring has the following advantages:

Autowiring can significantly reduce the need to specify properties or constructor arguments. (Other mechanisms such as a bean template
discussed elsewhere in this chapter are also valuable in this regard.)
Autowiring can update a configuration as your objects evolve. For example, if you need to add a dependency to a class, that dependency can be
satisfied automatically without you needing to modify the configuration. Thus autowiring can be especially useful during development, without
negating the option of switching to explicit wiring when the code base becomes more stable.

When using XML-based conﬁguration metadata [2], you specify autowire mode for a bean deﬁnition with the autowire attribute of the <bean/>
element. The autowiring functionality has four modes. You specify autowiring per bean and thus can choose which ones to autowire.

Table 7.2. Autowiring modes

Mode Explanation

no (Default) No autowiring. Bean references must be deﬁned via a ref element. Changing the default setting is not
recommended for larger deployments, because specifying collaborators explicitly gives greater control and clarity. To some
extent, it documents the structure of a system.

byName Autowiring by property name. Spring looks for a bean with the same name as the property that needs to be autowired. For
example, if a bean deﬁnition is set to autowire by name, and it contains a master property (that is, it has a setMaster(..)
method), Spring looks for a bean deﬁnition named master , and uses it to set the property.

byType Allows a property to be autowired if exactly one bean of the property type exists in the container. If more than one exists, a
fatal exception is thrown, which indicates that you may not use byType autowiring for that bean. If there are no matching
beans, nothing happens; the property is not set.

constructor Analogous to byType, but applies to constructor arguments. If there is not exactly one bean of the constructor argument type
in the container, a fatal error is raised.

With byType or constructor autowiring mode, you can wire arrays and typed-collections. In such cases all autowire candidates within the container
that match the expected type are provided to satisfy the dependency. You can autowire strongly-typed Maps if the expected key type is String . An
autowired Maps values will consist of all bean instances that match the expected type, and the Maps keys will contain the corresponding bean
names.

You can combine autowire behavior with dependency checking, which is performed after autowiring completes.

Limitations and disadvantages of autowiring

Autowiring works best when it is used consistently across a project. If autowiring is not used in general, it might be confusing to developers to use it
to wire only one or two bean deﬁnitions.

Consider the limitations and disadvantages of autowiring:

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 66/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Explicit dependencies in property and constructor-arg settings always override autowiring. You cannot autowire so-called simple
properties such as primitives, Strings , and Classes (and arrays of such simple properties). This limitation is by-design.
Autowiring is less exact than explicit wiring. Although, as noted in the above table, Spring is careful to avoid guessing in case of ambiguity that
might have unexpected results, the relationships between your Spring-managed objects are no longer documented explicitly.
Wiring information may not be available to tools that may generate documentation from a Spring container.
Multiple bean definitions within the container may match the type specified by the setter method or constructor argument to be autowired. For
arrays, collections, or Maps, this is not necessarily a problem. However for dependencies that expect a single value, this ambiguity is not
arbitrarily resolved. If no unique bean definition is available, an exception is thrown.

In the latter scenario, you have several options:

Abandon autowiring in favor of explicit wiring.

Avoid autowiring for a bean definition by setting its autowire-candidate attributes to false as described in the next section.
Designate a single bean definition as the primary candidate by setting the primary attribute of its <bean/> element to true .
Implement the more fine-grained control available with annotation-based configuration, as described in Section 7.9, “Annotation-based container
configuration”.

Excluding a bean from autowiring

On a per-bean basis, you can exclude a bean from autowiring. In Spring’s XML format, set the autowire-candidate attribute of the <bean/>
element to false ; the container makes that specific bean definition unavailable to the autowiring infrastructure (including annotation style
configurations such as @Autowired ).

The autowire-candidate attribute is designed to only affect type-based autowiring. It does not affect explicit references by name,
which will get resolved even if the speciﬁed bean is not marked as an autowire candidate. As a consequence, autowiring by name will
nevertheless inject a bean if the name matches.

You can also limit autowire candidates based on pattern-matching against bean names. The top-level <beans/> element accepts one or more
patterns within its default-autowire-candidates attribute. For example, to limit autowire candidate status to any bean whose name ends with
Repository, provide a value of *Repository. To provide multiple patterns, deﬁne them in a comma-separated list. An explicit value of true or
false for a bean deﬁnitions autowire-candidate attribute always takes precedence, and for such beans, the pattern matching rules do not
apply.

These techniques are useful for beans that you never want to be injected into other beans by autowiring. It does not mean that an excluded bean
cannot itself be conﬁgured using autowiring. Rather, the bean itself is not a candidate for autowiring other beans.

7.4.6 Method injection
In most application scenarios, most beans in the container are singletons. When a singleton bean needs to collaborate with another singleton bean,
or a non-singleton bean needs to collaborate with another non-singleton bean, you typically handle the dependency by deﬁning one bean as a
property of the other. A problem arises when the bean lifecycles are different. Suppose singleton bean A needs to use non-singleton (prototype)
bean B, perhaps on each method invocation on A. The container only creates the singleton bean A once, and thus only gets one opportunity to set
the properties. The container cannot provide bean A with a new instance of bean B every time one is needed.

A solution is to forego some inversion of control. You can make bean A aware of the container by implementing the ApplicationContextAware
interface, and by making a getBean("B") call to the container ask for (a typically new) bean B instance every time bean A needs it. The following is
an example of this approach:

// a class that uses a stateful Command-style class to perform some processing

package fiona.apple;

// Spring-API imports
import org.springframework.beans.BeansException;
import org.springframework.context.ApplicationContext;
import org.springframework.context.ApplicationContextAware;

public class CommandManager implements ApplicationContextAware {

private ApplicationContext applicationContext;

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 67/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
public Object process(Map commandState) {
// grab a new instance of the appropriate Command
Command command = createCommand();
// set the state on the (hopefully brand new) Command instance
command.setState(commandState);
return command.execute();
}

protected Command createCommand() {

// notice the Spring API dependency!
return this.applicationContext.getBean("command", Command.class);
}

public void setApplicationContext(

ApplicationContext applicationContext) throws BeansException {
this.applicationContext = applicationContext;
}
}

The preceding is not desirable, because the business code is aware of and coupled to the Spring Framework. Method Injection, a somewhat
advanced feature of the Spring IoC container, allows this use case to be handled in a clean fashion.

You can read more about the motivation for Method Injection in this blog entry.

Lookup method injection

Lookup method injection is the ability of the container to override methods on container managed beans, to return the lookup result for another
named bean in the container. The lookup typically involves a prototype bean as in the scenario described in the preceding section. The Spring
Framework implements this method injection by using bytecode generation from the CGLIB library to generate dynamically a subclass that overrides
the method.

For this dynamic subclassing to work, the class that the Spring bean container will subclass cannot be final , and the method to
be overridden cannot be final either.
Unit-testing a class that has an abstract method requires you to subclass the class yourself and to supply a stub
implementation of the abstract method.
Concrete methods are also necessary for component scanning which requires concrete classes to pick up.
A further key limitation is that lookup methods won’t work with factory methods and in particular not with @Bean methods in
conﬁguration classes, since the container is not in charge of creating the instance in that case and therefore cannot create a
runtime-generated subclass on the ﬂy.

Looking at the CommandManager class in the previous code snippet, you see that the Spring container will dynamically override the implementation
of the createCommand() method. Your CommandManager class will not have any Spring dependencies, as can be seen in the reworked
example:

package fiona.apple;

// no more Spring imports!

public abstract class CommandManager {

public Object process(Object commandState) {

// grab a new instance of the appropriate Command interface
Command command = createCommand();
// set the state on the (hopefully brand new) Command instance
command.setState(commandState);
return command.execute();
}

// okay... but where is the implementation of this method?

protected abstract Command createCommand();
}

In the client class containing the method to be injected (the CommandManager in this case), the method to be injected requires a signature of the
following form:
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 68/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

<public|protected> [abstract] <return-type> theMethodName(no-arguments);

If the method is abstract , the dynamically-generated subclass implements the method. Otherwise, the dynamically-generated subclass overrides
the concrete method deﬁned in the original class. For example:

The bean identiﬁed as commandManager calls its own method createCommand() whenever it needs a new instance of the myCommand bean.
You must be careful to deploy the myCommand bean as a prototype, if that is actually what is needed. If it is as a singleton, the same instance of the
myCommand bean is returned each time.

Alternatively, within the annotation-based component model, you may declare a lookup method through the @Lookup annotation:

public abstract class CommandManager {

public Object process(Object commandState) {

Command command = createCommand();
command.setState(commandState);
return command.execute();
}

@Lookup("myCommand")
protected abstract Command createCommand();
}

Or, more idiomatically, you may rely on the target bean getting resolved against the declared return type of the lookup method:

public abstract class CommandManager {

public Object process(Object commandState) {

MyCommand command = createCommand();
command.setState(commandState);
return command.execute();
}

@Lookup
protected abstract MyCommand createCommand();
}

Note that you will typically declare such annotated lookup methods with a concrete stub implementation, in order for them to be compatible with
Spring’s component scanning rules where abstract classes get ignored by default. This limitation does not apply in case of explicitly registered or
explicitly imported bean classes.

Another way of accessing differently scoped target beans is an ObjectFactory / Provider injection point. Check out the section
called “Scoped beans as dependencies”.
The interested reader may also ﬁnd the ServiceLocatorFactoryBean (in the
org.springframework.beans.factory.config package) to be of use.

Arbitrary method replacement

A less useful form of method injection than lookup method injection is the ability to replace arbitrary methods in a managed bean with another
method implementation. Users may safely skip the rest of this section until the functionality is actually needed.

With XML-based conﬁguration metadata, you can use the replaced-method element to replace an existing method implementation with another,
for a deployed bean. Consider the following class, with a method computeValue, which we want to override:

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 69/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

public class MyValueCalculator {

public String computeValue(String input) {

// some real code...
}

// some other methods...

A class implementing the org.springframework.beans.factory.support.MethodReplacer interface provides the new method deﬁnition.

/**
* meant to be used to override the existing computeValue(String)
* implementation in MyValueCalculator
*/
public class ReplacementComputeValue implements MethodReplacer {

public Object reimplement(Object o, Method m, Object[] args) throws Throwable {

// get the input value, work with it, and return a computed result
String input = (String) args[0];
...
return ...;
}
}

The bean deﬁnition to deploy the original class and specify the method override would look like this:

<bean id="myValueCalculator" class="x.y.z.MyValueCalculator">

<replaced-method name="computeValue" replacer="replacementComputeValue">

<arg-type>String</arg-type>
</replaced-method>
</bean>

<bean id="replacementComputeValue" class="a.b.c.ReplacementComputeValue"/>

You can use one or more contained <arg-type/> elements within the <replaced-method/> element to indicate the method signature of the
method being overridden. The signature for the arguments is necessary only if the method is overloaded and multiple variants exist within the class.
For convenience, the type string for an argument may be a substring of the fully qualiﬁed type name. For example, the following all match
java.lang.String :

java.lang.String
String
Str

Because the number of arguments is often enough to distinguish between each possible choice, this shortcut can save a lot of typing, by allowing
you to type only the shortest string that will match an argument type.

7.5 Bean scopes
When you create a bean definition, you create a recipe for creating actual instances of the class defined by that bean definition. The idea that a bean
definition is a recipe is important, because it means that, as with a class, you can create many object instances from a single recipe.

You can control not only the various dependencies and configuration values that are to be plugged into an object that is created from a particular
bean definition, but also the scope of the objects created from a particular bean definition. This approach is powerful and flexible in that you can
choose the scope of the objects you create through configuration instead of having to bake in the scope of an object at the Java class level. Beans
can be defined to be deployed in one of a number of scopes: out of the box, the Spring Framework supports seven scopes, five of which are
available only if you use a web-aware ApplicationContext .

The following scopes are supported out of the box. You can also create a custom scope.

Table 7.3. Bean scopes

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 70/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Scope Description

singleton (Default) Scopes a single bean deﬁnition to a single object instance per Spring IoC container.

prototype Scopes a single bean deﬁnition to any number of object instances.

request Scopes a single bean deﬁnition to the lifecycle of a single HTTP request; that is, each HTTP request has its own instance of
a bean created off the back of a single bean deﬁnition. Only valid in the context of a web-aware Spring
ApplicationContext .

session Scopes a single bean deﬁnition to the lifecycle of an HTTP Session . Only valid in the context of a web-aware Spring
ApplicationContext .

globalSession Scopes a single bean deﬁnition to the lifecycle of a global HTTP Session . Typically only valid when used in a Portlet
context. Only valid in the context of a web-aware Spring ApplicationContext .

application Scopes a single bean deﬁnition to the lifecycle of a ServletContext . Only valid in the context of a web-aware Spring
ApplicationContext .

websocket Scopes a single bean deﬁnition to the lifecycle of a WebSocket . Only valid in the context of a web-aware Spring
ApplicationContext .

As of Spring 3.0, a thread scope is available, but is not registered by default. For more information, see the documentation for
SimpleThreadScope . For instructions on how to register this or any other custom scope, see the section called “Using a custom
scope”.

7.5.1 The singleton scope

Only one shared instance of a singleton bean is managed, and all requests for beans with an id or ids matching that bean deﬁnition result in that one
speciﬁc bean instance being returned by the Spring container.

To put it another way, when you define a bean definition and it is scoped as a singleton, the Spring IoC container creates exactly one instance of the
object defined by that bean definition. This single instance is stored in a cache of such singleton beans, and all subsequent requests and references
for that named bean return the cached object.

Spring’s concept of a singleton bean differs from the Singleton pattern as defined in the Gang of Four (GoF) patterns book. The GoF Singleton hard-
codes the scope of an object such that one and only one instance of a particular class is created per ClassLoader. The scope of the Spring singleton
is best described as per container and per bean. This means that if you define one bean for a particular class in a single Spring container, then the
Spring container creates one and only one instance of the class defined by that bean definition. The singleton scope is the default scope in Spring.
To define a bean as a singleton in XML, you would write, for example:

<bean id="accountService" class="com.foo.DefaultAccountService"/>

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 71/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

<bean id="accountService" class="com.foo.DefaultAccountService" scope="singleton"/>

7.5.2 The prototype scope

The non-singleton, prototype scope of bean deployment results in the creation of a new bean instance every time a request for that speciﬁc bean is
made. That is, the bean is injected into another bean or you request it through a getBean() method call on the container. As a rule, use the
prototype scope for all stateful beans and the singleton scope for stateless beans.

The following diagram illustrates the Spring prototype scope. A data access object (DAO) is not typically conﬁgured as a prototype, because a typical
DAO does not hold any conversational state; it was just easier for this author to reuse the core of the singleton diagram.

The following example deﬁnes a bean as a prototype in XML:

<bean id="accountService" class="com.foo.DefaultAccountService" scope="prototype"/>

In contrast to the other scopes, Spring does not manage the complete lifecycle of a prototype bean: the container instantiates, conﬁgures, and
otherwise assembles a prototype object, and hands it to the client, with no further record of that prototype instance. Thus, although initialization
lifecycle callback methods are called on all objects regardless of scope, in the case of prototypes, conﬁgured destruction lifecycle callbacks are not
called. The client code must clean up prototype-scoped objects and release expensive resources that the prototype bean(s) are holding. To get the
Spring container to release resources held by prototype-scoped beans, try using a custom bean post-processor, which holds a reference to beans
that need to be cleaned up.

In some respects, the Spring container’s role in regard to a prototype-scoped bean is a replacement for the Java new operator. All lifecycle
management past that point must be handled by the client. (For details on the lifecycle of a bean in the Spring container, see Section 7.6.1,
“Lifecycle callbacks”.)

7.5.3 Singleton beans with prototype-bean dependencies

When you use singleton-scoped beans with dependencies on prototype beans, be aware that dependencies are resolved at instantiation time. Thus
if you dependency-inject a prototype-scoped bean into a singleton-scoped bean, a new prototype bean is instantiated and then dependency-injected
into the singleton bean. The prototype instance is the sole instance that is ever supplied to the singleton-scoped bean.

However, suppose you want the singleton-scoped bean to acquire a new instance of the prototype-scoped bean repeatedly at runtime. You cannot
dependency-inject a prototype-scoped bean into your singleton bean, because that injection occurs only once, when the Spring container is
instantiating the singleton bean and resolving and injecting its dependencies. If you need a new instance of a prototype bean at runtime more than
once, see Section 7.4.6, “Method injection”

7.5.4 Request, session, global session, application, and WebSocket scopes

The request , session , globalSession , application , and websocket scopes are only available if you use a web-aware Spring
ApplicationContext implementation (such as XmlWebApplicationContext ). If you use these scopes with regular Spring IoC containers
such as the ClassPathXmlApplicationContext , an IllegalStateException will be thrown complaining about an unknown bean scope.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 72/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Initial web conﬁguration

To support the scoping of beans at the request , session , globalSession , application , and websocket levels (web-scoped beans),
some minor initial conﬁguration is required before you deﬁne your beans. (This initial setup is not required for the standard scopes, singleton and
prototype .)

How you accomplish this initial setup depends on your particular Servlet environment.

If you access scoped beans within Spring Web MVC, in effect, within a request that is processed by the Spring DispatcherServlet or
DispatcherPortlet , then no special setup is necessary: DispatcherServlet and DispatcherPortlet already expose all relevant state.

If you use a Servlet 2.5 web container, with requests processed outside of Spring’s DispatcherServlet (for example, when using JSF or Struts),
you need to register the org.springframework.web.context.request.RequestContextListener ServletRequestListener . For
Servlet 3.0+, this can be done programmatically via the WebApplicationInitializer interface. Alternatively, or for older containers, add the
following declaration to your web application’s web.xml ﬁle:

<web-app>
...
<listener>
<listener-class>
org.springframework.web.context.request.RequestContextListener
</listener-class>
</listener>
...
</web-app>

Alternatively, if there are issues with your listener setup, consider using Spring’s RequestContextFilter . The ﬁlter mapping depends on the
surrounding web application conﬁguration, so you have to change it as appropriate.

<web-app>
...
<filter>
<filter-name>requestContextFilter</filter-name>
<filter-class>org.springframework.web.filter.RequestContextFilter</filter-class>
</filter>
<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>requestContextFilter</filter-name>
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>

</filter-mapping>
...
</web-app>

DispatcherServlet , RequestContextListener , and RequestContextFilter all do exactly the same thing, namely bind the HTTP
request object to the Thread that is servicing that request. This makes beans that are request- and session-scoped available further down the call
chain.

Request scope
Consider the following XML conﬁguration for a bean deﬁnition:

<bean id="loginAction" class="com.foo.LoginAction" scope="request"/>

The Spring container creates a new instance of the LoginAction bean by using the loginAction bean deﬁnition for each and every HTTP
request. That is, the loginAction bean is scoped at the HTTP request level. You can change the internal state of the instance that is created as
much as you want, because other instances created from the same loginAction bean deﬁnition will not see these changes in state; they are
particular to an individual request. When the request completes processing, the bean that is scoped to the request is discarded.

When using annotation-driven components or Java Conﬁg, the @RequestScope annotation can be used to assign a component to the request
scope.

@RequestScope
@Component
public class LoginAction {
// ...
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 73/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Session scope
Consider the following XML conﬁguration for a bean deﬁnition:

<bean id="userPreferences" class="com.foo.UserPreferences" scope="session"/>

The Spring container creates a new instance of the UserPreferences bean by using the userPreferences bean deﬁnition for the lifetime of a
single HTTP Session . In other words, the userPreferences bean is effectively scoped at the HTTP Session level. As with
request-scoped beans, you can change the internal state of the instance that is created as much as you want, knowing that other HTTP
Session instances that are also using instances created from the same userPreferences bean deﬁnition do not see these changes in state,
because they are particular to an individual HTTP Session . When the HTTP Session is eventually discarded, the bean that is scoped to that
particular HTTP Session is also discarded.

When using annotation-driven components or Java Conﬁg, the @SessionScope annotation can be used to assign a component to the session
scope.

@SessionScope
@Component
public class UserPreferences {
// ...
}

Global session scope

Consider the following bean deﬁnition:

<bean id="userPreferences" class="com.foo.UserPreferences" scope="globalSession"/>

The globalSession scope is similar to the standard HTTP Session scope (described above), and applies only in the context of portlet-based
web applications. The portlet specification defines the notion of a global Session that is shared among all portlets that make up a single portlet
web application. Beans defined at the globalSession scope are scoped (or bound) to the lifetime of the global portlet Session .

If you write a standard Servlet-based web application and you deﬁne one or more beans as having globalSession scope, the standard HTTP
Session scope is used, and no error is raised.

Application scope
Consider the following XML conﬁguration for a bean deﬁnition:

<bean id="appPreferences" class="com.foo.AppPreferences" scope="application"/>

The Spring container creates a new instance of the AppPreferences bean by using the appPreferences bean deﬁnition once for the entire
web application. That is, the appPreferences bean is scoped at the ServletContext level, stored as a regular ServletContext attribute.
This is somewhat similar to a Spring singleton bean but differs in two important ways: It is a singleton per ServletContext , not per Spring
'ApplicationContext' (for which there may be several in any given web application), and it is actually exposed and therefore visible as a
ServletContext attribute.

When using annotation-driven components or Java Conﬁg, the @ApplicationScope annotation can be used to assign a component to the
application scope.

@ApplicationScope
@Component
public class AppPreferences {
// ...
}

Scoped beans as dependencies

The Spring IoC container manages not only the instantiation of your objects (beans), but also the wiring up of collaborators (or dependencies). If you
want to inject (for example) an HTTP request scoped bean into another bean of a longer-lived scope, you may choose to inject an AOP proxy in
place of the scoped bean. That is, you need to inject a proxy object that exposes the same public interface as the scoped object but that can also
retrieve the real target object from the relevant scope (such as an HTTP request) and delegate method calls onto the real object.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 74/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
You may also use <aop:scoped-proxy/> between beans that are scoped as singleton , with the reference then going through
an intermediate proxy that is serializable and therefore able to re-obtain the target singleton bean on deserialization.
When declaring <aop:scoped-proxy/> against a bean of scope prototype , every method call on the shared proxy will lead to
the creation of a new target instance which the call is then being forwarded to.
Also, scoped proxies are not the only way to access beans from shorter scopes in a lifecycle-safe fashion. You may also simply
declare your injection point (i.e. the constructor/setter argument or autowired ﬁeld) as ObjectFactory<MyTargetBean> , allowing
for a getObject() call to retrieve the current instance on demand every time it is needed - without holding on to the instance or
storing it separately.
The JSR-330 variant of this is called Provider , used with a Provider<MyTargetBean> declaration and a corresponding get()
call for every retrieval attempt. See here for more details on JSR-330 overall.

The conﬁguration in the following example is only one line, but it is important to understand the "why" as well as the "how" behind it.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<bean id="userService" class="com.foo.SimpleUserService">

<property name="userPreferences" ref="userPreferences"/>
</bean>
</beans>

To create such a proxy, you insert a child <aop:scoped-proxy/> element into a scoped bean definition (see the section called “Choosing the
type of proxy to create” and Chapter 41, XML Schema-based configuration). Why do definitions of beans scoped at the request , session ,
globalSession and custom-scope levels require the <aop:scoped-proxy/> element? Let’s examine the following singleton bean definition
and contrast it with what you need to define for the aforementioned scopes (note that the following userPreferences bean definition as it stands
is incomplete).

<bean id="userPreferences" class="com.foo.UserPreferences" scope="session"/>

<bean id="userManager" class="com.foo.UserManager">

In the preceding example, the singleton bean userManager is injected with a reference to the HTTP Session -scoped bean
userPreferences . The salient point here is that the userManager bean is a singleton: it will be instantiated exactly once per container, and its
dependencies (in this case only one, the userPreferences bean) are also injected only once. This means that the userManager bean will only
operate on the exact same userPreferences object, that is, the one that it was originally injected with.

This is not the behavior you want when injecting a shorter-lived scoped bean into a longer-lived scoped bean, for example injecting an HTTP
Session -scoped collaborating bean as a dependency into singleton bean. Rather, you need a single userManager object, and for the lifetime of
an HTTP Session , you need a userPreferences object that is speciﬁc to said HTTP Session . Thus the container creates an object that
exposes the exact same public interface as the UserPreferences class (ideally an object that is a UserPreferences instance) which can
fetch the real UserPreferences object from the scoping mechanism (HTTP request, Session , etc.). The container injects this proxy object into
the userManager bean, which is unaware that this UserPreferences reference is a proxy. In this example, when a UserManager instance
invokes a method on the dependency-injected UserPreferences object, it actually is invoking a method on the proxy. The proxy then fetches the
real UserPreferences object from (in this case) the HTTP Session , and delegates the method invocation onto the retrieved real
UserPreferences object.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 75/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Thus you need the following, correct and complete, conﬁguration when injecting request- , session- , and globalSession-scoped beans
into collaborating objects:

<bean id="userPreferences" class="com.foo.UserPreferences" scope="session">

<aop:scoped-proxy/>
</bean>

<bean id="userManager" class="com.foo.UserManager">

Choosing the type of proxy to create

By default, when the Spring container creates a proxy for a bean that is marked up with the <aop:scoped-proxy/> element, a CGLIB-based
class proxy is created.

CGLIB proxies only intercept public method calls! Do not call non-public methods on such a proxy; they will not be delegated to the
actual scoped target object.

Alternatively, you can conﬁgure the Spring container to create standard JDK interface-based proxies for such scoped beans, by specifying false
for the value of the proxy-target-class attribute of the <aop:scoped-proxy/> element. Using JDK interface-based proxies means that you
do not need additional libraries in your application classpath to effect such proxying. However, it also means that the class of the scoped bean must
implement at least one interface, and that all collaborators into which the scoped bean is injected must reference the bean through one of its
interfaces.

<bean id="userManager" class="com.foo.UserManager">

For more detailed information about choosing class-based or interface-based proxying, see Section 11.6, “Proxying mechanisms”.

7.5.5 Custom scopes
The bean scoping mechanism is extensible; You can deﬁne your own scopes, or even redeﬁne existing scopes, although the latter is considered bad
practice and you cannot override the built-in singleton and prototype scopes.

Creating a custom scope

To integrate your custom scope(s) into the Spring container, you need to implement the
org.springframework.beans.factory.config.Scope interface, which is described in this section. For an idea of how to implement your
own scopes, see the Scope implementations that are supplied with the Spring Framework itself and the Scope javadocs, which explains the
methods you need to implement in more detail.

The Scope interface has four methods to get objects from the scope, remove them from the scope, and allow them to be destroyed.

The following method returns the object from the underlying scope. The session scope implementation, for example, returns the session-scoped
bean (and if it does not exist, the method returns a new instance of the bean, after having bound it to the session for future reference).

Object get(String name, ObjectFactory objectFactory)

The following method removes the object from the underlying scope. The session scope implementation for example, removes the session-scoped
bean from the underlying session. The object should be returned, but you can return null if the object with the speciﬁed name is not found.

Object remove(String name)

The following method registers the callbacks the scope should execute when it is destroyed or when the speciﬁed object in the scope is destroyed.
Refer to the javadocs or a Spring scope implementation for more information on destruction callbacks.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 76/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

void registerDestructionCallback(String name, Runnable destructionCallback)

The following method obtains the conversation identifier for the underlying scope. This identifier is different for each scope. For a session scoped
implementation, this identifier can be the session identifier.

String getConversationId()

Using a custom scope

After you write and test one or more custom Scope implementations, you need to make the Spring container aware of your new scope(s). The
following method is the central method to register a new Scope with the Spring container:

void registerScope(String scopeName, Scope scope);

This method is declared on the ConfigurableBeanFactory interface, which is available on most of the concrete ApplicationContext
implementations that ship with Spring via the BeanFactory property.

The ﬁrst argument to the registerScope(..) method is the unique name associated with a scope; examples of such names in the Spring
container itself are singleton and prototype . The second argument to the registerScope(..) method is an actual instance of the custom
Scope implementation that you wish to register and use.

Suppose that you write your custom Scope implementation, and then register it as below.

The example below uses SimpleThreadScope which is included with Spring, but not registered by default. The instructions would
be the same for your own custom Scope implementations.

Scope threadScope = new SimpleThreadScope();

beanFactory.registerScope("thread", threadScope);

You then create bean deﬁnitions that adhere to the scoping rules of your custom Scope :

<bean id="..." class="..." scope="thread">

With a custom Scope implementation, you are not limited to programmatic registration of the scope. You can also do the Scope registration
declaratively, using the CustomScopeConfigurer class:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<bean id="bar" class="x.y.Bar" scope="thread">

<bean id="foo" class="x.y.Foo">

</beans>
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 77/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
</beans>

When you place <aop:scoped-proxy/> in a FactoryBean implementation, it is the factory bean itself that is scoped, not the
object returned from getObject() .

7.6 Customizing the nature of a bean

7.6.1 Lifecycle callbacks
To interact with the container’s management of the bean lifecycle, you can implement the Spring InitializingBean and DisposableBean
interfaces. The container calls afterPropertiesSet() for the former and destroy() for the latter to allow the bean to perform certain actions
upon initialization and destruction of your beans.

The JSR-250 @PostConstruct and @PreDestroy annotations are generally considered best practice for receiving lifecycle
callbacks in a modern Spring application. Using these annotations means that your beans are not coupled to Spring speciﬁc interfaces.
For details see Section 7.9.8, “@PostConstruct and @PreDestroy”.
If you don’t want to use the JSR-250 annotations but you are still looking to remove coupling consider the use of init-method and
destroy-method object deﬁnition metadata.

Internally, the Spring Framework uses BeanPostProcessor implementations to process any callback interfaces it can ﬁnd and call the
appropriate methods. If you need custom features or other lifecycle behavior Spring does not offer out-of-the-box, you can implement a
BeanPostProcessor yourself. For more information, see Section 7.8, “Container Extension Points”.

In addition to the initialization and destruction callbacks, Spring-managed objects may also implement the Lifecycle interface so that those
objects can participate in the startup and shutdown process as driven by the container’s own lifecycle.

The lifecycle callback interfaces are described in this section.

Initialization callbacks
The org.springframework.beans.factory.InitializingBean interface allows a bean to perform initialization work after all necessary
properties on the bean have been set by the container. The InitializingBean interface speciﬁes a single method:

void afterPropertiesSet() throws Exception;

It is recommended that you do not use the InitializingBean interface because it unnecessarily couples the code to Spring. Alternatively, use
the @PostConstruct annotation or specify a POJO initialization method. In the case of XML-based conﬁguration metadata, you use the
init-method attribute to specify the name of the method that has a void no-argument signature. With Java conﬁg, you use the initMethod
attribute of @Bean , see the section called “Receiving lifecycle callbacks”. For example, the following:

<bean id="exampleInitBean" class="examples.ExampleBean" init-method="init"/>

public class ExampleBean {

public void init() {

// do some initialization work
}

…is exactly the same as…

<bean id="exampleInitBean" class="examples.AnotherExampleBean"/>

public class AnotherExampleBean implements InitializingBean {

public void afterPropertiesSet() {

// do some initialization work
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 78/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

but does not couple the code to Spring.

Destruction callbacks
Implementing the org.springframework.beans.factory.DisposableBean interface allows a bean to get a callback when the container
containing it is destroyed. The DisposableBean interface speciﬁes a single method:

void destroy() throws Exception;

It is recommended that you do not use the DisposableBean callback interface because it unnecessarily couples the code to Spring. Alternatively,
use the @PreDestroy annotation or specify a generic method that is supported by bean definitions. With XML-based configuration metadata, you
use the destroy-method attribute on the <bean/> . With Java config, you use the destroyMethod attribute of @Bean , see the section called
“Receiving lifecycle callbacks”. For example, the following definition:

<bean id="exampleInitBean" class="examples.ExampleBean" destroy-method="cleanup"/>

public class ExampleBean {

public void cleanup() {

// do some destruction work (like releasing pooled connections)
}

is exactly the same as:

<bean id="exampleInitBean" class="examples.AnotherExampleBean"/>

public class AnotherExampleBean implements DisposableBean {

public void destroy() {

// do some destruction work (like releasing pooled connections)
}

but does not couple the code to Spring.

The destroy-method attribute of a <bean> element can be assigned a special (inferred) value which instructs Spring to
automatically detect a public close or shutdown method on the speciﬁc bean class (any class that implements
java.lang.AutoCloseable or java.io.Closeable would therefore match). This special (inferred) value can also be set
on the default-destroy-method attribute of a <beans> element to apply this behavior to an entire set of beans (see the section
called “Default initialization and destroy methods”). Note that this is the default behavior with Java conﬁg.

Default initialization and destroy methods

When you write initialization and destroy method callbacks that do not use the Spring-speciﬁc InitializingBean and DisposableBean
callback interfaces, you typically write methods with names such as init() , initialize() , dispose() , and so on. Ideally, the names of
such lifecycle callback methods are standardized across a project so that all developers use the same method names and ensure consistency.

You can configure the Spring container to look for named initialization and destroy callback method names on every bean. This means that you, as
an application developer, can write your application classes and use an initialization callback called init() , without having to configure an
init-method="init" attribute with each bean definition. The Spring IoC container calls that method when the bean is created (and in
accordance with the standard lifecycle callback contract described previously). This feature also enforces a consistent naming convention for
initialization and destroy method callbacks.

Suppose that your initialization callback methods are named init() and destroy callback methods are named destroy() . Your class will
resemble the class in the following example.

public class DefaultBlogService implements BlogService {

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 79/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

private BlogDao blogDao;

public void setBlogDao(BlogDao blogDao) {

this.blogDao = blogDao;
}

// this is (unsurprisingly) the initialization callback method

public void init() {
if (this.blogDao == null) {
throw new IllegalStateException("The [blogDao] property must be set.");
}
}

<bean id="blogService" class="com.foo.DefaultBlogService">

</beans>

The presence of the default-init-method attribute on the top-level <beans/> element attribute causes the Spring IoC container to recognize
a method called init on beans as the initialization method callback. When a bean is created and assembled, if the bean class has such a method,
it is invoked at the appropriate time.

You conﬁgure destroy method callbacks similarly (in XML, that is) by using the default-destroy-method attribute on the top-level <beans/>
element.

Where existing bean classes already have callback methods that are named at variance with the convention, you can override the default by
specifying (in XML, that is) the method name using the init-method and destroy-method attributes of the <bean/> itself.

The Spring container guarantees that a configured initialization callback is called immediately after a bean is supplied with all dependencies. Thus
the initialization callback is called on the raw bean reference, which means that AOP interceptors and so forth are not yet applied to the bean. A
target bean is fully created first, then an AOP proxy (for example) with its interceptor chain is applied. If the target bean and the proxy are defined
separately, your code can even interact with the raw target bean, bypassing the proxy. Hence, it would be inconsistent to apply the interceptors to the
init method, because doing so would couple the lifecycle of the target bean with its proxy/interceptors and leave strange semantics when your code
interacts directly to the raw target bean.

Combining lifecycle mechanisms

As of Spring 2.5, you have three options for controlling bean lifecycle behavior: the InitializingBean and DisposableBean callback
interfaces; custom init() and destroy() methods; and the @PostConstruct and @PreDestroy annotations. You can combine these
mechanisms to control a given bean.

If multiple lifecycle mechanisms are configured for a bean, and each mechanism is configured with a different method name, then each
configured method is executed in the order listed below. However, if the same method name is configured - for example, init() for
an initialization method - for more than one of these lifecycle mechanisms, that method is executed once, as explained in the
preceding section.

Multiple lifecycle mechanisms conﬁgured for the same bean, with different initialization methods, are called as follows:

Methods annotated with @PostConstruct

afterPropertiesSet() as deﬁned by the InitializingBean callback interface
A custom conﬁgured init() method

Destroy methods are called in the same order:

Methods annotated with @PreDestroy

destroy() as deﬁned by the DisposableBean callback interface
A custom conﬁgured destroy() method

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 80/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Startup and shutdown callbacks

The Lifecycle interface deﬁnes the essential methods for any object that has its own lifecycle requirements (e.g. starts and stops some
background process):

public interface Lifecycle {

void start();

void stop();

boolean isRunning();

Any Spring-managed object may implement that interface. Then, when the ApplicationContext itself receives start and stop signals, e.g. for a
stop/restart scenario at runtime, it will cascade those calls to all Lifecycle implementations deﬁned within that context. It does this by delegating
to a LifecycleProcessor :

public interface LifecycleProcessor extends Lifecycle {

void onRefresh();

void onClose();

Notice that the LifecycleProcessor is itself an extension of the Lifecycle interface. It also adds two other methods for reacting to the
context being refreshed and closed.

Note that the regular org.springframework.context.Lifecycle interface is just a plain contract for explicit start/stop
notifications and does NOT imply auto-startup at context refresh time. Consider implementing
org.springframework.context.SmartLifecycle instead for fine-grained control over auto-startup of a specific bean
(including startup phases). Also, please note that stop notifications are not guaranteed to come before destruction: On regular
shutdown, all Lifecycle beans will first receive a stop notification before the general destruction callbacks are being propagated;
however, on hot refresh during a context’s lifetime or on aborted refresh attempts, only destroy methods will be called.

The order of startup and shutdown invocations can be important. If a "depends-on" relationship exists between any two objects, the dependent side
will start after its dependency, and it will stop before its dependency. However, at times the direct dependencies are unknown. You may only know
that objects of a certain type should start prior to objects of another type. In those cases, the SmartLifecycle interface deﬁnes another option,
namely the getPhase() method as deﬁned on its super-interface, Phased .

public interface Phased {

int getPhase();

public interface SmartLifecycle extends Lifecycle, Phased {

boolean isAutoStartup();

void stop(Runnable callback);

When starting, the objects with the lowest phase start first, and when stopping, the reverse order is followed. Therefore, an object that implements
SmartLifecycle and whose getPhase() method returns Integer.MIN_VALUE would be among the first to start and the last to stop. At the
other end of the spectrum, a phase value of Integer.MAX_VALUE would indicate that the object should be started last and stopped first (likely
because it depends on other processes to be running). When considering the phase value, it’s also important to know that the default phase for any
"normal" Lifecycle object that does not implement SmartLifecycle would be 0. Therefore, any negative phase value would indicate that an
object should start before those standard components (and stop after them), and vice versa for any positive phase value.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 81/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
As you can see the stop method defined by SmartLifecycle accepts a callback. Any implementation must invoke that callback’s run() method
after that implementation’s shutdown process is complete. That enables asynchronous shutdown where necessary since the default implementation
of the LifecycleProcessor interface, DefaultLifecycleProcessor , will wait up to its timeout value for the group of objects within each
phase to invoke that callback. The default per-phase timeout is 30 seconds. You can override the default lifecycle processor instance by defining a
bean named "lifecycleProcessor" within the context. If you only want to modify the timeout, then defining the following would be sufficient:

<bean id="lifecycleProcessor" class="org.springframework.context.support.DefaultLifecycleProcessor">

<property name="timeoutPerShutdownPhase" value="10000"/>
</bean>

As mentioned, the LifecycleProcessor interface deﬁnes callback methods for the refreshing and closing of the context as well. The latter will
simply drive the shutdown process as if stop() had been called explicitly, but it will happen when the context is closing. The 'refresh' callback on
the other hand enables another feature of SmartLifecycle beans. When the context is refreshed (after all objects have been instantiated and
initialized), that callback will be invoked, and at that point the default lifecycle processor will check the boolean value returned by each
SmartLifecycle object’s isAutoStartup() method. If "true", then that object will be started at that point rather than waiting for an explicit
invocation of the context’s or its own start() method (unlike the context refresh, the context start does not happen automatically for a standard
context implementation). The "phase" value as well as any "depends-on" relationships will determine the startup order in the same way as described
above.

Shutting down the Spring IoC container gracefully in non-web applications

This section applies only to non-web applications. Spring’s web-based ApplicationContext implementations already have code in
place to shut down the Spring IoC container gracefully when the relevant web application is shut down.

If you are using Spring’s IoC container in a non-web application environment; for example, in a rich client desktop environment; you register a
shutdown hook with the JVM. Doing so ensures a graceful shutdown and calls the relevant destroy methods on your singleton beans so that all
resources are released. Of course, you must still conﬁgure and implement these destroy callbacks correctly.

To register a shutdown hook, you call the registerShutdownHook() method that is declared on the ConfigurableApplicationContext
interface:

import org.springframework.context.ConfigurableApplicationContext;
import org.springframework.context.support.ClassPathXmlApplicationContext;

public final class Boot {

public static void main(final String[] args) throws Exception {

ConfigurableApplicationContext ctx = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext(

new String []{"beans.xml"});

// add a shutdown hook for the above context...

ctx.registerShutdownHook();

// app runs here...

// main method exits, hook is called prior to the app shutting down...

}
}

7.6.2 ApplicationContextAware and BeanNameAware

When an ApplicationContext creates an object instance that implements the
org.springframework.context.ApplicationContextAware interface, the instance is provided with a reference to that
ApplicationContext .

public interface ApplicationContextAware {

void setApplicationContext(ApplicationContext applicationContext) throws BeansException;

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 82/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Thus beans can manipulate programmatically the ApplicationContext that created them, through the ApplicationContext interface, or by
casting the reference to a known subclass of this interface, such as ConfigurableApplicationContext , which exposes additional
functionality. One use would be the programmatic retrieval of other beans. Sometimes this capability is useful; however, in general you should avoid
it, because it couples the code to Spring and does not follow the Inversion of Control style, where collaborators are provided to beans as properties.
Other methods of the ApplicationContext provide access to ﬁle resources, publishing application events, and accessing a MessageSource .
These additional features are described in Section 7.15, “Additional Capabilities of the ApplicationContext”

As of Spring 2.5, autowiring is another alternative to obtain reference to the ApplicationContext . The "traditional" constructor and
byType autowiring modes (as described in Section 7.4.5, “Autowiring collaborators”) can provide a dependency of type ApplicationContext
for a constructor argument or setter method parameter, respectively. For more flexibility, including the ability to autowire fields and multiple parameter
methods, use the new annotation-based autowiring features. If you do, the ApplicationContext is autowired into a field, constructor argument,
or method parameter that is expecting the ApplicationContext type if the field, constructor, or method in question carries the @Autowired
annotation. For more information, see Section 7.9.2, “@Autowired”.

When an ApplicationContext creates a class that implements the org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanNameAware interface,

the class is provided with a reference to the name deﬁned in its associated object deﬁnition.

public interface BeanNameAware {

void setBeanName(String name) throws BeansException;

The callback is invoked after population of normal bean properties but before an initialization callback such as InitializingBean
afterPropertiesSet or a custom init-method.

7.6.3 Other Aware interfaces

Besides ApplicationContextAware and BeanNameAware discussed above, Spring offers a range of Aware interfaces that allow beans to
indicate to the container that they require a certain infrastructure dependency. The most important Aware interfaces are summarized below - as a
general rule, the name is a good indication of the dependency type:

Table 7.4. Aware interfaces

Name Injected Dependency Explained in…

ApplicationContextAware Declaring ApplicationContext Section 7.6.2,

“ApplicationContextAware and
BeanNameAware”

ApplicationEventPublisherAware Event publisher of the enclosing ApplicationContext Section 7.15, “Additional

Capabilities of the
ApplicationContext”

BeanClassLoaderAware Class loader used to load the bean classes. Section 7.3.2, “Instantiating
beans”

BeanFactoryAware Declaring BeanFactory Section 7.6.2,

“ApplicationContextAware and
BeanNameAware”

BeanNameAware Name of the declaring bean Section 7.6.2,

“ApplicationContextAware and
BeanNameAware”

BootstrapContextAware Resource adapter BootstrapContext the container Chapter 32, JCA CCI

runs in. Typically available only in JCA aware
ApplicationContext s

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 83/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Name Injected Dependency Explained in…

LoadTimeWeaverAware Deﬁned weaver for processing class deﬁnition at load time Section 11.8.4, “Load-time
weaving with AspectJ in the
Spring Framework”

MessageSourceAware Conﬁgured strategy for resolving messages (with support Section 7.15, “Additional
for parametrization and internationalization) Capabilities of the
ApplicationContext”

NotificationPublisherAware Spring JMX notiﬁcation publisher Section 31.7, “Notiﬁcations”

PortletConfigAware Current PortletConfig the container runs in. Valid only Chapter 25, Portlet MVC
in a web-aware Spring ApplicationContext Framework

PortletContextAware Current PortletContext the container runs in. Valid Chapter 25, Portlet MVC
only in a web-aware Spring ApplicationContext Framework

ResourceLoaderAware Conﬁgured loader for low-level access to resources Chapter 8, Resources

ServletConfigAware Current ServletConfig the container runs in. Valid only Chapter 22, Web MVC framework
in a web-aware Spring ApplicationContext

ServletContextAware Current ServletContext the container runs in. Valid Chapter 22, Web MVC framework
only in a web-aware Spring ApplicationContext

Note again that usage of these interfaces ties your code to the Spring API and does not follow the Inversion of Control style. As such, they are
recommended for infrastructure beans that require programmatic access to the container.

7.7 Bean deﬁnition inheritance

A bean definition can contain a lot of configuration information, including constructor arguments, property values, and container-specific information
such as initialization method, static factory method name, and so on. A child bean definition inherits configuration data from a parent definition. The
child definition can override some values, or add others, as needed. Using parent and child bean definitions can save a lot of typing. Effectively, this
is a form of templating.

If you work with an ApplicationContext interface programmatically, child bean definitions are represented by the ChildBeanDefinition
class. Most users do not work with them on this level, instead configuring bean definitions declaratively in something like the
ClassPathXmlApplicationContext . When you use XML-based configuration metadata, you indicate a child bean definition by using the
parent attribute, specifying the parent bean as the value of this attribute.

<bean id="inheritedTestBean" abstract="true"

class="org.springframework.beans.TestBean">
<property name="name" value="parent"/>
<property name="age" value="1"/>
</bean>

A child bean definition uses the bean class from the parent definition if none is specified, but can also override it. In the latter case, the child bean
class must be compatible with the parent, that is, it must accept the parent’s property values.

A child bean deﬁnition inherits scope, constructor argument values, property values, and method overrides from the parent, with the option to add
new values. Any scope, initialization method, destroy method, and/or static factory method settings that you specify will override the
corresponding parent settings.

The remaining settings are always taken from the child deﬁnition: depends on, autowire mode, dependency check, singleton, lazy init.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 84/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The preceding example explicitly marks the parent bean definition as abstract by using the abstract attribute. If the parent definition does not
specify a class, explicitly marking the parent bean definition as abstract is required, as follows:

<bean id="inheritedTestBeanWithoutClass" abstract="true">

<bean id="inheritsWithClass" class="org.springframework.beans.DerivedTestBean"

parent="inheritedTestBeanWithoutClass" init-method="initialize">
<property name="name" value="override"/>

</bean>

The parent bean cannot be instantiated on its own because it is incomplete, and it is also explicitly marked as abstract . When a definition is
abstract like this, it is usable only as a pure template bean definition that serves as a parent definition for child definitions. Trying to use such an
abstract parent bean on its own, by referring to it as a ref property of another bean or doing an explicit getBean() call with the parent bean id,
returns an error. Similarly, the container’s internal preInstantiateSingletons() method ignores bean definitions that are defined as abstract.

ApplicationContext pre-instantiates all singletons by default. Therefore, it is important (at least for singleton beans) that if you
have a (parent) bean definition which you intend to use only as a template, and this definition specifies a class, you must make sure to
set the abstract attribute to true, otherwise the application context will actually (attempt to) pre-instantiate the abstract bean.

7.8 Container Extension Points

Typically, an application developer does not need to subclass ApplicationContext implementation classes. Instead, the Spring IoC container
can be extended by plugging in implementations of special integration interfaces. The next few sections describe these integration interfaces.

7.8.1 Customizing beans using a BeanPostProcessor

The BeanPostProcessor interface defines callback methods that you can implement to provide your own (or override the container’s default)
instantiation logic, dependency-resolution logic, and so forth. If you want to implement some custom logic after the Spring container finishes
instantiating, configuring, and initializing a bean, you can plug in one or more BeanPostProcessor implementations.

You can conﬁgure multiple BeanPostProcessor instances, and you can control the order in which these BeanPostProcessor s execute by
setting the order property. You can set this property only if the BeanPostProcessor implements the Ordered interface; if you write your own
BeanPostProcessor you should consider implementing the Ordered interface too. For further details, consult the javadocs of the
BeanPostProcessor and Ordered interfaces. See also the note below on programmatic registration of BeanPostProcessor s.

BeanPostProcessor s operate on bean (or object) instances; that is to say, the Spring IoC container instantiates a bean instance
and then BeanPostProcessor s do their work.
BeanPostProcessor s are scoped per-container. This is only relevant if you are using container hierarchies. If you define a
BeanPostProcessor in one container, it will only post-process the beans in that container. In other words, beans that are defined in
one container are not post-processed by a BeanPostProcessor defined in another container, even if both containers are part of the
same hierarchy.
To change the actual bean definition (i.e., the blueprint that defines the bean), you instead need to use a
BeanFactoryPostProcessor as described in Section 7.8.2, “Customizing configuration metadata with a
BeanFactoryPostProcessor”.

The org.springframework.beans.factory.config.BeanPostProcessor interface consists of exactly two callback methods. When such
a class is registered as a post-processor with the container, for each bean instance that is created by the container, the post-processor gets a
callback from the container both before container initialization methods (such as InitializingBean’s afterPropertiesSet() and any declared init method)
are called as well as after any bean initialization callbacks. The post-processor can take any action with the bean instance, including ignoring the
callback completely. A bean post-processor typically checks for callback interfaces or may wrap a bean with a proxy. Some Spring AOP
infrastructure classes are implemented as bean post-processors in order to provide proxy-wrapping logic.

An ApplicationContext automatically detects any beans that are deﬁned in the conﬁguration metadata which implement the
BeanPostProcessor interface. The ApplicationContext registers these beans as post-processors so that they can be called later upon

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 85/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
bean creation. Bean post-processors can be deployed in the container just like any other beans.

Note that when declaring a BeanPostProcessor using an @Bean factory method on a conﬁguration class, the return type of the factory method
should be the implementation class itself or at least the org.springframework.beans.factory.config.BeanPostProcessor interface,
clearly indicating the post-processor nature of that bean. Otherwise, the ApplicationContext won’t be able to autodetect it by type before fully
creating it. Since a BeanPostProcessor needs to be instantiated early in order to apply to the initialization of other beans in the context, this early
type detection is critical.

While the recommended approach for BeanPostProcessor registration is through ApplicationContext auto-detection (as
described above), it is also possible to register them programmatically against a ConfigurableBeanFactory using the
addBeanPostProcessor method. This can be useful when needing to evaluate conditional logic before registration, or even for
copying bean post processors across contexts in a hierarchy. Note however that BeanPostProcessor s added programmatically do
not respect the Ordered interface. Here it is the order of registration that dictates the order of execution. Note also that
BeanPostProcessor s registered programmatically are always processed before those registered through auto-detection,
regardless of any explicit ordering.

Classes that implement the BeanPostProcessor interface are special and are treated differently by the container. All
BeanPostProcessor s and beans that they reference directly are instantiated on startup, as part of the special startup phase of the
ApplicationContext . Next, all BeanPostProcessor s are registered in a sorted fashion and applied to all further beans in the
container. Because AOP auto-proxying is implemented as a BeanPostProcessor itself, neither BeanPostProcessor s nor the
beans they reference directly are eligible for auto-proxying, and thus do not have aspects woven into them.
For any such bean, you should see an informational log message: "Bean foo is not eligible for getting processed by all
BeanPostProcessor interfaces (for example: not eligible for auto-proxying)".
Note that if you have beans wired into your BeanPostProcessor using autowiring or @Resource (which may fall back to
autowiring), Spring might access unexpected beans when searching for type-matching dependency candidates, and therefore make
them ineligible for auto-proxying or other kinds of bean post-processing. For example, if you have a dependency annotated with
@Resource where the ﬁeld/setter name does not directly correspond to the declared name of a bean and no name attribute is used,
then Spring will access other beans for matching them by type.

The following examples show how to write, register, and use BeanPostProcessor s in an ApplicationContext .

Example: Hello World, BeanPostProcessor-style

This ﬁrst example illustrates basic usage. The example shows a custom BeanPostProcessor implementation that invokes the toString()
method of each bean as it is created by the container and prints the resulting string to the system console.

Find below the custom BeanPostProcessor implementation class deﬁnition:

package scripting;

import org.springframework.beans.factory.config.BeanPostProcessor;
import org.springframework.beans.BeansException;

public class InstantiationTracingBeanPostProcessor implements BeanPostProcessor {

// simply return the instantiated bean as-is

public Object postProcessBeforeInitialization(Object bean,
String beanName) throws BeansException {
return bean; // we could potentially return any object reference here...
}

public Object postProcessAfterInitialization(Object bean,

String beanName) throws BeansException {
System.out.println("Bean '" + beanName + "' created : " + bean.toString());
return bean;
}

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<lang:groovy id="messenger"
script-source="classpath:org/springframework/scripting/groovy/Messenger.groovy">
<lang:property name="message" value="Fiona Apple Is Just So Dreamy."/>
</lang:groovy>

<bean class="scripting.InstantiationTracingBeanPostProcessor"/>

</beans>

Notice how the InstantiationTracingBeanPostProcessor is simply defined. It does not even have a name, and because it is a bean it can
be dependency-injected just like any other bean. (The preceding configuration also defines a bean that is backed by a Groovy script. The Spring
dynamic language support is detailed in the chapter entitled Chapter 35, Dynamic language support.)

The following simple Java application executes the preceding code and conﬁguration:

import org.springframework.context.ApplicationContext;
import org.springframework.context.support.ClassPathXmlApplicationContext;
import org.springframework.scripting.Messenger;

public final class Boot {

public static void main(final String[] args) throws Exception {

ApplicationContext ctx = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("scripting/beans.xml");
Messenger messenger = (Messenger) ctx.getBean("messenger");
System.out.println(messenger);
}

The output of the preceding application resembles the following:

Bean 'messenger' created : org.springframework.scripting.groovy.GroovyMessenger@272961

org.springframework.scripting.groovy.GroovyMessenger@272961

Example: The RequiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor

Using callback interfaces or annotations in conjunction with a custom BeanPostProcessor implementation is a common means of extending the
Spring IoC container. An example is Spring’s RequiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor - a BeanPostProcessor implementation that ships
with the Spring distribution which ensures that JavaBean properties on beans that are marked with an (arbitrary) annotation are actually (conﬁgured
to be) dependency-injected with a value.

7.8.2 Customizing conﬁguration metadata with a BeanFactoryPostProcessor

The next extension point that we will look at is the org.springframework.beans.factory.config.BeanFactoryPostProcessor . The
semantics of this interface are similar to those of the BeanPostProcessor , with one major difference: BeanFactoryPostProcessor operates
on the bean conﬁguration metadata; that is, the Spring IoC container allows a BeanFactoryPostProcessor to read the conﬁguration metadata
and potentially change it before the container instantiates any beans other than BeanFactoryPostProcessor s.

You can conﬁgure multiple BeanFactoryPostProcessor s, and you can control the order in which these BeanFactoryPostProcessor s
execute by setting the order property. However, you can only set this property if the BeanFactoryPostProcessor implements the Ordered
interface. If you write your own BeanFactoryPostProcessor , you should consider implementing the Ordered interface too. Consult the
javadocs of the BeanFactoryPostProcessor and Ordered interfaces for more details.

If you want to change the actual bean instances (i.e., the objects that are created from the conﬁguration metadata), then you instead
need to use a BeanPostProcessor (described above in Section 7.8.1, “Customizing beans using a BeanPostProcessor”). While it is

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 87/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
technically possible to work with bean instances within a BeanFactoryPostProcessor (e.g., using BeanFactory.getBean() ),
doing so causes premature bean instantiation, violating the standard container lifecycle. This may cause negative side effects such as
bypassing bean post processing.
Also, BeanFactoryPostProcessor s are scoped per-container. This is only relevant if you are using container hierarchies. If you
define a BeanFactoryPostProcessor in one container, it will only be applied to the bean definitions in that container. Bean
definitions in one container will not be post-processed by BeanFactoryPostProcessor s in another container, even if both
containers are part of the same hierarchy.

A bean factory post-processor is executed automatically when it is declared inside an ApplicationContext , in order to apply changes to the
configuration metadata that define the container. Spring includes a number of predefined bean factory post-processors, such as
PropertyOverrideConfigurer and PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer . A custom BeanFactoryPostProcessor can also be used, for
example, to register custom property editors.

An ApplicationContext automatically detects any beans that are deployed into it that implement the BeanFactoryPostProcessor
interface. It uses these beans as bean factory post-processors, at the appropriate time. You can deploy these post-processor beans as you would
any other bean.

As with BeanPostProcessor s , you typically do not want to conﬁgure BeanFactoryPostProcessor s for lazy initialization. If no
other bean references a Bean(Factory)PostProcessor , that post-processor will not get instantiated at all. Thus, marking it for
lazy initialization will be ignored, and the Bean(Factory)PostProcessor will be instantiated eagerly even if you set the
default-lazy-init attribute to true on the declaration of your <beans /> element.

Example: the Class name substitution PropertyPlaceholderConﬁgurer

You use the PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer to externalize property values from a bean definition in a separate file using the standard Java
Properties format. Doing so enables the person deploying an application to customize environment-specific properties such as database URLs
and passwords, without the complexity or risk of modifying the main XML definition file or files for the container.

Consider the following XML-based configuration metadata fragment, where a DataSource with placeholder values is defined. The example shows
properties configured from an external Properties file. At runtime, a PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer is applied to the metadata that will
replace some properties of the DataSource. The values to replace are specified as placeholders of the form ${property-name} which follows the
Ant / log4j / JSP EL style.

<bean id="dataSource" destroy-method="close"

class="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource">
<property name="driverClassName" value="${jdbc.driverClassName}"/>
<property name="url" value="${jdbc.url}"/>
<property name="username" value="${jdbc.username}"/>
<property name="password" value="${jdbc.password}"/>
</bean>

The actual values come from another ﬁle in the standard Java Properties format:

jdbc.driverClassName=org.hsqldb.jdbcDriver
jdbc.url=jdbc:hsqldb:hsql://production:9002
jdbc.username=sa
jdbc.password=root

Therefore, the string ${jdbc.username} is replaced at runtime with the value 'sa', and the same applies for other placeholder values that match
keys in the properties file. The PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer checks for placeholders in most properties and attributes of a bean
definition. Furthermore, the placeholder prefix and suffix can be customized.

With the context namespace introduced in Spring 2.5, it is possible to conﬁgure property placeholders with a dedicated conﬁguration element.
One or more locations can be provided as a comma-separated list in the location attribute.

<context:property-placeholder location="classpath:com/foo/jdbc.properties"/>

The PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer not only looks for properties in the Properties file you specify. By default it also checks against the
Java System properties if it cannot find a property in the specified properties files. You can customize this behavior by setting the

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 88/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
systemPropertiesMode property of the conﬁgurer with one of the following three supported integer values:

never (0): Never check system properties

fallback (1): Check system properties if not resolvable in the specified properties files. This is the default.
override (2): Check system properties first, before trying the specified properties files. This allows system properties to override any other
property source.

Consult the PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer javadocs for more information.

You can use the PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer to substitute class names, which is sometimes useful when you have to pick
a particular implementation class at runtime. For example:
<bean class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer">
<property name="locations">
<value>classpath:com/foo/strategy.properties</value>
</property>
<property name="properties">
<value>custom.strategy.class=com.foo.DefaultStrategy</value>
</property>
</bean>

<bean id="serviceStrategy" class="${custom.strategy.class}"/>

If the class cannot be resolved at runtime to a valid class, resolution of the bean fails when it is about to be created, which is during the
preInstantiateSingletons() phase of an ApplicationContext for a non-lazy-init bean.

Example: the PropertyOverrideConﬁgurer

The PropertyOverrideConfigurer , another bean factory post-processor, resembles the PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer , but unlike
the latter, the original definitions can have default values or no values at all for bean properties. If an overriding Properties file does not have an
entry for a certain bean property, the default context definition is used.

Note that the bean definition is not aware of being overridden, so it is not immediately obvious from the XML definition file that the override configurer
is being used. In case of multiple PropertyOverrideConfigurer instances that define different values for the same bean property, the last one
wins, due to the overriding mechanism.

Properties ﬁle conﬁguration lines take this format:

beanName.property=value

For example:

dataSource.driverClassName=com.mysql.jdbc.Driver
dataSource.url=jdbc:mysql:mydb

This example ﬁle can be used with a container deﬁnition that contains a bean called dataSource, which has driver and url properties.

Compound property names are also supported, as long as every component of the path except the ﬁnal property being overridden is already non-
null (presumably initialized by the constructors). In this example…

foo.fred.bob.sammy=123

i. the sammy property of the bob property of the fred property of the foo bean is set to the scalar value 123 .

Specified override values are always literal values; they are not translated into bean references. This convention also applies when the
original value in the XML bean definition specifies a bean reference.

With the context namespace introduced in Spring 2.5, it is possible to conﬁgure property overriding with a dedicated conﬁguration element:

<context:property-override location="classpath:override.properties"/>

7.8.3 Customizing instantiation logic with a FactoryBean

Implement the org.springframework.beans.factory.FactoryBean interface for objects that are themselves factories.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 89/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The FactoryBean interface is a point of pluggability into the Spring IoC container’s instantiation logic. If you have complex initialization code that
is better expressed in Java as opposed to a (potentially) verbose amount of XML, you can create your own FactoryBean , write the complex
initialization inside that class, and then plug your custom FactoryBean into the container.

The FactoryBean interface provides three methods:

Object getObject() : returns an instance of the object this factory creates. The instance can possibly be shared, depending on whether this
factory returns singletons or prototypes.
boolean isSingleton() : returns true if this FactoryBean returns singletons, false otherwise.
Class getObjectType() : returns the object type returned by the getObject() method or null if the type is not known in advance.

The FactoryBean concept and interface is used in a number of places within the Spring Framework; more than 50 implementations of the
FactoryBean interface ship with Spring itself.

When you need to ask a container for an actual FactoryBean instance itself instead of the bean it produces, preface the bean’s id with the
ampersand symbol ( & ) when calling the getBean() method of the ApplicationContext . So for a given FactoryBean with an id of
myBean , invoking getBean("myBean") on the container returns the product of the FactoryBean ; whereas, invoking getBean("&myBean")
returns the FactoryBean instance itself.

7.9 Annotation-based container conﬁguration

Are annotations better than XML for conﬁguring Spring?

The introduction of annotation-based configurations raised the question of whether this approach is 'better' than XML. The short answer is it
depends. The long answer is that each approach has its pros and cons, and usually it is up to the developer to decide which strategy suits
them better. Due to the way they are defined, annotations provide a lot of context in their declaration, leading to shorter and more concise
configuration. However, XML excels at wiring up components without touching their source code or recompiling them. Some developers prefer
having the wiring close to the source while others argue that annotated classes are no longer POJOs and, furthermore, that the configuration
becomes decentralized and harder to control.

No matter the choice, Spring can accommodate both styles and even mix them together. It’s worth pointing out that through its JavaConﬁg
option, Spring allows annotations to be used in a non-invasive way, without touching the target components source code and that in terms of
tooling, all conﬁguration styles are supported by the Spring Tool Suite.

An alternative to XML setups is provided by annotation-based configuration which rely on the bytecode metadata for wiring up components instead
of angle-bracket declarations. Instead of using XML to describe a bean wiring, the developer moves the configuration into the component class itself
by using annotations on the relevant class, method, or field declaration. As mentioned in the section called “Example: The
RequiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor”, using a BeanPostProcessor in conjunction with annotations is a common means of extending the
Spring IoC container. For example, Spring 2.0 introduced the possibility of enforcing required properties with the @Required annotation. Spring 2.5
made it possible to follow that same general approach to drive Spring’s dependency injection. Essentially, the @Autowired annotation provides the
same capabilities as described in Section 7.4.5, “Autowiring collaborators” but with more fine-grained control and wider applicability. Spring 2.5 also
added support for JSR-250 annotations such as @PostConstruct , and @PreDestroy . Spring 3.0 added support for JSR-330 (Dependency
Injection for Java) annotations contained in the javax.inject package such as @Inject and @Named . Details about those annotations can be found
in the relevant section.

Annotation injection is performed before XML injection, thus the latter conﬁguration will override the former for properties wired through
both approaches.

As always, you can register them as individual bean deﬁnitions, but they can also be implicitly registered by including the following tag in an XML-
based Spring conﬁguration (notice the inclusion of the context namespace):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<context:annotation-config/>

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 90/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
</beans>

(The implicitly registered post-processors include AutowiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor , CommonAnnotationBeanPostProcessor ,

PersistenceAnnotationBeanPostProcessor , as well as the aforementioned RequiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor .)

<context:annotation-config/> only looks for annotations on beans in the same application context in which it is deﬁned. This
means that, if you put <context:annotation-config/> in a WebApplicationContext for a DispatcherServlet , it only
checks for @Autowired beans in your controllers, and not your services. See Section 22.2, “The DispatcherServlet” for more
information.

7.9.1 @Required
The @Required annotation applies to bean property setter methods, as in the following example:

public class SimpleMovieLister {

private MovieFinder movieFinder;

@Required
public void setMovieFinder(MovieFinder movieFinder) {
this.movieFinder = movieFinder;
}

// ...

This annotation simply indicates that the affected bean property must be populated at conﬁguration time, through an explicit property value in a bean
deﬁnition or through autowiring. The container throws an exception if the affected bean property has not been populated; this allows for eager and
explicit failure, avoiding NullPointerException s or the like later on. It is still recommended that you put assertions into the bean class itself, for
example, into an init method. Doing so enforces those required references and values even when you use the class outside of a container.

7.9.2 @Autowired

JSR 330’s @Inject annotation can be used in place of Spring’s @Autowired annotation in the examples below. See here for more
details.

You can apply the @Autowired annotation to constructors:

public class MovieRecommender {

private final CustomerPreferenceDao customerPreferenceDao;

@Autowired
public MovieRecommender(CustomerPreferenceDao customerPreferenceDao) {
this.customerPreferenceDao = customerPreferenceDao;
}

// ...

As of Spring Framework 4.3, the @Autowired constructor is no longer necessary if the target bean only deﬁnes one constructor. If
several constructors are available, at least one must be annotated to teach the container which one it has to use.

As expected, you can also apply the @Autowired annotation to "traditional" setter methods:

public class SimpleMovieLister {

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 91/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
private MovieFinder movieFinder;

@Autowired
public void setMovieFinder(MovieFinder movieFinder) {
this.movieFinder = movieFinder;
}

// ...

You can also apply the annotation to methods with arbitrary names and/or multiple arguments:

public class MovieRecommender {

private MovieCatalog movieCatalog;

private CustomerPreferenceDao customerPreferenceDao;

@Autowired
public void prepare(MovieCatalog movieCatalog,
CustomerPreferenceDao customerPreferenceDao) {
this.movieCatalog = movieCatalog;
this.customerPreferenceDao = customerPreferenceDao;
}

// ...

You can apply @Autowired to ﬁelds as well and even mix it with constructors:

public class MovieRecommender {

private final CustomerPreferenceDao customerPreferenceDao;

@Autowired
private MovieCatalog movieCatalog;

@Autowired
public MovieRecommender(CustomerPreferenceDao customerPreferenceDao) {
this.customerPreferenceDao = customerPreferenceDao;
}

// ...

It is also possible to provide all beans of a particular type from the ApplicationContext by adding the annotation to a ﬁeld or method that
expects an array of that type:

public class MovieRecommender {

@Autowired
private MovieCatalog[] movieCatalogs;

// ...

The same applies for typed collections:

public class MovieRecommender {

private Set<MovieCatalog> movieCatalogs;

@Autowired
public void setMovieCatalogs(Set<MovieCatalog> movieCatalogs) {

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 92/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
this.movieCatalogs = movieCatalogs;
}

// ...

Your beans can implement the org.springframework.core.Ordered interface or either use the @Order or standard
@Priority annotation if you want items in the array or list to be sorted into a speciﬁc order.

Even typed Maps can be autowired as long as the expected key type is String . The Map values will contain all beans of the expected type, and
the keys will contain the corresponding bean names:

public class MovieRecommender {

private Map<String, MovieCatalog> movieCatalogs;

@Autowired
public void setMovieCatalogs(Map<String, MovieCatalog> movieCatalogs) {

this.movieCatalogs = movieCatalogs;
}

// ...

By default, the autowiring fails whenever zero candidate beans are available; the default behavior is to treat annotated methods, constructors, and
ﬁelds as indicating required dependencies. This behavior can be changed as demonstrated below.

public class SimpleMovieLister {

private MovieFinder movieFinder;

@Autowired(required=false)
public void setMovieFinder(MovieFinder movieFinder) {
this.movieFinder = movieFinder;
}

// ...

Only one annotated constructor per-class can be marked as required, but multiple non-required constructors can be annotated. In that
case, each is considered among the candidates and Spring uses the greediest constructor whose dependencies can be satisﬁed, that
is the constructor that has the largest number of arguments.
@Autowired’s required attribute is recommended over the `@Required annotation. The required attribute indicates
that the property is not required for autowiring purposes, the property is ignored if it cannot be autowired. @Required , on the other
hand, is stronger in that it enforces the property that was set by any means supported by the container. If no value is injected, a
corresponding exception is raised.

You can also use @Autowired for interfaces that are well-known resolvable dependencies: BeanFactory , ApplicationContext ,
Environment , ResourceLoader , ApplicationEventPublisher , and MessageSource . These interfaces and their extended interfaces,
such as ConfigurableApplicationContext or ResourcePatternResolver , are automatically resolved, with no special setup necessary.

public class MovieRecommender {

@Autowired
private ApplicationContext context;

public MovieRecommender() {
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 93/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
// ...

@Autowired , @Inject , @Resource , and @Value annotations are handled by Spring BeanPostProcessor implementations
which in turn means that you cannot apply these annotations within your own BeanPostProcessor or
BeanFactoryPostProcessor types (if any). These types must be 'wired up' explicitly via XML or using a Spring @Bean method.

7.9.3 Fine-tuning annotation-based autowiring with @Primary

Because autowiring by type may lead to multiple candidates, it is often necessary to have more control over the selection process. One way to
accomplish this is with Spring’s @Primary annotation. @Primary indicates that a particular bean should be given preference when multiple beans
are candidates to be autowired to a single-valued dependency. If exactly one 'primary' bean exists among the candidates, it will be the autowired
value.

Let’s assume we have the following conﬁguration that deﬁnes firstMovieCatalog as the primary MovieCatalog .

@Configuration
public class MovieConfiguration {

@Bean
@Primary
public MovieCatalog firstMovieCatalog() { ... }

@Bean
public MovieCatalog secondMovieCatalog() { ... }

// ...

With such conﬁguration, the following MovieRecommender will be autowired with the firstMovieCatalog .

public class MovieRecommender {

@Autowired
private MovieCatalog movieCatalog;

// ...

The corresponding bean deﬁnitions appear as follows.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<context:annotation-config/>

<bean class="example.SimpleMovieCatalog" primary="true">

</bean>

<bean id="movieRecommender" class="example.MovieRecommender"/>

</beans>
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 94/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
</beans>

7.9.4 Fine-tuning annotation-based autowiring with qualiﬁers

@Primary is an effective way to use autowiring by type with several instances when one primary candidate can be determined. When more control
over the selection process is required, Spring’s @Qualifier annotation can be used. You can associate qualifier values with specific arguments,
narrowing the set of type matches so that a specific bean is chosen for each argument. In the simplest case, this can be a plain descriptive value:

public class MovieRecommender {

@Autowired
@Qualifier("main")
private MovieCatalog movieCatalog;

// ...

The @Qualifier annotation can also be speciﬁed on individual constructor arguments or method parameters:

public class MovieRecommender {

private MovieCatalog movieCatalog;

private CustomerPreferenceDao customerPreferenceDao;

@Autowired
public void prepare(@Qualifier("main")MovieCatalog movieCatalog,
CustomerPreferenceDao customerPreferenceDao) {
this.movieCatalog = movieCatalog;
this.customerPreferenceDao = customerPreferenceDao;
}

// ...

The corresponding bean definitions appear as follows. The bean with qualifier value "main" is wired with the constructor argument that is qualified
with the same value.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<context:annotation-config/>

</bean>

</bean>

<bean id="movieRecommender" class="example.MovieRecommender"/>

</beans>

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 95/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
For a fallback match, the bean name is considered a default qualifier value. Thus you can define the bean with an id "main" instead of the nested
qualifier element, leading to the same matching result. However, although you can use this convention to refer to specific beans by name,
@Autowired is fundamentally about type-driven injection with optional semantic qualifiers. This means that qualifier values, even with the bean
name fallback, always have narrowing semantics within the set of type matches; they do not semantically express a reference to a unique bean id.
Good qualifier values are "main" or "EMEA" or "persistent", expressing characteristics of a specific component that are independent from the bean
id , which may be auto-generated in case of an anonymous bean definition like the one in the preceding example.

Qualifiers also apply to typed collections, as discussed above, for example, to Set<MovieCatalog> . In this case, all matching beans according to
the declared qualifiers are injected as a collection. This implies that qualifiers do not have to be unique; they rather simply constitute filtering criteria.
For example, you can define multiple MovieCatalog beans with the same qualifier value "action", all of which would be injected into a
Set<MovieCatalog> annotated with @Qualifier("action") .

If you intend to express annotation-driven injection by name, do not primarily use @Autowired , even if is technically capable of
referring to a bean name through @Qualifier values. Instead, use the JSR-250 @Resource annotation, which is semantically
defined to identify a specific target component by its unique name, with the declared type being irrelevant for the matching process.
@Autowired has rather different semantics: After selecting candidate beans by type, the specified String qualifier value will be
considered within those type-selected candidates only, e.g. matching an "account" qualifier against beans marked with the same
qualifier label.
For beans that are themselves defined as a collection/map or array type, @Resource is a fine solution, referring to the specific
collection or array bean by unique name. That said, as of 4.3, collection/map and array types can be matched through Spring’s
@Autowired type matching algorithm as well, as long as the element type information is preserved in @Bean return type signatures
or collection inheritance hierarchies. In this case, qualifier values can be used to select among same-typed collections, as outlined in
the previous paragraph.
As of 4.3, @Autowired also considers self references for injection, i.e. references back to the bean that is currently injected. Note
that self injection is a fallback; regular dependencies on other components always have precedence. In that sense, self references do
not participate in regular candidate selection and are therefore in particular never primary; on the contrary, they always end up as
lowest precedence. In practice, use self references as a last resort only, e.g. for calling other methods on the same instance through
the bean’s transactional proxy: Consider factoring out the affected methods to a separate delegate bean in such a scenario.
Alternatively, use @Resource which may obtain a proxy back to the current bean by its unique name.
@Autowired applies to fields, constructors, and multi-argument methods, allowing for narrowing through qualifier annotations at the
parameter level. By contrast, @Resource is supported only for fields and bean property setter methods with a single argument. As a
consequence, stick with qualifiers if your injection target is a constructor or a multi-argument method.

You can create your own custom qualifier annotations. Simply define an annotation and provide the @Qualifier annotation within your definition:

@Target({ElementType.FIELD, ElementType.PARAMETER})
@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@Qualifier
public @interface Genre {

String value();
}

Then you can provide the custom qualiﬁer on autowired ﬁelds and parameters:

public class MovieRecommender {

@Autowired
@Genre("Action")
private MovieCatalog actionCatalog;
private MovieCatalog comedyCatalog;

@Autowired
public void setComedyCatalog(@Genre("Comedy") MovieCatalog comedyCatalog) {
this.comedyCatalog = comedyCatalog;
}

// ...

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 96/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Next, provide the information for the candidate bean definitions. You can add <qualifier/> tags as sub-elements of the <bean/> tag and then
specify the type and value to match your custom qualifier annotations. The type is matched against the fully-qualified class name of the
annotation. Or, as a convenience if no risk of conflicting names exists, you can use the short class name. Both approaches are demonstrated in the
following example.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<context:annotation-config/>

<bean id="movieRecommender" class="example.MovieRecommender"/>

</beans>

In Section 7.10, “Classpath scanning and managed components”, you will see an annotation-based alternative to providing the qualifier metadata in
XML. Specifically, see Section 7.10.8, “Providing qualifier metadata with annotations”.

In some cases, it may be sufficient to use an annotation without a value. This may be useful when the annotation serves a more generic purpose
and can be applied across several different types of dependencies. For example, you may provide an offline catalog that would be searched when
no Internet connection is available. First define the simple annotation:

@Target({ElementType.FIELD, ElementType.PARAMETER})
@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@Qualifier
public @interface Offline {

Then add the annotation to the ﬁeld or property to be autowired:

public class MovieRecommender {

@Autowired
@Offline
private MovieCatalog offlineCatalog;

// ...

Now the bean deﬁnition only needs a qualiﬁer type :

You can also define custom qualifier annotations that accept named attributes in addition to or instead of the simple value attribute. If multiple
attribute values are then specified on a field or parameter to be autowired, a bean definition must match all such attribute values to be considered an
autowire candidate. As an example, consider the following annotation definition:

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 97/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

@Target({ElementType.FIELD, ElementType.PARAMETER})
@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@Qualifier
public @interface MovieQualifier {

String genre();

Format format();

In this case Format is an enum:

public enum Format {

VHS, DVD, BLURAY
}

The ﬁelds to be autowired are annotated with the custom qualiﬁer and include values for both attributes: genre and format .

public class MovieRecommender {

@Autowired
@MovieQualifier(format=Format.VHS, genre="Action")
private MovieCatalog actionVhsCatalog;

@Autowired
@MovieQualifier(format=Format.VHS, genre="Comedy")
private MovieCatalog comedyVhsCatalog;

@Autowired
@MovieQualifier(format=Format.DVD, genre="Action")
private MovieCatalog actionDvdCatalog;

@Autowired
@MovieQualifier(format=Format.BLURAY, genre="Comedy")
private MovieCatalog comedyBluRayCatalog;

// ...

Finally, the bean definitions should contain matching qualifier values. This example also demonstrates that bean meta attributes may be used
instead of the <qualifier/> sub-elements. If available, the <qualifier/> and its attributes take precedence, but the autowiring mechanism
falls back on the values provided within the <meta/> tags if no such qualifier is present, as in the last two bean definitions in the following example.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<context:annotation-config/>

<bean class="example.SimpleMovieCatalog">
<qualifier type="MovieQualifier">
<attribute key="format" value="VHS"/>
<attribute key="genre" value="Comedy"/>
</qualifier>
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 98/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
</qualifier>

</bean>

</beans>

7.9.5 Using generics as autowiring qualiﬁers

In addition to the @Qualifier annotation, it is also possible to use Java generic types as an implicit form of qualiﬁcation. For example, suppose
you have the following conﬁguration:

@Configuration
public class MyConfiguration {

@Bean
public StringStore stringStore() {
return new StringStore();
}

@Bean
public IntegerStore integerStore() {
return new IntegerStore();
}

Assuming that beans above implement a generic interface, i.e. Store<String> and Store<Integer> , you can @Autowire the Store
interface and the generic will be used as a qualiﬁer:

@Autowired
private Store<String> s1; // <String> qualifier, injects the stringStore bean

@Autowired
private Store<Integer> s2; // <Integer> qualifier, injects the integerStore bean

Generic qualiﬁers also apply when autowiring Lists, Maps and Arrays:

// Inject all Store beans as long as they have an <Integer> generic

// Store<String> beans will not appear in this list
@Autowired
private List<Store<Integer>> s;

7.9.6 CustomAutowireConﬁgurer
The CustomAutowireConfigurer is a BeanFactoryPostProcessor that enables you to register your own custom qualiﬁer annotation types
even if they are not annotated with Spring’s @Qualifier annotation.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 99/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
<value>example.CustomQualifier</value>
</set>
</property>
</bean>

The AutowireCandidateResolver determines autowire candidates by:

the autowire-candidate value of each bean deﬁnition

any default-autowire-candidates pattern(s) available on the <beans/> element
the presence of @Qualifier annotations and any custom annotations registered with the CustomAutowireConfigurer

When multiple beans qualify as autowire candidates, the determination of a "primary" is the following: if exactly one bean deﬁnition among the
candidates has a primary attribute set to true , it will be selected.

7.9.7 @Resource
Spring also supports injection using the JSR-250 @Resource annotation on ﬁelds or bean property setter methods. This is a common pattern in
Java EE 5 and 6, for example in JSF 1.2 managed beans or JAX-WS 2.0 endpoints. Spring supports this pattern for Spring-managed objects as well.

@Resource takes a name attribute, and by default Spring interprets that value as the bean name to be injected. In other words, it follows by-name
semantics, as demonstrated in this example:

public class SimpleMovieLister {

private MovieFinder movieFinder;

@Resource(name="myMovieFinder")
public void setMovieFinder(MovieFinder movieFinder) {
this.movieFinder = movieFinder;
}

If no name is specified explicitly, the default name is derived from the field name or setter method. In case of a field, it takes the field name; in case
of a setter method, it takes the bean property name. So the following example is going to have the bean with name "movieFinder" injected into its
setter method:

public class SimpleMovieLister {

private MovieFinder movieFinder;

@Resource
public void setMovieFinder(MovieFinder movieFinder) {
this.movieFinder = movieFinder;
}

The name provided with the annotation is resolved as a bean name by the ApplicationContext of which the
CommonAnnotationBeanPostProcessor is aware. The names can be resolved through JNDI if you conﬁgure Spring’s
SimpleJndiBeanFactory explicitly. However, it is recommended that you rely on the default behavior and simply use Spring’s
JNDI lookup capabilities to preserve the level of indirection.

In the exclusive case of @Resource usage with no explicit name specified, and similar to @Autowired , @Resource finds a primary type match
instead of a specific named bean and resolves well-known resolvable dependencies: the BeanFactory , ApplicationContext ,
ResourceLoader , ApplicationEventPublisher , and MessageSource interfaces.

Thus in the following example, the customerPreferenceDao field first looks for a bean named customerPreferenceDao, then falls back to a
primary type match for the type CustomerPreferenceDao . The "context" field is injected based on the known resolvable dependency type
ApplicationContext .

public class MovieRecommender {

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 100/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
@Resource
private CustomerPreferenceDao customerPreferenceDao;

@Resource
private ApplicationContext context;

public MovieRecommender() {
}

// ...

7.9.8 @PostConstruct and @PreDestroy

The CommonAnnotationBeanPostProcessor not only recognizes the @Resource annotation but also the JSR-250 lifecycle annotations.
Introduced in Spring 2.5, the support for these annotations offers yet another alternative to those described in initialization callbacks and destruction
callbacks. Provided that the CommonAnnotationBeanPostProcessor is registered within the Spring ApplicationContext , a method
carrying one of these annotations is invoked at the same point in the lifecycle as the corresponding Spring lifecycle interface method or explicitly
declared callback method. In the example below, the cache will be pre-populated upon initialization and cleared upon destruction.

public class CachingMovieLister {

@PostConstruct
public void populateMovieCache() {
// populates the movie cache upon initialization...
}

@PreDestroy
public void clearMovieCache() {
// clears the movie cache upon destruction...
}

For details about the effects of combining various lifecycle mechanisms, see the section called “Combining lifecycle mechanisms”.

7.10 Classpath scanning and managed components

Most examples in this chapter use XML to specify the configuration metadata that produces each BeanDefinition within the Spring container.
The previous section (Section 7.9, “Annotation-based container configuration”) demonstrates how to provide a lot of the configuration metadata
through source-level annotations. Even in those examples, however, the "base" bean definitions are explicitly defined in the XML file, while the
annotations only drive the dependency injection. This section describes an option for implicitly detecting the candidate components by scanning the
classpath. Candidate components are classes that match against a filter criteria and have a corresponding bean definition registered with the
container. This removes the need to use XML to perform bean registration; instead you can use annotations (for example @Component ), AspectJ
type expressions, or your own custom filter criteria to select which classes will have bean definitions registered with the container.

Starting with Spring 3.0, many features provided by the Spring JavaConfig project are part of the core Spring Framework. This allows
you to define beans using Java rather than using the traditional XML files. Take a look at the @Configuration , @Bean , @Import ,
and @DependsOn annotations for examples of how to use these new features.

7.10.1 @Component and further stereotype annotations

The @Repository annotation is a marker for any class that fulﬁlls the role or stereotype of a repository (also known as Data Access Object or
DAO). Among the uses of this marker is the automatic translation of exceptions as described in Section 20.2.2, “Exception translation”.

Spring provides further stereotype annotations: @Component , @Service , and @Controller . @Component is a generic stereotype for any
Spring-managed component. @Repository , @Service , and @Controller are specializations of @Component for more speciﬁc use cases,
for example, in the persistence, service, and presentation layers, respectively. Therefore, you can annotate your component classes with

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 101/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
@Component , but by annotating them with @Repository , @Service , or @Controller instead, your classes are more properly suited for
processing by tools or associating with aspects. For example, these stereotype annotations make ideal targets for pointcuts. It is also possible that
@Repository , @Service , and @Controller may carry additional semantics in future releases of the Spring Framework. Thus, if you are
choosing between using @Component or @Service for your service layer, @Service is clearly the better choice. Similarly, as stated above,
@Repository is already supported as a marker for automatic exception translation in your persistence layer.

7.10.2 Meta-annotations
Many of the annotations provided by Spring can be used as meta-annotations in your own code. A meta-annotation is simply an annotation that can
be applied to another annotation. For example, the @Service annotation mentioned above is meta-annotated with @Component :

@Target(ElementType.TYPE)
@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@Documented
@Component // Spring will see this and treat @Service in the same way as @Component
public @interface Service {

// ....
}

Meta-annotations can also be combined to create composed annotations. For example, the @RestController annotation from Spring MVC is
composed of @Controller and @ResponseBody .

In addition, composed annotations may optionally redeclare attributes from meta-annotations to allow user customization. This can be particularly
useful when you want to only expose a subset of the meta-annotation’s attributes. For example, Spring’s @SessionScope annotation hardcodes
the scope name to session but still allows customization of the proxyMode .

@Target({ElementType.TYPE, ElementType.METHOD})
@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@Documented
@Scope(WebApplicationContext.SCOPE_SESSION)
public @interface SessionScope {

/**
* Alias for {@link Scope#proxyMode}.
* <p>Defaults to {@link ScopedProxyMode#TARGET_CLASS}.
*/
@AliasFor(annotation = Scope.class)
ScopedProxyMode proxyMode() default ScopedProxyMode.TARGET_CLASS;

@SessionScope can then be used without declaring the proxyMode as follows:

@Service
@SessionScope
public class SessionScopedService {
// ...
}

Or with an overridden value for the proxyMode as follows:

@Service
@SessionScope(proxyMode = ScopedProxyMode.INTERFACES)
public class SessionScopedUserService implements UserService {
// ...
}

For further details, consult the Spring Annotation Programming Model.

7.10.3 Automatically detecting classes and registering bean deﬁnitions

Spring can automatically detect stereotyped classes and register corresponding BeanDefinition s with the ApplicationContext . For
example, the following two classes are eligible for such autodetection:

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 102/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

@Service
public class SimpleMovieLister {

private MovieFinder movieFinder;

@Autowired
public SimpleMovieLister(MovieFinder movieFinder) {
this.movieFinder = movieFinder;
}

@Repository
public class JpaMovieFinder implements MovieFinder {
// implementation elided for clarity
}

To autodetect these classes and register the corresponding beans, you need to add @ComponentScan to your @Configuration class, where
the basePackages attribute is a common parent package for the two classes. (Alternatively, you can specify a comma/semicolon/space-separated
list that includes the parent package of each class.)

@Configuration
@ComponentScan(basePackages = "org.example")
public class AppConfig {
...
}

for concision, the above may have used the value attribute of the annotation, i.e. @ComponentScan("org.example")

The following is an alternative using XML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<context:component-scan base-package="org.example"/>

</beans>

The use of <context:component-scan> implicitly enables the functionality of <context:annotation-config> . There is

usually no need to include the <context:annotation-config> element when using <context:component-scan> .

The scanning of classpath packages requires the presence of corresponding directory entries in the classpath. When you build JARs
with Ant, make sure that you do not activate the ﬁles-only switch of the JAR task. Also, classpath directories may not get exposed
based on security policies in some environments, e.g. standalone apps on JDK 1.7.0_45 and higher (which requires 'Trusted-Library'
setup in your manifests; see http://stackoverﬂow.com/questions/19394570/java-jre-7u45-breaks-classloader-getresources).

Furthermore, the AutowiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor and CommonAnnotationBeanPostProcessor are both included implicitly

when you use the component-scan element. That means that the two components are autodetected and wired together - all without any bean
conﬁguration metadata provided in XML.

You can disable the registration of AutowiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor and

CommonAnnotationBeanPostProcessor by including the annotation-conﬁg attribute with a value of false.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 103/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

7.10.4 Using ﬁlters to customize scanning

By default, classes annotated with @Component , @Repository , @Service , @Controller , or a custom annotation that itself is annotated
with @Component are the only detected candidate components. However, you can modify and extend this behavior simply by applying custom
filters. Add them as includeFilters or excludeFilters parameters of the @ComponentScan annotation (or as include-filter or exclude-filter sub-
elements of the component-scan element). Each filter element requires the type and expression attributes. The following table describes
the filtering options.

Table 7.5. Filter Types

Filter Type Example Expression Description

annotation org.example.SomeAnnotation An annotation to be present at the type level in target components.

(default)

assignable org.example.SomeClass A class (or interface) that the target components are assignable to
(extend/implement).

aspectj org.example..*Service+ An AspectJ type expression to be matched by the target components.

regex org\.example\.Default.* A regex expression to be matched by the target components class names.

custom org.example.MyTypeFilter A custom implementation of the

org.springframework.core.type .TypeFilter interface.

The following example shows the conﬁguration ignoring all @Repository annotations and using "stub" repositories instead.

@Configuration
@ComponentScan(basePackages = "org.example",
includeFilters = @Filter(type = FilterType.REGEX, pattern = ".*Stub.*Repository"),
excludeFilters = @Filter(Repository.class))
public class AppConfig {
...
}

and the equivalent using XML

You can also disable the default ﬁlters by setting useDefaultFilters=false on the annotation or providing
use-default-filters="false" as an attribute of the <component-scan/> element. This will in effect disable automatic
detection of classes annotated with @Component , @Repository , @Service , @Controller , or @Configuration .

7.10.5 Deﬁning bean metadata within components

Spring components can also contribute bean deﬁnition metadata to the container. You do this with the same @Bean annotation used to deﬁne bean
metadata within @Configuration annotated classes. Here is a simple example:

@Component
public class FactoryMethodComponent {

@Bean
@Qualifier("public")
public TestBean publicInstance() {

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 104/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
return new TestBean("publicInstance");
}

public void doWork() {

// Component method implementation omitted
}

This class is a Spring component that has application-specific code contained in its doWork() method. However, it also contributes a bean
definition that has a factory method referring to the method publicInstance() . The @Bean annotation identifies the factory method and other
bean definition properties, such as a qualifier value through the @Qualifier annotation. Other method level annotations that can be specified are
@Scope , @Lazy , and custom qualifier annotations.

In addition to its role for component initialization, the @Lazy annotation may also be placed on injection points marked with
@Autowired or @Inject . In this context, it leads to the injection of a lazy-resolution proxy.

Autowired ﬁelds and methods are supported as previously discussed, with additional support for autowiring of @Bean methods:

@Component
public class FactoryMethodComponent {

private static int i;

@Bean
@Qualifier("public")
public TestBean publicInstance() {
return new TestBean("publicInstance");
}

// use of a custom qualifier and autowiring of method parameters

@Bean
protected TestBean protectedInstance(
@Qualifier("public") TestBean spouse,
@Value("#{privateInstance.age}") String country) {
TestBean tb = new TestBean("protectedInstance", 1);
tb.setSpouse(spouse);
tb.setCountry(country);
return tb;
}

@Bean
private TestBean privateInstance() {
return new TestBean("privateInstance", i++);
}

@Bean
@RequestScope
public TestBean requestScopedInstance() {
return new TestBean("requestScopedInstance", 3);
}

The example autowires the String method parameter country to the value of the Age property on another bean named privateInstance .
A Spring Expression Language element deﬁnes the value of the property through the notation #{ <expression> } . For @Value annotations,
an expression resolver is preconﬁgured to look for bean names when resolving expression text.

As of Spring Framework 4.3, you may also declare a factory method parameter of type InjectionPoint (or its more speciﬁc subclass
DependencyDescriptor ) in order to access the requesting injection point that triggers the creation of the current bean. Note that this will only
apply to the actual creation of bean instances, not to the injection of existing instances. As a consequence, this feature makes most sense for beans
of prototype scope. For other scopes, the factory method will only ever see the injection point which triggered the creation of a new bean instance in
the given scope: for example, the dependency that triggered the creation of a lazy singleton bean. Use the provided injection point metadata with
semantic care in such scenarios.

@Component
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 105/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
@Component
public class FactoryMethodComponent {

@Bean @Scope("prototype")
public TestBean prototypeInstance(InjectionPoint injectionPoint) {
return new TestBean("prototypeInstance for " + injectionPoint.getMember());
}
}

The @Bean methods in a regular Spring component are processed differently than their counterparts inside a Spring @Configuration class. The
difference is that @Component classes are not enhanced with CGLIB to intercept the invocation of methods and fields. CGLIB proxying is the
means by which invoking methods or fields within @Bean methods in @Configuration classes creates bean metadata references to
collaborating objects; such methods are not invoked with normal Java semantics but rather go through the container in order to provide the usual
lifecycle management and proxying of Spring beans even when referring to other beans via programmatic calls to @Bean methods. In contrast,
invoking a method or field in an @Bean method within a plain @Component class has standard Java semantics, with no special CGLIB processing
or other constraints applying.

You may declare @Bean methods as static , allowing for them to be called without creating their containing configuration class as
an instance. This makes particular sense when defining post-processor beans, e.g. of type BeanFactoryPostProcessor or
BeanPostProcessor , since such beans will get initialized early in the container lifecycle and should avoid triggering other parts of
the configuration at that point.
Note that calls to static @Bean methods will never get intercepted by the container, not even within @Configuration classes (see
above). This is due to technical limitations: CGLIB subclassing can only override non-static methods. As a consequence, a direct call
to another @Bean method will have standard Java semantics, resulting in an independent instance being returned straight from the
factory method itself.
The Java language visibility of @Bean methods does not have an immediate impact on the resulting bean definition in Spring’s
container. You may freely declare your factory methods as you see fit in non- @Configuration classes and also for static methods
anywhere. However, regular @Bean methods in @Configuration classes need to be overridable, i.e. they must not be declared as
private or final .
@Bean methods will also be discovered on base classes of a given component or configuration class, as well as on Java 8 default
methods declared in interfaces implemented by the component or configuration class. This allows for a lot of flexibility in composing
complex configuration arrangements, with even multiple inheritance being possible through Java 8 default methods as of Spring 4.2.
Finally, note that a single class may hold multiple @Bean methods for the same bean, as an arrangement of multiple factory methods
to use depending on available dependencies at runtime. This is the same algorithm as for choosing the "greediest" constructor or
factory method in other configuration scenarios: The variant with the largest number of satisfiable dependencies will be picked at
construction time, analogous to how the container selects between multiple @Autowired constructors.

7.10.6 Naming autodetected components

When a component is autodetected as part of the scanning process, its bean name is generated by the BeanNameGenerator strategy known to
that scanner. By default, any Spring stereotype annotation ( @Component , @Repository , @Service , and @Controller ) that contains a name
value will thereby provide that name to the corresponding bean deﬁnition.

If such an annotation contains no name value or for any other detected component (such as those discovered by custom ﬁlters), the default bean
name generator returns the uncapitalized non-qualiﬁed class name. For example, if the following two components were detected, the names would
be myMovieLister and movieFinderImpl :

@Service("myMovieLister")
public class SimpleMovieLister {
// ...
}

@Repository
public class MovieFinderImpl implements MovieFinder {
// ...
}

If you do not want to rely on the default bean-naming strategy, you can 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:

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 106/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

@Configuration
@ComponentScan(basePackages = "org.example", nameGenerator = MyNameGenerator.class)
public class AppConfig {
...
}

As a general rule, consider specifying the name with the annotation whenever other components may be making explicit references to it. On the
other hand, the auto-generated names are adequate whenever the container is responsible for wiring.

7.10.7 Providing a scope for autodetected components

As with Spring-managed components in general, the default and most common scope for autodetected components is singleton . However,
sometimes you need a different scope which can be speciﬁed via the @Scope annotation. Simply provide the name of the scope within the
annotation:

@Scope("prototype")
@Repository
public class MovieFinderImpl implements MovieFinder {
// ...
}

For details on web-speciﬁc scopes, see Section 7.5.4, “Request, session, global session, application, and WebSocket scopes”.

To provide a custom strategy for scope resolution rather than relying on the annotation-based approach, implement the
ScopeMetadataResolver interface, and be sure to include a default no-arg constructor. Then, provide the fully-qualiﬁed class
name when conﬁguring the scanner:

@Configuration
@ComponentScan(basePackages = "org.example", scopeResolver = MyScopeResolver.class)
public class AppConfig {
...
}

When using certain non-singleton scopes, it may be necessary to generate proxies for the scoped objects. The reasoning is described in the section
called “Scoped beans as dependencies”. For this purpose, a scoped-proxy attribute is available on the component-scan element. The three possible
values are: no, interfaces, and targetClass. For example, the following conﬁguration will result in standard JDK dynamic proxies:

@Configuration
@ComponentScan(basePackages = "org.example", scopedProxy = ScopedProxyMode.INTERFACES)
public class AppConfig {
...
}

7.10.8 Providing qualiﬁer metadata with annotations

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 107/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The @Qualifier annotation is discussed in Section 7.9.4, “Fine-tuning annotation-based autowiring with qualifiers”. The examples in that section
demonstrate the use of the @Qualifier annotation and custom qualifier annotations to provide fine-grained control when you resolve autowire
candidates. Because those examples were based on XML bean definitions, the qualifier metadata was provided on the candidate bean definitions
using the qualifier or meta sub-elements of the bean element in the XML. When relying upon classpath scanning for autodetection of
components, you provide the qualifier metadata with type-level annotations on the candidate class. The following three examples demonstrate this
technique:

@Component
@Qualifier("Action")
public class ActionMovieCatalog implements MovieCatalog {
// ...
}

@Component
@Genre("Action")
public class ActionMovieCatalog implements MovieCatalog {
// ...
}

@Component
@Offline
public class CachingMovieCatalog implements MovieCatalog {
// ...
}

As with most annotation-based alternatives, keep in mind that the annotation metadata is bound to the class deﬁnition itself, while the
use of XML allows for multiple beans of the same type to provide variations in their qualiﬁer metadata, because that metadata is
provided per-instance rather than per-class.

7.11 Using JSR 330 Standard Annotations

Starting with Spring 3.0, Spring offers support for JSR-330 standard annotations (Dependency Injection). Those annotations are scanned in the
same way as the Spring annotations. You just need to have the relevant jars in your classpath.

If you are using Maven, the javax.inject artifact is available in the standard Maven repository (
http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/javax/inject/javax.inject/1/). You can add the following dependency to your ﬁle pom.xml:
<dependency>
<groupId>javax.inject</groupId>
<artifactId>javax.inject</artifactId>
<version>1</version>
</dependency>

7.11.1 Dependency Injection with @Inject and @Named

Instead of @Autowired , @javax.inject.Inject may be used as follows:

import javax.inject.Inject;

public class SimpleMovieLister {

private MovieFinder movieFinder;

@Inject
public void setMovieFinder(MovieFinder movieFinder) {
this.movieFinder = movieFinder;
}

public void listMovies() {

this.movieFinder.findMovies(...);
...

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 108/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
}
}

As with @Autowired , it is possible to use @Inject at the ﬁeld level, method level and constructor-argument level. Furthermore, you may declare
your injection point as a Provider , allowing for on-demand access to beans of shorter scopes or lazy access to other beans through a
Provider.get() call. As a variant of the example above:

import javax.inject.Inject;
import javax.inject.Provider;

public class SimpleMovieLister {

private Provider<MovieFinder> movieFinder;

@Inject
public void setMovieFinder(Provider<MovieFinder> movieFinder) {
this.movieFinder = movieFinder;
}

public void listMovies() {

this.movieFinder.get().findMovies(...);
...
}
}

If you would like to use a qualiﬁed name for the dependency that should be injected, you should use the @Named annotation as follows:

import javax.inject.Inject;
import javax.inject.Named;

public class SimpleMovieLister {

private MovieFinder movieFinder;

@Inject
public void setMovieFinder(@Named("main") MovieFinder movieFinder) {
this.movieFinder = movieFinder;
}

// ...
}

7.11.2 @Named and @ManagedBean: standard equivalents to the @Component annotation

Instead of @Component , @javax.inject.Named or javax.annotation.ManagedBean may be used as follows:

import javax.inject.Inject;
import javax.inject.Named;

@Named("movieListener") // @ManagedBean("movieListener") could be used as well

public class SimpleMovieLister {

private MovieFinder movieFinder;

@Inject
public void setMovieFinder(MovieFinder movieFinder) {
this.movieFinder = movieFinder;
}

// ...
}

It is very common to use @Component without specifying a name for the component. @Named can be used in a similar fashion:

import javax.inject.Inject;
import javax.inject.Named;

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 109/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
@Named
public class SimpleMovieLister {

private MovieFinder movieFinder;

@Inject
public void setMovieFinder(MovieFinder movieFinder) {
this.movieFinder = movieFinder;
}

// ...
}

When using @Named or @ManagedBean , it is possible to use component scanning in the exact same way as when using Spring annotations:

@Configuration
@ComponentScan(basePackages = "org.example")
public class AppConfig {
...
}

In contrast to @Component , the JSR-330 @Named and the JSR-250 ManagedBean annotations are not composable. Please use
Spring’s stereotype model for building custom component annotations.

7.11.3 Limitations of JSR-330 standard annotations

When working with standard annotations, it is important to know that some signiﬁcant features are not available as shown in the table below:

Table 7.6. Spring component model elements vs. JSR-330 variants

Spring javax.inject.* javax.inject restrictions / comments

@Autowired @Inject @Inject has no 'required' attribute; can be used with Java 8’s Optional instead.

@Component @Named / JSR-330 does not provide a composable model, just a way to identify named components.
@ManagedBean

@Scope("singleton") @Singleton The JSR-330 default scope is like Spring’s prototype . However, in order to keep it consistent
with Spring’s general defaults, a JSR-330 bean declared in the Spring container is a singleton
by default. In order to use a scope other than singleton , you should use Spring’s @Scope
annotation. javax.inject also provides a @Scope annotation. Nevertheless, this one is only
intended to be used for creating your own annotations.

@Qualifier @Qualifier / javax.inject.Qualifier is just a meta-annotation for building custom qualifiers. Concrete
@Named String qualifiers (like Spring’s @Qualifier with a value) can be associated through
javax.inject.Named .

@Value - no equivalent

@Required - no equivalent

@Lazy - no equivalent

ObjectFactory Provider javax.inject.Provider is a direct alternative to Spring’s ObjectFactory , just with a

shorter get() method name. It can also be used in combination with Spring’s @Autowired or
with non-annotated constructors and setter methods.

7.12 Java-based container conﬁguration

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 110/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

7.12.1 Basic concepts: @Bean and @Conﬁguration

The central artifacts in Spring’s new Java-conﬁguration support are @Configuration -annotated classes and @Bean -annotated methods.

The @Bean annotation is used to indicate that a method instantiates, conﬁgures and initializes a new object to be managed by the Spring IoC
container. For those familiar with Spring’s <beans/> XML conﬁguration the @Bean annotation plays the same role as the <bean/> element. You
can use @Bean annotated methods with any Spring @Component , however, they are most often used with @Configuration beans.

Annotating a class with @Configuration indicates that its primary purpose is as a source of bean deﬁnitions. Furthermore, @Configuration
classes allow inter-bean dependencies to be deﬁned by simply calling other @Bean methods in the same class. The simplest possible
@Configuration class would read as follows:

@Configuration
public class AppConfig {

@Bean
public MyService myService() {
return new MyServiceImpl();
}

The AppConfig class above would be equivalent to the following Spring <beans/> XML:

Full @Conﬁguration vs 'lite' @Beans mode?

When @Bean methods are declared within classes that are not annotated with @Configuration they are referred to as being processed in
a 'lite' mode. For example, bean methods declared in a @Component or even in a plain old class will be considered 'lite'.

Unlike full @Configuration , lite @Bean methods cannot easily declare inter-bean dependencies. Usually one @Bean method should not
invoke another @Bean method when operating in 'lite' mode.

Only using @Bean methods within @Configuration classes is a recommended approach of ensuring that 'full' mode is always used. This
will prevent the same @Bean method from accidentally being invoked multiple times and helps to reduce subtle bugs that can be hard to track
down when operating in 'lite' mode.

The @Bean and @Configuration annotations will be discussed in depth in the sections below. First, however, we’ll cover the various ways of
creating a spring container using Java-based conﬁguration.

7.12.2 Instantiating the Spring container using AnnotationConﬁgApplicationContext

The sections below document Spring’s AnnotationConfigApplicationContext , new in Spring 3.0. This versatile ApplicationContext
implementation is capable of accepting not only @Configuration classes as input, but also plain @Component classes and classes annotated
with JSR-330 metadata.

When @Configuration classes are provided as input, the @Configuration class itself is registered as a bean deﬁnition, and all declared
@Bean methods within the class are also registered as bean deﬁnitions.

When @Component and JSR-330 classes are provided, they are registered as bean deﬁnitions, and it is assumed that DI metadata such as
@Autowired or @Inject are used within those classes where necessary.

Simple construction
In much the same way that Spring XML ﬁles are used as input when instantiating a ClassPathXmlApplicationContext , @Configuration
classes may be used as input when instantiating an AnnotationConfigApplicationContext . This allows for completely XML-free usage of
the Spring container:

public static void main(String[] args) {

ApplicationContext ctx = new AnnotationConfigApplicationContext(AppConfig.class);
MyService myService = ctx.getBean(MyService.class);
myService.doStuff();
}
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 111/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
}

As mentioned above, AnnotationConfigApplicationContext is not limited to working only with @Configuration classes. Any
@Component or JSR-330 annotated class may be supplied as input to the constructor. For example:

public static void main(String[] args) {

ApplicationContext ctx = new AnnotationConfigApplicationContext(MyServiceImpl.class, Dependency1.class, Dependency2.
MyService myService = ctx.getBean(MyService.class);
myService.doStuff();
}

The above assumes that MyServiceImpl , Dependency1 and Dependency2 use Spring dependency injection annotations such as
@Autowired .

Building the container programmatically using register(Class<?>…)

An AnnotationConfigApplicationContext may be instantiated using a no-arg constructor and then conﬁgured using the register()
method. This approach is particularly useful when programmatically building an AnnotationConfigApplicationContext .

public static void main(String[] args) {

AnnotationConfigApplicationContext ctx = new AnnotationConfigApplicationContext();
ctx.register(AppConfig.class, OtherConfig.class);
ctx.register(AdditionalConfig.class);
ctx.refresh();
MyService myService = ctx.getBean(MyService.class);
myService.doStuff();
}

Enabling component scanning with scan(String…)

To enable component scanning, just annotate your @Configuration class as follows:

@Configuration
@ComponentScan(basePackages = "com.acme")
public class AppConfig {
...
}

Experienced Spring users will be familiar with the XML declaration equivalent from Spring’s context: namespace
<beans>
<context:component-scan base-package="com.acme"/>
</beans>

In the example above, the com.acme package will be scanned, looking for any @Component -annotated classes, and those classes will be
registered as Spring bean deﬁnitions within the container. AnnotationConfigApplicationContext exposes the scan(String…) method to
allow for the same component-scanning functionality:

public static void main(String[] args) {

AnnotationConfigApplicationContext ctx = new AnnotationConfigApplicationContext();
ctx.scan("com.acme");
ctx.refresh();
MyService myService = ctx.getBean(MyService.class);
}

Remember that @Configuration classes are meta-annotated with @Component , so they are candidates for component-scanning!
In the example above, assuming that AppConfig is declared within the com.acme package (or any package underneath), it will be
picked up during the call to scan() , and upon refresh() all its @Bean methods will be processed and registered as bean
deﬁnitions within the container.

Support for web applications with AnnotationConﬁgWebApplicationContext

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 112/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
A WebApplicationContext variant of AnnotationConfigApplicationContext is available with
AnnotationConfigWebApplicationContext . This implementation may be used when conﬁguring the Spring ContextLoaderListener
servlet listener, Spring MVC DispatcherServlet , etc. What follows is a web.xml snippet that conﬁgures a typical Spring MVC web application.
Note the use of the contextClass context-param and init-param:

<web-app>

<context-param>
<param-name>contextClass</param-name>
<param-value>
org.springframework.web.context.support.AnnotationConfigWebApplicationContext
</param-value>
</context-param>

<!-- Configuration locations must consist of one or more comma- or space-delimited

fully-qualified @Configuration classes. Fully-qualified packages may also be
specified for component-scanning -->
<context-param>
<param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
<param-value>com.acme.AppConfig</param-value>
</context-param>

<listener>
<listener-class>org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener</listener-class>
</listener>

<servlet>
<servlet-name>dispatcher</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>

<init-param>
<param-name>contextClass</param-name>
<param-value>
org.springframework.web.context.support.AnnotationConfigWebApplicationContext
</param-value>
</init-param>

<init-param>
<param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
<param-value>com.acme.web.MvcConfig</param-value>
</init-param>
</servlet>

<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>dispatcher</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/app/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
</web-app>

7.12.3 Using the @Bean annotation

@Bean is a method-level annotation and a direct analog of the XML <bean/> element. The annotation supports some of the attributes offered by
<bean/> , such as: init-method, destroy-method, autowiring and name .

You can use the @Bean annotation in a @Configuration -annotated or in a @Component -annotated class.

Declaring a bean
To declare a bean, simply annotate a method with the @Bean annotation. You use this method to register a bean deﬁnition within an
ApplicationContext of the type speciﬁed as the method’s return value. By default, the bean name will be the same as the method name. The

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 113/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
following is a simple example of a @Bean method declaration:

@Configuration
public class AppConfig {

@Bean
public TransferService transferService() {
return new TransferServiceImpl();
}

The preceding conﬁguration is exactly equivalent to the following Spring XML:

Both declarations make a bean named transferService available in the ApplicationContext , bound to an object instance of type
TransferServiceImpl :

transferService -> com.acme.TransferServiceImpl

Bean dependencies
A @Bean annotated method can have an arbitrary number of parameters describing the dependencies required to build that bean. For instance if
our TransferService requires an AccountRepository we can materialize that dependency via a method parameter:

@Configuration
public class AppConfig {

@Bean
public TransferService transferService(AccountRepository accountRepository) {
return new TransferServiceImpl(accountRepository);
}

The resolution mechanism is pretty much identical to constructor-based dependency injection, see the relevant section for more details.

Receiving lifecycle callbacks

Any classes deﬁned with the @Bean annotation support the regular lifecycle callbacks and can use the @PostConstruct and @PreDestroy
annotations from JSR-250, see JSR-250 annotations for further details.

The regular Spring lifecycle callbacks are fully supported as well. If a bean implements InitializingBean , DisposableBean , or
Lifecycle , their respective methods are called by the container.

The standard set of *Aware interfaces such as BeanFactoryAware, BeanNameAware, MessageSourceAware, ApplicationContextAware, and so on
are also fully supported.

The @Bean annotation supports specifying arbitrary initialization and destruction callback methods, much like Spring XML’s init-method and
destroy-method attributes on the bean element:

public class Foo {

public void init() {
// initialization logic
}
}

public class Bar {

public void cleanup() {
// destruction logic
}
}

@Configuration

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 114/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
public class AppConfig {

@Bean(initMethod = "init")
public Foo foo() {
return new Foo();
}

@Bean(destroyMethod = "cleanup")
public Bar bar() {
return new Bar();
}

By default, beans defined using Java config that have a public close or shutdown method are automatically enlisted with a
destruction callback. If you have a public close or shutdown method and you do not wish for it to be called when the container
shuts down, simply add @Bean(destroyMethod="") to your bean definition to disable the default (inferred) mode.
You may want to do that by default for a resource that you acquire via JNDI as its lifecycle is managed outside the application. In
particular, make sure to always do it for a DataSource as it is known to be problematic on Java EE application servers.
@Bean(destroyMethod="")
public DataSource dataSource() throws NamingException {
return (DataSource) jndiTemplate.lookup("MyDS");
}
Also, with @Bean methods, you will typically choose to use programmatic JNDI lookups: either using Spring’s
JndiTemplate / JndiLocatorDelegate helpers or straight JNDI InitialContext usage, but not the
JndiObjectFactoryBean variant which would force you to declare the return type as the FactoryBean type instead of the actual
target type, making it harder to use for cross-reference calls in other @Bean methods that intend to refer to the provided resource
here.

Of course, in the case of Foo above, it would be equally as valid to call the init() method directly during construction:

@Configuration
public class AppConfig {
@Bean
public Foo foo() {
Foo foo = new Foo();
foo.init();
return foo;
}

// ...

When you work directly in Java, you can do anything you like with your objects and do not always need to rely on the container
lifecycle!

Specifying bean scope

Using the @Scope annotation

You can specify that your beans defined with the @Bean annotation should have a specific scope. You can use any of the standard scopes specified
in the Bean Scopes section.

The default scope is singleton , but you can override this with the @Scope annotation:

@Configuration
public class MyConfiguration {

@Bean
@Scope("prototype")
public Encryptor encryptor() {
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 115/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
// ...
}

@Scope and scoped-proxy

Spring offers a convenient way of working with scoped dependencies through scoped proxies. The easiest way to create such a proxy when using
the XML conﬁguration is the <aop:scoped-proxy/> element. Conﬁguring your beans in Java with a @Scope annotation offers equivalent
support with the proxyMode attribute. The default is no proxy ( ScopedProxyMode.NO ), but you can specify
ScopedProxyMode.TARGET_CLASS or ScopedProxyMode.INTERFACES .

If you port the scoped proxy example from the XML reference documentation (see preceding link) to our @Bean using Java, it would look like the
following:

// an HTTP Session-scoped bean exposed as a proxy

@Bean
@SessionScope
public UserPreferences userPreferences() {
return new UserPreferences();
}

@Bean
public Service userService() {
UserService service = new SimpleUserService();
// a reference to the proxied userPreferences bean
service.setUserPreferences(userPreferences());
return service;
}

Customizing bean naming

By default, conﬁguration classes use a @Bean method’s name as the name of the resulting bean. This functionality can be overridden, however,
with the name attribute.

@Configuration
public class AppConfig {

@Bean(name = "myFoo")
public Foo foo() {
return new Foo();
}

Bean aliasing
As discussed in Section 7.3.1, “Naming beans”, it is sometimes desirable to give a single bean multiple names, otherwise known as bean aliasing.
The name attribute of the @Bean annotation accepts a String array for this purpose.

@Configuration
public class AppConfig {

@Bean(name = { "dataSource", "subsystemA-dataSource", "subsystemB-dataSource" })

public DataSource dataSource() {
// instantiate, configure and return DataSource bean...
}

Bean description
Sometimes it is helpful to provide a more detailed textual description of a bean. This can be particularly useful when beans are exposed (perhaps via
JMX) for monitoring purposes.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 116/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
To add a description to a @Bean the @Description annotation can be used:

@Configuration
public class AppConfig {

@Bean
@Description("Provides a basic example of a bean")
public Foo foo() {
return new Foo();
}

7.12.4 Using the @Conﬁguration annotation

@Configuration is a class-level annotation indicating that an object is a source of bean definitions. @Configuration classes declare beans
via public @Bean annotated methods. Calls to @Bean methods on @Configuration classes can also be used to define inter-bean
dependencies. See Section 7.12.1, “Basic concepts: @Bean and @Configuration” for a general introduction.

Injecting inter-bean dependencies

When @Bean s have dependencies on one another, expressing that dependency is as simple as having one bean method call another:

@Configuration
public class AppConfig {

@Bean
public Foo foo() {
return new Foo(bar());
}

@Bean
public Bar bar() {
return new Bar();
}

In the example above, the foo bean receives a reference to bar via constructor injection.

This method of declaring inter-bean dependencies only works when the @Bean method is declared within a @Configuration
class. You cannot declare inter-bean dependencies using plain @Component classes.

Lookup method injection

As noted earlier, lookup method injection is an advanced feature that you should use rarely. It is useful in cases where a singleton-scoped bean has
a dependency on a prototype-scoped bean. Using Java for this type of conﬁguration provides a natural means for implementing this pattern.

public abstract class CommandManager {

public Object process(Object commandState) {
// grab a new instance of the appropriate Command interface
Command command = createCommand();
// set the state on the (hopefully brand new) Command instance
command.setState(commandState);
return command.execute();
}

// okay... but where is the implementation of this method?

protected abstract Command createCommand();
}

Using Java-conﬁguration support , you can create a subclass of CommandManager where the abstract createCommand() method is overridden
in such a way that it looks up a new (prototype) command object:

@Bean
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 117/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
@Bean
@Scope("prototype")
public AsyncCommand asyncCommand() {
AsyncCommand command = new AsyncCommand();
// inject dependencies here as required
return command;
}

@Bean
public CommandManager commandManager() {
// return new anonymous implementation of CommandManager with command() overridden
// to return a new prototype Command object
return new CommandManager() {
protected Command createCommand() {
return asyncCommand();
}
}
}

Further information about how Java-based conﬁguration works internally

The following example shows a @Bean annotated method being called twice:

@Configuration
public class AppConfig {

@Bean
public ClientService clientService1() {
ClientServiceImpl clientService = new ClientServiceImpl();
clientService.setClientDao(clientDao());
return clientService;
}

@Bean
public ClientService clientService2() {
ClientServiceImpl clientService = new ClientServiceImpl();
clientService.setClientDao(clientDao());
return clientService;
}

@Bean
public ClientDao clientDao() {
return new ClientDaoImpl();
}

clientDao() has been called once in clientService1() and once in clientService2() . Since this method creates a new instance of
ClientDaoImpl and returns it, you would normally expect having 2 instances (one for each service). That deﬁnitely would be problematic: in
Spring, instantiated beans have a singleton scope by default. This is where the magic comes in: All @Configuration classes are subclassed
at startup-time with CGLIB . In the subclass, the child method checks the container ﬁrst for any cached (scoped) beans before it calls the parent
method and creates a new instance. Note that as of Spring 3.2, it is no longer necessary to add CGLIB to your classpath because CGLIB classes
have been repackaged under org.springframework.cglib and included directly within the spring-core JAR.

The behavior could be different according to the scope of your bean. We are talking about singletons here.

There are a few restrictions due to the fact that CGLIB dynamically adds features at startup-time, in particular that configuration
classes must not be final. However, as of 4.3, any constructors are allowed on configuration classes, including the use of
@Autowired or a single non-default constructor declaration for default injection.
If you prefer to avoid any CGLIB-imposed limitations, consider declaring your @Bean methods on non- @Configuration classes,
e.g. on plain @Component classes instead. Cross-method calls between @Bean methods won’t get intercepted then, so you’ll have
to exclusively rely on dependency injection at the constructor or method level there.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 118/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

7.12.5 Composing Java-based conﬁgurations

Using the @Import annotation

Much as the <import/> element is used within Spring XML files to aid in modularizing configurations, the @Import annotation allows for loading
@Bean definitions from another configuration class:

@Configuration
public class ConfigA {

@Bean
public A a() {
return new A();
}

@Configuration
@Import(ConfigA.class)
public class ConfigB {

@Bean
public B b() {
return new B();
}

Now, rather than needing to specify both ConfigA.class and ConfigB.class when instantiating the context, only ConfigB needs to be
supplied explicitly:

public static void main(String[] args) {

ApplicationContext ctx = new AnnotationConfigApplicationContext(ConfigB.class);

// now both beans A and B will be available...

A a = ctx.getBean(A.class);
B b = ctx.getBean(B.class);
}

This approach simpliﬁes container instantiation, as only one class needs to be dealt with, rather than requiring the developer to remember a
potentially large number of @Configuration classes during construction.

As of Spring Framework 4.2, @Import also supports references to regular component classes, analogous to the
AnnotationConfigApplicationContext.register method. This is particularly useful if you’d like to avoid component
scanning, using a few conﬁguration classes as entry points for explicitly deﬁning all your components.

Injecting dependencies on imported @Bean deﬁnitions

The example above works, but is simplistic. In most practical scenarios, beans will have dependencies on one another across conﬁguration classes.
When using XML, this is not an issue, per se, because there is no compiler involved, and one can simply declare ref="someBean" and trust that
Spring will work it out during container initialization. Of course, when using @Configuration classes, the Java compiler places constraints on the
conﬁguration model, in that references to other beans must be valid Java syntax.

Fortunately, solving this problem is simple. As we already discussed, @Bean method can have an arbitrary number of parameters describing the
bean dependencies. Let’s consider a more real-world scenario with several @Configuration classes, each depending on beans declared in the
others:

@Configuration
public class ServiceConfig {

@Bean
public TransferService transferService(AccountRepository accountRepository) {
return new TransferServiceImpl(accountRepository);
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 119/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

@Configuration
public class RepositoryConfig {

@Bean
public AccountRepository accountRepository(DataSource dataSource) {
return new JdbcAccountRepository(dataSource);
}

@Configuration
@Import({ServiceConfig.class, RepositoryConfig.class})
public class SystemTestConfig {

@Bean
public DataSource dataSource() {
// return new DataSource
}

public static void main(String[] args) {

ApplicationContext ctx = new AnnotationConfigApplicationContext(SystemTestConfig.class);
// everything wires up across configuration classes...
TransferService transferService = ctx.getBean(TransferService.class);
transferService.transfer(100.00, "A123", "C456");
}

There is another way to achieve the same result. Remember that @Configuration classes are ultimately just another bean in the container: This
means that they can take advantage of @Autowired and @Value injection etc just like any other bean!

Make sure that the dependencies you inject that way are of the simplest kind only. @Configuration classes are processed quite
early during the initialization of the context and forcing a dependency to be injected this way may lead to unexpected early initialization.
Whenever possible, resort to parameter-based injection as in the example above.
Also, be particularly careful with BeanPostProcessor and BeanFactoryPostProcessor definitions via @Bean . Those should
usually be declared as static @Bean methods, not triggering the instantiation of their containing configuration class. Otherwise,
@Autowired and @Value won’t work on the configuration class itself since it is being created as a bean instance too early.

@Configuration
public class ServiceConfig {

@Autowired
private AccountRepository accountRepository;

@Bean
public TransferService transferService() {
return new TransferServiceImpl(accountRepository);
}

@Configuration
public class RepositoryConfig {

private final DataSource dataSource;

@Autowired
public RepositoryConfig(DataSource dataSource) {
this.dataSource = dataSource;
}

@Bean
public AccountRepository accountRepository() {

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 120/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
return new JdbcAccountRepository(dataSource);
}

@Configuration
@Import({ServiceConfig.class, RepositoryConfig.class})
public class SystemTestConfig {

@Bean
public DataSource dataSource() {
// return new DataSource
}

public static void main(String[] args) {

Constructor injection in @Configuration classes is only supported as of Spring Framework 4.3. Note also that there is no need to
specify @Autowired if the target bean deﬁnes only one constructor; in the example above, @Autowired is not necessary on the
RepositoryConfig constructor.

In the scenario above, using @Autowired works well and provides the desired modularity, but determining exactly where the autowired bean
definitions are declared is still somewhat ambiguous. For example, as a developer looking at ServiceConfig , how do you know exactly where the
@Autowired AccountRepository bean is declared? It’s not explicit in the code, and this may be just fine. Remember that the Spring Tool Suite
provides tooling that can render graphs showing how everything is wired up - that may be all you need. Also, your Java IDE can easily find all
declarations and uses of the AccountRepository type, and will quickly show you the location of @Bean methods that return that type.

In cases where this ambiguity is not acceptable and you wish to have direct navigation from within your IDE from one @Configuration class to
another, consider autowiring the conﬁguration classes themselves:

@Configuration
public class ServiceConfig {

@Autowired
private RepositoryConfig repositoryConfig;

@Bean
public TransferService transferService() {
// navigate 'through' the config class to the @Bean method!
return new TransferServiceImpl(repositoryConfig.accountRepository());
}

In the situation above, it is completely explicit where AccountRepository is deﬁned. However, ServiceConfig is now tightly coupled to
RepositoryConfig ; that’s the tradeoff. This tight coupling can be somewhat mitigated by using interface-based or abstract class-based
@Configuration classes. Consider the following:

@Configuration
public class ServiceConfig {

@Autowired
private RepositoryConfig repositoryConfig;

@Bean
public TransferService transferService() {
return new TransferServiceImpl(repositoryConfig.accountRepository());
}
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 121/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
@Configuration
public interface RepositoryConfig {

@Bean
AccountRepository accountRepository();

@Configuration
public class DefaultRepositoryConfig implements RepositoryConfig {

@Bean
public AccountRepository accountRepository() {
return new JdbcAccountRepository(...);
}

@Configuration
@Import({ServiceConfig.class, DefaultRepositoryConfig.class}) // import the concrete config!
public class SystemTestConfig {

@Bean
public DataSource dataSource() {
// return DataSource
}

public static void main(String[] args) {

ApplicationContext ctx = new AnnotationConfigApplicationContext(SystemTestConfig.class);
TransferService transferService = ctx.getBean(TransferService.class);
transferService.transfer(100.00, "A123", "C456");
}

Now ServiceConfig is loosely coupled with respect to the concrete DefaultRepositoryConfig , and built-in IDE tooling is still useful: it will
be easy for the developer to get a type hierarchy of RepositoryConfig implementations. In this way, navigating @Configuration classes and
their dependencies becomes no different than the usual process of navigating interface-based code.

Conditionally include @Conﬁguration classes or @Bean methods

It is often useful to conditionally enable or disable a complete @Configuration class, or even individual @Bean methods, based on some
arbitrary system state. One common example of this is to use the @Profile annotation to activate beans only when a specific profile has been
enabled in the Spring Environment (see Section 7.13.1, “Bean definition profiles” for details).

The @Profile annotation is actually implemented using a much more ﬂexible annotation called @Conditional . The @Conditional
annotation indicates speciﬁc org.springframework.context.annotation.Condition implementations that should be consulted before a
@Bean is registered.

Implementations of the Condition interface simply provide a matches(…) method that returns true or false . For example, here is the
actual Condition implementation used for @Profile :

@Override
public boolean matches(ConditionContext context, AnnotatedTypeMetadata metadata) {
if (context.getEnvironment() != null) {
// Read the @Profile annotation attributes
MultiValueMap<String, Object> attrs = metadata.getAllAnnotationAttributes(Profile.class.getName());
if (attrs != null) {
for (Object value : attrs.get("value")) {
if (context.getEnvironment().acceptsProfiles(((String[]) value))) {
return true;
}
}
return false;
}
}
return true;
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 122/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

See the @Conditional javadocs for more detail.

Combining Java and XML conﬁguration

Spring’s @Configuration class support does not aim to be a 100% complete replacement for Spring XML. Some facilities such as Spring XML
namespaces remain an ideal way to conﬁgure the container. In cases where XML is convenient or necessary, you have a choice: either instantiate
the container in an "XML-centric" way using, for example, ClassPathXmlApplicationContext , or in a "Java-centric" fashion using
AnnotationConfigApplicationContext and the @ImportResource annotation to import XML as needed.

XML-centric use of @Conﬁguration classes

It may be preferable to bootstrap the Spring container from XML and include @Configuration classes in an ad-hoc fashion. For example, in a
large existing codebase that uses Spring XML, it will be easier to create @Configuration classes on an as-needed basis and include them from
the existing XML ﬁles. Below you’ll ﬁnd the options for using @Configuration classes in this kind of "XML-centric" situation.

Remember that @Configuration classes are ultimately just bean deﬁnitions in the container. In this example, we create a @Configuration
class named AppConfig and include it within system-test-config.xml as a <bean/> deﬁnition. Because
<context:annotation-config/> is switched on, the container will recognize the @Configuration annotation and process the @Bean
methods declared in AppConfig properly.

@Configuration
public class AppConfig {

@Autowired
private DataSource dataSource;

@Bean
public AccountRepository accountRepository() {
return new JdbcAccountRepository(dataSource);
}

@Bean
public TransferService transferService() {
return new TransferService(accountRepository());
}

system-test-conﬁg.xml:

jdbc.properties:

jdbc.url=jdbc:hsqldb:hsql://localhost/xdb
jdbc.username=sa
jdbc.password=

public static void main(String[] args) {

ApplicationContext ctx = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("classpath:/com/acme/system-test-config.xml");
TransferService transferService = ctx.getBean(TransferService.class);
// ...
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 123/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
In system-test-config.xml above, the AppConfig <bean/> does not declare an id element. While it would be acceptable
to do so, it is unnecessary given that no other bean will ever refer to it, and it is unlikely that it will be explicitly fetched from the
container by name. Likewise with the DataSource bean - it is only ever autowired by type, so an explicit bean id is not strictly
required.

Because @Configuration is meta-annotated with @Component , @Configuration -annotated classes are automatically candidates for
component scanning. Using the same scenario as above, we can redeﬁne system-test-config.xml to take advantage of component-
scanning. Note that in this case, we don’t need to explicitly declare <context:annotation-config/> , because
<context:component-scan/> enables the same functionality.

system-test-conﬁg.xml:

@Conﬁguration class-centric use of XML with @ImportResource

In applications where @Configuration classes are the primary mechanism for configuring the container, it will still likely be necessary to use at
least some XML. In these scenarios, simply use @ImportResource and define only as much XML as is needed. Doing so achieves a "Java-
centric" approach to configuring the container and keeps XML to a bare minimum.

@Configuration
@ImportResource("classpath:/com/acme/properties-config.xml")
public class AppConfig {

@Value("${jdbc.url}")
private String url;

@Value("${jdbc.username}")
private String username;

@Value("${jdbc.password}")
private String password;

@Bean
public DataSource dataSource() {
return new DriverManagerDataSource(url, username, password);
}

properties-config.xml
<beans>
<context:property-placeholder location="classpath:/com/acme/jdbc.properties"/>
</beans>

jdbc.properties
jdbc.url=jdbc:hsqldb:hsql://localhost/xdb
jdbc.username=sa
jdbc.password=

public static void main(String[] args) {

ApplicationContext ctx = new AnnotationConfigApplicationContext(AppConfig.class);
TransferService transferService = ctx.getBean(TransferService.class);
// ...
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 124/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

7.13 Environment abstraction
The Environment is an abstraction integrated in the container that models two key aspects of the application environment: proﬁles and properties.

A profile is a named, logical group of bean definitions to be registered with the container only if the given profile is active. Beans may be assigned to
a profile whether defined in XML or via annotations. The role of the Environment object with relation to profiles is in determining which profiles (if
any) are currently active, and which profiles (if any) should be active by default.

Properties play an important role in almost all applications, and may originate from a variety of sources: properties ﬁles, JVM system properties,
system environment variables, JNDI, servlet context parameters, ad-hoc Properties objects, Maps, and so on. The role of the Environment object
with relation to properties is to provide the user with a convenient service interface for conﬁguring property sources and resolving properties from
them.

7.13.1 Bean deﬁnition proﬁles

Bean deﬁnition proﬁles is a mechanism in the core container that allows for registration of different beans in different environments. The word
environment can mean different things to different users and this feature can help with many use cases, including:

working against an in-memory datasource in development vs looking up that same datasource from JNDI when in QA or production
registering monitoring infrastructure only when deploying an application into a performance environment
registering customized implementations of beans for customer A vs. customer B deployments

Let’s consider the ﬁrst use case in a practical application that requires a DataSource . In a test environment, the conﬁguration may look like this:

@Bean
public DataSource dataSource() {
return new EmbeddedDatabaseBuilder()
.setType(EmbeddedDatabaseType.HSQL)
.addScript("my-schema.sql")
.addScript("my-test-data.sql")
.build();
}

Let’s now consider how this application will be deployed into a QA or production environment, assuming that the datasource for the application will
be registered with the production application server’s JNDI directory. Our dataSource bean now looks like this:

@Bean(destroyMethod="")
public DataSource dataSource() throws Exception {
Context ctx = new InitialContext();
return (DataSource) ctx.lookup("java:comp/env/jdbc/datasource");
}

The problem is how to switch between using these two variations based on the current environment. Over time, Spring users have devised a number
of ways to get this done, usually relying on a combination of system environment variables and XML <import/> statements containing
${placeholder} tokens that resolve to the correct configuration file path depending on the value of an environment variable. Bean definition
profiles is a core container feature that provides a solution to this problem.

If we generalize the example use case above of environment-specific bean definitions, we end up with the need to register certain bean definitions in
certain contexts, while not in others. You could say that you want to register a certain profile of bean definitions in situation A, and a different profile
in situation B. Let’s first see how we can update our configuration to reflect this need.

@Profile
The @Profile annotation allows you to indicate that a component is eligible for registration when one or more specified profiles are active. Using
our example above, we can rewrite the dataSource configuration as follows:

@Configuration
@Profile("development")
public class StandaloneDataConfig {

@Bean
public DataSource dataSource() {
return new EmbeddedDatabaseBuilder()
.setType(EmbeddedDatabaseType.HSQL)
.addScript("classpath:com/bank/config/sql/schema.sql")
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 125/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
.addScript("classpath:com/bank/config/sql/test-data.sql")
.build();
}
}

@Configuration
@Profile("production")
public class JndiDataConfig {

@Bean(destroyMethod="")
public DataSource dataSource() throws Exception {
Context ctx = new InitialContext();
return (DataSource) ctx.lookup("java:comp/env/jdbc/datasource");
}
}

As mentioned before, with @Bean methods, you will typically choose to use programmatic JNDI lookups: either using Spring’s
JndiTemplate / JndiLocatorDelegate helpers or the straight JNDI InitialContext usage shown above, but not the
JndiObjectFactoryBean variant which would force you to declare the return type as the FactoryBean type.

@Profile can be used as a meta-annotation for the purpose of creating a custom composed annotation. The following example deﬁnes a custom
@Production annotation that can be used as a drop-in replacement for @Profile("production") :

@Target(ElementType.TYPE)
@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@Profile("production")
public @interface Production {
}

If a @Configuration class is marked with @Profile , all of the @Bean methods and @Import annotations associated with that
class will be bypassed unless one or more of the specified profiles are active. If a @Component or @Configuration class is
marked with @Profile({"p1", "p2"}) , that class will not be registered/processed unless profiles 'p1' and/or 'p2' have been
activated. If a given profile is prefixed with the NOT operator ( ! ), the annotated element will be registered if the profile is not active.
For example, given @Profile({"p1", "!p2"}) , registration will occur if profile 'p1' is active or if profile 'p2' is not active.

@Profile can also be declared at the method level to include only one particular bean of a conﬁguration class, e.g. for alternative variants of a
particular bean:

@Configuration
public class AppConfig {

@Bean("dataSource")
@Profile("development")
public DataSource standaloneDataSource() {
return new EmbeddedDatabaseBuilder()
.setType(EmbeddedDatabaseType.HSQL)
.addScript("classpath:com/bank/config/sql/schema.sql")
.addScript("classpath:com/bank/config/sql/test-data.sql")
.build();
}

@Bean("dataSource")
@Profile("production")
public DataSource jndiDataSource() throws Exception {
Context ctx = new InitialContext();
return (DataSource) ctx.lookup("java:comp/env/jdbc/datasource");
}
}

With @Profile on @Bean methods, a special scenario may apply: In the case of overloaded @Bean methods of the same Java
method name (analogous to constructor overloading), an @Profile condition needs to be consistently declared on all overloaded
methods. If the conditions are inconsistent, only the condition on the ﬁrst declaration among the overloaded methods will matter.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 126/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
@Profile can therefore not be used to select an overloaded method with a particular argument signature over another; resolution
between all factory methods for the same bean follows Spring’s constructor resolution algorithm at creation time.
If you would like to define alternative beans with different profile conditions, use distinct Java method names pointing to the same bean
name via the @Bean name attribute, as indicated in the example above. If the argument signatures are all the same (e.g. all of the
variants have no-arg factory methods), this is the only way to represent such an arrangement in a valid Java class in the first place
(since there can only be one method of a particular name and argument signature).

XML bean deﬁnition proﬁles

The XML counterpart is the profile attribute of the <beans> element. Our sample conﬁguration above can be rewritten in two XML ﬁles as
follows:

<jdbc:embedded-database id="dataSource">
<jdbc:script location="classpath:com/bank/config/sql/schema.sql"/>
<jdbc:script location="classpath:com/bank/config/sql/test-data.sql"/>
</jdbc:embedded-database>
</beans>

<jee:jndi-lookup id="dataSource" jndi-name="java:comp/env/jdbc/datasource"/>

</beans>

It is also possible to avoid that split and nest <beans/> elements within the same ﬁle:

The spring-bean.xsd has been constrained to allow such elements only as the last ones in the file. This should help provide flexibility without
incurring clutter in the XML files.

Activating a profile
Now that we have updated our configuration, we still need to instruct Spring which profile is active. If we started our sample application right now, we
would see a NoSuchBeanDefinitionException thrown, because the container could not find the Spring bean named dataSource .

Activating a proﬁle can be done in several ways, but the most straightforward is to do it programmatically against the Environment API which is
available via an ApplicationContext :

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 127/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

AnnotationConfigApplicationContext ctx = new AnnotationConfigApplicationContext();

ctx.getEnvironment().setActiveProfiles("development");
ctx.register(SomeConfig.class, StandaloneDataConfig.class, JndiDataConfig.class);
ctx.refresh();

In addition, profiles may also be activated declaratively through the spring.profiles.active property which may be specified through system
environment variables, JVM system properties, servlet context parameters in web.xml , or even as an entry in JNDI (see Section 7.13.2,
“PropertySource abstraction”). In integration tests, active profiles can be declared via the @ActiveProfiles annotation in the spring-test
module (see the section called “Context configuration with environment profiles”).

Note that profiles are not an "either-or" proposition; it is possible to activate multiple profiles at once. Programmatically, simply provide multiple profile
names to the setActiveProfiles() method, which accepts String… varargs:

ctx.getEnvironment().setActiveProfiles("profile1", "profile2");

Declaratively, spring.profiles.active may accept a comma-separated list of proﬁle names:

-Dspring.profiles.active="profile1,profile2"

Default profile
The default profile represents the profile that is enabled by default. Consider the following:

@Configuration
@Profile("default")
public class DefaultDataConfig {

@Bean
public DataSource dataSource() {
return new EmbeddedDatabaseBuilder()
.setType(EmbeddedDatabaseType.HSQL)
.addScript("classpath:com/bank/config/sql/schema.sql")
.build();
}
}

If no profile is active, the dataSource above will be created; this can be seen as a way to provide a default definition for one or more beans. If any
profile is enabled, the default profile will not apply.

The name of the default proﬁle can be changed using setDefaultProfiles() on the Environment or declaratively using the
spring.profiles.default property.

7.13.2 PropertySource abstraction
Spring’s Environment abstraction provides search operations over a conﬁgurable hierarchy of property sources. To explain fully, consider the
following:

ApplicationContext ctx = new GenericApplicationContext();

Environment env = ctx.getEnvironment();
boolean containsFoo = env.containsProperty("foo");
System.out.println("Does my environment contain the 'foo' property? " + containsFoo);

In the snippet above, we see a high-level way of asking Spring whether the foo property is deﬁned for the current environment. To answer this
question, the Environment object performs a search over a set of PropertySource objects. A PropertySource is a simple abstraction over
any source of key-value pairs, and Spring’s StandardEnvironment is conﬁgured with two PropertySource objects — one representing the set of
JVM system properties (a la System.getProperties() ) and one representing the set of system environment variables (a la
System.getenv() ).

These default property sources are present for StandardEnvironment , for use in standalone applications.
StandardServletEnvironment is populated with additional default property sources including servlet conﬁg and servlet context
parameters. StandardPortletEnvironment similarly has access to portlet conﬁg and portlet context parameters as property
sources. Both can optionally enable a JndiPropertySource . See the javadocs for details.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 128/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Concretely, when using the StandardEnvironment , the call to env.containsProperty("foo") will return true if a foo system property or
foo environment variable is present at runtime.

The search performed is hierarchical. By default, system properties have precedence over environment variables, so if the foo
property happens to be set in both places during a call to env.getProperty("foo") , the system property value will 'win' and be
returned preferentially over the environment variable. Note that property values will not get merged but rather completely overridden by
a preceding entry.
For a common StandardServletEnvironment , the full hierarchy looks as follows, with the highest-precedence entries at the top:
ServletConﬁg parameters (if applicable, e.g. in case of a DispatcherServlet context)
ServletContext parameters (web.xml context-param entries)
JNDI environment variables ("java:comp/env/" entries)
JVM system properties ("-D" command-line arguments)
JVM system environment (operating system environment variables)

Most importantly, the entire mechanism is conﬁgurable. Perhaps you have a custom source of properties that you’d like to integrate into this search.
No problem — simply implement and instantiate your own PropertySource and add it to the set of PropertySources for the current
Environment :

ConfigurableApplicationContext ctx = new GenericApplicationContext();

MutablePropertySources sources = ctx.getEnvironment().getPropertySources();
sources.addFirst(new MyPropertySource());

In the code above, MyPropertySource has been added with highest precedence in the search. If it contains a foo property, it will be detected
and returned ahead of any foo property in any other PropertySource . The MutablePropertySources API exposes a number of methods
that allow for precise manipulation of the set of property sources.

7.13.3 @PropertySource
The @PropertySource annotation provides a convenient and declarative mechanism for adding a PropertySource to Spring’s
Environment .

Given a ﬁle "app.properties" containing the key/value pair testbean.name=myTestBean , the following @Configuration class uses
@PropertySource in such a way that a call to testBean.getName() will return "myTestBean".

@Configuration
@PropertySource("classpath:/com/myco/app.properties")
public class AppConfig {
@Autowired
Environment env;

@Bean
public TestBean testBean() {
TestBean testBean = new TestBean();
testBean.setName(env.getProperty("testbean.name"));
return testBean;
}
}

Any ${…} placeholders present in a @PropertySource resource location will be resolved against the set of property sources already registered
against the environment. For example:

@Configuration
@PropertySource("classpath:/com/${my.placeholder:default/path}/app.properties")
public class AppConfig {
@Autowired
Environment env;

@Bean
public TestBean testBean() {
TestBean testBean = new TestBean();
testBean.setName(env.getProperty("testbean.name"));
return testBean;
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 129/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
return testBean;
}
}

Assuming that "my.placeholder" is present in one of the property sources already registered, e.g. system properties or environment variables, the
placeholder will be resolved to the corresponding value. If not, then "default/path" will be used as a default. If no default is speciﬁed and a property
cannot be resolved, an IllegalArgumentException will be thrown.

7.13.4 Placeholder resolution in statements

Historically, the value of placeholders in elements could be resolved only against JVM system properties or environment variables. No longer is this
the case. Because the Environment abstraction is integrated throughout the container, it’s easy to route resolution of placeholders through it. This
means that you may conﬁgure the resolution process in any way you like: change the precedence of searching through system properties and
environment variables, or remove them entirely; add your own property sources to the mix as appropriate.

Concretely, the following statement works regardless of where the customer property is deﬁned, as long as it is available in the Environment :

7.14 Registering a LoadTimeWeaver
The LoadTimeWeaver is used by Spring to dynamically transform classes as they are loaded into the Java virtual machine (JVM).

To enable load-time weaving add the @EnableLoadTimeWeaving to one of your @Configuration classes:

@Configuration
@EnableLoadTimeWeaving
public class AppConfig {

Alternatively for XML conﬁguration use the context:load-time-weaver element:

Once conﬁgured for the ApplicationContext . Any bean within that ApplicationContext may implement LoadTimeWeaverAware ,
thereby receiving a reference to the load-time weaver instance. This is particularly useful in combination with Spring’s JPA support where load-time
weaving may be necessary for JPA class transformation. Consult the LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean javadocs for more detail.
For more on AspectJ load-time weaving, see Section 11.8.4, “Load-time weaving with AspectJ in the Spring Framework”.

7.15 Additional Capabilities of the ApplicationContext

As was discussed in the chapter introduction, the org.springframework.beans.factory package provides basic functionality for managing
and manipulating beans, including in a programmatic way. The org.springframework.context package adds the ApplicationContext
interface, which extends the BeanFactory interface, in addition to extending other interfaces to provide additional functionality in a more
application framework-oriented style. Many people use the ApplicationContext in a completely declarative fashion, not even creating it
programmatically, but instead relying on support classes such as ContextLoader to automatically instantiate an ApplicationContext as part
of the normal startup process of a Java EE web application.

To enhance BeanFactory functionality in a more framework-oriented style the context package also provides the following functionality:

Access to messages in i18n-style, through the MessageSource interface.

Access to resources, such as URLs and ﬁles, through the ResourceLoader interface.
Event publication to namely beans implementing the ApplicationListener interface, through the use of the
ApplicationEventPublisher interface.
Loading of multiple (hierarchical) contexts, allowing each to be focused on one particular layer, such as the web layer of an application, through
the HierarchicalBeanFactory interface.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 130/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

7.15.1 Internationalization using MessageSource

The ApplicationContext interface extends an interface called MessageSource , and therefore provides internationalization (i18n)
functionality. Spring also provides the interface HierarchicalMessageSource , which can resolve messages hierarchically. Together these
interfaces provide the foundation upon which Spring effects message resolution. The methods deﬁned on these interfaces include:

String getMessage(String code, Object[] args, String default, Locale loc) : The basic method used to retrieve a
message from the MessageSource . When no message is found for the speciﬁed locale, the default message is used. Any arguments passed
in become replacement values, using the MessageFormat functionality provided by the standard library.
String getMessage(String code, Object[] args, Locale loc) : Essentially the same as the previous method, but with one
difference: no default message can be speciﬁed; if the message cannot be found, a NoSuchMessageException is thrown.
String getMessage(MessageSourceResolvable resolvable, Locale locale) : All properties used in the preceding methods are
also wrapped in a class named MessageSourceResolvable , which you can use with this method.

When an ApplicationContext is loaded, it automatically searches for a MessageSource bean defined in the context. The bean must have
the name messageSource . If such a bean is found, all calls to the preceding methods are delegated to the message source. If no message source
is found, the ApplicationContext attempts to find a parent containing a bean with the same name. If it does, it uses that bean as the
MessageSource . If the ApplicationContext cannot find any source for messages, an empty DelegatingMessageSource is instantiated
in order to be able to accept calls to the methods defined above.

Spring provides two MessageSource implementations, ResourceBundleMessageSource and StaticMessageSource . Both implement
HierarchicalMessageSource in order to do nested messaging. The StaticMessageSource is rarely used but provides programmatic ways
to add messages to the source. The ResourceBundleMessageSource is shown in the following example:

<beans>
<bean id="messageSource"
class="org.springframework.context.support.ResourceBundleMessageSource">
<property name="basenames">
<list>
<value>format</value>
<value>exceptions</value>
<value>windows</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>
</beans>

In the example it is assumed you have three resource bundles deﬁned in your classpath called format , exceptions and windows . Any
request to resolve a message will be handled in the JDK standard way of resolving messages through ResourceBundles. For the purposes of the
example, assume the contents of two of the above resource bundle ﬁles are…

# in format.properties
message=Alligators rock!

# in exceptions.properties
argument.required=The {0} argument is required.

A program to execute the MessageSource functionality is shown in the next example. Remember that all ApplicationContext
implementations are also MessageSource implementations and so can be cast to the MessageSource interface.

public static void main(String[] args) {

MessageSource resources = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("beans.xml");
String message = resources.getMessage("message", null, "Default", null);
System.out.println(message);
}

The resulting output from the above program will be…

Alligators rock!

So to summarize, the MessageSource is defined in a file called beans.xml , which exists at the root of your classpath. The messageSource
bean definition refers to a number of resource bundles through its basenames property. The three files that are passed in the list to the
basenames property exist as files at the root of your classpath and are called format.properties , exceptions.properties , and
windows.properties respectively.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 131/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The next example shows arguments passed to the message lookup; these arguments will be converted into Strings and inserted into placeholders in
the lookup message.

<beans>

<bean id="example" class="com.foo.Example">
<property name="messages" ref="messageSource"/>
</bean>

</beans>

public class Example {

private MessageSource messages;

public void setMessages(MessageSource messages) {

this.messages = messages;
}

public void execute() {

String message = this.messages.getMessage("argument.required",
new Object [] {"userDao"}, "Required", null);
System.out.println(message);
}

The resulting output from the invocation of the execute() method will be…

The userDao argument is required.

With regard to internationalization (i18n), Spring’s various MessageSource implementations follow the same locale resolution and fallback rules as
the standard JDK ResourceBundle . In short, and continuing with the example messageSource deﬁned previously, if you want to resolve
messages against the British ( en-GB ) locale, you would create ﬁles called format_en_GB.properties , exceptions_en_GB.properties ,
and windows_en_GB.properties respectively.

Typically, locale resolution is managed by the surrounding environment of the application. In this example, the locale against which (British)
messages will be resolved is speciﬁed manually.

# in exceptions_en_GB.properties
argument.required=Ebagum lad, the {0} argument is required, I say, required.

public static void main(final String[] args) {

MessageSource resources = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("beans.xml");
String message = resources.getMessage("argument.required",
new Object [] {"userDao"}, "Required", Locale.UK);
System.out.println(message);
}

The resulting output from the running of the above program will be…

Ebagum lad, the 'userDao' argument is required, I say, required.

You can also use the MessageSourceAware interface to acquire a reference to any MessageSource that has been defined. Any bean that is
defined in an ApplicationContext that implements the MessageSourceAware interface is injected with the application context’s
MessageSource when the bean is created and configured.

As an alternative to ResourceBundleMessageSource , Spring provides a ReloadableResourceBundleMessageSource

class. This variant supports the same bundle file format but is more flexible than the standard JDK based
ResourceBundleMessageSource implementation. In particular, it allows for reading files from any Spring resource location (not
just from the classpath) and supports hot reloading of bundle property files (while efficiently caching them in between). Check out the
ReloadableResourceBundleMessageSource javadocs for details.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 132/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

7.15.2 Standard and Custom Events

Event handling in the ApplicationContext is provided through the ApplicationEvent class and ApplicationListener interface. If a
bean that implements the ApplicationListener interface is deployed into the context, every time an ApplicationEvent gets published to
the ApplicationContext , that bean is notiﬁed. Essentially, this is the standard Observer design pattern.

As of Spring 4.2, the event infrastructure has been signiﬁcantly improved and offer an annotation-based model as well as the ability to
publish any arbitrary event, that is an object that does not necessarily extend from ApplicationEvent . When such an object is
published we wrap it in an event for you.

Spring provides the following standard events:

Table 7.7. Built-in Events

Event Explanation

ContextRefreshedEvent Published when the ApplicationContext is initialized or refreshed, for example, using the
refresh() method on the ConfigurableApplicationContext interface. "Initialized" here means
that all beans are loaded, post-processor beans are detected and activated, singletons are pre-instantiated,
and the ApplicationContext object is ready for use. As long as the context has not been closed, a
refresh can be triggered multiple times, provided that the chosen ApplicationContext actually
supports such "hot" refreshes. For example, XmlWebApplicationContext supports hot refreshes, but
GenericApplicationContext does not.

ContextStartedEvent Published when the ApplicationContext is started, using the start() method on the
ConfigurableApplicationContext interface. "Started" here means that all Lifecycle beans
receive an explicit start signal. Typically this signal is used to restart beans after an explicit stop, but it may
also be used to start components that have not been conﬁgured for autostart , for example, components
that have not already started on initialization.

ContextStoppedEvent Published when the ApplicationContext is stopped, using the stop() method on the
ConfigurableApplicationContext interface. "Stopped" here means that all Lifecycle beans
receive an explicit stop signal. A stopped context may be restarted through a start() call.

ContextClosedEvent Published when the ApplicationContext is closed, using the close() method on the
ConfigurableApplicationContext interface. "Closed" here means that all singleton beans are
destroyed. A closed context reaches its end of life; it cannot be refreshed or restarted.

RequestHandledEvent A web-speciﬁc event telling all beans that an HTTP request has been serviced. This event is published after
the request is complete. This event is only applicable to web applications using Spring’s
DispatcherServlet .

You can also create and publish your own custom events. This example demonstrates a simple class that extends Spring’s ApplicationEvent
base class:

public class BlackListEvent extends ApplicationEvent {

private final String address;

private final String test;

public BlackListEvent(Object source, String address, String test) {

super(source);
this.address = address;
this.test = test;
}

// accessor and other methods...

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 133/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
To publish a custom ApplicationEvent , call the publishEvent() method on an ApplicationEventPublisher . Typically this is done by
creating a class that implements ApplicationEventPublisherAware and registering it as a Spring bean. The following example demonstrates
such a class:

public class EmailService implements ApplicationEventPublisherAware {

private List<String> blackList;

private ApplicationEventPublisher publisher;

public void setBlackList(List<String> blackList) {

this.blackList = blackList;
}

public void setApplicationEventPublisher(ApplicationEventPublisher publisher) {

this.publisher = publisher;
}

public void sendEmail(String address, String text) {

if (blackList.contains(address)) {
BlackListEvent event = new BlackListEvent(this, address, text);
publisher.publishEvent(event);
return;
}
// send email...
}

At conﬁguration time, the Spring container will detect that EmailService implements ApplicationEventPublisherAware and will
automatically call setApplicationEventPublisher() . In reality, the parameter passed in will be the Spring container itself; you’re simply
interacting with the application context via its ApplicationEventPublisher interface.

To receive the custom ApplicationEvent , create a class that implements ApplicationListener and register it as a Spring bean. The
following example demonstrates such a class:

public class BlackListNotifier implements ApplicationListener<BlackListEvent> {

private String notificationAddress;

public void setNotificationAddress(String notificationAddress) {

this.notificationAddress = notificationAddress;
}

public void onApplicationEvent(BlackListEvent event) {

// notify appropriate parties via notificationAddress...
}

Notice that ApplicationListener is generically parameterized with the type of your custom event, BlackListEvent . This means that the
onApplicationEvent() method can remain type-safe, avoiding any need for downcasting. You may register as many event listeners as you
wish, but note that by default event listeners receive events synchronously. This means the publishEvent() method blocks until all listeners
have ﬁnished processing the event. One advantage of this synchronous and single-threaded approach is that when a listener receives an event, it
operates inside the transaction context of the publisher if a transaction context is available. If another strategy for event publication becomes
necessary, refer to the javadoc for Spring’s ApplicationEventMulticaster interface.

The following example shows the bean deﬁnitions used to register and conﬁgure each of the classes above:

<bean id="emailService" class="example.EmailService">

<property name="blackList">
<list>
<value>[email protected]</value>
<value>[email protected]</value>
<value>[email protected]</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 134/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

<bean id="blackListNotifier" class="example.BlackListNotifier">

Putting it all together, when the sendEmail() method of the emailService bean is called, if there are any emails that should be blacklisted, a
custom event of type BlackListEvent is published. The blackListNotifier bean is registered as an ApplicationListener and thus
receives the BlackListEvent , at which point it can notify appropriate parties.

Spring’s eventing mechanism is designed for simple communication between Spring beans within the same application context.
However, for more sophisticated enterprise integration needs, the separately-maintained Spring Integration project provides complete
support for building lightweight, pattern-oriented, event-driven architectures that build upon the well-known Spring programming model.

Annotation-based Event Listeners

As of Spring 4.2, an event listener can be registered on any public method of a managed bean via the EventListener annotation. The
BlackListNotifier can be rewritten as follows:

public class BlackListNotifier {

private String notificationAddress;

public void setNotificationAddress(String notificationAddress) {

this.notificationAddress = notificationAddress;
}

@EventListener
public void processBlackListEvent(BlackListEvent event) {
// notify appropriate parties via notificationAddress...
}

As you can see above, the method signature once again declares the event type it listens to, but this time with a ﬂexible name and without
implementing a speciﬁc listener interface. The event type can also be narrowed through generics as long as the actual event type resolves your
generic parameter in its implementation hierarchy.

If your method should listen to several events or if you want to deﬁne it with no parameter at all, the event type(s) can also be speciﬁed on the
annotation itself:

@EventListener({ContextStartedEvent.class, ContextRefreshedEvent.class})
public void handleContextStart() {
...
}

It is also possible to add additional runtime ﬁltering via the condition attribute of the annotation that deﬁnes a SpEL expression that should
match to actually invoke the method for a particular event.

For instance, our notiﬁer can be rewritten to be only invoked if the test attribute of the event is equal to foo :

@EventListener(condition = "#blEvent.test == 'foo'")

public void processBlackListEvent(BlackListEvent blEvent) {
// notify appropriate parties via notificationAddress...
}

Each SpEL expression evaluates again a dedicated context. The next table lists the items made available to the context so one can use them for
conditional event processing:

Table 7.8. Event SpEL available metadata

Name Location Description Example

Event root object The actual ApplicationEvent #root.event

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 135/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Name Location Description Example

Arguments root object The arguments (as array) used for invoking the target #root.args[0]
array

Argument evaluation Name of any of the method arguments. If for some reason the names are not #blEvent or #a0 (one
name context available (e.g. no debug information), the argument names are also available under can also use #p0 or
the #a<#arg> where #arg stands for the argument index (starting from 0). #p<#arg> notation as an
alias).

Note that #root.event allows you to access to the underlying event, even if your method signature actually refers to an arbitrary object that was
published.

If you need to publish an event as the result of processing another, just change the method signature to return the event that should be published,
something like:

@EventListener
public ListUpdateEvent handleBlackListEvent(BlackListEvent event) {
// notify appropriate parties via notificationAddress and
// then publish a ListUpdateEvent...
}

This feature is not supported for asynchronous listeners.

This new method will publish a new ListUpdateEvent for every BlackListEvent handled by the method above. If you need to publish
several events, just return a Collection of events instead.

Asynchronous Listeners
If you want a particular listener to process events asynchronously, simply reuse the regular @Async support:

@EventListener
@Async
public void processBlackListEvent(BlackListEvent event) {
// BlackListEvent is processed in a separate thread
}

Be aware of the following limitations when using asynchronous events:

1. If the event listener throws an Exception it will not be propagated to the caller, check AsyncUncaughtExceptionHandler for more
details.
2. Such event listener cannot send replies. If you need to send another event as the result of the processing, inject
ApplicationEventPublisher to send the event manually.

Ordering Listeners
If you need the listener to be invoked before another one, just add the @Order annotation to the method declaration:

@EventListener
@Order(42)
public void processBlackListEvent(BlackListEvent event) {
// notify appropriate parties via notificationAddress...
}

Generic Events
You may also use generics to further deﬁne the structure of your event. Consider an EntityCreatedEvent<T> where T is the type of the actual
entity that got created. You can create the following listener deﬁnition to only receive EntityCreatedEvent for a Person :

@EventListener
public void onPersonCreated(EntityCreatedEvent<Person> event) {

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 136/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
...
}

Due to type erasure, this will only work if the event that is ﬁred resolves the generic parameter(s) on which the event listener ﬁlters on (that is
something like class PersonCreatedEvent extends EntityCreatedEvent<Person> { … } ).

In certain circumstances, this may become quite tedious if all events follow the same structure (as it should be the case for the event above). In such
a case, you can implement ResolvableTypeProvider to guide the framework beyond what the runtime environment provides:

public class EntityCreatedEvent<T>

extends ApplicationEvent implements ResolvableTypeProvider {

public EntityCreatedEvent(T entity) {

super(entity);
}

@Override
public ResolvableType getResolvableType() {
return ResolvableType.forClassWithGenerics(getClass(),
ResolvableType.forInstance(getSource()));
}
}

This works not only for ApplicationEvent but any arbitrary object that you’d send as an event.

7.15.3 Convenient access to low-level resources

For optimal usage and understanding of application contexts, users should generally familiarize themselves with Spring’s Resource abstraction, as
described in the chapter Chapter 8, Resources.

An application context is a ResourceLoader , which can be used to load Resource s. A Resource is essentially a more feature rich version of
the JDK class java.net.URL , in fact, the implementations of the Resource wrap an instance of java.net.URL where appropriate. A
Resource can obtain low-level resources from almost any location in a transparent fashion, including from the classpath, a filesystem location,
anywhere describable with a standard URL, and some other variations. If the resource location string is a simple path without any special prefixes,
where those resources come from is specific and appropriate to the actual application context type.

You can conﬁgure a bean deployed into the application context to implement the special callback interface, ResourceLoaderAware , to be
automatically called back at initialization time with the application context itself passed in as the ResourceLoader . You can also expose properties
of type Resource , to be used to access static resources; they will be injected into it like any other properties. You can specify those Resource
properties as simple String paths, and rely on a special JavaBean PropertyEditor that is automatically registered by the context, to convert
those text strings to actual Resource objects when the bean is deployed.

The location path or paths supplied to an ApplicationContext constructor are actually resource strings, and in simple form are treated
appropriately to the specific context implementation. ClassPathXmlApplicationContext treats a simple location path as a classpath location.
You can also use location paths (resource strings) with special prefixes to force loading of definitions from the classpath or a URL, regardless of the
actual context type.

7.15.4 Convenient ApplicationContext instantiation for web applications

You can create ApplicationContext instances declaratively by using, for example, a ContextLoader . Of course you can also create
ApplicationContext instances programmatically by using one of the ApplicationContext implementations.

You can register an ApplicationContext using the ContextLoaderListener as follows:

<context-param>
<param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
<param-value>/WEB-INF/daoContext.xml /WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml</param-value>
</context-param>

<listener>
<listener-class>org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener</listener-class>
</listener>

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 137/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The listener inspects the contextConfigLocation parameter. If the parameter does not exist, the listener uses
/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml as a default. When the parameter does exist, the listener separates the String by using predefined
delimiters (comma, semicolon and whitespace) and uses the values as locations where application contexts will be searched. Ant-style path patterns
are supported as well. Examples are /WEB-INF/*Context.xml for all files with names ending with "Context.xml", residing in the "WEB-INF"
directory, and /WEB-INF/**/*Context.xml , for all such files in any subdirectory of "WEB-INF".

7.15.5 Deploying a Spring ApplicationContext as a Java EE RAR ﬁle

It is possible to deploy a Spring ApplicationContext as a RAR file, encapsulating the context and all of its required bean classes and library JARs in a
Java EE RAR deployment unit. This is the equivalent of bootstrapping a standalone ApplicationContext, just hosted in Java EE environment, being
able to access the Java EE servers facilities. RAR deployment is more natural alternative to scenario of deploying a headless WAR file, in effect, a
WAR file without any HTTP entry points that is used only for bootstrapping a Spring ApplicationContext in a Java EE environment.

RAR deployment is ideal for application contexts that do not need HTTP entry points but rather consist only of message endpoints and scheduled
jobs. Beans in such a context can use application server resources such as the JTA transaction manager and JNDI-bound JDBC DataSources and
JMS ConnectionFactory instances, and may also register with the platform’s JMX server - all through Spring’s standard transaction management and
JNDI and JMX support facilities. Application components can also interact with the application server’s JCA WorkManager through Spring’s
TaskExecutor abstraction.

Check out the javadoc of the SpringContextResourceAdapter class for the conﬁguration details involved in RAR deployment.

For a simple deployment of a Spring ApplicationContext as a Java EE RAR file: package all application classes into a RAR file, which is a standard
JAR file with a different file extension. Add all required library JARs into the root of the RAR archive. Add a "META-INF/ra.xml" deployment descriptor
(as shown in SpringContextResourceAdapter s javadoc) and the corresponding Spring XML bean definition file(s) (typically "META-
INF/applicationContext.xml"), and drop the resulting RAR file into your application server’s deployment directory.

Such RAR deployment units are usually self-contained; they do not expose components to the outside world, not even to other
modules of the same application. Interaction with a RAR-based ApplicationContext usually occurs through JMS destinations that it
shares with other modules. A RAR-based ApplicationContext may also, for example, schedule some jobs, reacting to new ﬁles in the
ﬁle system (or the like). If it needs to allow synchronous access from the outside, it could for example export RMI endpoints, which of
course may be used by other application modules on the same machine.

7.16 The BeanFactory
The BeanFactory provides the underlying basis for Spring’s IoC functionality but it is only used directly in integration with other third-party
frameworks and is now largely historical in nature for most users of Spring. The BeanFactory and related interfaces, such as
BeanFactoryAware , InitializingBean , DisposableBean , are still present in Spring for the purposes of backward compatibility with the
large number of third-party frameworks that integrate with Spring. Often third-party components that can not use more modern equivalents such as
@PostConstruct or @PreDestroy in order to remain compatible with JDK 1.4 or to avoid a dependency on JSR-250.

This section provides additional background into the differences between the BeanFactory and ApplicationContext and how one might
access the IoC container directly through a classic singleton lookup.

7.16.1 BeanFactory or ApplicationContext?
Use an ApplicationContext unless you have a good reason for not doing so.

Because the ApplicationContext includes all functionality of the BeanFactory , it is generally recommended over the BeanFactory ,
except for a few situations such as in embedded applications running on resource-constrained devices where memory consumption might be critical
and a few extra kilobytes might make a difference. However, for most typical enterprise applications and systems, the ApplicationContext is
what you will want to use. Spring makes heavy use of the BeanPostProcessor extension point (to effect proxying and so on). If you use only a
plain BeanFactory , a fair amount of support such as transactions and AOP will not take effect, at least not without some extra steps on your part.
This situation could be confusing because nothing is actually wrong with the conﬁguration.

The following table lists features provided by the BeanFactory and ApplicationContext interfaces and implementations.

Table 7.9. Feature Matrix

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 138/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Feature BeanFactory ApplicationContext

Bean instantiation/wiring Yes Yes

Automatic BeanPostProcessor registration No Yes

Automatic BeanFactoryPostProcessor registration No Yes

Convenient MessageSource access (for i18n) No Yes

ApplicationEvent publication No Yes

To explicitly register a bean post-processor with a BeanFactory implementation, you need to write code like this:

DefaultListableBeanFactory factory = new DefaultListableBeanFactory();

// populate the factory with bean definitions

// now register any needed BeanPostProcessor instances

MyBeanPostProcessor postProcessor = new MyBeanPostProcessor();
factory.addBeanPostProcessor(postProcessor);

// now start using the factory

To explicitly register a BeanFactoryPostProcessor when using a BeanFactory implementation, you must write code like this:

DefaultListableBeanFactory factory = new DefaultListableBeanFactory();

XmlBeanDefinitionReader reader = new XmlBeanDefinitionReader(factory);
reader.loadBeanDefinitions(new FileSystemResource("beans.xml"));

// bring in some property values from a Properties file

PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer cfg = new PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer();
cfg.setLocation(new FileSystemResource("jdbc.properties"));

// now actually do the replacement

cfg.postProcessBeanFactory(factory);

In both cases, the explicit registration step is inconvenient, which is one reason why the various ApplicationContext implementations are
preferred above plain BeanFactory implementations in the vast majority of Spring-backed applications, especially when using
BeanFactoryPostProcessor s and BeanPostProcessor s. These mechanisms implement important functionality such as property
placeholder replacement and AOP.

7.16.2 Glue code and the evil singleton

It is best to write most application code in a dependency-injection (DI) style, where that code is served out of a Spring IoC container, has its own
dependencies supplied by the container when it is created, and is completely unaware of the container. However, for the small glue layers of code
that are sometimes needed to tie other code together, you sometimes need a singleton (or quasi-singleton) style access to a Spring IoC container.
For example, third-party code may try to construct new objects directly ( Class.forName() style), without the ability to get these objects out of a
Spring IoC container.If the object constructed by the third-party code is a small stub or proxy, which then uses a singleton style access to a Spring
IoC container to get a real object to delegate to, then inversion of control has still been achieved for the majority of the code (the object coming out of
the container). Thus most code is still unaware of the container or how it is accessed, and remains decoupled from other code, with all ensuing
beneﬁts. EJBs may also use this stub/proxy approach to delegate to a plain Java implementation object, retrieved from a Spring IoC container. While
the Spring IoC container itself ideally does not have to be a singleton, it may be unrealistic in terms of memory usage or initialization times (when
using beans in the Spring IoC container such as a Hibernate SessionFactory ) for each bean to use its own, non-singleton Spring IoC container.

Looking up the application context in a service locator style is sometimes the only option for accessing shared Spring-managed components, such
as in an EJB 2.1 environment, or when you want to share a single ApplicationContext as a parent to WebApplicationContexts across WAR ﬁles. In
this case you should look into using the utility class ContextSingletonBeanFactoryLocator locator that is described in this Spring team blog
entry.

[1] See Background

[2] See Section 7.4.1, “Dependency Injection”

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 139/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

8. Resources

8.1 Introduction
Java’s standard java.net.URL class and standard handlers for various URL prefixes unfortunately are not quite adequate enough for all access
to low-level resources. For example, there is no standardized URL implementation that may be used to access a resource that needs to be obtained
from the classpath, or relative to a ServletContext . While it is possible to register new handlers for specialized URL prefixes (similar to existing
handlers for prefixes such as http: ), this is generally quite complicated, and the URL interface still lacks some desirable functionality, such as a
method to check for the existence of the resource being pointed to.

8.2 The Resource interface

Spring’s Resource interface is meant to be a more capable interface for abstracting access to low-level resources.

public interface Resource extends InputStreamSource {

boolean exists();

boolean isOpen();

URL getURL() throws IOException;

File getFile() throws IOException;

Resource createRelative(String relativePath) throws IOException;

String getFilename();

String getDescription();

public interface InputStreamSource {

InputStream getInputStream() throws IOException;

Some of the most important methods from the Resource interface are:

getInputStream() : locates and opens the resource, returning an InputStream for reading from the resource. It is expected that each
invocation returns a fresh InputStream . It is the responsibility of the caller to close the stream.
exists() : returns a boolean indicating whether this resource actually exists in physical form.
isOpen() : returns a boolean indicating whether this resource represents a handle with an open stream. If true , the InputStream
cannot be read multiple times, and must be read once only and then closed to avoid resource leaks. Will be false for all usual resource
implementations, with the exception of InputStreamResource .
getDescription() : returns a description for this resource, to be used for error output when working with the resource. This is often the fully
qualiﬁed ﬁle name or the actual URL of the resource.

Other methods allow you to obtain an actual URL or File object representing the resource (if the underlying implementation is compatible, and
supports that functionality).

The Resource abstraction is used extensively in Spring itself, as an argument type in many method signatures when a resource is needed. Other
methods in some Spring APIs (such as the constructors to various ApplicationContext implementations), take a String which in unadorned
or simple form is used to create a Resource appropriate to that context implementation, or via special preﬁxes on the String path, allow the
caller to specify that a speciﬁc Resource implementation must be created and used.

While the Resource interface is used a lot with Spring and by Spring, it’s actually very useful to use as a general utility class by itself in your own
code, for access to resources, even when your code doesn’t know or care about any other parts of Spring. While this couples your code to Spring, it
really only couples it to this small set of utility classes, which are serving as a more capable replacement for URL , and can be considered equivalent
to any other library you would use for this purpose.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 140/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
It is important to note that the Resource abstraction does not replace functionality: it wraps it where possible. For example, a UrlResource
wraps a URL, and uses the wrapped URL to do its work.

8.3 Built-in Resource implementations

There are a number of Resource implementations that come supplied straight out of the box in Spring:

8.3.1 UrlResource
The UrlResource wraps a java.net.URL , and may be used to access any object that is normally accessible via a URL, such as files, an HTTP
target, an FTP target, etc. All URLs have a standardized String representation, such that appropriate standardized prefixes are used to indicate
one URL type from another. This includes file: for accessing filesystem paths, http: for accessing resources via the HTTP protocol, ftp: for
accessing resources via FTP, etc.

A UrlResource is created by Java code explicitly using the UrlResource constructor, but will often be created implicitly when you call an API
method which takes a String argument which is meant to represent a path. For the latter case, a JavaBeans PropertyEditor will ultimately
decide which type of Resource to create. If the path string contains a few well-known (to it, that is) prefixes such as classpath: , it will create an
appropriate specialized Resource for that prefix. However, if it doesn’t recognize the prefix, it will assume the this is just a standard URL string,
and will create a UrlResource .

8.3.2 ClassPathResource
This class represents a resource which should be obtained from the classpath. This uses either the thread context class loader, a given class loader,
or a given class for loading resources.

This Resource implementation supports resolution as java.io.File if the class path resource resides in the ﬁle system, but not for classpath
resources which reside in a jar and have not been expanded (by the servlet engine, or whatever the environment is) to the ﬁlesystem. To address
this the various Resource implementations always support resolution as a java.net.URL .

A ClassPathResource is created by Java code explicitly using the ClassPathResource constructor, but will often be created implicitly when
you call an API method which takes a String argument which is meant to represent a path. For the latter case, a JavaBeans PropertyEditor
will recognize the special preﬁx classpath: on the string path, and create a ClassPathResource in that case.

8.3.3 FileSystemResource
This is a Resource implementation for java.io.File handles. It obviously supports resolution as a File , and as a URL .

8.3.4 ServletContextResource
This is a Resource implementation for ServletContext resources, interpreting relative paths within the relevant web application’s root
directory.

This always supports stream access and URL access, but only allows java.io.File access when the web application archive is expanded and
the resource is physically on the ﬁlesystem. Whether or not it’s expanded and on the ﬁlesystem like this, or accessed directly from the JAR or
somewhere else like a DB (it’s conceivable) is actually dependent on the Servlet container.

8.3.5 InputStreamResource
A Resource implementation for a given InputStream . This should only be used if no speciﬁc Resource implementation is applicable. In
particular, prefer ByteArrayResource or any of the ﬁle-based Resource implementations where possible.

In contrast to other Resource implementations, this is a descriptor for an already opened resource - therefore returning true from isOpen() .
Do not use it if you need to keep the resource descriptor somewhere, or if you need to read a stream multiple times.

8.3.6 ByteArrayResource
This is a Resource implementation for a given byte array. It creates a ByteArrayInputStream for the given byte array.

It’s useful for loading content from any given byte array, without having to resort to a single-use InputStreamResource .
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 141/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

8.4 The ResourceLoader
The ResourceLoader interface is meant to be implemented by objects that can return (i.e. load) Resource instances.

public interface ResourceLoader {

Resource getResource(String location);

All application contexts implement the ResourceLoader interface, and therefore all application contexts may be used to obtain Resource
instances.

When you call getResource() on a specific application context, and the location path specified doesn’t have a specific prefix, you will get back a
Resource type that is appropriate to that particular application context. For example, assume the following snippet of code was executed against a
ClassPathXmlApplicationContext instance:

Resource template = ctx.getResource("some/resource/path/myTemplate.txt");

What would be returned would be a ClassPathResource ; if the same method was executed against a
FileSystemXmlApplicationContext instance, you’d get back a FileSystemResource . For a WebApplicationContext , you’d get back
a ServletContextResource , and so on.

As such, you can load resources in a fashion appropriate to the particular application context.

On the other hand, you may also force ClassPathResource to be used, regardless of the application context type, by specifying the special
classpath: preﬁx:

Resource template = ctx.getResource("classpath:some/resource/path/myTemplate.txt");

Similarly, one can force a UrlResource to be used by specifying any of the standard java.net.URL preﬁxes:

Resource template = ctx.getResource("file:///some/resource/path/myTemplate.txt");

Resource template = ctx.getResource("http://myhost.com/resource/path/myTemplate.txt");

The following table summarizes the strategy for converting String s to Resource s:

Table 8.1. Resource strings

Preﬁx Example Explanation

classpath: classpath:com/myapp/config.xml Loaded from the classpath.

ﬁle: file:///data/config.xml Loaded as a URL , from the ﬁlesystem. [1]

http: http://myserver/logo.png Loaded as a URL .

(none) /data/config.xml Depends on the underlying ApplicationContext .

[1] But see also Section 8.7.3, “FileSystemResource caveats”.

8.5 The ResourceLoaderAware interface

The ResourceLoaderAware interface is a special marker interface, identifying objects that expect to be provided with a ResourceLoader
reference.

public interface ResourceLoaderAware {

void setResourceLoader(ResourceLoader resourceLoader);

}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 142/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
When a class implements ResourceLoaderAware and is deployed into an application context (as a Spring-managed bean), it is recognized as
ResourceLoaderAware by the application context. The application context will then invoke the setResourceLoader(ResourceLoader) ,
supplying itself as the argument (remember, all application contexts in Spring implement the ResourceLoader interface).

Of course, since an ApplicationContext is a ResourceLoader , the bean could also implement the ApplicationContextAware interface
and use the supplied application context directly to load resources, but in general, it’s better to use the specialized ResourceLoader interface if
that’s all that’s needed. The code would just be coupled to the resource loading interface, which can be considered a utility interface, and not the
whole Spring ApplicationContext interface.

As of Spring 2.5, you can rely upon autowiring of the ResourceLoader as an alternative to implementing the ResourceLoaderAware interface.
The "traditional" constructor and byType autowiring modes (as described in Section 7.4.5, “Autowiring collaborators”) are now capable of
providing a dependency of type ResourceLoader for either a constructor argument or setter method parameter respectively. For more flexibility
(including the ability to autowire fields and multiple parameter methods), consider using the new annotation-based autowiring features. In that case,
the ResourceLoader will be autowired into a field, constructor argument, or method parameter that is expecting the ResourceLoader type as
long as the field, constructor, or method in question carries the @Autowired annotation. For more information, see Section 7.9.2, “@Autowired”.

8.6 Resources as dependencies
If the bean itself is going to determine and supply the resource path through some sort of dynamic process, it probably makes sense for the bean to
use the ResourceLoader interface to load resources. Consider as an example the loading of a template of some sort, where the speciﬁc resource
that is needed depends on the role of the user. If the resources are static, it makes sense to eliminate the use of the ResourceLoader interface
completely, and just have the bean expose the Resource properties it needs, and expect that they will be injected into it.

What makes it trivial to then inject these properties, is that all application contexts register and use a special JavaBeans PropertyEditor which
can convert String paths to Resource objects. So if myBean has a template property of type Resource , it can be conﬁgured with a simple
string for that resource, as follows:

<bean id="myBean" class="...">

Note that the resource path has no preﬁx, so because the application context itself is going to be used as the ResourceLoader , the resource itself
will be loaded via a ClassPathResource , FileSystemResource , or ServletContextResource (as appropriate) depending on the exact
type of the context.

If there is a need to force a specific Resource type to be used, then a prefix may be used. The following two examples show how to force a
ClassPathResource and a UrlResource (the latter being used to access a filesystem file).

<property name="template" value="classpath:some/resource/path/myTemplate.txt">

<property name="template" value="file:///some/resource/path/myTemplate.txt"/>

8.7 Application contexts and Resource paths

8.7.1 Constructing application contexts

An application context constructor (for a specific application context type) generally takes a string or array of strings as the location path(s) of the
resource(s) such as XML files that make up the definition of the context.

When such a location path doesn’t have a prefix, the specific Resource type built from that path and used to load the bean definitions, depends on
and is appropriate to the specific application context. For example, if you create a ClassPathXmlApplicationContext as follows:

ApplicationContext ctx = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("conf/appContext.xml");

The bean deﬁnitions will be loaded from the classpath, as a ClassPathResource will be used. But if you create a
FileSystemXmlApplicationContext as follows:

ApplicationContext ctx =
new FileSystemXmlApplicationContext("conf/appContext.xml");

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 143/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The bean deﬁnition will be loaded from a ﬁlesystem location, in this case relative to the current working directory.

Note that the use of the special classpath prefix or a standard URL prefix on the location path will override the default type of Resource created to
load the definition. So this FileSystemXmlApplicationContext …

ApplicationContext ctx =
new FileSystemXmlApplicationContext("classpath:conf/appContext.xml");

i. will actually load its bean definitions from the classpath. However, it is still a FileSystemXmlApplicationContext . If it is subsequently
used as a ResourceLoader , any unprefixed paths will still be treated as filesystem paths.

Constructing ClassPathXmlApplicationContext instances - shortcuts

The ClassPathXmlApplicationContext exposes a number of constructors to enable convenient instantiation. The basic idea is that one
supplies merely a string array containing just the ﬁlenames of the XML ﬁles themselves (without the leading path information), and one also supplies
a Class ; the ClassPathXmlApplicationContext will derive the path information from the supplied class.

An example will hopefully make this clear. Consider a directory layout that looks like this:

com/
foo/
services.xml
daos.xml
MessengerService.class

A ClassPathXmlApplicationContext instance composed of the beans deﬁned in the 'services.xml' and 'daos.xml' could be
instantiated like so…

ApplicationContext ctx = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext(

new String[] {"services.xml", "daos.xml"}, MessengerService.class);

Please do consult the ClassPathXmlApplicationContext javadocs for details on the various constructors.

8.7.2 Wildcards in application context constructor resource paths

The resource paths in application context constructor values may be a simple path (as shown above) which has a one-to-one mapping to a target
Resource, or alternately may contain the special "classpath*:" preﬁx and/or internal Ant-style regular expressions (matched using Spring’s
PathMatcher utility). Both of the latter are effectively wildcards

One use for this mechanism is when doing component-style application assembly. All components can 'publish' context definition fragments to a
well-known location path, and when the final application context is created using the same path prefixed via classpath*: , all component
fragments will be picked up automatically.

Note that this wildcarding is speciﬁc to use of resource paths in application context constructors (or when using the PathMatcher utility class
hierarchy directly), and is resolved at construction time. It has nothing to do with the Resource type itself. It’s not possible to use the
classpath*: preﬁx to construct an actual Resource , as a resource points to just one resource at a time.

Ant-style Patterns
When the path location contains an Ant-style pattern, for example:

/WEB-INF/*-context.xml
com/mycompany/**/applicationContext.xml
file:C:/some/path/*-context.xml
classpath:com/mycompany/**/applicationContext.xml

The resolver follows a more complex but defined procedure to try to resolve the wildcard. It produces a Resource for the path up to the last non-
wildcard segment and obtains a URL from it. If this URL is not a jar: URL or container-specific variant (e.g. zip: in WebLogic, wsjar in
WebSphere, etc.), then a java.io.File is obtained from it and used to resolve the wildcard by traversing the filesystem. In the case of a jar URL,
the resolver either gets a java.net.JarURLConnection from it or manually parses the jar URL and then traverses the contents of the jar file to
resolve the wildcards.

Implications on portability
If the specified path is already a file URL (either explicitly, or implicitly because the base ResourceLoader is a filesystem one, then wildcarding is
guaranteed to work in a completely portable fashion.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 144/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
If the specified path is a classpath location, then the resolver must obtain the last non-wildcard path segment URL via a
Classloader.getResource() call. Since this is just a node of the path (not the file at the end) it is actually undefined (in the ClassLoader
javadocs) exactly what sort of a URL is returned in this case. In practice, it is always a java.io.File representing the directory, where the
classpath resource resolves to a filesystem location, or a jar URL of some sort, where the classpath resource resolves to a jar location. Still, there is
a portability concern on this operation.

If a jar URL is obtained for the last non-wildcard segment, the resolver must be able to get a java.net.JarURLConnection from it, or manually
parse the jar URL, to be able to walk the contents of the jar, and resolve the wildcard. This will work in most environments, but will fail in others, and
it is strongly recommended that the wildcard resolution of resources coming from jars be thoroughly tested in your speciﬁc environment before you
rely on it.

The Classpath: portability classpath: preﬁx

When constructing an XML-based application context, a location string may use the special classpath*: preﬁx:

ApplicationContext ctx =
new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("classpath*:conf/appContext.xml");

This special prefix specifies that all classpath resources that match the given name must be obtained (internally, this essentially happens via a
ClassLoader.getResources(…) call), and then merged to form the final application context definition.

The wildcard classpath relies on the getResources() method of the underlying classloader. As most application servers nowadays
supply their own classloader implementation, the behavior might differ especially when dealing with jar files. A simple test to check if
classpath* works is to use the classloader to load a file from within a jar on the classpath:
getClass().getClassLoader().getResources("<someFileInsideTheJar>") . Try this test with files that have the same
name but are placed inside two different locations. In case an inappropriate result is returned, check the application server
documentation for settings that might affect the classloader behavior.

The classpath*: preﬁx can also be combined with a PathMatcher pattern in the rest of the location path, for example
classpath*:META-INF/*-beans.xml . In this case, the resolution strategy is fairly simple: a ClassLoader.getResources() call is used on
the last non-wildcard path segment to get all the matching resources in the class loader hierarchy, and then off each resource the same PathMatcher
resolution strategy described above is used for the wildcard subpath.

Other notes relating to wildcards

Please note that classpath*: when combined with Ant-style patterns will only work reliably with at least one root directory before the pattern
starts, unless the actual target files reside in the file system. This means that a pattern like classpath*:*.xml will not retrieve files from the root
of jar files but rather only from the root of expanded directories. This originates from a limitation in the JDK’s ClassLoader.getResources()
method which only returns file system locations for a passed-in empty string (indicating potential roots to search).

Ant-style patterns with classpath: resources are not guaranteed to ﬁnd matching resources if the root package to search is available in multiple
class path locations. This is because a resource such as

com/mycompany/package1/service-context.xml

may be in only one location, but when a path such as

classpath:com/mycompany/**/service-context.xml

is used to try to resolve it, the resolver will work off the (ﬁrst) URL returned by getResource("com/mycompany") ;. If this base package node
exists in multiple classloader locations, the actual end resource may not be underneath. Therefore, preferably, use " `classpath*:`" with the same
Ant-style pattern in such a case, which will search all class path locations that contain the root package.

8.7.3 FileSystemResource caveats
A FileSystemResource that is not attached to a FileSystemApplicationContext (that is, a FileSystemApplicationContext is not
the actual ResourceLoader ) will treat absolute vs. relative paths as you would expect. Relative paths are relative to the current working directory,
while absolute paths are relative to the root of the ﬁlesystem.

For backwards compatibility (historical) reasons however, this changes when the FileSystemApplicationContext is the ResourceLoader .
The FileSystemApplicationContext simply forces all attached FileSystemResource instances to treat all location paths as relative,
whether they start with a leading slash or not. In practice, this means the following are equivalent:

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 145/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

ApplicationContext ctx =
new FileSystemXmlApplicationContext("conf/context.xml");

ApplicationContext ctx =
new FileSystemXmlApplicationContext("/conf/context.xml");

As are the following: (Even though it would make sense for them to be different, as one case is relative and the other absolute.)

FileSystemXmlApplicationContext ctx = ...;

ctx.getResource("some/resource/path/myTemplate.txt");

FileSystemXmlApplicationContext ctx = ...;

ctx.getResource("/some/resource/path/myTemplate.txt");

In practice, if true absolute ﬁlesystem paths are needed, it is better to forgo the use of absolute paths with FileSystemResource /
FileSystemXmlApplicationContext , and just force the use of a UrlResource , by using the file: URL preﬁx.

// actual context type doesn't matter, the Resource will always be UrlResource
ctx.getResource("file:///some/resource/path/myTemplate.txt");

// force this FileSystemXmlApplicationContext to load its definition via a UrlResource

ApplicationContext ctx =
new FileSystemXmlApplicationContext("file:///conf/context.xml");

9. Validation, Data Binding, and Type Conversion

9.1 Introduction

JSR-303/JSR-349 Bean Validation

Spring Framework 4.0 supports Bean Validation 1.0 (JSR-303) and Bean Validation 1.1 (JSR-349) in terms of setup support, also adapting it to
Spring’s Validator interface.

An application can choose to enable Bean Validation once globally, as described in Section 9.8, “Spring Validation”, and use it exclusively for
all validation needs.

An application can also register additional Spring Validator instances per DataBinder instance, as described in Section 9.8.3,
“Conﬁguring a DataBinder”. This may be useful for plugging in validation logic without the use of annotations.

There are pros and cons for considering validation as business logic, and Spring offers a design for validation (and data binding) that does not
exclude either one of them. Speciﬁcally validation should not be tied to the web tier, should be easy to localize and it should be possible to plug in
any validator available. Considering the above, Spring has come up with a Validator interface that is both basic and eminently usable in every
layer of an application.

Data binding is useful for allowing user input to be dynamically bound to the domain model of an application (or whatever objects you use to process
user input). Spring provides the so-called DataBinder to do exactly that. The Validator and the DataBinder make up the validation
package, which is primarily used in but not limited to the MVC framework.

The BeanWrapper is a fundamental concept in the Spring Framework and is used in a lot of places. However, you probably will not have the need
to use the BeanWrapper directly. Because this is reference documentation however, we felt that some explanation might be in order. We will
explain the BeanWrapper in this chapter since, if you were going to use it at all, you would most likely do so when trying to bind data to objects.

Spring’s DataBinder and the lower-level BeanWrapper both use PropertyEditors to parse and format property values. The PropertyEditor
concept is part of the JavaBeans speciﬁcation, and is also explained in this chapter. Spring 3 introduces a "core.convert" package that provides a
general type conversion facility, as well as a higher-level "format" package for formatting UI ﬁeld values. These new packages may be used as
simpler alternatives to PropertyEditors, and will also be discussed in this chapter.

9.2 Validation using Spring’s Validator interface

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 146/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Spring features a Validator interface that you can use to validate objects. The Validator interface works using an Errors object so that
while validating, validators can report validation failures to the Errors object.

Let’s consider a small data object:

public class Person {

private String name;

private int age;

// the usual getters and setters...

}

We’re going to provide validation behavior for the Person class by implementing the following two methods of the
org.springframework.validation.Validator interface:

supports(Class) - Can this Validator validate instances of the supplied Class ?

validate(Object, org.springframework.validation.Errors) - validates the given object and in case of validation errors, registers
those with the given Errors object

Implementing a Validator is fairly straightforward, especially when you know of the ValidationUtils helper class that the Spring Framework
also provides.

public class PersonValidator implements Validator {

/**
* This Validator validates *just* Person instances
*/
public boolean supports(Class clazz) {
return Person.class.equals(clazz);
}

public void validate(Object obj, Errors e) {

ValidationUtils.rejectIfEmpty(e, "name", "name.empty");
Person p = (Person) obj;
if (p.getAge() < 0) {
e.rejectValue("age", "negativevalue");
} else if (p.getAge() > 110) {
e.rejectValue("age", "too.darn.old");
}
}
}

As you can see, the static rejectIfEmpty(..) method on the ValidationUtils class is used to reject the 'name' property if it is
null or the empty string. Have a look at the ValidationUtils javadocs to see what functionality it provides besides the example shown
previously.

While it is certainly possible to implement a single Validator class to validate each of the nested objects in a rich object, it may be better to
encapsulate the validation logic for each nested class of object in its own Validator implementation. A simple example of a 'rich' object would be
a Customer that is composed of two String properties (a ﬁrst and second name) and a complex Address object. Address objects may be
used independently of Customer objects, and so a distinct AddressValidator has been implemented. If you want your
CustomerValidator to reuse the logic contained within the AddressValidator class without resorting to copy-and-paste, you can
dependency-inject or instantiate an AddressValidator within your CustomerValidator , and use it like so:

public class CustomerValidator implements Validator {

private final Validator addressValidator;

public CustomerValidator(Validator addressValidator) {

if (addressValidator == null) {
throw new IllegalArgumentException("The supplied [Validator] is " +
"required and must not be null.");
}
if (!addressValidator.supports(Address.class)) {
throw new IllegalArgumentException("The supplied [Validator] must " +
"support the validation of [Address] instances.");
}
this.addressValidator = addressValidator;
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 147/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
this.addressValidator = addressValidator;
}

/**
* This Validator validates Customer instances, and any subclasses of Customer too
*/
public boolean supports(Class clazz) {
return Customer.class.isAssignableFrom(clazz);
}

public void validate(Object target, Errors errors) {

ValidationUtils.rejectIfEmptyOrWhitespace(errors, "firstName", "field.required");
ValidationUtils.rejectIfEmptyOrWhitespace(errors, "surname", "field.required");
Customer customer = (Customer) target;
try {
errors.pushNestedPath("address");
ValidationUtils.invokeValidator(this.addressValidator, customer.getAddress(), errors);
} finally {
errors.popNestedPath();
}
}
}

Validation errors are reported to the Errors object passed to the validator. In case of Spring Web MVC you can use <spring:bind/> tag to
inspect the error messages, but of course you can also inspect the errors object yourself. More information about the methods it offers can be found
in the javadocs.

9.3 Resolving codes to error messages

We’ve talked about databinding and validation. Outputting messages corresponding to validation errors is the last thing we need to discuss. In the
example we’ve shown above, we rejected the name and the age field. If we’re going to output the error messages by using a MessageSource ,
we will do so using the error code we’ve given when rejecting the field ('name' and 'age' in this case). When you call (either directly, or indirectly,
using for example the ValidationUtils class) rejectValue or one of the other reject methods from the Errors interface, the
underlying implementation will not only register the code you’ve passed in, but also a number of additional error codes. What error codes it registers
is determined by the MessageCodesResolver that is used. By default, the DefaultMessageCodesResolver is used, which for example not
only registers a message with the code you gave, but also messages that include the field name you passed to the reject method. So in case you
reject a field using rejectValue("age", "too.darn.old") , apart from the too.darn.old code, Spring will also register
too.darn.old.age and too.darn.old.age.int (so the first will include the field name and the second will include the type of the field); this
is done as a convenience to aid developers in targeting error messages and suchlike.

More information on the MessageCodesResolver and the default strategy can be found online in the javadocs of MessageCodesResolver
and DefaultMessageCodesResolver , respectively.

9.4 Bean manipulation and the BeanWrapper

The org.springframework.beans package adheres to the JavaBeans standard provided by Oracle. A JavaBean is simply a class with a
default no-argument constructor, which follows a naming convention where (by way of an example) a property named bingoMadness would have
a setter method setBingoMadness(..) and a getter method getBingoMadness() . For more information about JavaBeans and the
speciﬁcation, please refer to Oracle’s website ( javabeans).

One quite important class in the beans package is the BeanWrapper interface and its corresponding implementation ( BeanWrapperImpl ). As
quoted from the javadocs, the BeanWrapper offers functionality to set and get property values (individually or in bulk), get property descriptors, and
to query properties to determine if they are readable or writable. Also, the BeanWrapper offers support for nested properties, enabling the setting
of properties on sub-properties to an unlimited depth. Then, the BeanWrapper supports the ability to add standard JavaBeans
PropertyChangeListeners and VetoableChangeListeners , without the need for supporting code in the target class. Last but not least, the
BeanWrapper provides support for the setting of indexed properties. The BeanWrapper usually isn’t used by application code directly, but by the
DataBinder and the BeanFactory .

The way the BeanWrapper works is partly indicated by its name: it wraps a bean to perform actions on that bean, like setting and retrieving
properties.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 148/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

9.4.1 Setting and getting basic and nested properties

Setting and getting properties is done using the setPropertyValue(s) and getPropertyValue(s) methods that both come with a couple of
overloaded variants. They’re all described in more detail in the javadocs Spring comes with. What’s important to know is that there are a couple of
conventions for indicating properties of an object. A couple of examples:

Table 9.1. Examples of properties

Expression Explanation

name Indicates the property name corresponding to the methods getName() or isName() and setName(..)

account.name Indicates the nested property name of the property account corresponding e.g. to the methods
getAccount().setName() or getAccount().getName()

account[2] Indicates the third element of the indexed property account . Indexed properties can be of type array ,
list or other naturally ordered collection

account[COMPANYNAME] Indicates the value of the map entry indexed by the key COMPANYNAME of the Map property account

Below you’ll ﬁnd some examples of working with the BeanWrapper to get and set properties.

(This next section is not vitally important to you if you’re not planning to work with the BeanWrapper directly. If you’re just using the DataBinder
and the BeanFactory and their out-of-the-box implementation, you should skip ahead to the section about PropertyEditors .)

Consider the following two classes:

public class Company {

private String name;

private Employee managingDirector;

public String getName() {

return this.name;
}

public void setName(String name) {

this.name = name;
}

public Employee getManagingDirector() {

return this.managingDirector;
}

public void setManagingDirector(Employee managingDirector) {

this.managingDirector = managingDirector;
}
}

public class Employee {

private String name;

private float salary;

public String getName() {

return this.name;
}

public void setName(String name) {

this.name = name;
}

public float getSalary() {

return salary;

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 149/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
}

public void setSalary(float salary) {

this.salary = salary;
}
}

The following code snippets show some examples of how to retrieve and manipulate some of the properties of instantiated Companies and
Employees :

BeanWrapper company = new BeanWrapperImpl(new Company());

// setting the company name..
company.setPropertyValue("name", "Some Company Inc.");
// ... can also be done like this:
PropertyValue value = new PropertyValue("name", "Some Company Inc.");
company.setPropertyValue(value);

// ok, let's create the director and tie it to the company:

BeanWrapper jim = new BeanWrapperImpl(new Employee());
jim.setPropertyValue("name", "Jim Stravinsky");
company.setPropertyValue("managingDirector", jim.getWrappedInstance());

// retrieving the salary of the managingDirector through the company

Float salary = (Float) company.getPropertyValue("managingDirector.salary");

9.4.2 Built-in PropertyEditor implementations

Spring uses the concept of PropertyEditors to effect the conversion between an Object and a String . If you think about it, it sometimes
might be handy to be able to represent properties in a different way than the object itself. For example, a Date can be represented in a human
readable way (as the String '2007-14-09' ), while we’re still able to convert the human readable form back to the original date (or even better:
convert any date entered in a human readable form, back to Date objects). This behavior can be achieved by registering custom editors, of type
java.beans.PropertyEditor . Registering custom editors on a BeanWrapper or alternately in a speciﬁc IoC container as mentioned in the
previous chapter, gives it the knowledge of how to convert properties to the desired type. Read more about PropertyEditors in the javadocs of
the java.beans package provided by Oracle.

A couple of examples where property editing is used in Spring:

setting properties on beans is done using PropertyEditors . When mentioning java.lang.String as the value of a property of some
bean you’re declaring in XML ﬁle, Spring will (if the setter of the corresponding property has a Class -parameter) use the ClassEditor to try
to resolve the parameter to a Class object.
parsing HTTP request parameters in Spring’s MVC framework is done using all kinds of PropertyEditors that you can manually bind in all
subclasses of the CommandController .

Spring has a number of built-in PropertyEditors to make life easy. Each of those is listed below and they are all located in the
org.springframework.beans.propertyeditors package. Most, but not all (as indicated below), are registered by default by
BeanWrapperImpl . Where the property editor is conﬁgurable in some fashion, you can of course still register your own variant to override the
default one:

Table 9.2. Built-in PropertyEditors

Class Explanation

ByteArrayPropertyEditor Editor for byte arrays. Strings will simply be converted to their corresponding byte representations.
Registered by default by BeanWrapperImpl .

ClassEditor Parses Strings representing classes to actual classes and the other way around. When a class is not
found, an IllegalArgumentException is thrown. Registered by default by BeanWrapperImpl .

CustomBooleanEditor Customizable property editor for Boolean properties. Registered by default by BeanWrapperImpl ,
but, can be overridden by registering custom instance of it as custom editor.

CustomCollectionEditor Property editor for Collections, converting any source Collection to a given target Collection
type.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 150/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Class Explanation

CustomDateEditor Customizable property editor for java.util.Date, supporting a custom DateFormat. NOT registered by
default. Must be user registered as needed with appropriate format.

CustomNumberEditor Customizable property editor for any Number subclass like Integer , Long , Float , Double .
Registered by default by BeanWrapperImpl , but can be overridden by registering custom instance of it
as a custom editor.

FileEditor Capable of resolving Strings to java.io.File objects. Registered by default by BeanWrapperImpl .

InputStreamEditor One-way property editor, capable of taking a text string and producing (via an intermediate
ResourceEditor and Resource ) an InputStream , so InputStream properties may be directly
set as Strings. Note that the default usage will not close the InputStream for you! Registered by
default by BeanWrapperImpl .

LocaleEditor Capable of resolving Strings to Locale objects and vice versa (the String format is [country][variant],
which is the same thing the toString() method of Locale provides). Registered by default by
BeanWrapperImpl .

PatternEditor Capable of resolving Strings to java.util.regex.Pattern objects and vice versa.

PropertiesEditor Capable of converting Strings (formatted using the format as deﬁned in the javadocs of the
java.util.Properties class) to Properties objects. Registered by default by
BeanWrapperImpl .

StringTrimmerEditor Property editor that trims Strings. Optionally allows transforming an empty string into a null value. NOT
registered by default; must be user registered as needed.

URLEditor Capable of resolving a String representation of a URL to an actual URL object. Registered by default by
BeanWrapperImpl .

Spring uses the java.beans.PropertyEditorManager to set the search path for property editors that might be needed. The search path also
includes sun.bean.editors , which includes PropertyEditor implementations for types such as Font , Color , and most of the primitive
types. Note also that the standard JavaBeans infrastructure will automatically discover PropertyEditor classes (without you having to register
them explicitly) if they are in the same package as the class they handle, and have the same name as that class, with 'Editor' appended; for
example, one could have the following class and package structure, which would be sufﬁcient for the FooEditor class to be recognized and used
as the PropertyEditor for Foo -typed properties.

com
chank
pop
Foo
FooEditor // the PropertyEditor for the Foo class

Note that you can also use the standard BeanInfo JavaBeans mechanism here as well (described in not-amazing-detail here). Find below an
example of using the BeanInfo mechanism for explicitly registering one or more PropertyEditor instances with the properties of an
associated class.

com
chank
pop
Foo
FooBeanInfo // the BeanInfo for the Foo class

Here is the Java source code for the referenced FooBeanInfo class. This would associate a CustomNumberEditor with the age property of
the Foo class.

public class FooBeanInfo extends SimpleBeanInfo {

public PropertyDescriptor[] getPropertyDescriptors() {

try {
final PropertyEditor numberPE = new CustomNumberEditor(Integer.class, true);
PropertyDescriptor ageDescriptor = new PropertyDescriptor("age", Foo.class) {
public PropertyEditor createPropertyEditor(Object bean) {
return numberPE;
};
};
return new PropertyDescriptor[] { ageDescriptor };
}
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 151/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
catch (IntrospectionException ex) {
throw new Error(ex.toString());
}
}
}

Registering additional custom PropertyEditors

When setting bean properties as a string value, a Spring IoC container ultimately uses standard JavaBeans PropertyEditors to convert these
Strings to the complex type of the property. Spring pre-registers a number of custom PropertyEditors (for example, to convert a classname
expressed as a string into a real Class object). Additionally, Java’s standard JavaBeans PropertyEditor lookup mechanism allows a
PropertyEditor for a class simply to be named appropriately and placed in the same package as the class it provides support for, to be found
automatically.

If there is a need to register other custom PropertyEditors , there are several mechanisms available. The most manual approach, which is not
normally convenient or recommended, is to simply use the registerCustomEditor() method of the ConfigurableBeanFactory interface,
assuming you have a BeanFactory reference. Another, slightly more convenient, mechanism is to use a special bean factory post-processor
called CustomEditorConfigurer . Although bean factory post-processors can be used with BeanFactory implementations, the
CustomEditorConfigurer has a nested property setup, so it is strongly recommended that it is used with the ApplicationContext , where it
may be deployed in similar fashion to any other bean, and automatically detected and applied.

Note that all bean factories and application contexts automatically use a number of built-in property editors, through their use of something called a
BeanWrapper to handle property conversions. The standard property editors that the BeanWrapper registers are listed in the previous section.
Additionally, ApplicationContexts also override or add an additional number of editors to handle resource lookups in a manner appropriate to
the speciﬁc application context type.

Standard JavaBeans PropertyEditor instances are used to convert property values expressed as strings to the actual complex type of the
property. CustomEditorConfigurer , a bean factory post-processor, may be used to conveniently add support for additional PropertyEditor
instances to an ApplicationContext .

Consider a user class ExoticType , and another class DependsOnExoticType which needs ExoticType set as a property:

package example;

public class ExoticType {

private String name;

public ExoticType(String name) {

this.name = name;
}
}

public class DependsOnExoticType {

private ExoticType type;

public void setType(ExoticType type) {

this.type = type;
}
}

When things are properly set up, we want to be able to assign the type property as a string, which a PropertyEditor will behind the scenes
convert into an actual ExoticType instance:

<bean id="sample" class="example.DependsOnExoticType">

The PropertyEditor implementation could look similar to this:

// converts string representation to ExoticType object

package example;

public class ExoticTypeEditor extends PropertyEditorSupport {

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 152/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
public void setAsText(String text) {
setValue(new ExoticType(text.toUpperCase()));
}
}

Finally, we use CustomEditorConfigurer to register the new PropertyEditor with the ApplicationContext , which will then be able to
use it as needed:

Using PropertyEditorRegistrars
Another mechanism for registering property editors with the Spring container is to create and use a PropertyEditorRegistrar . This interface is
particularly useful when you need to use the same set of property editors in several different situations: write a corresponding registrar and reuse
that in each case. PropertyEditorRegistrars work in conjunction with an interface called PropertyEditorRegistry , an interface that is
implemented by the Spring BeanWrapper (and DataBinder ). PropertyEditorRegistrars are particularly convenient when used in
conjunction with the CustomEditorConfigurer (introduced here), which exposes a property called setPropertyEditorRegistrars(..) :
PropertyEditorRegistrars added to a CustomEditorConfigurer in this fashion can easily be shared with DataBinder and Spring
MVC Controllers . Furthermore, it avoids the need for synchronization on custom editors: a PropertyEditorRegistrar is expected to
create fresh PropertyEditor instances for each bean creation attempt.

Using a PropertyEditorRegistrar is perhaps best illustrated with an example. First off, you need to create your own
PropertyEditorRegistrar implementation:

package com.foo.editors.spring;

public final class CustomPropertyEditorRegistrar implements PropertyEditorRegistrar {

public void registerCustomEditors(PropertyEditorRegistry registry) {

// it is expected that new PropertyEditor instances are created

registry.registerCustomEditor(ExoticType.class, new ExoticTypeEditor());

// you could register as many custom property editors as are required here...
}
}

public final class RegisterUserController extends SimpleFormController {

private final PropertyEditorRegistrar customPropertyEditorRegistrar;

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 153/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

public RegisterUserController(PropertyEditorRegistrar propertyEditorRegistrar) {

this.customPropertyEditorRegistrar = propertyEditorRegistrar;
}

protected void initBinder(HttpServletRequest request,

ServletRequestDataBinder binder) throws Exception {
this.customPropertyEditorRegistrar.registerCustomEditors(binder);
}

// other methods to do with registering a User

}

This style of PropertyEditor registration can lead to concise code (the implementation of initBinder(..) is just one line long!), and allows
common PropertyEditor registration code to be encapsulated in a class and then shared amongst as many Controllers as needed.

9.5 Spring Type Conversion

Spring 3 introduces a core.convert package that provides a general type conversion system. The system deﬁnes an SPI to implement type
conversion logic, as well as an API to execute type conversions at runtime. Within a Spring container, this system can be used as an alternative to
PropertyEditors to convert externalized bean property value strings to required property types. The public API may also be used anywhere in your
application where type conversion is needed.

9.5.1 Converter SPI
The SPI to implement type conversion logic is simple and strongly typed:

package org.springframework.core.convert.converter;

public interface Converter<S, T> {

T convert(S source);

To create your own converter, simply implement the interface above. Parameterize S as the type you are converting from, and T as the type you
are converting to. Such a converter can also be applied transparently if a collection or array of S needs to be converted to an array or collection of
T , provided that a delegating array/collection converter has been registered as well (which DefaultConversionService does by default).

For each call to convert(S) , the source argument is guaranteed to be NOT null. Your Converter may throw any unchecked exception if
conversion fails; speciﬁcally, an IllegalArgumentException should be thrown to report an invalid source value. Take care to ensure that your
Converter implementation is thread-safe.

Several converter implementations are provided in the core.convert.support package as a convenience. These include converters from
Strings to Numbers and other common types. Consider StringToInteger as an example for a typical Converter implementation:

package org.springframework.core.convert.support;

final class StringToInteger implements Converter<String, Integer> {

public Integer convert(String source) {

return Integer.valueOf(source);
}

9.5.2 ConverterFactory
When you need to centralize the conversion logic for an entire class hierarchy, for example, when converting from String to java.lang.Enum objects,
implement ConverterFactory :

package org.springframework.core.convert.converter;

public interface ConverterFactory<S, R> {

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 154/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

<T extends R> Converter<S, T> getConverter(Class<T> targetType);

Parameterize S to be the type you are converting from and R to be the base type deﬁning the range of classes you can convert to. Then implement
getConverter(Class<T>), where T is a subclass of R.

Consider the StringToEnum ConverterFactory as an example:

package org.springframework.core.convert.support;

final class StringToEnumConverterFactory implements ConverterFactory<String, Enum> {

public <T extends Enum> Converter<String, T> getConverter(Class<T> targetType) {

return new StringToEnumConverter(targetType);
}

private final class StringToEnumConverter<T extends Enum> implements Converter<String, T> {

private Class<T> enumType;

public StringToEnumConverter(Class<T> enumType) {

this.enumType = enumType;
}

public T convert(String source) {

return (T) Enum.valueOf(this.enumType, source.trim());
}
}
}

9.5.3 GenericConverter
When you require a sophisticated Converter implementation, consider the GenericConverter interface. With a more flexible but less strongly typed
signature, a GenericConverter supports converting between multiple source and target types. In addition, a GenericConverter makes available
source and target field context you can use when implementing your conversion logic. Such context allows a type conversion to be driven by a field
annotation, or generic information declared on a field signature.

package org.springframework.core.convert.converter;

public interface GenericConverter {

public Set<ConvertiblePair> getConvertibleTypes();

Object convert(Object source, TypeDescriptor sourceType, TypeDescriptor targetType);

To implement a GenericConverter, have getConvertibleTypes() return the supported source→target type pairs. Then implement convert(Object,
TypeDescriptor, TypeDescriptor) to implement your conversion logic. The source TypeDescriptor provides access to the source ﬁeld holding the
value being converted. The target TypeDescriptor provides access to the target ﬁeld where the converted value will be set.

A good example of a GenericConverter is a converter that converts between a Java Array and a Collection. Such an ArrayToCollectionConverter
introspects the ﬁeld that declares the target Collection type to resolve the Collection’s element type. This allows each element in the source array to
be converted to the Collection element type before the Collection is set on the target ﬁeld.

Because GenericConverter is a more complex SPI interface, only use it when you need it. Favor Converter or ConverterFactory for
basic type conversion needs.

ConditionalGenericConverter
Sometimes you only want a Converter to execute if a specific condition holds true. For example, you might only want to execute a Converter if
a specific annotation is present on the target field. Or you might only want to execute a Converter if a specific method, such as a

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 155/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
static valueOf method, is deﬁned on the target class. ConditionalGenericConverter is the union of the GenericConverter and
ConditionalConverter interfaces that allows you to deﬁne such custom matching criteria:

public interface ConditionalConverter {

boolean matches(TypeDescriptor sourceType, TypeDescriptor targetType);

public interface ConditionalGenericConverter

extends GenericConverter, ConditionalConverter {

A good example of a ConditionalGenericConverter is an EntityConverter that converts between an persistent entity identifier and an entity
reference. Such a EntityConverter might only match if the target entity type declares a static finder method e.g. findAccount(Long) . You would
perform such a finder method check in the implementation of matches(TypeDescriptor, TypeDescriptor) .

9.5.4 ConversionService API
The ConversionService deﬁnes a uniﬁed API for executing type conversion logic at runtime. Converters are often executed behind this facade
interface:

package org.springframework.core.convert;

public interface ConversionService {

boolean canConvert(Class<?> sourceType, Class<?> targetType);

<T> T convert(Object source, Class<T> targetType);

boolean canConvert(TypeDescriptor sourceType, TypeDescriptor targetType);

Object convert(Object source, TypeDescriptor sourceType, TypeDescriptor targetType);

Most ConversionService implementations also implement ConverterRegistry , which provides an SPI for registering converters. Internally, a
ConversionService implementation delegates to its registered converters to carry out type conversion logic.

A robust ConversionService implementation is provided in the core.convert.support package. GenericConversionService is the

general-purpose implementation suitable for use in most environments. ConversionServiceFactory provides a convenient factory for creating
common ConversionService conﬁgurations.

9.5.5 Conﬁguring a ConversionService
A ConversionService is a stateless object designed to be instantiated at application startup, then shared between multiple threads. In a Spring
application, you typically conﬁgure a ConversionService instance per Spring container (or ApplicationContext). That ConversionService will be
picked up by Spring and then used whenever a type conversion needs to be performed by the framework. You may also inject this
ConversionService into any of your beans and invoke it directly.

If no ConversionService is registered with Spring, the original PropertyEditor-based system is used.

To register a default ConversionService with Spring, add the following bean deﬁnition with id conversionService :

A default ConversionService can convert between strings, numbers, enums, collections, maps, and other common types. To supplement or override
the default converters with your own custom converter(s), set the converters property. Property values may implement either of the Converter,
ConverterFactory, or GenericConverter interfaces.

It is also common to use a ConversionService within a Spring MVC application. See Section 22.16.3, “Conversion and Formatting” in the Spring
MVC chapter.

In certain situations you may wish to apply formatting during conversion. See Section 9.6.3, “FormatterRegistry SPI” for details on using
FormattingConversionServiceFactoryBean .

9.5.6 Using a ConversionService programmatically

To work with a ConversionService instance programmatically, simply inject a reference to it like you would for any other bean:

@Service
public class MyService {

@Autowired
public MyService(ConversionService conversionService) {
this.conversionService = conversionService;
}

public void doIt() {

this.conversionService.convert(...)
}
}

For most use cases, the convert method specifying the targetType can be used but it will not work with more complex types such as a collection
of a parameterized element. If you want to convert a List of Integer to a List of String programmatically, for instance, you need to
provide a formal deﬁnition of the source and target types.

Fortunately, TypeDescriptor provides various options to make that straightforward:

DefaultConversionService cs = new DefaultConversionService();

List<Integer> input = ....

cs.convert(input,
TypeDescriptor.forObject(input), // List<Integer> type descriptor
TypeDescriptor.collection(List.class, TypeDescriptor.valueOf(String.class)));

Note that DefaultConversionService registers converters automatically which are appropriate for most environments. This includes collection
converters, scalar converters, and also basic Object to String converters. The same converters can be registered with any
ConverterRegistry using the static addDefaultConverters method on the DefaultConversionService class.

Converters for value types will be reused for arrays and collections, so there is no need to create a speciﬁc converter to convert from a
Collection of S to a Collection of T , assuming that standard collection handling is appropriate.

9.6 Spring Field Formatting

As discussed in the previous section, core.convert is a general-purpose type conversion system. It provides a uniﬁed ConversionService API as
well as a strongly-typed Converter SPI for implementing conversion logic from one type to another. A Spring Container uses this system to bind bean
property values. In addition, both the Spring Expression Language (SpEL) and DataBinder use this system to bind ﬁeld values. For example, when
SpEL needs to coerce a Short to a Long to complete an expression.setValue(Object bean, Object value) attempt, the
core.convert system performs the coercion.

Now consider the type conversion requirements of a typical client environment such as a web or desktop application. In such environments, you
typically convert from String to support the client postback process, as well as back to String to support the view rendering process. In addition, you
often need to localize String values. The more general core.convert Converter SPI does not address such formatting requirements directly. To
directly address them, Spring 3 introduces a convenient Formatter SPI that provides a simple and robust alternative to PropertyEditors for client
environments.
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 157/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
In general, use the Converter SPI when you need to implement general-purpose type conversion logic; for example, for converting between a
java.util.Date and and java.lang.Long. Use the Formatter SPI when you’re working in a client environment, such as a web application, and need to
parse and print localized ﬁeld values. The ConversionService provides a uniﬁed type conversion API for both SPIs.

9.6.1 Formatter SPI
The Formatter SPI to implement ﬁeld formatting logic is simple and strongly typed:

package org.springframework.format;

public interface Formatter<T> extends Printer<T>, Parser<T> {

}

Where Formatter extends from the Printer and Parser building-block interfaces:

public interface Printer<T> {

String print(T fieldValue, Locale locale);
}

import java.text.ParseException;

public interface Parser<T> {

T parse(String clientValue, Locale locale) throws ParseException;
}

To create your own Formatter, simply implement the Formatter interface above. Parameterize T to be the type of object you wish to format, for
example, java.util.Date . Implement the print() operation to print an instance of T for display in the client locale. Implement the parse()
operation to parse an instance of T from the formatted representation returned from the client locale. Your Formatter should throw a ParseException
or IllegalArgumentException if a parse attempt fails. Take care to ensure your Formatter implementation is thread-safe.

Several Formatter implementations are provided in format subpackages as a convenience. The number package provides a
NumberFormatter , CurrencyFormatter , and PercentFormatter to format java.lang.Number objects using a
java.text.NumberFormat . The datetime package provides a DateFormatter to format java.util.Date objects with a
java.text.DateFormat . The datetime.joda package provides comprehensive datetime formatting support based on the Joda Time library.

Consider DateFormatter as an example Formatter implementation:

package org.springframework.format.datetime;

public final class DateFormatter implements Formatter<Date> {

private String pattern;

public DateFormatter(String pattern) {

this.pattern = pattern;
}

public String print(Date date, Locale locale) {

if (date == null) {
return "";
}
return getDateFormat(locale).format(date);
}

public Date parse(String formatted, Locale locale) throws ParseException {

if (formatted.length() == 0) {
return null;
}
return getDateFormat(locale).parse(formatted);
}

protected DateFormat getDateFormat(Locale locale) {

DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat(this.pattern, locale);
dateFormat.setLenient(false);
return dateFormat;
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 158/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

The Spring team welcomes community-driven Formatter contributions; see jira.spring.io to contribute.

9.6.2 Annotation-driven Formatting
As you will see, field formatting can be configured by field type or annotation. To bind an Annotation to a formatter, implement
AnnotationFormatterFactory:

package org.springframework.format;

public interface AnnotationFormatterFactory<A extends Annotation> {

Set<Class<?>> getFieldTypes();

Printer<?> getPrinter(A annotation, Class<?> fieldType);

Parser<?> getParser(A annotation, Class<?> fieldType);

Parameterize A to be the field annotationType you wish to associate formatting logic with, for example
org.springframework.format.annotation.DateTimeFormat . Have getFieldTypes() return the types of fields the annotation may be
used on. Have getPrinter() return a Printer to print the value of an annotated field. Have getParser() return a Parser to parse a clientValue
for an annotated field.

The example AnnotationFormatterFactory implementation below binds the @NumberFormat Annotation to a formatter. This annotation allows either
a number style or pattern to be speciﬁed:

public final class NumberFormatAnnotationFormatterFactory

implements AnnotationFormatterFactory<NumberFormat> {

public Set<Class<?>> getFieldTypes() {

return new HashSet<Class<?>>(asList(new Class<?>[] {
Short.class, Integer.class, Long.class, Float.class,
Double.class, BigDecimal.class, BigInteger.class }));
}

public Printer<Number> getPrinter(NumberFormat annotation, Class<?> fieldType) {

return configureFormatterFrom(annotation, fieldType);
}

public Parser<Number> getParser(NumberFormat annotation, Class<?> fieldType) {

return configureFormatterFrom(annotation, fieldType);
}

private Formatter<Number> configureFormatterFrom(NumberFormat annotation,

Class<?> fieldType) {
if (!annotation.pattern().isEmpty()) {
return new NumberFormatter(annotation.pattern());
} else {
Style style = annotation.style();
if (style == Style.PERCENT) {
return new PercentFormatter();
} else if (style == Style.CURRENCY) {
return new CurrencyFormatter();
} else {
return new NumberFormatter();
}
}
}
}

To trigger formatting, simply annotate ﬁelds with @NumberFormat:

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 159/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

public class MyModel {

@NumberFormat(style=Style.CURRENCY)
private BigDecimal decimal;

Format Annotation API

A portable format annotation API exists in the org.springframework.format.annotation package. Use @NumberFormat to format
java.lang.Number ﬁelds. Use @DateTimeFormat to format java.util.Date, java.util.Calendar, java.util.Long, or Joda Time ﬁelds.

The example below uses @DateTimeFormat to format a java.util.Date as a ISO Date (yyyy-MM-dd):

public class MyModel {

@DateTimeFormat(iso=ISO.DATE)
private Date date;

9.6.3 FormatterRegistry SPI
The FormatterRegistry is an SPI for registering formatters and converters. FormattingConversionService is an implementation of
FormatterRegistry suitable for most environments. This implementation may be conﬁgured programmatically or declaratively as a Spring bean using
FormattingConversionServiceFactoryBean . Because this implementation also implements ConversionService , it can be directly
conﬁgured for use with Spring’s DataBinder and the Spring Expression Language (SpEL).

Review the FormatterRegistry SPI below:

package org.springframework.format;

public interface FormatterRegistry extends ConverterRegistry {

void addFormatterForFieldType(Class<?> fieldType, Printer<?> printer, Parser<?> parser);

void addFormatterForFieldType(Class<?> fieldType, Formatter<?> formatter);

void addFormatterForFieldType(Formatter<?> formatter);

void addFormatterForAnnotation(AnnotationFormatterFactory<?, ?> factory);

As shown above, Formatters can be registered by ﬁeldType or annotation.

The FormatterRegistry SPI allows you to configure Formatting rules centrally, instead of duplicating such configuration across your Controllers. For
example, you might want to enforce that all Date fields are formatted a certain way, or fields with a specific annotation are formatted in a certain way.
With a shared FormatterRegistry, you define these rules once and they are applied whenever formatting is needed.

9.6.4 FormatterRegistrar SPI
The FormatterRegistrar is an SPI for registering formatters and converters through the FormatterRegistry:

package org.springframework.format;

public interface FormatterRegistrar {

void registerFormatters(FormatterRegistry registry);

A FormatterRegistrar is useful when registering multiple related converters and formatters for a given formatting category, such as Date formatting. It
can also be useful where declarative registration is insufficient. For example when a formatter needs to be indexed under a specific field type

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 160/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
different from its own <T> or when registering a Printer/Parser pair. The next section provides more information on converter and formatter
registration.

9.6.5 Conﬁguring Formatting in Spring MVC

See Section 22.16.3, “Conversion and Formatting” in the Spring MVC chapter.

9.7 Conﬁguring a global date & time format

By default, date and time ﬁelds that are not annotated with @DateTimeFormat are converted from strings using the DateFormat.SHORT style. If
you prefer, you can change this by deﬁning your own global format.

You will need to ensure that Spring does not register default formatters, and instead you should register all formatters manually. Use the
org.springframework.format.datetime.joda.JodaTimeFormatterRegistrar or
org.springframework.format.datetime.DateFormatterRegistrar class depending on whether you use the Joda Time library.

For example, the following Java conﬁguration will register a global ' `yyyyMMdd’ format. This example does not depend on the Joda Time library:

@Configuration
public class AppConfig {

@Bean
public FormattingConversionService conversionService() {

// Use the DefaultFormattingConversionService but do not register defaults

DefaultFormattingConversionService conversionService = new DefaultFormattingConversionService(false);

// Ensure @NumberFormat is still supported

conversionService.addFormatterForFieldAnnotation(new NumberFormatAnnotationFormatterFactory());

// Register date conversion with a specific global format

DateFormatterRegistrar registrar = new DateFormatterRegistrar();
registrar.setFormatter(new DateFormatter("yyyyMMdd"));
registrar.registerFormatters(conversionService);

return conversionService;
}
}

If you prefer XML based conﬁguration you can use a FormattingConversionServiceFactoryBean . Here is the same example, this time
using Joda Time:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<bean id="conversionService" class="org.springframework.format.support.FormattingConversionServiceFactoryBean">

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 161/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
</property>
</bean>
</beans>

Joda Time provides separate distinct types to represent date , time and date-time values. The dateFormatter ,
timeFormatter and dateTimeFormatter properties of the JodaTimeFormatterRegistrar should be used to conﬁgure the
different formats for each type. The DateTimeFormatterFactoryBean provides a convenient way to create formatters.

If you are using Spring MVC remember to explicitly conﬁgure the conversion service that is used. For Java based @Configuration this means
extending the WebMvcConfigurationSupport class and overriding the mvcConversionService() method. For XML you should use the
'conversion-service' attribute of the mvc:annotation-driven element. See Section 22.16.3, “Conversion and Formatting” for details.

9.8 Spring Validation
Spring 3 introduces several enhancements to its validation support. First, the JSR-303 Bean Validation API is now fully supported. Second, when
used programmatically, Spring’s DataBinder can now validate objects as well as bind to them. Third, Spring MVC now has support for declaratively
validating @Controller inputs.

9.8.1 Overview of the JSR-303 Bean Validation API

JSR-303 standardizes validation constraint declaration and metadata for the Java platform. Using this API, you annotate domain model properties
with declarative validation constraints and the runtime enforces them. There are a number of built-in constraints you can take advantage of. You may
also deﬁne your own custom constraints.

To illustrate, consider a simple PersonForm model with two properties:

public class PersonForm {

private String name;
private int age;
}

JSR-303 allows you to deﬁne declarative validation constraints against such properties:

public class PersonForm {

@NotNull
@Size(max=64)
private String name;

@Min(0)
private int age;

When an instance of this class is validated by a JSR-303 Validator, these constraints will be enforced.

For general information on JSR-303/JSR-349, see the Bean Validation website. For information on the speciﬁc capabilities of the default reference
implementation, see the Hibernate Validator documentation. To learn how to setup a Bean Validation provider as a Spring bean, keep reading.

9.8.2 Conﬁguring a Bean Validation Provider

Spring provides full support for the Bean Validation API. This includes convenient support for bootstrapping a JSR-303/JSR-349 Bean Validation
provider as a Spring bean. This allows for a javax.validation.ValidatorFactory or javax.validation.Validator to be injected
wherever validation is needed in your application.

Use the LocalValidatorFactoryBean to conﬁgure a default Validator as a Spring bean:

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 162/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The basic conﬁguration above will trigger Bean Validation to initialize using its default bootstrap mechanism. A JSR-303/JSR-349 provider, such as
Hibernate Validator, is expected to be present in the classpath and will be detected automatically.

Injecting a Validator
LocalValidatorFactoryBean implements both javax.validation.ValidatorFactory and javax.validation.Validator , as well
as Spring’s org.springframework.validation.Validator . You may inject a reference to either of these interfaces into beans that need to
invoke validation logic.

Inject a reference to javax.validation.Validator if you prefer to work with the Bean Validation API directly:

import javax.validation.Validator;

@Service
public class MyService {

@Autowired
private Validator validator;

Inject a reference to org.springframework.validation.Validator if your bean requires the Spring Validation API:

import org.springframework.validation.Validator;

@Service
public class MyService {

@Autowired
private Validator validator;

Conﬁguring Custom Constraints

Each Bean Validation constraint consists of two parts. First, a @Constraint annotation that declares the constraint and its conﬁgurable properties.
Second, an implementation of the javax.validation.ConstraintValidator interface that implements the constraint’s behavior. To
associate a declaration with an implementation, each @Constraint annotation references a corresponding ValidationConstraint implementation
class. At runtime, a ConstraintValidatorFactory instantiates the referenced implementation when the constraint annotation is encountered in
your domain model.

By default, the LocalValidatorFactoryBean conﬁgures a SpringConstraintValidatorFactory that uses Spring to create

ConstraintValidator instances. This allows your custom ConstraintValidators to beneﬁt from dependency injection like any other Spring bean.

Shown below is an example of a custom @Constraint declaration, followed by an associated ConstraintValidator implementation that
uses Spring for dependency injection:

@Target({ElementType.METHOD, ElementType.FIELD})
@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@Constraint(validatedBy=MyConstraintValidator.class)
public @interface MyConstraint {
}

import javax.validation.ConstraintValidator;

public class MyConstraintValidator implements ConstraintValidator {

@Autowired;
private Foo aDependency;

...
}

As you can see, a ConstraintValidator implementation may have its dependencies @Autowired like any other Spring bean.

Spring-driven Method Validation

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 163/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The method validation feature supported by Bean Validation 1.1, and as a custom extension also by Hibernate Validator 4.3, can be integrated into a
Spring context through a MethodValidationPostProcessor bean deﬁnition:

In order to be eligible for Spring-driven method validation, all target classes need to be annotated with Spring’s @Validated annotation, optionally
declaring the validation groups to use. Check out the MethodValidationPostProcessor javadocs for setup details with Hibernate Validator and
Bean Validation 1.1 providers.

Additional Conﬁguration Options

The default LocalValidatorFactoryBean configuration should prove sufficient for most cases. There are a number of configuration options for
various Bean Validation constructs, from message interpolation to traversal resolution. See the LocalValidatorFactoryBean javadocs for more
information on these options.

9.8.3 Configuring a DataBinder
Since Spring 3, a DataBinder instance can be configured with a Validator. Once configured, the Validator may be invoked by calling
binder.validate() . Any validation Errors are automatically added to the binder’s BindingResult.

When working with the DataBinder programmatically, this can be used to invoke validation logic after binding to a target object:

Foo target = new Foo();

DataBinder binder = new DataBinder(target);
binder.setValidator(new FooValidator());

// bind to the target object

binder.bind(propertyValues);

// validate the target object

binder.validate();

// get BindingResult that includes any validation errors

BindingResult results = binder.getBindingResult();

A DataBinder can also be configured with multiple Validator instances via dataBinder.addValidators and
dataBinder.replaceValidators . This is useful when combining globally configured Bean Validation with a Spring Validator configured
locally on a DataBinder instance. See ???.

9.8.4 Spring MVC 3 Validation

See Section 22.16.4, “Validation” in the Spring MVC chapter.

10. Spring Expression Language (SpEL)

10.1 Introduction
The Spring Expression Language (SpEL for short) is a powerful expression language that supports querying and manipulating an object graph at
runtime. The language syntax is similar to Uniﬁed EL but offers additional features, most notably method invocation and basic string templating
functionality.

While there are several other Java expression languages available, OGNL, MVEL, and JBoss EL, to name a few, the Spring Expression Language
was created to provide the Spring community with a single well supported expression language that can be used across all the products in the
Spring portfolio. Its language features are driven by the requirements of the projects in the Spring portfolio, including tooling requirements for code
completion support within the eclipse based Spring Tool Suite. That said, SpEL is based on a technology agnostic API allowing other expression
language implementations to be integrated should the need arise.

While SpEL serves as the foundation for expression evaluation within the Spring portfolio, it is not directly tied to Spring and can be used
independently. In order to be self contained, many of the examples in this chapter use SpEL as if it were an independent expression language. This
requires creating a few bootstrapping infrastructure classes such as the parser. Most Spring users will not need to deal with this infrastructure and

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 164/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
will instead only author expression strings for evaluation. An example of this typical use is the integration of SpEL into creating XML or annotated
based bean definitions as shown in the section Expression support for defining bean definitions.

This chapter covers the features of the expression language, its API, and its language syntax. In several places an Inventor and Inventor’s Society
class are used as the target objects for expression evaluation. These class declarations and the data used to populate them are listed at the end of
the chapter.

10.2 Feature Overview
The expression language supports the following functionality

Literal expressions
Boolean and relational operators
Regular expressions
Class expressions
Accessing properties, arrays, lists, maps
Method invocation
Relational operators
Assignment
Calling constructors
Bean references
Array construction
Inline lists
Inline maps
Ternary operator
Variables
User deﬁned functions
Collection projection
Collection selection
Templated expressions

10.3 Expression Evaluation using Spring’s Expression Interface

This section introduces the simple use of SpEL interfaces and its expression language. The complete language reference can be found in the
section Language Reference.

The following code introduces the SpEL API to evaluate the literal string expression 'Hello World'.

ExpressionParser parser = new SpelExpressionParser();

Expression exp = parser.parseExpression("'Hello World'");
String message = (String) exp.getValue();

The value of the message variable is simply 'Hello World'.

The SpEL classes and interfaces you are most likely to use are located in the packages org.springframework.expression and its sub
packages and spel.support .

The interface ExpressionParser is responsible for parsing an expression string. In this example the expression string is a string literal denoted
by the surrounding single quotes. The interface Expression is responsible for evaluating the previously deﬁned expression string. There are two
exceptions that can be thrown, ParseException and EvaluationException when calling parser.parseExpression and
exp.getValue respectively.

SpEL supports a wide range of features, such as calling methods, accessing properties, and calling constructors.

As an example of method invocation, we call the concat method on the string literal.

ExpressionParser parser = new SpelExpressionParser();

Expression exp = parser.parseExpression("'Hello World'.concat('!')");
String message = (String) exp.getValue();

The value of message is now 'Hello World!'.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 165/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
As an example of calling a JavaBean property, the String property Bytes can be called as shown below.

ExpressionParser parser = new SpelExpressionParser();

// invokes 'getBytes()'
Expression exp = parser.parseExpression("'Hello World'.bytes");
byte[] bytes = (byte[]) exp.getValue();

SpEL also supports nested properties using standard dot notation, i.e. prop1.prop2.prop3 and the setting of property values

Public ﬁelds may also be accessed.

ExpressionParser parser = new SpelExpressionParser();

// invokes 'getBytes().length'
Expression exp = parser.parseExpression("'Hello World'.bytes.length");
int length = (Integer) exp.getValue();

The String’s constructor can be called instead of using a string literal.

ExpressionParser parser = new SpelExpressionParser();

Expression exp = parser.parseExpression("new String('hello world').toUpperCase()");
String message = exp.getValue(String.class);

Note the use of the generic method public <T> T getValue(Class<T> desiredResultType) . Using this method removes the need to
cast the value of the expression to the desired result type. An EvaluationException will be thrown if the value cannot be cast to the type T or
converted using the registered type converter.

The more common usage of SpEL is to provide an expression string that is evaluated against a speciﬁc object instance (called the root object).
There are two options here and which to choose depends on whether the object against which the expression is being evaluated will be changing
with each call to evaluate the expression. In the following example we retrieve the name property from an instance of the Inventor class.

// Create and set a calendar

GregorianCalendar c = new GregorianCalendar();
c.set(1856, 7, 9);

// The constructor arguments are name, birthday, and nationality.

Inventor tesla = new Inventor("Nikola Tesla", c.getTime(), "Serbian");

ExpressionParser parser = new SpelExpressionParser();

Expression exp = parser.parseExpression("name");

EvaluationContext context = new StandardEvaluationContext(tesla);

String name = (String) exp.getValue(context);

In the last line, the value of the string variable name will be set to "Nikola Tesla". The class StandardEvaluationContext is where you can specify
which object the "name" property will be evaluated against. This is the mechanism to use if the root object is unlikely to change, it can simply be set
once in the evaluation context. If the root object is likely to change repeatedly, it can be supplied on each call to getValue , as this next example
shows:

/ Create and set a calendar

GregorianCalendar c = new GregorianCalendar();
c.set(1856, 7, 9);

// The constructor arguments are name, birthday, and nationality.

Inventor tesla = new Inventor("Nikola Tesla", c.getTime(), "Serbian");

ExpressionParser parser = new SpelExpressionParser();

Expression exp = parser.parseExpression("name");
String name = (String) exp.getValue(tesla);

In this case the inventor tesla has been supplied directly to getValue and the expression evaluation infrastructure creates and manages a
default evaluation context internally - it did not require one to be supplied.

The StandardEvaluationContext is relatively expensive to construct and during repeated usage it builds up cached state that enables subsequent
expression evaluations to be performed more quickly. For this reason it is better to cache and reuse them where possible, rather than construct a

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 166/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
new one for each expression evaluation.

In some cases it can be desirable to use a configured evaluation context and yet still supply a different root object on each call to getValue .
getValue allows both to be specified on the same call. In these situations the root object passed on the call is considered to override any (which
maybe null) specified on the evaluation context.

In standalone usage of SpEL there is a need to create the parser, parse expressions and perhaps provide evaluation contexts and a
root context object. However, more common usage is to provide only the SpEL expression string as part of a configuration file, for
example for Spring bean or Spring Web Flow definitions. In this case, the parser, evaluation context, root object and any predefined
variables are all set up implicitly, requiring the user to specify nothing other than the expressions.

As a ﬁnal introductory example, the use of a boolean operator is shown using the Inventor object in the previous example.

Expression exp = parser.parseExpression("name == 'Nikola Tesla'");

boolean result = exp.getValue(context, Boolean.class); // evaluates to true

10.3.1 The EvaluationContext interface

The interface EvaluationContext is used when evaluating an expression to resolve properties, methods, ﬁelds, and to help perform type
conversion. The out-of-the-box implementation, StandardEvaluationContext , uses reﬂection to manipulate the object, caching
java.lang.reflect.Method , java.lang.reflect.Field , and java.lang.reflect.Constructor instances for increased
performance.

The StandardEvaluationContext is where you may specify the root object to evaluate against via the method setRootObject() or passing
the root object into the constructor. You can also specify variables and functions that will be used in the expression using the methods
setVariable() and registerFunction() . The use of variables and functions are described in the language reference sections Variables
and Functions. The StandardEvaluationContext is also where you can register custom ConstructorResolver s, MethodResolver s,
and PropertyAccessor s to extend how SpEL evaluates expressions. Please refer to the javadoc of these classes for more details.

Type Conversion
By default SpEL uses the conversion service available in Spring core ( org.springframework.core.convert.ConversionService ). This
conversion service comes with many converters built in for common conversions but is also fully extensible so custom conversions between types
can be added. Additionally it has the key capability that it is generics aware. This means that when working with generic types in expressions, SpEL
will attempt conversions to maintain type correctness for any objects it encounters.

What does this mean in practice? Suppose assignment, using setValue() , is being used to set a List property. The type of the property is
actually List<Boolean> . SpEL will recognize that the elements of the list need to be converted to Boolean before being placed in it. A simple
example:

class Simple {
public List<Boolean> booleanList = new ArrayList<Boolean>();
}

Simple simple = new Simple();

simple.booleanList.add(true);

StandardEvaluationContext simpleContext = new StandardEvaluationContext(simple);

// false is passed in here as a string. SpEL and the conversion service will

// correctly recognize that it needs to be a Boolean and convert it

parser.parseExpression("booleanList[0]").setValue(simpleContext, "false");

// b will be false
Boolean b = simple.booleanList.get(0);

10.3.2 Parser conﬁguration

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 167/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
It is possible to configure the SpEL expression parser using a parser configuration object
( org.springframework.expression.spel.SpelParserConfiguration ). The configuration object controls the behavior of some of the
expression components. For example, if indexing into an array or collection and the element at the specified index is null it is possible to
automatically create the element. This is useful when using expressions made up of a chain of property references. If indexing into an array or list
and specifying an index that is beyond the end of the current size of the array or list it is possible to automatically grow the array or list to
accommodate that index.

class Demo {
public List<String> list;
}

// Turn on:
// - auto null reference initialization
// - auto collection growing
SpelParserConfiguration config = new SpelParserConfiguration(true,true);

ExpressionParser parser = new SpelExpressionParser(config);

Expression expression = parser.parseExpression("list[3]");

Demo demo = new Demo();

Object o = expression.getValue(demo);

// demo.list will now be a real collection of 4 entries

// Each entry is a new empty String

It is also possible to conﬁgure the behaviour of the SpEL expression compiler.

10.3.3 SpEL compilation
Spring Framework 4.1 includes a basic expression compiler. Expressions are usually interpreted which provides a lot of dynamic ﬂexibility during
evaluation but does not provide the optimum performance. For occasional expression usage this is ﬁne, but when used by other components like
Spring Integration, performance can be very important and there is no real need for the dynamism.

The new SpEL compiler is intended to address this need. The compiler will generate a real Java class on the fly during evaluation that embodies the
expression behavior and use that to achieve much faster expression evaluation. Due to the lack of typing around expressions the compiler uses
information gathered during the interpreted evaluations of an expression when performing compilation. For example, it does not know the type of a
property reference purely from the expression but during the first interpreted evaluation it will find out what it is. Of course, basing the compilation on
this information could cause trouble later if the types of the various expression elements change over time. For this reason compilation is best suited
to expressions whose type information is not going to change on repeated evaluations.

For a basic expression like this:

someArray[0].someProperty.someOtherProperty < 0.1

which involves array access, some property derefencing and numeric operations, the performance gain can be very noticeable. In an example micro
benchmark run of 50000 iterations, it was taking 75ms to evaluate using only the interpreter and just 3ms using the compiled version of the
expression.

Compiler conﬁguration
The compiler is not turned on by default, but there are two ways to turn it on. It can be turned on using the parser conﬁguration process discussed
earlier or via a system property when SpEL usage is embedded inside another component. This section discusses both of these options.

It is important to understand that there are a few modes the compiler can operate in, captured in an enum
( org.springframework.expression.spel.SpelCompilerMode ). The modes are as follows:

OFF - The compiler is switched off; this is the default.

IMMEDIATE - In immediate mode the expressions are compiled as soon as possible. This is typically after the ﬁrst interpreted evaluation. If the
compiled expression fails (typically due to a type changing, as described above) then the caller of the expression evaluation will receive an
exception.
MIXED - In mixed mode the expressions silently switch between interpreted and compiled mode over time. After some number of interpreted
runs they will switch to compiled form and if something goes wrong with the compiled form (like a type changing, as described above) then the

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 168/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
expression will automatically switch back to interpreted form again. Sometime later it may generate another compiled form and switch to it.
Basically the exception that the user gets in IMMEDIATE mode is instead handled internally.

IMMEDIATE mode exists because MIXED mode could cause issues for expressions that have side effects. If a compiled expression blows up after
partially succeeding it may have already done something that has affected the state of the system. If this has happened the caller may not want it to
silently re-run in interpreted mode since part of the expression may be running twice.

After selecting a mode, use the SpelParserConfiguration to conﬁgure the parser:

SpelParserConfiguration config = new SpelParserConfiguration(SpelCompilerMode.IMMEDIATE,

this.getClass().getClassLoader());

SpelExpressionParser parser = new SpelExpressionParser(config);

Expression expr = parser.parseExpression("payload");

MyMessage message = new MyMessage();

Object payload = expr.getValue(message);

When specifying the compiler mode it is also possible to specify a classloader (passing null is allowed). Compiled expressions will be defined in a
child classloader created under any that is supplied. It is important to ensure if a classloader is specified it can see all the types involved in the
expression evaluation process. If none is specified then a default classloader will be used (typically the context classloader for the thread that is
running during expression evaluation).

The second way to configure the compiler is for use when SpEL is embedded inside some other component and it may not be possible to configure
via a configuration object. In these cases it is possible to use a system property. The property spring.expression.compiler.mode can be set
to one of the SpelCompilerMode enum values ( off , immediate , or mixed ).

Compiler limitations
With Spring Framework 4.1 the basic compilation framework is in place. However, the framework does not yet support compiling every kind of
expression. The initial focus has been on the common expressions that are likely to be used in performance critical contexts. These kinds of
expression cannot be compiled at the moment:

expressions involving assignment

expressions relying on the conversion service
expressions using custom resolvers or accessors
expressions using selection or projection

More and more types of expression will be compilable in the future.

10.4 Expression support for deﬁning bean deﬁnitions

SpEL expressions can be used with XML or annotation-based configuration metadata for defining BeanDefinition s. In both cases the syntax to
define the expression is of the form #{ <expression string> } .

10.4.1 XML based conﬁguration

A property or constructor-arg value can be set using expressions as shown below.

<bean id="numberGuess" class="org.spring.samples.NumberGuess">

</bean>

The variable systemProperties is predefined, so you can use it in your expressions as shown below. Note that you do not have to prefix the
predefined variable with the # symbol in this context.

<bean id="taxCalculator" class="org.spring.samples.TaxCalculator">

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 169/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

</bean>

You can also refer to other bean properties by name, for example.

<bean id="numberGuess" class="org.spring.samples.NumberGuess">

</bean>

<bean id="shapeGuess" class="org.spring.samples.ShapeGuess">

</bean>

10.4.2 Annotation-based conﬁguration
The @Value annotation can be placed on ﬁelds, methods and method/constructor parameters to specify a default value.

Here is an example to set the default value of a ﬁeld variable.

public static class FieldValueTestBean

@Value("#{ systemProperties['user.region'] }")

private String defaultLocale;

public void setDefaultLocale(String defaultLocale) {

this.defaultLocale = defaultLocale;
}

public String getDefaultLocale() {

return this.defaultLocale;
}

The equivalent but on a property setter method is shown below.

public static class PropertyValueTestBean

private String defaultLocale;

@Value("#{ systemProperties['user.region'] }")

public void setDefaultLocale(String defaultLocale) {
this.defaultLocale = defaultLocale;
}

public String getDefaultLocale() {

return this.defaultLocale;
}

Autowired methods and constructors can also use the @Value annotation.

public class SimpleMovieLister {

private MovieFinder movieFinder;

private String defaultLocale;

@Autowired
public void configure(MovieFinder movieFinder,
@Value("#{ systemProperties['user.region'] }") String defaultLocale) {
this.movieFinder = movieFinder;
this.defaultLocale = defaultLocale;
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 170/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

// ...
}

public class MovieRecommender {

private String defaultLocale;

private CustomerPreferenceDao customerPreferenceDao;

@Autowired
public MovieRecommender(CustomerPreferenceDao customerPreferenceDao,
@Value("#{systemProperties['user.country']}") String defaultLocale) {
this.customerPreferenceDao = customerPreferenceDao;

this.defaultLocale = defaultLocale;
}

// ...
}

10.5 Language Reference

10.5.1 Literal expressions
The types of literal expressions supported are strings, numeric values (int, real, hex), boolean and null. Strings are delimited by single quotes. To put
a single quote itself in a string, use two single quote characters.

The following listing shows simple usage of literals. Typically they would not be used in isolation like this but rather as part of a more complex
expression, for example using a literal on one side of a logical comparison operator.

ExpressionParser parser = new SpelExpressionParser();

// evals to "Hello World"

String helloWorld = (String) parser.parseExpression("'Hello World'").getValue();

double avogadrosNumber = (Double) parser.parseExpression("6.0221415E+23").getValue();

// evals to 2147483647
int maxValue = (Integer) parser.parseExpression("0x7FFFFFFF").getValue();

boolean trueValue = (Boolean) parser.parseExpression("true").getValue();

Object nullValue = parser.parseExpression("null").getValue();

Numbers support the use of the negative sign, exponential notation, and decimal points. By default real numbers are parsed using
Double.parseDouble().

10.5.2 Properties, Arrays, Lists, Maps, Indexers

Navigating with property references is easy: just use a period to indicate a nested property value. The instances of the Inventor class, pupin, and
tesla, were populated with data listed in the section Classes used in the examples. To navigate "down" and get Tesla’s year of birth and Pupin’s city
of birth the following expressions are used.

// evals to 1856
int year = (Integer) parser.parseExpression("Birthdate.Year + 1900").getValue(context);

String city = (String) parser.parseExpression("placeOfBirth.City").getValue(context);

Case insensitivity is allowed for the ﬁrst letter of property names. The contents of arrays and lists are obtained using square bracket notation.

ExpressionParser parser = new SpelExpressionParser();

// Inventions Array
StandardEvaluationContext teslaContext = new StandardEvaluationContext(tesla);
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 171/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

// evaluates to "Induction motor"

String invention = parser.parseExpression("inventions[3]").getValue(
teslaContext, String.class);

// Members List
StandardEvaluationContext societyContext = new StandardEvaluationContext(ieee);

// evaluates to "Nikola Tesla"

String name = parser.parseExpression("Members[0].Name").getValue(
societyContext, String.class);

// List and Array navigation

// evaluates to "Wireless communication"
String invention = parser.parseExpression("Members[0].Inventions[6]").getValue(
societyContext, String.class);

The contents of maps are obtained by specifying the literal key value within the brackets. In this case, because keys for the Ofﬁcers map are strings,
we can specify string literals.

// Officer's Dictionary

Inventor pupin = parser.parseExpression("Officers['president']").getValue(

societyContext, Inventor.class);

// evaluates to "Idvor"
String city = parser.parseExpression("Officers['president'].PlaceOfBirth.City").getValue(
societyContext, String.class);

// setting values

parser.parseExpression("Officers['advisors'][0].PlaceOfBirth.Country").setValue(
societyContext, "Croatia");

10.5.3 Inline lists
Lists can be expressed directly in an expression using {} notation.

// evaluates to a Java list containing the four numbers

List numbers = (List) parser.parseExpression("{1,2,3,4}").getValue(context);

List listOfLists = (List) parser.parseExpression("{{'a','b'},{'x','y'}}").getValue(context);

{} by itself means an empty list. For performance reasons, if the list is itself entirely composed of ﬁxed literals then a constant list is created to
represent the expression, rather than building a new list on each evaluation.

10.5.4 Inline Maps
Maps can also be expressed directly in an expression using {key:value} notation.

// evaluates to a Java map containing the two entries

Map inventorInfo = (Map) parser.parseExpression("{name:'Nikola',dob:'10-July-1856'}").getValue(context);

Map mapOfMaps = (Map) parser.parseExpression("{name:{first:'Nikola',last:'Tesla'},dob:{day:10,month:'July',year:1856}}"

{:} by itself means an empty map. For performance reasons, if the map is itself composed of ﬁxed literals or other nested constant structures (lists
or maps) then a constant map is created to represent the expression, rather than building a new map on each evaluation. Quoting of the map keys is
optional, the examples above are not using quoted keys.

10.5.5 Array construction
Arrays can be built using the familiar Java syntax, optionally supplying an initializer to have the array populated at construction time.

int[] numbers1 = (int[]) parser.parseExpression("new int[4]").getValue(context);

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 172/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

// Array with initializer

int[] numbers2 = (int[]) parser.parseExpression("new int[]{1,2,3}").getValue(context);

// Multi dimensional array

int[][] numbers3 = (int[][]) parser.parseExpression("new int[4][5]").getValue(context);

It is not currently allowed to supply an initializer when constructing a multi-dimensional array.

10.5.6 Methods
Methods are invoked using typical Java programming syntax. You may also invoke methods on literals. Varargs are also supported.

// string literal, evaluates to "bc"

String c = parser.parseExpression("'abc'.substring(2, 3)").getValue(String.class);

// evaluates to true
boolean isMember = parser.parseExpression("isMember('Mihajlo Pupin')").getValue(
societyContext, Boolean.class);

10.5.7 Operators

Relational operators
The relational operators; equal, not equal, less than, less than or equal, greater than, and greater than or equal are supported using standard
operator notation.

// evaluates to true
boolean trueValue = parser.parseExpression("2 == 2").getValue(Boolean.class);

// evaluates to false
boolean falseValue = parser.parseExpression("2 < -5.0").getValue(Boolean.class);

// evaluates to true
boolean trueValue = parser.parseExpression("'black' < 'block'").getValue(Boolean.class);

Greater/less-than comparisons against null follow a simple rule: null is treated as nothing here (i.e. NOT as zero). As a
consequence, any other value is always greater than null ( X > null is always true ) and no other value is ever less than
nothing ( X < null is always false ).
If you prefer numeric comparisons instead, please avoid number-based null comparisons in favor of comparisons against zero (e.g.
X > 0 or X < 0 ).

In addition to standard relational operators SpEL supports the instanceof and regular expression based matches operator.

// evaluates to false
boolean falseValue = parser.parseExpression(
"'xyz' instanceof T(Integer)").getValue(Boolean.class);

// evaluates to true
boolean trueValue = parser.parseExpression(
"'5.00' matches '\^-?\\d+(\\.\\d{2})?$'").getValue(Boolean.class);

//evaluates to false
boolean falseValue = parser.parseExpression(
"'5.0067' matches '\^-?\\d+(\\.\\d{2})?$'").getValue(Boolean.class);

Be careful with primitive types as they are immediately boxed up to the wrapper type, so 1 instanceof T(int) evaluates to
false while 1 instanceof T(Integer) evaluates to true , as expected.

Each symbolic operator can also be speciﬁed as a purely alphabetic equivalent. This avoids problems where the symbols used have special
meaning for the document type in which the expression is embedded (eg. an XML document). The textual equivalents are shown here: lt ( < ), gt
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 173/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
( > ), le ( ⇐ ), ge ( >= ), eq ( == ), ne ( != ), div ( / ), mod ( % ), not ( ! ). These are case insensitive.
Logical operators
The logical operators that are supported are and, or, and not. Their use is demonstrated below.

// -- AND --

// evaluates to false
boolean falseValue = parser.parseExpression("true and false").getValue(Boolean.class);

// evaluates to true
String expression = "isMember('Nikola Tesla') and isMember('Mihajlo Pupin')";
boolean trueValue = parser.parseExpression(expression).getValue(societyContext, Boolean.class);

// -- OR --

// evaluates to true
boolean trueValue = parser.parseExpression("true or false").getValue(Boolean.class);

// evaluates to true
String expression = "isMember('Nikola Tesla') or isMember('Albert Einstein')";
boolean trueValue = parser.parseExpression(expression).getValue(societyContext, Boolean.class);

// -- NOT --

// evaluates to false
boolean falseValue = parser.parseExpression("!true").getValue(Boolean.class);

// -- AND and NOT --

String expression = "isMember('Nikola Tesla') and !isMember('Mihajlo Pupin')";
boolean falseValue = parser.parseExpression(expression).getValue(societyContext, Boolean.class);

Mathematical operators
The addition operator can be used on both numbers and strings. Subtraction, multiplication and division can be used only on numbers. Other
mathematical operators supported are modulus (%) and exponential power (^). Standard operator precedence is enforced. These operators are
demonstrated below.

// Addition
int two = parser.parseExpression("1 + 1").getValue(Integer.class); // 2

String testString = parser.parseExpression(

"'test' + ' ' + 'string'").getValue(String.class); // 'test string'

// Subtraction
int four = parser.parseExpression("1 - -3").getValue(Integer.class); // 4

double d = parser.parseExpression("1000.00 - 1e4").getValue(Double.class); // -9000

// Multiplication
int six = parser.parseExpression("-2 * -3").getValue(Integer.class); // 6

double twentyFour = parser.parseExpression("2.0 * 3e0 * 4").getValue(Double.class); // 24.0

// Division
int minusTwo = parser.parseExpression("6 / -3").getValue(Integer.class); // -2

double one = parser.parseExpression("8.0 / 4e0 / 2").getValue(Double.class); // 1.0

// Modulus
int three = parser.parseExpression("7 % 4").getValue(Integer.class); // 3

int one = parser.parseExpression("8 / 5 % 2").getValue(Integer.class); // 1

// Operator precedence
int minusTwentyOne = parser.parseExpression("1+2-3*8").getValue(Integer.class); // -21

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 174/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

10.5.8 Assignment
Setting of a property is done by using the assignment operator. This would typically be done within a call to setValue but can also be done inside
a call to getValue .

Inventor inventor = new Inventor();

StandardEvaluationContext inventorContext = new StandardEvaluationContext(inventor);

parser.parseExpression("Name").setValue(inventorContext, "Alexander Seovic2");

// alternatively

String aleks = parser.parseExpression(

"Name = 'Alexandar Seovic'").getValue(inventorContext, String.class);

10.5.9 Types
The special T operator can be used to specify an instance of java.lang.Class (the type). Static methods are invoked using this operator as well. The
StandardEvaluationContext uses a TypeLocator to ﬁnd types and the StandardTypeLocator (which can be replaced) is built with an
understanding of the java.lang package. This means T() references to types within java.lang do not need to be fully qualiﬁed, but all other type
references must be.

Class dateClass = parser.parseExpression("T(java.util.Date)").getValue(Class.class);

Class stringClass = parser.parseExpression("T(String)").getValue(Class.class);

boolean trueValue = parser.parseExpression(

"T(java.math.RoundingMode).CEILING < T(java.math.RoundingMode).FLOOR")
.getValue(Boolean.class);

10.5.10 Constructors
Constructors can be invoked using the new operator. The fully qualiﬁed class name should be used for all but the primitive type and String (where
int, ﬂoat, etc, can be used).

Inventor einstein = p.parseExpression(

"new org.spring.samples.spel.inventor.Inventor('Albert Einstein', 'German')")
.getValue(Inventor.class);

//create new inventor instance within add method of List

p.parseExpression(
"Members.add(new org.spring.samples.spel.inventor.Inventor(
'Albert Einstein', 'German'))").getValue(societyContext);

10.5.11 Variables
Variables can be referenced in the expression using the syntax #variableName . Variables are set using the method setVariable on the
StandardEvaluationContext .

Inventor tesla = new Inventor("Nikola Tesla", "Serbian");

StandardEvaluationContext context = new StandardEvaluationContext(tesla);
context.setVariable("newName", "Mike Tesla");

parser.parseExpression("Name = #newName").getValue(context);

System.out.println(tesla.getName()) // "Mike Tesla"

The #this and #root variables

The variable #this is always defined and refers to the current evaluation object (against which unqualified references are resolved). The variable
#root is always defined and refers to the root context object. Although #this may vary as components of an expression are evaluated, #root always
refers to the root.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 175/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
// create an array of integers
List<Integer> primes = new ArrayList<Integer>();
primes.addAll(Arrays.asList(2,3,5,7,11,13,17));

// create parser and set variable 'primes' as the array of integers

ExpressionParser parser = new SpelExpressionParser();
StandardEvaluationContext context = new StandardEvaluationContext();
context.setVariable("primes",primes);

// all prime numbers > 10 from the list (using selection ?{...})
// evaluates to [11, 13, 17]
List<Integer> primesGreaterThanTen = (List<Integer>) parser.parseExpression(
"#primes.?[#this>10]").getValue(context);

10.5.12 Functions
You can extend SpEL by registering user deﬁned functions that can be called within the expression string. The function is registered with the
StandardEvaluationContext using the method.

public void registerFunction(String name, Method m)

A reference to a Java Method provides the implementation of the function. For example, a utility method to reverse a string is shown below.

public abstract class StringUtils {

public static String reverseString(String input) {

StringBuilder backwards = new StringBuilder();
for (int i = 0; i < input.length(); i++)
backwards.append(input.charAt(input.length() - 1 - i));
}
return backwards.toString();
}
}

This method is then registered with the evaluation context and can be used within an expression string.

ExpressionParser parser = new SpelExpressionParser();

StandardEvaluationContext context = new StandardEvaluationContext();

context.registerFunction("reverseString",
StringUtils.class.getDeclaredMethod("reverseString", new Class[] { String.class }));

String helloWorldReversed = parser.parseExpression(

"#reverseString('hello')").getValue(context, String.class);

10.5.13 Bean references
If the evaluation context has been conﬁgured with a bean resolver it is possible to lookup beans from an expression using the (@) symbol.

ExpressionParser parser = new SpelExpressionParser();

StandardEvaluationContext context = new StandardEvaluationContext();
context.setBeanResolver(new MyBeanResolver());

// This will end up calling resolve(context,"foo") on MyBeanResolver during evaluation

Object bean = parser.parseExpression("@foo").getValue(context);

To access a factory bean itself, the bean name should instead be preﬁxed with a (&) symbol.

ExpressionParser parser = new SpelExpressionParser();

StandardEvaluationContext context = new StandardEvaluationContext();
context.setBeanResolver(new MyBeanResolver());

// This will end up calling resolve(context,"&foo") on MyBeanResolver during evaluation

Object bean = parser.parseExpression("&foo").getValue(context);

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 176/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

10.5.14 Ternary Operator (If-Then-Else)

You can use the ternary operator for performing if-then-else conditional logic inside the expression. A minimal example is:

String falseString = parser.parseExpression(

"false ? 'trueExp' : 'falseExp'").getValue(String.class);

In this case, the boolean false results in returning the string value 'falseExp'. A more realistic example is shown below.

parser.parseExpression("Name").setValue(societyContext, "IEEE");
societyContext.setVariable("queryName", "Nikola Tesla");

expression = "isMember(#queryName)? #queryName + ' is a member of the ' " +

"+ Name + ' Society' : #queryName + ' is not a member of the ' + Name + ' Society'";

String queryResultString = parser.parseExpression(expression)

.getValue(societyContext, String.class);
// queryResultString = "Nikola Tesla is a member of the IEEE Society"

Also see the next section on the Elvis operator for an even shorter syntax for the ternary operator.

10.5.15 The Elvis Operator

The Elvis operator is a shortening of the ternary operator syntax and is used in the Groovy language. With the ternary operator syntax you usually
have to repeat a variable twice, for example:

String name = "Elvis Presley";

String displayName = name != null ? name : "Unknown";

Instead you can use the Elvis operator, named for the resemblance to Elvis' hair style.

ExpressionParser parser = new SpelExpressionParser();

String name = parser.parseExpression("name?:'Unknown'").getValue(String.class);

System.out.println(name); // 'Unknown'

Here is a more complex example.

ExpressionParser parser = new SpelExpressionParser();

Inventor tesla = new Inventor("Nikola Tesla", "Serbian");

StandardEvaluationContext context = new StandardEvaluationContext(tesla);

String name = parser.parseExpression("Name?:'Elvis Presley'").getValue(context, String.class);

System.out.println(name); // Nikola Tesla

tesla.setName(null);

name = parser.parseExpression("Name?:'Elvis Presley'").getValue(context, String.class);

System.out.println(name); // Elvis Presley

10.5.16 Safe Navigation operator

The Safe Navigation operator is used to avoid a NullPointerException and comes from the Groovy language. Typically when you have a
reference to an object you might need to verify that it is not null before accessing methods or properties of the object. To avoid this, the safe
navigation operator will simply return null instead of throwing an exception.

ExpressionParser parser = new SpelExpressionParser();

Inventor tesla = new Inventor("Nikola Tesla", "Serbian");

tesla.setPlaceOfBirth(new PlaceOfBirth("Smiljan"));

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 177/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
StandardEvaluationContext context = new StandardEvaluationContext(tesla);

String city = parser.parseExpression("PlaceOfBirth?.City").getValue(context, String.class);

System.out.println(city); // Smiljan

tesla.setPlaceOfBirth(null);

city = parser.parseExpression("PlaceOfBirth?.City").getValue(context, String.class);

System.out.println(city); // null - does not throw NullPointerException!!!

The Elvis operator can be used to apply default values in expressions, e.g. in an @Value expression:
@Value("#{systemProperties['pop3.port'] ?: 25}")
This will inject a system property pop3.port if it is deﬁned or 25 if not.

10.5.17 Collection Selection
Selection is a powerful expression language feature that allows you to transform some source collection into another by selecting from its entries.

Selection uses the syntax .?[selectionExpression] . This will ﬁlter the collection and return a new collection containing a subset of the original
elements. For example, selection would allow us to easily get a list of Serbian inventors:

List<Inventor> list = (List<Inventor>) parser.parseExpression(

"Members.?[Nationality == 'Serbian']").getValue(societyContext);

Selection is possible upon both lists and maps. In the former case the selection criteria is evaluated against each individual list element whilst
against a map the selection criteria is evaluated against each map entry (objects of the Java type Map.Entry ). Map entries have their key and
value accessible as properties for use in the selection.

This expression will return a new map consisting of those elements of the original map where the entry value is less than 27.

Map newMap = parser.parseExpression("map.?[value<27]").getValue();

In addition to returning all the selected elements, it is possible to retrieve just the ﬁrst or the last value. To obtain the ﬁrst entry matching the selection
the syntax is ^[…] whilst to obtain the last matching selection the syntax is $[…] .

10.5.18 Collection Projection
Projection allows a collection to drive the evaluation of a sub-expression and the result is a new collection. The syntax for projection is
![projectionExpression] . Most easily understood by example, suppose we have a list of inventors but want the list of cities where they were
born. Effectively we want to evaluate 'placeOfBirth.city' for every entry in the inventor list. Using projection:

// returns ['Smiljan', 'Idvor' ]

List placesOfBirth = (List)parser.parseExpression("Members.![placeOfBirth.city]");

A map can also be used to drive projection and in this case the projection expression is evaluated against each entry in the map (represented as a
Java Map.Entry ). The result of a projection across a map is a list consisting of the evaluation of the projection expression against each map entry.

10.5.19 Expression templating
Expression templates allow a mixing of literal text with one or more evaluation blocks. Each evaluation block is delimited with prefix and suffix
characters that you can define, a common choice is to use #{ } as the delimiters. For example,

String randomPhrase = parser.parseExpression(

"random number is #{T(java.lang.Math).random()}",
new TemplateParserContext()).getValue(String.class);

// evaluates to "random number is 0.7038186818312008"

The string is evaluated by concatenating the literal text 'random number is ' with the result of evaluating the expression inside the #{ } delimiter, in this
case the result of calling that random() method. The second argument to the method parseExpression() is of the type ParserContext . The

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 178/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
ParserContext interface is used to inﬂuence how the expression is parsed in order to support the expression templating functionality. The
deﬁnition of TemplateParserContext is shown below.

public class TemplateParserContext implements ParserContext {

public String getExpressionPrefix() {

return "#{";
}

public String getExpressionSuffix() {

return "}";
}

public boolean isTemplate() {

return true;
}
}

10.6 Classes used in the examples

Inventor.java

package org.spring.samples.spel.inventor;

import java.util.Date;
import java.util.GregorianCalendar;

public class Inventor {

private String name;

private String nationality;
private String[] inventions;
private Date birthdate;
private PlaceOfBirth placeOfBirth;

public Inventor(String name, String nationality) {

GregorianCalendar c= new GregorianCalendar();
this.name = name;
this.nationality = nationality;
this.birthdate = c.getTime();
}

public Inventor(String name, Date birthdate, String nationality) {

this.name = name;
this.nationality = nationality;
this.birthdate = birthdate;
}

public Inventor() {
}

public String getName() {

return name;
}

public void setName(String name) {

this.name = name;
}

public String getNationality() {

return nationality;
}

public void setNationality(String nationality) {

this.nationality = nationality;
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 179/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
public Date getBirthdate() {
return birthdate;
}

public void setBirthdate(Date birthdate) {

this.birthdate = birthdate;
}

public PlaceOfBirth getPlaceOfBirth() {

return placeOfBirth;
}

public void setPlaceOfBirth(PlaceOfBirth placeOfBirth) {

this.placeOfBirth = placeOfBirth;
}

public void setInventions(String[] inventions) {

this.inventions = inventions;
}

public String[] getInventions() {

return inventions;
}
}

PlaceOfBirth.java

package org.spring.samples.spel.inventor;

public class PlaceOfBirth {

private String city;

private String country;

public PlaceOfBirth(String city) {

this.city=city;
}

public PlaceOfBirth(String city, String country) {

this(city);
this.country = country;
}

public String getCity() {

return city;
}

public void setCity(String s) {

this.city = s;
}

public String getCountry() {

return country;
}

public void setCountry(String country) {

this.country = country;
}

Society.java

package org.spring.samples.spel.inventor;

import java.util.*;

public class Society {

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 180/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
private String name;

public static String Advisors = "advisors";

public static String President = "president";

private List<Inventor> members = new ArrayList<Inventor>();

private Map officers = new HashMap();

public List getMembers() {

return members;
}

public Map getOfficers() {

return officers;
}

public String getName() {

return name;
}

public void setName(String name) {

this.name = name;
}

public boolean isMember(String name) {

for (Inventor inventor : members) {
if (inventor.getName().equals(name)) {
return true;
}
}
return false;
}

11. Aspect Oriented Programming with Spring

11.1 Introduction
Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) complements Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) by providing another way of thinking about program
structure. The key unit of modularity in OOP is the class, whereas in AOP the unit of modularity is the aspect. Aspects enable the modularization of
concerns such as transaction management that cut across multiple types and objects. (Such concerns are often termed crosscutting concerns in
AOP literature.)

One of the key components of Spring is the AOP framework. While the Spring IoC container does not depend on AOP, meaning you do not need to
use AOP if you don’t want to, AOP complements Spring IoC to provide a very capable middleware solution.

Spring 2.0 AOP

Spring 2.0 introduces a simpler and more powerful way of writing custom aspects using either a schema-based approach or the @AspectJ
annotation style. Both of these styles offer fully typed advice and use of the AspectJ pointcut language, while still using Spring AOP for
weaving.

The Spring 2.0 schema- and @AspectJ-based AOP support is discussed in this chapter. Spring 2.0 AOP remains fully backwards compatible
with Spring 1.2 AOP, and the lower-level AOP support offered by the Spring 1.2 APIs is discussed in the following chapter.

AOP is used in the Spring Framework to…

… provide declarative enterprise services, especially as a replacement for EJB declarative services. The most important such service is
declarative transaction management.
… allow users to implement custom aspects, complementing their use of OOP with AOP.

If you are interested only in generic declarative services or other pre-packaged declarative middleware services such as pooling, you

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 181/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
do not need to work directly with Spring AOP, and can skip most of this chapter.

11.1.1 AOP concepts
Let us begin by deﬁning some central AOP concepts and terminology. These terms are not Spring-speciﬁc… unfortunately, AOP terminology is not
particularly intuitive; however, it would be even more confusing if Spring used its own terminology.

Aspect: a modularization of a concern that cuts across multiple classes. Transaction management is a good example of a crosscutting concern
in enterprise Java applications. In Spring AOP, aspects are implemented using regular classes (the schema-based approach) or regular classes
annotated with the @Aspect annotation (the @AspectJ style).
Join point: a point during the execution of a program, such as the execution of a method or the handling of an exception. In Spring AOP, a join
point always represents a method execution.
Advice: action taken by an aspect at a particular join point. Different types of advice include "around," "before" and "after" advice. (Advice types
are discussed below.) Many AOP frameworks, including Spring, model an advice as an interceptor, maintaining a chain of interceptors around
the join point.
Pointcut: a predicate that matches join points. Advice is associated with a pointcut expression and runs at any join point matched by the pointcut
(for example, the execution of a method with a certain name). The concept of join points as matched by pointcut expressions is central to AOP,
and Spring uses the AspectJ pointcut expression language by default.
Introduction: declaring additional methods or ﬁelds on behalf of a type. Spring AOP allows you to introduce new interfaces (and a corresponding
implementation) to any advised object. For example, you could use an introduction to make a bean implement an IsModified interface, to
simplify caching. (An introduction is known as an inter-type declaration in the AspectJ community.)
Target object: object being advised by one or more aspects. Also referred to as the advised object. Since Spring AOP is implemented using
runtime proxies, this object will always be a proxied object.
AOP proxy: an object created by the AOP framework in order to implement the aspect contracts (advise method executions and so on). In the
Spring Framework, an AOP proxy will be a JDK dynamic proxy or a CGLIB proxy.
Weaving: linking aspects with other application types or objects to create an advised object. This can be done at compile time (using the AspectJ
compiler, for example), load time, or at runtime. Spring AOP, like other pure Java AOP frameworks, performs weaving at runtime.

Types of advice:

Before advice: Advice that executes before a join point, but which does not have the ability to prevent execution ﬂow proceeding to the join point
(unless it throws an exception).
After returning advice: Advice to be executed after a join point completes normally: for example, if a method returns without throwing an
exception.
After throwing advice: Advice to be executed if a method exits by throwing an exception.
After (ﬁnally) advice: Advice to be executed regardless of the means by which a join point exits (normal or exceptional return).
Around advice: Advice that surrounds a join point such as a method invocation. This is the most powerful kind of advice. Around advice can
perform custom behavior before and after the method invocation. It is also responsible for choosing whether to proceed to the join point or to
shortcut the advised method execution by returning its own return value or throwing an exception.

Around advice is the most general kind of advice. Since Spring AOP, like AspectJ, provides a full range of advice types, we recommend that you use
the least powerful advice type that can implement the required behavior. For example, if you need only to update a cache with the return value of a
method, you are better off implementing an after returning advice than an around advice, although an around advice can accomplish the same thing.
Using the most speciﬁc advice type provides a simpler programming model with less potential for errors. For example, you do not need to invoke the
proceed() method on the JoinPoint used for around advice, and hence cannot fail to invoke it.

In Spring 2.0, all advice parameters are statically typed, so that you work with advice parameters of the appropriate type (the type of the return value
from a method execution for example) rather than Object arrays.

The concept of join points, matched by pointcuts, is the key to AOP which distinguishes it from older technologies offering only interception.
Pointcuts enable advice to be targeted independently of the Object-Oriented hierarchy. For example, an around advice providing declarative
transaction management can be applied to a set of methods spanning multiple objects (such as all business operations in the service layer).

11.1.2 Spring AOP capabilities and goals

Spring AOP is implemented in pure Java. There is no need for a special compilation process. Spring AOP does not need to control the class loader
hierarchy, and is thus suitable for use in a Servlet container or application server.

Spring AOP currently supports only method execution join points (advising the execution of methods on Spring beans). Field interception is not
implemented, although support for ﬁeld interception could be added without breaking the core Spring AOP APIs. If you need to advise ﬁeld access

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 182/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
and update join points, consider a language such as AspectJ.

Spring AOP’s approach to AOP differs from that of most other AOP frameworks. The aim is not to provide the most complete AOP implementation
(although Spring AOP is quite capable); it is rather to provide a close integration between AOP implementation and Spring IoC to help solve common
problems in enterprise applications.

Thus, for example, the Spring Framework’s AOP functionality is normally used in conjunction with the Spring IoC container. Aspects are configured
using normal bean definition syntax (although this allows powerful "autoproxying" capabilities): this is a crucial difference from other AOP
implementations. There are some things you cannot do easily or efficiently with Spring AOP, such as advise very fine-grained objects (such as
domain objects typically): AspectJ is the best choice in such cases. However, our experience is that Spring AOP provides an excellent solution to
most problems in enterprise Java applications that are amenable to AOP.

Spring AOP will never strive to compete with AspectJ to provide a comprehensive AOP solution. We believe that both proxy-based frameworks like
Spring AOP and full-blown frameworks such as AspectJ are valuable, and that they are complementary, rather than in competition. Spring
seamlessly integrates Spring AOP and IoC with AspectJ, to enable all uses of AOP to be catered for within a consistent Spring-based application
architecture. This integration does not affect the Spring AOP API or the AOP Alliance API: Spring AOP remains backward-compatible. See the
following chapter for a discussion of the Spring AOP APIs.

One of the central tenets of the Spring Framework is that of non-invasiveness; this is the idea that you should not be forced to
introduce framework-specific classes and interfaces into your business/domain model. However, in some places the Spring Framework
does give you the option to introduce Spring Framework-specific dependencies into your codebase: the rationale in giving you such
options is because in certain scenarios it might be just plain easier to read or code some specific piece of functionality in such a way.
The Spring Framework (almost) always offers you the choice though: you have the freedom to make an informed decision as to which
option best suits your particular use case or scenario.
One such choice that is relevant to this chapter is that of which AOP framework (and which AOP style) to choose. You have the choice
of AspectJ and/or Spring AOP, and you also have the choice of either the @AspectJ annotation-style approach or the Spring XML
configuration-style approach. The fact that this chapter chooses to introduce the @AspectJ-style approach first should not be taken as
an indication that the Spring team favors the @AspectJ annotation-style approach over the Spring XML configuration-style.
See Section 11.4, “Choosing which AOP declaration style to use” for a more complete discussion of the whys and wherefores of each
style.

11.1.3 AOP Proxies
Spring AOP defaults to using standard JDK dynamic proxies for AOP proxies. This enables any interface (or set of interfaces) to be proxied.

Spring AOP can also use CGLIB proxies. This is necessary to proxy classes rather than interfaces. CGLIB is used by default if a business object
does not implement an interface. As it is good practice to program to interfaces rather than classes; business classes normally will implement one or
more business interfaces. It is possible to force the use of CGLIB, in those (hopefully rare) cases where you need to advise a method that is not
declared on an interface, or where you need to pass a proxied object to a method as a concrete type.

It is important to grasp the fact that Spring AOP is proxy-based. See Section 11.6.1, “Understanding AOP proxies” for a thorough examination of
exactly what this implementation detail actually means.

11.2 @AspectJ support
@AspectJ refers to a style of declaring aspects as regular Java classes annotated with annotations. The @AspectJ style was introduced by the
AspectJ project as part of the AspectJ 5 release. Spring interprets the same annotations as AspectJ 5, using a library supplied by AspectJ for
pointcut parsing and matching. The AOP runtime is still pure Spring AOP though, and there is no dependency on the AspectJ compiler or weaver.

Using the AspectJ compiler and weaver enables use of the full AspectJ language, and is discussed in Section 11.8, “Using AspectJ
with Spring applications”.

11.2.1 Enabling @AspectJ Support

To use @AspectJ aspects in a Spring conﬁguration you need to enable Spring support for conﬁguring Spring AOP based on @AspectJ aspects, and
autoproxying beans based on whether or not they are advised by those aspects. By autoproxying we mean that if Spring determines that a bean is

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 183/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
advised by one or more aspects, it will automatically generate a proxy for that bean to intercept method invocations and ensure that advice is
executed as needed.

The @AspectJ support can be enabled with XML or Java style conﬁguration. In either case you will also need to ensure that AspectJ’s
aspectjweaver.jar library is on the classpath of your application (version 1.6.8 or later). This library is available in the 'lib' directory of an
AspectJ distribution or via the Maven Central repository.

Enabling @AspectJ Support with Java conﬁguration

To enable @AspectJ support with Java @Configuration add the @EnableAspectJAutoProxy annotation:

@Configuration
@EnableAspectJAutoProxy
public class AppConfig {

Enabling @AspectJ Support with XML conﬁguration

To enable @AspectJ support with XML based conﬁguration use the aop:aspectj-autoproxy element:

<aop:aspectj-autoproxy/>

This assumes that you are using schema support as described in Chapter 41, XML Schema-based conﬁguration. See Section 41.2.7, “the aop
schema” for how to import the tags in the aop namespace.

11.2.2 Declaring an aspect
With the @AspectJ support enabled, any bean defined in your application context with a class that is an @AspectJ aspect (has the @Aspect
annotation) will be automatically detected by Spring and used to configure Spring AOP. The following example shows the minimal definition required
for a not-very-useful aspect:

A regular bean deﬁnition in the application context, pointing to a bean class that has the @Aspect annotation:

<bean id="myAspect" class="org.xyz.NotVeryUsefulAspect">

</bean>

And the NotVeryUsefulAspect class deﬁnition, annotated with org.aspectj.lang.annotation.Aspect annotation;

package org.xyz;
import org.aspectj.lang.annotation.Aspect;

@Aspect
public class NotVeryUsefulAspect {

Aspects (classes annotated with @Aspect ) may have methods and ﬁelds just like any other class. They may also contain pointcut, advice, and
introduction (inter-type) declarations.

You may register aspect classes as regular beans in your Spring XML configuration, or autodetect them through classpath scanning -
just like any other Spring-managed bean. However, note that the @Aspect annotation is not sufficient for autodetection in the
classpath: For that purpose, you need to add a separate @Component annotation (or alternatively a custom stereotype annotation that
qualifies, as per the rules of Spring’s component scanner).

In Spring AOP, it is not possible to have aspects themselves be the target of advice from other aspects. The @Aspect annotation on a
class marks it as an aspect, and hence excludes it from auto-proxying.

11.2.3 Declaring a pointcut
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 184/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Recall that pointcuts determine join points of interest, and thus enable us to control when advice executes. Spring AOP only supports method
execution join points for Spring beans, so you can think of a pointcut as matching the execution of methods on Spring beans. A pointcut declaration
has two parts: a signature comprising a name and any parameters, and a pointcut expression that determines exactly which method executions we
are interested in. In the @AspectJ annotation-style of AOP, a pointcut signature is provided by a regular method deﬁnition, and the pointcut
expression is indicated using the @Pointcut annotation (the method serving as the pointcut signature must have a void return type).

An example will help make this distinction between a pointcut signature and a pointcut expression clear. The following example deﬁnes a pointcut
named 'anyOldTransfer' that will match the execution of any method named 'transfer' :

@Pointcut("execution(* transfer(..))")// the pointcut expression

private void anyOldTransfer() {}// the pointcut signature

The pointcut expression that forms the value of the @Pointcut annotation is a regular AspectJ 5 pointcut expression. For a full discussion of
AspectJ’s pointcut language, see the AspectJ Programming Guide (and for extensions, the AspectJ 5 Developers Notebook) or one of the books on
AspectJ such as "Eclipse AspectJ" by Colyer et. al. or "AspectJ in Action" by Ramnivas Laddad.

Supported Pointcut Designators

Spring AOP supports the following AspectJ pointcut designators (PCD) for use in pointcut expressions:

Other pointcut types

The full AspectJ pointcut language supports additional pointcut designators that are not supported in Spring. These are:
call, get, set, preinitialization, staticinitialization, initialization, handler, adviceexecution, withincode, cflow
and @withincode . Use of these pointcut designators in pointcut expressions interpreted by Spring AOP will result in an
IllegalArgumentException being thrown.

The set of pointcut designators supported by Spring AOP may be extended in future releases to support more of the AspectJ pointcut
designators.

execution - for matching method execution join points, this is the primary pointcut designator you will use when working with Spring AOP
within - limits matching to join points within certain types (simply the execution of a method declared within a matching type when using Spring
AOP)
this - limits matching to join points (the execution of methods when using Spring AOP) where the bean reference (Spring AOP proxy) is an
instance of the given type
target - limits matching to join points (the execution of methods when using Spring AOP) where the target object (application object being
proxied) is an instance of the given type
args - limits matching to join points (the execution of methods when using Spring AOP) where the arguments are instances of the given types
@target - limits matching to join points (the execution of methods when using Spring AOP) where the class of the executing object has an
annotation of the given type
@args - limits matching to join points (the execution of methods when using Spring AOP) where the runtime type of the actual arguments
passed have annotations of the given type(s)
@within - limits matching to join points within types that have the given annotation (the execution of methods declared in types with the given
annotation when using Spring AOP)
@annotation - limits matching to join points where the subject of the join point (method being executed in Spring AOP) has the given annotation

Because Spring AOP limits matching to only method execution join points, the discussion of the pointcut designators above gives a narrower
deﬁnition than you will ﬁnd in the AspectJ programming guide. In addition, AspectJ itself has type-based semantics and at an execution join point
both this and target refer to the same object - the object executing the method. Spring AOP is a proxy-based system and differentiates
between the proxy object itself (bound to this ) and the target object behind the proxy (bound to target ).

Due to the proxy-based nature of Spring’s AOP framework, calls within the target object are by definition not intercepted. For JDK
proxies, only public interface method calls on the proxy can be intercepted. With CGLIB, public and protected method calls on the
proxy will be intercepted, and even package-visible methods if necessary. However, common interactions through proxies should
always be designed through public signatures.
Note that pointcut definitions are generally matched against any intercepted method. If a pointcut is strictly meant to be public-only,
even in a CGLIB proxy scenario with potential non-public interactions through proxies, it needs to be defined accordingly.
If your interception needs include method calls or even constructors within the target class, consider the use of Spring-driven native
AspectJ weaving instead of Spring’s proxy-based AOP framework. This constitutes a different mode of AOP usage with different
characteristics, so be sure to make yourself familiar with weaving first before making a decision.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 185/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Spring AOP also supports an additional PCD named bean . This PCD allows you to limit the matching of join points to a particular named Spring
bean, or to a set of named Spring beans (when using wildcards). The bean PCD has the following form:

bean(idOrNameOfBean)

The idOrNameOfBean token can be the name of any Spring bean: limited wildcard support using the * character is provided, so if you establish
some naming conventions for your Spring beans you can quite easily write a bean PCD expression to pick them out. As is the case with other
pointcut designators, the bean PCD can be &&'ed, ||'ed, and ! (negated) too.

Please note that the bean PCD is only supported in Spring AOP - and not in native AspectJ weaving. It is a Spring-specific extension
to the standard PCDs that AspectJ defines and therefore not available for aspects declared in the @Aspect model.
The bean PCD operates at the instance level (building on the Spring bean name concept) rather than at the type level only (which is
what weaving-based AOP is limited to). Instance-based pointcut designators are a special capability of Spring’s proxy-based AOP
framework and its close integration with the Spring bean factory, where it is natural and straightforward to identify specific beans by
name.

Combining pointcut expressions

Pointcut expressions can be combined using '&&', '||' and '!'. It is also possible to refer to pointcut expressions by name. The following example
shows three pointcut expressions: anyPublicOperation (which matches if a method execution join point represents the execution of any public
method); inTrading (which matches if a method execution is in the trading module), and tradingOperation (which matches if a method
execution represents any public method in the trading module).

@Pointcut("execution(public * *(..))")
private void anyPublicOperation() {}

@Pointcut("within(com.xyz.someapp.trading..*)")
private void inTrading() {}

@Pointcut("anyPublicOperation() && inTrading()")

private void tradingOperation() {}

It is a best practice to build more complex pointcut expressions out of smaller named components as shown above. When referring to pointcuts by
name, normal Java visibility rules apply (you can see private pointcuts in the same type, protected pointcuts in the hierarchy, public pointcuts
anywhere and so on). Visibility does not affect pointcut matching.

Sharing common pointcut deﬁnitions

When working with enterprise applications, you often want to refer to modules of the application and particular sets of operations from within several
aspects. We recommend deﬁning a "SystemArchitecture" aspect that captures common pointcut expressions for this purpose. A typical such aspect
would look as follows:

package com.xyz.someapp;

import org.aspectj.lang.annotation.Aspect;
import org.aspectj.lang.annotation.Pointcut;

@Aspect
public class SystemArchitecture {

/**
* A join point is in the web layer if the method is defined
* in a type in the com.xyz.someapp.web package or any sub-package
* under that.
*/
@Pointcut("within(com.xyz.someapp.web..*)")
public void inWebLayer() {}

/**
* A join point is in the service layer if the method is defined
* in a type in the com.xyz.someapp.service package or any sub-package
* under that.
*/
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 186/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
@Pointcut("within(com.xyz.someapp.service..*)")
public void inServiceLayer() {}

/**
* A join point is in the data access layer if the method is defined
* in a type in the com.xyz.someapp.dao package or any sub-package
* under that.
*/
@Pointcut("within(com.xyz.someapp.dao..*)")
public void inDataAccessLayer() {}

/**
* A business service is the execution of any method defined on a service
* interface. This definition assumes that interfaces are placed in the
* "service" package, and that implementation types are in sub-packages.
*
* If you group service interfaces by functional area (for example,
* in packages com.xyz.someapp.abc.service and com.xyz.someapp.def.service) then
* the pointcut expression "execution(* com.xyz.someapp..service.*.*(..))"
* could be used instead.
*
* Alternatively, you can write the expression using the 'bean'
* PCD, like so "bean(*Service)". (This assumes that you have
* named your Spring service beans in a consistent fashion.)
*/
@Pointcut("execution(* com.xyz.someapp..service.*.*(..))")
public void businessService() {}

/**
* A data access operation is the execution of any method defined on a
* dao interface. This definition assumes that interfaces are placed in the
* "dao" package, and that implementation types are in sub-packages.
*/
@Pointcut("execution(* com.xyz.someapp.dao.*.*(..))")
public void dataAccessOperation() {}

The pointcuts deﬁned in such an aspect can be referred to anywhere that you need a pointcut expression. For example, to make the service layer
transactional, you could write:

<aop:config>
<aop:advisor
pointcut="com.xyz.someapp.SystemArchitecture.businessService()"
advice-ref="tx-advice"/>
</aop:config>

<tx:advice id="tx-advice">
<tx:attributes>
<tx:method name="*" propagation="REQUIRED"/>
</tx:attributes>
</tx:advice>

The <aop:config> and <aop:advisor> elements are discussed in Section 11.3, “Schema-based AOP support”. The transaction elements are
discussed in Chapter 17, Transaction Management.

Examples
Spring AOP users are likely to use the execution pointcut designator the most often. The format of an execution expression is:

execution(modifiers-pattern? ret-type-pattern declaring-type-pattern?name-pattern(param-pattern)

throws-pattern?)

All parts except the returning type pattern (ret-type-pattern in the snippet above), name pattern, and parameters pattern are optional. The returning
type pattern determines what the return type of the method must be in order for a join point to be matched. Most frequently you will use * as the
returning type pattern, which matches any return type. A fully-qualiﬁed type name will match only when the method returns the given type. The name
pattern matches the method name. You can use the * wildcard as all or part of a name pattern. If specifying a declaring type pattern then include a

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 187/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
trailing . to join it to the name pattern component. The parameters pattern is slightly more complex: () matches a method that takes no
parameters, whereas (..) matches any number of parameters (zero or more). The pattern (*) matches a method taking one parameter of any
type, (*,String) matches a method taking two parameters, the ﬁrst can be of any type, the second must be a String. Consult the Language
Semantics section of the AspectJ Programming Guide for more information.

Some examples of common pointcut expressions are given below.

the execution of any public method:

execution(public * *(..))

the execution of any method with a name beginning with "set":

execution(* set*(..))

the execution of any method deﬁned by the AccountService interface:

execution(* com.xyz.service.AccountService.*(..))

the execution of any method deﬁned in the service package:

execution(* com.xyz.service.*.*(..))

the execution of any method deﬁned in the service package or a sub-package:

execution(* com.xyz.service..*.*(..))

any join point (method execution only in Spring AOP) within the service package:

within(com.xyz.service.*)

any join point (method execution only in Spring AOP) within the service package or a sub-package:

within(com.xyz.service..*)

any join point (method execution only in Spring AOP) where the proxy implements the AccountService interface:

this(com.xyz.service.AccountService)

'this' is more commonly used in a binding form :- see the following section on advice for how to make the proxy object available in the
advice body.

any join point (method execution only in Spring AOP) where the target object implements the AccountService interface:

target(com.xyz.service.AccountService)

'target' is more commonly used in a binding form :- see the following section on advice for how to make the target object available in
the advice body.

any join point (method execution only in Spring AOP) which takes a single parameter, and where the argument passed at runtime is
Serializable :

args(java.io.Serializable)

'args' is more commonly used in a binding form :- see the following section on advice for how to make the method arguments available
in the advice body.

Note that the pointcut given in this example is different to execution(* *(java.io.Serializable)) : the args version matches if the
argument passed at runtime is Serializable, the execution version matches if the method signature declares a single parameter of type
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 188/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Serializable .

any join point (method execution only in Spring AOP) where the target object has an @Transactional annotation:

@target(org.springframework.transaction.annotation.Transactional)

'@target' can also be used in a binding form :- see the following section on advice for how to make the annotation object available in
the advice body.

any join point (method execution only in Spring AOP) where the declared type of the target object has an @Transactional annotation:

@within(org.springframework.transaction.annotation.Transactional)

'@within' can also be used in a binding form :- see the following section on advice for how to make the annotation object available in
the advice body.

any join point (method execution only in Spring AOP) where the executing method has an @Transactional annotation:

@annotation(org.springframework.transaction.annotation.Transactional)

'@annotation' can also be used in a binding form :- see the following section on advice for how to make the annotation object available
in the advice body.

any join point (method execution only in Spring AOP) which takes a single parameter, and where the runtime type of the argument passed has
the @Classified annotation:

@args(com.xyz.security.Classified)

'@args' can also be used in a binding form :- see the following section on advice for how to make the annotation object(s) available in
the advice body.

any join point (method execution only in Spring AOP) on a Spring bean named tradeService :

bean(tradeService)

any join point (method execution only in Spring AOP) on Spring beans having names that match the wildcard expression *Service :

bean(*Service)

Writing good pointcuts

During compilation, AspectJ processes pointcuts in order to try and optimize matching performance. Examining code and determining if each join
point matches (statically or dynamically) a given pointcut is a costly process. (A dynamic match means the match cannot be fully determined from
static analysis and a test will be placed in the code to determine if there is an actual match when the code is running). On ﬁrst encountering a
pointcut declaration, AspectJ will rewrite it into an optimal form for the matching process. What does this mean? Basically pointcuts are rewritten in
DNF (Disjunctive Normal Form) and the components of the pointcut are sorted such that those components that are cheaper to evaluate are
checked ﬁrst. This means you do not have to worry about understanding the performance of various pointcut designators and may supply them in
any order in a pointcut declaration.

However, AspectJ can only work with what it is told, and for optimal performance of matching you should think about what they are trying to achieve
and narrow the search space for matches as much as possible in the deﬁnition. The existing designators naturally fall into one of three groups:
kinded, scoping and context:

Kinded designators are those which select a particular kind of join point. For example: execution, get, set, call, handler
Scoping designators are those which select a group of join points of interest (of probably many kinds). For example: within, withincode
Contextual designators are those that match (and optionally bind) based on context. For example: this, target, @annotation

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 189/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
A well written pointcut should try and include at least the ﬁrst two types (kinded and scoping), whilst the contextual designators may be included if
wishing to match based on join point context, or bind that context for use in the advice. Supplying either just a kinded designator or just a contextual
designator will work but could affect weaving performance (time and memory used) due to all the extra processing and analysis. Scoping designators
are very fast to match and their usage means AspectJ can very quickly dismiss groups of join points that should not be further processed - that is
why a good pointcut should always include one if possible.

11.2.4 Declaring advice
Advice is associated with a pointcut expression, and runs before, after, or around method executions matched by the pointcut. The pointcut
expression may be either a simple reference to a named pointcut, or a pointcut expression declared in place.

Before advice
Before advice is declared in an aspect using the @Before annotation:

import org.aspectj.lang.annotation.Aspect;
import org.aspectj.lang.annotation.Before;

@Aspect
public class BeforeExample {

@Before("com.xyz.myapp.SystemArchitecture.dataAccessOperation()")
public void doAccessCheck() {
// ...
}

If using an in-place pointcut expression we could rewrite the above example as:

import org.aspectj.lang.annotation.Aspect;
import org.aspectj.lang.annotation.Before;

@Aspect
public class BeforeExample {

@Before("execution(* com.xyz.myapp.dao.*.*(..))")
public void doAccessCheck() {
// ...
}

After returning advice

After returning advice runs when a matched method execution returns normally. It is declared using the @AfterReturning annotation:

import org.aspectj.lang.annotation.Aspect;
import org.aspectj.lang.annotation.AfterReturning;

@Aspect
public class AfterReturningExample {

@AfterReturning("com.xyz.myapp.SystemArchitecture.dataAccessOperation()")
public void doAccessCheck() {
// ...
}

Note: it is of course possible to have multiple advice declarations, and other members as well, all inside the same aspect. We’re just
showing a single advice declaration in these examples to focus on the issue under discussion at the time.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 190/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Sometimes you need access in the advice body to the actual value that was returned. You can use the form of @AfterReturning that binds the
return value for this:

import org.aspectj.lang.annotation.Aspect;
import org.aspectj.lang.annotation.AfterReturning;

@Aspect
public class AfterReturningExample {

@AfterReturning(
pointcut="com.xyz.myapp.SystemArchitecture.dataAccessOperation()",
returning="retVal")
public void doAccessCheck(Object retVal) {
// ...
}

The name used in the returning attribute must correspond to the name of a parameter in the advice method. When a method execution returns,
the return value will be passed to the advice method as the corresponding argument value. A returning clause also restricts matching to only
those method executions that return a value of the speciﬁed type ( Object in this case, which will match any return value).

Please note that it is not possible to return a totally different reference when using after-returning advice.

After throwing advice

After throwing advice runs when a matched method execution exits by throwing an exception. It is declared using the @AfterThrowing
annotation:

import org.aspectj.lang.annotation.Aspect;
import org.aspectj.lang.annotation.AfterThrowing;

@Aspect
public class AfterThrowingExample {

@AfterThrowing("com.xyz.myapp.SystemArchitecture.dataAccessOperation()")
public void doRecoveryActions() {
// ...
}

Often you want the advice to run only when exceptions of a given type are thrown, and you also often need access to the thrown exception in the
advice body. Use the throwing attribute to both restrict matching (if desired, use Throwable as the exception type otherwise) and bind the
thrown exception to an advice parameter.

import org.aspectj.lang.annotation.Aspect;
import org.aspectj.lang.annotation.AfterThrowing;

@Aspect
public class AfterThrowingExample {

@AfterThrowing(
pointcut="com.xyz.myapp.SystemArchitecture.dataAccessOperation()",
throwing="ex")
public void doRecoveryActions(DataAccessException ex) {
// ...
}

The name used in the throwing attribute must correspond to the name of a parameter in the advice method. When a method execution exits by
throwing an exception, the exception will be passed to the advice method as the corresponding argument value. A throwing clause also restricts
matching to only those method executions that throw an exception of the speciﬁed type ( DataAccessException in this case).

After (ﬁnally) advice

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 191/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
After (ﬁnally) advice runs however a matched method execution exits. It is declared using the @After annotation. After advice must be prepared to
handle both normal and exception return conditions. It is typically used for releasing resources, etc.

import org.aspectj.lang.annotation.Aspect;
import org.aspectj.lang.annotation.After;

@Aspect
public class AfterFinallyExample {

@After("com.xyz.myapp.SystemArchitecture.dataAccessOperation()")
public void doReleaseLock() {
// ...
}

Around advice
The ﬁnal kind of advice is around advice. Around advice runs "around" a matched method execution. It has the opportunity to do work both before
and after the method executes, and to determine when, how, and even if, the method actually gets to execute at all. Around advice is often used if
you need to share state before and after a method execution in a thread-safe manner (starting and stopping a timer for example). Always use the
least powerful form of advice that meets your requirements (i.e. don’t use around advice if simple before advice would do).

Around advice is declared using the @Around annotation. The ﬁrst parameter of the advice method must be of type ProceedingJoinPoint .
Within the body of the advice, calling proceed() on the ProceedingJoinPoint causes the underlying method to execute. The proceed
method may also be called passing in an Object[] - the values in the array will be used as the arguments to the method execution when it
proceeds.

The behavior of proceed when called with an Object[] is a little different than the behavior of proceed for around advice compiled by the
AspectJ compiler. For around advice written using the traditional AspectJ language, the number of arguments passed to proceed must
match the number of arguments passed to the around advice (not the number of arguments taken by the underlying join point), and the
value passed to proceed in a given argument position supplants the original value at the join point for the entity the value was bound to
(Don’t worry if this doesn’t make sense right now!). The approach taken by Spring is simpler and a better match to its proxy-based,
execution only semantics. You only need to be aware of this difference if you are compiling @AspectJ aspects written for Spring and
using proceed with arguments with the AspectJ compiler and weaver. There is a way to write such aspects that is 100% compatible
across both Spring AOP and AspectJ, and this is discussed in the following section on advice parameters.

import org.aspectj.lang.annotation.Aspect;
import org.aspectj.lang.annotation.Around;

import org.aspectj.lang.ProceedingJoinPoint;

@Aspect
public class AroundExample {

@Around("com.xyz.myapp.SystemArchitecture.businessService()")
public Object doBasicProfiling(ProceedingJoinPoint pjp) throws Throwable {
// start stopwatch
Object retVal = pjp.proceed();
// stop stopwatch
return retVal;
}

The value returned by the around advice will be the return value seen by the caller of the method. A simple caching aspect for example could return
a value from a cache if it has one, and invoke proceed() if it does not. Note that proceed may be invoked once, many times, or not at all within the
body of the around advice, all of these are quite legal.

Advice parameters
Spring offers fully typed advice - meaning that you declare the parameters you need in the advice signature (as we saw for the returning and
throwing examples above) rather than work with Object[] arrays all the time. We’ll see how to make argument and other contextual values

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 192/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
available to the advice body in a moment. First let’s take a look at how to write generic advice that can ﬁnd out about the method the advice is
currently advising.

Access to the current JoinPoint

Any advice method may declare as its ﬁrst parameter, a parameter of type org.aspectj.lang.JoinPoint (please note that around advice is
required to declare a ﬁrst parameter of type ProceedingJoinPoint , which is a subclass of JoinPoint . The JoinPoint interface provides a
number of useful methods such as getArgs() (returns the method arguments), getThis() (returns the proxy object), getTarget() (returns
the target object), getSignature() (returns a description of the method that is being advised) and toString() (prints a useful description of
the method being advised). Please do consult the javadocs for full details.

Passing parameters to advice

We’ve already seen how to bind the returned value or exception value (using after returning and after throwing advice). To make argument values
available to the advice body, you can use the binding form of args . If a parameter name is used in place of a type name in an args expression,
then the value of the corresponding argument will be passed as the parameter value when the advice is invoked. An example should make this
clearer. Suppose you want to advise the execution of dao operations that take an Account object as the ﬁrst parameter, and you need access to the
account in the advice body. You could write the following:

@Before("com.xyz.myapp.SystemArchitecture.dataAccessOperation() && args(account,..)")

public void validateAccount(Account account) {
// ...
}

The args(account,..) part of the pointcut expression serves two purposes: ﬁrstly, it restricts matching to only those method executions where
the method takes at least one parameter, and the argument passed to that parameter is an instance of Account ; secondly, it makes the actual
Account object available to the advice via the account parameter.

Another way of writing this is to declare a pointcut that "provides" the Account object value when it matches a join point, and then just refer to the
named pointcut from the advice. This would look as follows:

@Pointcut("com.xyz.myapp.SystemArchitecture.dataAccessOperation() && args(account,..)")

private void accountDataAccessOperation(Account account) {}

@Before("accountDataAccessOperation(account)")
public void validateAccount(Account account) {
// ...
}

The interested reader is once more referred to the AspectJ programming guide for more details.

The proxy object ( this ), target object ( target ), and annotations ( @within, @target, @annotation, @args ) can all be bound in a
similar fashion. The following example shows how you could match the execution of methods annotated with an @Auditable annotation, and
extract the audit code.

First the deﬁnition of the @Auditable annotation:

@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@Target(ElementType.METHOD)
public @interface Auditable {
AuditCode value();
}

And then the advice that matches the execution of @Auditable methods:

@Before("com.xyz.lib.Pointcuts.anyPublicMethod() && @annotation(auditable)")

public void audit(Auditable auditable) {
AuditCode code = auditable.value();
// ...
}

Advice parameters and generics

Spring AOP can handle generics used in class declarations and method parameters. Suppose you have a generic type like this:

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 193/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

public interface Sample<T> {

void sampleGenericMethod(T param);
void sampleGenericCollectionMethod(Collection<T> param);
}

You can restrict interception of method types to certain parameter types by simply typing the advice parameter to the parameter type you want to
intercept the method for:

@Before("execution(* ..Sample+.sampleGenericMethod(*)) && args(param)")

public void beforeSampleMethod(MyType param) {
// Advice implementation
}

That this works is pretty obvious as we already discussed above. However, it’s worth pointing out that this won’t work for generic collections. So you
cannot deﬁne a pointcut like this:

@Before("execution(* ..Sample+.sampleGenericCollectionMethod(*)) && args(param)")

public void beforeSampleMethod(Collection<MyType> param) {
// Advice implementation
}

To make this work we would have to inspect every element of the collection, which is not reasonable as we also cannot decide how to treat null
values in general. To achieve something similar to this you have to type the parameter to Collection<?> and manually check the type of the
elements.

Determining argument names

The parameter binding in advice invocations relies on matching names used in pointcut expressions to declared parameter names in (advice and
pointcut) method signatures. Parameter names are not available through Java reﬂection, so Spring AOP uses the following strategies to determine
parameter names:

If the parameter names have been speciﬁed by the user explicitly, then the speciﬁed parameter names are used: both the advice and the
pointcut annotations have an optional "argNames" attribute which can be used to specify the argument names of the annotated method - these
argument names are available at runtime. For example:

@Before(value="com.xyz.lib.Pointcuts.anyPublicMethod() && target(bean) && @annotation(auditable)",

argNames="bean,auditable")
public void audit(Object bean, Auditable auditable) {
AuditCode code = auditable.value();
// ... use code and bean
}

If the ﬁrst parameter is of the JoinPoint , ProceedingJoinPoint , or JoinPoint.StaticPart type, you may leave out the name of the
parameter from the value of the "argNames" attribute. For example, if you modify the preceding advice to receive the join point object, the
"argNames" attribute need not include it:

@Before(value="com.xyz.lib.Pointcuts.anyPublicMethod() && target(bean) && @annotation(auditable)",

argNames="bean,auditable")
public void audit(JoinPoint jp, Object bean, Auditable auditable) {
AuditCode code = auditable.value();
// ... use code, bean, and jp
}

The special treatment given to the ﬁrst parameter of the JoinPoint , ProceedingJoinPoint , and JoinPoint.StaticPart types is
particularly convenient for advice that do not collect any other join point context. In such situations, you may simply omit the "argNames" attribute.
For example, the following advice need not declare the "argNames" attribute:

@Before("com.xyz.lib.Pointcuts.anyPublicMethod()")
public void audit(JoinPoint jp) {
// ... use jp
}

Using the 'argNames' attribute is a little clumsy, so if the 'argNames' attribute has not been speciﬁed, then Spring AOP will look at the
debug information for the class and try to determine the parameter names from the local variable table. This information will be present as long

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 194/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
as the classes have been compiled with debug information ( '-g:vars' at a minimum). The consequences of compiling with this flag on are:
(1) your code will be slightly easier to understand (reverse engineer), (2) the class file sizes will be very slightly bigger (typically inconsequential),
(3) the optimization to remove unused local variables will not be applied by your compiler. In other words, you should encounter no difficulties
building with this flag on.

If an @AspectJ aspect has been compiled by the AspectJ compiler (ajc) even without the debug information then there is no need to
add the argNames attribute as the compiler will retain the needed information.

If the code has been compiled without the necessary debug information, then Spring AOP will attempt to deduce the pairing of binding variables
to parameters (for example, if only one variable is bound in the pointcut expression, and the advice method only takes one parameter, the
pairing is obvious!). If the binding of variables is ambiguous given the available information, then an AmbiguousBindingException will be
thrown.
If all of the above strategies fail then an IllegalArgumentException will be thrown.

Proceeding with arguments

We remarked earlier that we would describe how to write a proceed call with arguments that works consistently across Spring AOP and AspectJ.
The solution is simply to ensure that the advice signature binds each of the method parameters in order. For example:

@Around("execution(List<Account> find*(..)) && " +

"com.xyz.myapp.SystemArchitecture.inDataAccessLayer() && " +
"args(accountHolderNamePattern)")
public Object preProcessQueryPattern(ProceedingJoinPoint pjp,
String accountHolderNamePattern) throws Throwable {
String newPattern = preProcess(accountHolderNamePattern);
return pjp.proceed(new Object[] {newPattern});
}

In many cases you will be doing this binding anyway (as in the example above).

Advice ordering
What happens when multiple pieces of advice all want to run at the same join point? Spring AOP follows the same precedence rules as AspectJ to
determine the order of advice execution. The highest precedence advice runs ﬁrst "on the way in" (so given two pieces of before advice, the one with
highest precedence runs ﬁrst). "On the way out" from a join point, the highest precedence advice runs last (so given two pieces of after advice, the
one with the highest precedence will run second).

When two pieces of advice deﬁned in different aspects both need to run at the same join point, unless you specify otherwise the order of execution is
undeﬁned. You can control the order of execution by specifying precedence. This is done in the normal Spring way by either implementing the
org.springframework.core.Ordered interface in the aspect class or annotating it with the Order annotation. Given two aspects, the aspect
returning the lower value from Ordered.getValue() (or the annotation value) has the higher precedence.

When two pieces of advice defined in the same aspect both need to run at the same join point, the ordering is undefined (since there is no way to
retrieve the declaration order via reflection for javac-compiled classes). Consider collapsing such advice methods into one advice method per join
point in each aspect class, or refactor the pieces of advice into separate aspect classes - which can be ordered at the aspect level.

11.2.5 Introductions
Introductions (known as inter-type declarations in AspectJ) enable an aspect to declare that advised objects implement a given interface, and to
provide an implementation of that interface on behalf of those objects.

An introduction is made using the @DeclareParents annotation. This annotation is used to declare that matching types have a new parent
(hence the name). For example, given an interface UsageTracked , and an implementation of that interface DefaultUsageTracked , the
following aspect declares that all implementors of service interfaces also implement the UsageTracked interface. (In order to expose statistics via
JMX for example.)

@Aspect
public class UsageTracking {

@DeclareParents(value="com.xzy.myapp.service.*+", defaultImpl=DefaultUsageTracked.class)
public static UsageTracked mixin;

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 195/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
@Before("com.xyz.myapp.SystemArchitecture.businessService() && this(usageTracked)")
public void recordUsage(UsageTracked usageTracked) {
usageTracked.incrementUseCount();
}

The interface to be implemented is determined by the type of the annotated ﬁeld. The value attribute of the @DeclareParents annotation is an
AspectJ type pattern :- any bean of a matching type will implement the UsageTracked interface. Note that in the before advice of the above example,
service beans can be directly used as implementations of the UsageTracked interface. If accessing a bean programmatically you would write the
following:

UsageTracked usageTracked = (UsageTracked) context.getBean("myService");

11.2.6 Aspect instantiation models

(This is an advanced topic, so if you are just starting out with AOP you can safely skip it until later.)

By default there will be a single instance of each aspect within the application context. AspectJ calls this the singleton instantiation model. It is
possible to deﬁne aspects with alternate lifecycles :- Spring supports AspectJ’s perthis and pertarget instantiation models (
percflow, percflowbelow, and pertypewithin are not currently supported).

A "perthis" aspect is declared by specifying a perthis clause in the @Aspect annotation. Let’s look at an example, and then we’ll explain how it
works.

@Aspect("perthis(com.xyz.myapp.SystemArchitecture.businessService())")
public class MyAspect {

private int someState;

@Before(com.xyz.myapp.SystemArchitecture.businessService())
public void recordServiceUsage() {
// ...
}

The effect of the 'perthis' clause is that one aspect instance will be created for each unique service object executing a business service (each
unique object bound to 'this' at join points matched by the pointcut expression). The aspect instance is created the ﬁrst time that a method is invoked
on the service object. The aspect goes out of scope when the service object goes out of scope. Before the aspect instance is created, none of the
advice within it executes. As soon as the aspect instance has been created, the advice declared within it will execute at matched join points, but only
when the service object is the one this aspect is associated with. See the AspectJ programming guide for more information on per-clauses.

The 'pertarget' instantiation model works in exactly the same way as perthis, but creates one aspect instance for each unique target object at
matched join points.

11.2.7 Example
Now that you have seen how all the constituent parts work, let’s put them together to do something useful!

The execution of business services can sometimes fail due to concurrency issues (for example, deadlock loser). If the operation is retried, it is quite
likely to succeed next time round. For business services where it is appropriate to retry in such conditions (idempotent operations that don’t need to
go back to the user for conﬂict resolution), we’d like to transparently retry the operation to avoid the client seeing a
PessimisticLockingFailureException . This is a requirement that clearly cuts across multiple services in the service layer, and hence is
ideal for implementing via an aspect.

Because we want to retry the operation, we will need to use around advice so that we can call proceed multiple times. Here’s how the basic aspect
implementation looks:

@Aspect
public class ConcurrentOperationExecutor implements Ordered {

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 196/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
private static final int DEFAULT_MAX_RETRIES = 2;

private int maxRetries = DEFAULT_MAX_RETRIES;

private int order = 1;

public void setMaxRetries(int maxRetries) {

this.maxRetries = maxRetries;
}

public int getOrder() {

return this.order;
}

public void setOrder(int order) {

this.order = order;
}

@Around("com.xyz.myapp.SystemArchitecture.businessService()")
public Object doConcurrentOperation(ProceedingJoinPoint pjp) throws Throwable {
int numAttempts = 0;
PessimisticLockingFailureException lockFailureException;
do {
numAttempts++;
try {
return pjp.proceed();
}
catch(PessimisticLockingFailureException ex) {
lockFailureException = ex;
}
} while(numAttempts <= this.maxRetries);
throw lockFailureException;
}

Note that the aspect implements the Ordered interface so we can set the precedence of the aspect higher than the transaction advice (we want a
fresh transaction each time we retry). The maxRetries and order properties will both be conﬁgured by Spring. The main action happens in the
doConcurrentOperation around advice. Notice that for the moment we’re applying the retry logic to all businessService()s . We try to
proceed, and if we fail with an PessimisticLockingFailureException we simply try again unless we have exhausted all of our retry
attempts.

The corresponding Spring conﬁguration is:

<aop:aspectj-autoproxy/>

<bean id="concurrentOperationExecutor" class="com.xyz.myapp.service.impl.ConcurrentOperationExecutor">

To reﬁne the aspect so that it only retries idempotent operations, we might deﬁne an Idempotent annotation:

@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
public @interface Idempotent {
// marker annotation
}

and use the annotation to annotate the implementation of service operations. The change to the aspect to only retry idempotent operations simply
involves reﬁning the pointcut expression so that only @Idempotent operations match:

@Around("com.xyz.myapp.SystemArchitecture.businessService() && " +

"@annotation(com.xyz.myapp.service.Idempotent)")
public Object doConcurrentOperation(ProceedingJoinPoint pjp) throws Throwable {
...
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 197/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

11.3 Schema-based AOP support

If you prefer an XML-based format, then Spring also offers support for deﬁning aspects using the new "aop" namespace tags. The exact same
pointcut expressions and advice kinds are supported as when using the @AspectJ style, hence in this section we will focus on the new syntax and
refer the reader to the discussion in the previous section (Section 11.2, “@AspectJ support”) for an understanding of writing pointcut expressions and
the binding of advice parameters.

To use the aop namespace tags described in this section, you need to import the spring-aop schema as described in Chapter 41, XML Schema-
based conﬁguration. See Section 41.2.7, “the aop schema” for how to import the tags in the aop namespace.

Within your Spring conﬁgurations, all aspect and advisor elements must be placed within an <aop:config> element (you can have more than one
<aop:config> element in an application context conﬁguration). An <aop:config> element can contain pointcut, advisor, and aspect elements
(note these must be declared in that order).

The <aop:config> style of conﬁguration makes heavy use of Spring’s auto-proxying mechanism. This can cause issues (such as
advice not being woven) if you are already using explicit auto-proxying via the use of BeanNameAutoProxyCreator or suchlike.
The recommended usage pattern is to use either just the <aop:config> style, or just the AutoProxyCreator style.

11.3.1 Declaring an aspect
Using the schema support, an aspect is simply a regular Java object deﬁned as a bean in your Spring application context. The state and behavior is
captured in the ﬁelds and methods of the object, and the pointcut and advice information is captured in the XML.

An aspect is declared using the <aop:aspect> element, and the backing bean is referenced using the ref attribute:

<aop:config>
<aop:aspect id="myAspect" ref="aBean">
...
</aop:aspect>
</aop:config>

<bean id="aBean" class="...">

...
</bean>

The bean backing the aspect (" `aBean`" in this case) can of course be conﬁgured and dependency injected just like any other Spring bean.

11.3.2 Declaring a pointcut
A named pointcut can be declared inside an <aop:conﬁg> element, enabling the pointcut deﬁnition to be shared across several aspects and
advisors.

A pointcut representing the execution of any business service in the service layer could be deﬁned as follows:

<aop:config>

<aop:pointcut id="businessService"
expression="execution(* com.xyz.myapp.service.*.*(..))"/>

</aop:config>

Note that the pointcut expression itself is using the same AspectJ pointcut expression language as described in Section 11.2, “@AspectJ support”. If
you are using the schema based declaration style, you can refer to named pointcuts deﬁned in types (@Aspects) within the pointcut expression.
Another way of deﬁning the above pointcut would be:

<aop:config>

<aop:pointcut id="businessService"
expression="com.xyz.myapp.SystemArchitecture.businessService()"/>

</aop:config>

Assuming you have a SystemArchitecture aspect as described in the section called “Sharing common pointcut deﬁnitions”.
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 198/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Declaring a pointcut inside an aspect is very similar to declaring a top-level pointcut:

<aop:config>

<aop:aspect id="myAspect" ref="aBean">

<aop:pointcut id="businessService"
expression="execution(* com.xyz.myapp.service.*.*(..))"/>

...

</aop:aspect>

</aop:config>

Much the same way in an @AspectJ aspect, pointcuts declared using the schema based deﬁnition style may collect join point context. For example,
the following pointcut collects the 'this' object as the join point context and passes it to advice:

<aop:config>

<aop:aspect id="myAspect" ref="aBean">

<aop:pointcut id="businessService"
expression="execution(* com.xyz.myapp.service.*.*(..)) && this(service)"/>

<aop:before pointcut-ref="businessService" method="monitor"/>

...

</aop:aspect>

</aop:config>

The advice must be declared to receive the collected join point context by including parameters of the matching names:

public void monitor(Object service) {

...
}

When combining pointcut sub-expressions, '&&' is awkward within an XML document, and so the keywords 'and', 'or' and 'not' can be used in place
of '&&', '||' and '!' respectively. For example, the previous pointcut may be better written as:

<aop:config>

<aop:aspect id="myAspect" ref="aBean">

<aop:pointcut id="businessService"
expression="execution(* com.xyz.myapp.service.*.*(..)) **and** this(service)"/>

<aop:before pointcut-ref="businessService" method="monitor"/>

...
</aop:aspect>
</aop:config>

Note that pointcuts deﬁned in this way are referred to by their XML id and cannot be used as named pointcuts to form composite pointcuts. The
named pointcut support in the schema based deﬁnition style is thus more limited than that offered by the @AspectJ style.

11.3.3 Declaring advice
The same ﬁve advice kinds are supported as for the @AspectJ style, and they have exactly the same semantics.

Before advice
Before advice runs before a matched method execution. It is declared inside an <aop:aspect> using the <aop:before> element.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 199/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

<aop:aspect id="beforeExample" ref="aBean">

<aop:before
pointcut-ref="dataAccessOperation"
method="doAccessCheck"/>

...

</aop:aspect>

Here dataAccessOperation is the id of a pointcut deﬁned at the top ( <aop:config> ) level. To deﬁne the pointcut inline instead, replace the
pointcut-ref attribute with a pointcut attribute:

<aop:aspect id="beforeExample" ref="aBean">

<aop:before
pointcut="execution(* com.xyz.myapp.dao.*.*(..))"
method="doAccessCheck"/>

...

</aop:aspect>

As we noted in the discussion of the @AspectJ style, using named pointcuts can signiﬁcantly improve the readability of your code.

The method attribute identiﬁes a method ( doAccessCheck ) that provides the body of the advice. This method must be deﬁned for the bean
referenced by the aspect element containing the advice. Before a data access operation is executed (a method execution join point matched by the
pointcut expression), the "doAccessCheck" method on the aspect bean will be invoked.

After returning advice

After returning advice runs when a matched method execution completes normally. It is declared inside an <aop:aspect> in the same way as
before advice. For example:

<aop:aspect id="afterReturningExample" ref="aBean">

<aop:after-returning
pointcut-ref="dataAccessOperation"
method="doAccessCheck"/>

...

</aop:aspect>

Just as in the @AspectJ style, it is possible to get hold of the return value within the advice body. Use the returning attribute to specify the name of
the parameter to which the return value should be passed:

<aop:aspect id="afterReturningExample" ref="aBean">

<aop:after-returning
pointcut-ref="dataAccessOperation"
returning="retVal"
method="doAccessCheck"/>

...

</aop:aspect>

The doAccessCheck method must declare a parameter named retVal . The type of this parameter constrains matching in the same way as
described for @AfterReturning. For example, the method signature may be declared as:

public void doAccessCheck(Object retVal) {...

After throwing advice

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 200/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
After throwing advice executes when a matched method execution exits by throwing an exception. It is declared inside an <aop:aspect> using
the after-throwing element:

<aop:aspect id="afterThrowingExample" ref="aBean">

<aop:after-throwing
pointcut-ref="dataAccessOperation"
method="doRecoveryActions"/>

...

</aop:aspect>

Just as in the @AspectJ style, it is possible to get hold of the thrown exception within the advice body. Use the throwing attribute to specify the name
of the parameter to which the exception should be passed:

<aop:aspect id="afterThrowingExample" ref="aBean">

<aop:after-throwing
pointcut-ref="dataAccessOperation"
throwing="dataAccessEx"
method="doRecoveryActions"/>

...

</aop:aspect>

The doRecoveryActions method must declare a parameter named dataAccessEx . The type of this parameter constrains matching in the same
way as described for @AfterThrowing. For example, the method signature may be declared as:

public void doRecoveryActions(DataAccessException dataAccessEx) {...

After (ﬁnally) advice

After (ﬁnally) advice runs however a matched method execution exits. It is declared using the after element:

<aop:aspect id="afterFinallyExample" ref="aBean">

<aop:after
pointcut-ref="dataAccessOperation"
method="doReleaseLock"/>

...

</aop:aspect>

Around advice
The ﬁnal kind of advice is around advice. Around advice runs "around" a matched method execution. It has the opportunity to do work both before
and after the method executes, and to determine when, how, and even if, the method actually gets to execute at all. Around advice is often used if
you need to share state before and after a method execution in a thread-safe manner (starting and stopping a timer for example). Always use the
least powerful form of advice that meets your requirements; don’t use around advice if simple before advice would do.

Around advice is declared using the aop:around element. The ﬁrst parameter of the advice method must be of type ProceedingJoinPoint .
Within the body of the advice, calling proceed() on the ProceedingJoinPoint causes the underlying method to execute. The proceed
method may also be calling passing in an Object[] - the values in the array will be used as the arguments to the method execution when it
proceeds. See the section called “Around advice” for notes on calling proceed with an Object[] .

<aop:aspect id="aroundExample" ref="aBean">

<aop:around
pointcut-ref="businessService"
method="doBasicProfiling"/>

...

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 201/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

</aop:aspect>

The implementation of the doBasicProfiling advice would be exactly the same as in the @AspectJ example (minus the annotation of course):

public Object doBasicProfiling(ProceedingJoinPoint pjp) throws Throwable {

// start stopwatch
Object retVal = pjp.proceed();
// stop stopwatch
return retVal;
}

Advice parameters
The schema based declaration style supports fully typed advice in the same way as described for the @AspectJ support - by matching pointcut
parameters by name against advice method parameters. See the section called “Advice parameters” for details. If you wish to explicitly specify
argument names for the advice methods (not relying on the detection strategies previously described) then this is done using the arg-names
attribute of the advice element, which is treated in the same manner to the "argNames" attribute in an advice annotation as described in the section
called “Determining argument names”. For example:

<aop:before
pointcut="com.xyz.lib.Pointcuts.anyPublicMethod() and @annotation(auditable)"
method="audit"
arg-names="auditable"/>

The arg-names attribute accepts a comma-delimited list of parameter names.

Find below a slightly more involved example of the XSD-based approach that illustrates some around advice used in conjunction with a number of
strongly typed parameters.

package x.y.service;

public interface FooService {

Foo getFoo(String fooName, int age);

}

public class DefaultFooService implements FooService {

public Foo getFoo(String name, int age) {

return new Foo(name, age);
}
}

Next up is the aspect. Notice the fact that the profile(..) method accepts a number of strongly-typed parameters, the ﬁrst of which happens to
be the join point used to proceed with the method call: the presence of this parameter is an indication that the profile(..) is to be used as
around advice:

package x.y;

import org.aspectj.lang.ProceedingJoinPoint;
import org.springframework.util.StopWatch;

public class SimpleProfiler {

public Object profile(ProceedingJoinPoint call, String name, int age) throws Throwable {
StopWatch clock = new StopWatch("Profiling for '" + name + "' and '" + age + "'");
try {
clock.start(call.toShortString());
return call.proceed();
} finally {
clock.stop();
System.out.println(clock.prettyPrint());
}
}
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 202/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Finally, here is the XML conﬁguration that is required to effect the execution of the above advice for a particular join point:

<bean id="fooService" class="x.y.service.DefaultFooService"/>

<aop:config>
<aop:aspect ref="profiler">

<aop:pointcut id="theExecutionOfSomeFooServiceMethod"
expression="execution(* x.y.service.FooService.getFoo(String,int))
and args(name, age)"/>

<aop:around pointcut-ref="theExecutionOfSomeFooServiceMethod"
method="profile"/>

</aop:aspect>
</aop:config>

</beans>

If we had the following driver script, we would get output something like this on standard output:

import org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanFactory;
import org.springframework.context.support.ClassPathXmlApplicationContext;
import x.y.service.FooService;

public final class Boot {

public static void main(final String[] args) throws Exception {

BeanFactory ctx = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("x/y/plain.xml");
FooService foo = (FooService) ctx.getBean("fooService");
foo.getFoo("Pengo", 12);
}
}

StopWatch 'Profiling for 'Pengo' and '12'': running time (millis) = 0

-----------------------------------------
ms % Task name
-----------------------------------------
00000 ? execution(getFoo)

Advice ordering
When multiple advice needs to execute at the same join point (executing method) the ordering rules are as described in the section called “Advice
ordering”. The precedence between aspects is determined by either adding the Order annotation to the bean backing the aspect or by having the
bean implement the Ordered interface.

11.3.4 Introductions
Introductions (known as inter-type declarations in AspectJ) enable an aspect to declare that advised objects implement a given interface, and to
provide an implementation of that interface on behalf of those objects.

An introduction is made using the aop:declare-parents element inside an aop:aspect This element is used to declare that matching types
have a new parent (hence the name). For example, given an interface UsageTracked , and an implementation of that interface
DefaultUsageTracked , the following aspect declares that all implementors of service interfaces also implement the UsageTracked interface.
(In order to expose statistics via JMX for example.)

<aop:aspect id="usageTrackerAspect" ref="usageTracking">

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 203/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

<aop:declare-parents
types-matching="com.xzy.myapp.service.*+"
implement-interface="com.xyz.myapp.service.tracking.UsageTracked"
default-impl="com.xyz.myapp.service.tracking.DefaultUsageTracked"/>

<aop:before
pointcut="com.xyz.myapp.SystemArchitecture.businessService()
and this(usageTracked)"
method="recordUsage"/>

</aop:aspect>

The class backing the usageTracking bean would contain the method:

public void recordUsage(UsageTracked usageTracked) {

usageTracked.incrementUseCount();
}

The interface to be implemented is determined by implement-interface attribute. The value of the types-matching attribute is an AspectJ
type pattern :- any bean of a matching type will implement the UsageTracked interface. Note that in the before advice of the above example,
service beans can be directly used as implementations of the UsageTracked interface. If accessing a bean programmatically you would write the
following:

UsageTracked usageTracked = (UsageTracked) context.getBean("myService");

11.3.5 Aspect instantiation models

The only supported instantiation model for schema-deﬁned aspects is the singleton model. Other instantiation models may be supported in future
releases.

11.3.6 Advisors
The concept of "advisors" is brought forward from the AOP support deﬁned in Spring 1.2 and does not have a direct equivalent in AspectJ. An
advisor is like a small self-contained aspect that has a single piece of advice. The advice itself is represented by a bean, and must implement one of
the advice interfaces described in Section 12.3.2, “Advice types in Spring”. Advisors can take advantage of AspectJ pointcut expressions though.

Spring supports the advisor concept with the <aop:advisor> element. You will most commonly see it used in conjunction with transactional
advice, which also has its own namespace support in Spring. Here’s how it looks:

<aop:config>

<aop:pointcut id="businessService"
expression="execution(* com.xyz.myapp.service.*.*(..))"/>

<aop:advisor
pointcut-ref="businessService"
advice-ref="tx-advice"/>

</aop:config>

<tx:advice id="tx-advice">
<tx:attributes>
<tx:method name="*" propagation="REQUIRED"/>
</tx:attributes>
</tx:advice>

As well as the pointcut-ref attribute used in the above example, you can also use the pointcut attribute to deﬁne a pointcut expression
inline.

To deﬁne the precedence of an advisor so that the advice can participate in ordering, use the order attribute to deﬁne the Ordered value of the
advisor.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 204/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

11.3.7 Example
Let’s see how the concurrent locking failure retry example from Section 11.2.7, “Example” looks when rewritten using the schema support.

The execution of business services can sometimes fail due to concurrency issues (for example, deadlock loser). If the operation is retried, it is quite
likely it will succeed next time round. For business services where it is appropriate to retry in such conditions (idempotent operations that don’t need
to go back to the user for conﬂict resolution), we’d like to transparently retry the operation to avoid the client seeing a
PessimisticLockingFailureException . This is a requirement that clearly cuts across multiple services in the service layer, and hence is
ideal for implementing via an aspect.

Because we want to retry the operation, we’ll need to use around advice so that we can call proceed multiple times. Here’s how the basic aspect
implementation looks (it’s just a regular Java class using the schema support):

public class ConcurrentOperationExecutor implements Ordered {

private static final int DEFAULT_MAX_RETRIES = 2;

private int maxRetries = DEFAULT_MAX_RETRIES;

private int order = 1;

public void setMaxRetries(int maxRetries) {

this.maxRetries = maxRetries;
}

public int getOrder() {

return this.order;
}

public void setOrder(int order) {

this.order = order;
}

public Object doConcurrentOperation(ProceedingJoinPoint pjp) throws Throwable {

int numAttempts = 0;
PessimisticLockingFailureException lockFailureException;
do {
numAttempts++;
try {
return pjp.proceed();
}
catch(PessimisticLockingFailureException ex) {
lockFailureException = ex;
}
} while(numAttempts <= this.maxRetries);
throw lockFailureException;
}

Note that the aspect implements the Ordered interface so we can set the precedence of the aspect higher than the transaction advice (we want a
fresh transaction each time we retry). The maxRetries and order properties will both be conﬁgured by Spring. The main action happens in the
doConcurrentOperation around advice method. We try to proceed, and if we fail with a PessimisticLockingFailureException we
simply try again unless we have exhausted all of our retry attempts.

This class is identical to the one used in the @AspectJ example, but with the annotations removed.

The corresponding Spring conﬁguration is:

<aop:config>

<aop:aspect id="concurrentOperationRetry" ref="concurrentOperationExecutor">

<aop:pointcut id="idempotentOperation"
expression="execution(* com.xyz.myapp.service.*.*(..))"/>

<aop:around

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 205/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
pointcut-ref="idempotentOperation"
method="doConcurrentOperation"/>

</aop:aspect>

</aop:config>

Notice that for the time being we assume that all business services are idempotent. If this is not the case we can reﬁne the aspect so that it only
retries genuinely idempotent operations, by introducing an Idempotent annotation:

@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
public @interface Idempotent {
// marker annotation
}

and using the annotation to annotate the implementation of service operations. The change to the aspect to retry only idempotent operations simply
involves reﬁning the pointcut expression so that only @Idempotent operations match:

<aop:pointcut id="idempotentOperation"
expression="execution(* com.xyz.myapp.service.*.*(..)) and
@annotation(com.xyz.myapp.service.Idempotent)"/>

11.4 Choosing which AOP declaration style to use

Once you have decided that an aspect is the best approach for implementing a given requirement, how do you decide between using Spring AOP or
AspectJ, and between the Aspect language (code) style, @AspectJ annotation style, or the Spring XML style? These decisions are inﬂuenced by a
number of factors including application requirements, development tools, and team familiarity with AOP.

11.4.1 Spring AOP or full AspectJ?

Use the simplest thing that can work. Spring AOP is simpler than using full AspectJ as there is no requirement to introduce the AspectJ compiler /
weaver into your development and build processes. If you only need to advise the execution of operations on Spring beans, then Spring AOP is the
right choice. If you need to advise objects not managed by the Spring container (such as domain objects typically), then you will need to use
AspectJ. You will also need to use AspectJ if you wish to advise join points other than simple method executions (for example, ﬁeld get or set join
points, and so on).

When using AspectJ, you have the choice of the AspectJ language syntax (also known as the "code style") or the @AspectJ annotation style.
Clearly, if you are not using Java 5+ then the choice has been made for you… use the code style. If aspects play a large role in your design, and you
are able to use the AspectJ Development Tools (AJDT) plugin for Eclipse, then the AspectJ language syntax is the preferred option: it is cleaner and
simpler because the language was purposefully designed for writing aspects. If you are not using Eclipse, or have only a few aspects that do not
play a major role in your application, then you may want to consider using the @AspectJ style and sticking with a regular Java compilation in your
IDE, and adding an aspect weaving phase to your build script.

11.4.2 @AspectJ or XML for Spring AOP?

If you have chosen to use Spring AOP, then you have a choice of @AspectJ or XML style. There are various tradeoffs to consider.

The XML style will be most familiar to existing Spring users and it is backed by genuine POJOs. When using AOP as a tool to configure enterprise
services then XML can be a good choice (a good test is whether you consider the pointcut expression to be a part of your configuration you might
want to change independently). With the XML style arguably it is clearer from your configuration what aspects are present in the system.

The XML style has two disadvantages. Firstly it does not fully encapsulate the implementation of the requirement it addresses in a single place. The
DRY principle says that there should be a single, unambiguous, authoritative representation of any piece of knowledge within a system. When using
the XML style, the knowledge of how a requirement is implemented is split across the declaration of the backing bean class, and the XML in the
conﬁguration ﬁle. When using the @AspectJ style there is a single module - the aspect - in which this information is encapsulated. Secondly, the

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 206/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
XML style is slightly more limited in what it can express than the @AspectJ style: only the "singleton" aspect instantiation model is supported, and it
is not possible to combine named pointcuts declared in XML. For example, in the @AspectJ style you can write something like:

@Pointcut(execution(* get*()))
public void propertyAccess() {}

@Pointcut(execution(org.xyz.Account+ *(..))
public void operationReturningAnAccount() {}

@Pointcut(propertyAccess() && operationReturningAnAccount())

public void accountPropertyAccess() {}

In the XML style I can declare the ﬁrst two pointcuts:

<aop:pointcut id="propertyAccess"
expression="execution(* get*())"/>

<aop:pointcut id="operationReturningAnAccount"
expression="execution(org.xyz.Account+ *(..))"/>

The downside of the XML approach is that you cannot deﬁne the accountPropertyAccess pointcut by combining these deﬁnitions.

The @AspectJ style supports additional instantiation models, and richer pointcut composition. It has the advantage of keeping the aspect as a
modular unit. It also has the advantage the @AspectJ aspects can be understood (and thus consumed) both by Spring AOP and by AspectJ - so if
you later decide you need the capabilities of AspectJ to implement additional requirements then it is very easy to migrate to an AspectJ-based
approach. On balance the Spring team prefer the @AspectJ style whenever you have aspects that do more than simple "conﬁguration" of enterprise
services.

11.5 Mixing aspect types

It is perfectly possible to mix @AspectJ style aspects using the autoproxying support, schema-defined <aop:aspect> aspects, <aop:advisor>
declared advisors and even proxies and interceptors defined using the Spring 1.2 style in the same configuration. All of these are implemented using
the same underlying support mechanism and will co-exist without any difficulty.

11.6 Proxying mechanisms
Spring AOP uses either JDK dynamic proxies or CGLIB to create the proxy for a given target object. (JDK dynamic proxies are preferred whenever
you have a choice).

If the target object to be proxied implements at least one interface then a JDK dynamic proxy will be used. All of the interfaces implemented by the
target type will be proxied. If the target object does not implement any interfaces then a CGLIB proxy will be created.

If you want to force the use of CGLIB proxying (for example, to proxy every method deﬁned for the target object, not just those implemented by its
interfaces) you can do so. However, there are some issues to consider:

final methods cannot be advised, as they cannot be overridden.

As of Spring 3.2, it is no longer necessary to add CGLIB to your project classpath, as CGLIB classes are repackaged under org.springframework
and included directly in the spring-core JAR. This means that CGLIB-based proxy support 'just works' in the same way that JDK dynamic proxies
always have.
As of Spring 4.0, the constructor of your proxied object will NOT be called twice anymore since the CGLIB proxy instance will be created via
Objenesis. Only if your JVM does not allow for constructor bypassing, you might see double invocations and corresponding debug log entries
from Spring’s AOP support.

To force the use of CGLIB proxies set the value of the proxy-target-class attribute of the <aop:config> element to true:

<aop:config proxy-target-class="true">

</aop:config>

To force CGLIB proxying when using the @AspectJ autoproxy support, set the 'proxy-target-class' attribute of the
<aop:aspectj-autoproxy> element to true :

<aop:aspectj-autoproxy proxy-target-class="true"/>

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 207/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Multiple <aop:config/> sections are collapsed into a single unified auto-proxy creator at runtime, which applies the strongest proxy
settings that any of the <aop:config/> sections (typically from different XML bean definition files) specified. This also applies to the
<tx:annotation-driven/> and <aop:aspectj-autoproxy/> elements.
To be clear: using proxy-target-class="true" on <tx:annotation-driven/> , <aop:aspectj-autoproxy/> or
<aop:config/> elements will force the use of CGLIB proxies for all three of them.

11.6.1 Understanding AOP proxies

Spring AOP is proxy-based. It is vitally important that you grasp the semantics of what that last statement actually means before you write your own
aspects or use any of the Spring AOP-based aspects supplied with the Spring Framework.

Consider ﬁrst the scenario where you have a plain-vanilla, un-proxied, nothing-special-about-it, straight object reference, as illustrated by the
following code snippet.

public class SimplePojo implements Pojo {

public void foo() {

// this next method invocation is a direct call on the 'this' reference
this.bar();
}

public void bar() {

// some logic...
}
}

If you invoke a method on an object reference, the method is invoked directly on that object reference, as can be seen below.

public class Main {

public static void main(String[] args) {

Pojo pojo = new SimplePojo();

// this is a direct method call on the 'pojo' reference

pojo.foo();
}
}

Things change slightly when the reference that client code has is a proxy. Consider the following diagram and code snippet.

public class Main {

public static void main(String[] args) {

ProxyFactory factory = new ProxyFactory(new SimplePojo());

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 208/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
factory.addInterface(Pojo.class);
factory.addAdvice(new RetryAdvice());

Pojo pojo = (Pojo) factory.getProxy();

// this is a method call on the proxy!

pojo.foo();
}
}

The key thing to understand here is that the client code inside the main(..) of the Main class has a reference to the proxy. This means that
method calls on that object reference will be calls on the proxy, and as such the proxy will be able to delegate to all of the interceptors (advice) that
are relevant to that particular method call. However, once the call has ﬁnally reached the target object, the SimplePojo reference in this case, any
method calls that it may make on itself, such as this.bar() or this.foo() , are going to be invoked against the this reference, and not the
proxy. This has important implications. It means that self-invocation is not going to result in the advice associated with a method invocation getting a
chance to execute.

Okay, so what is to be done about this? The best approach (the term best is used loosely here) is to refactor your code such that the self-invocation
does not happen. For sure, this does entail some work on your part, but it is the best, least-invasive approach. The next approach is absolutely
horrendous, and I am almost reticent to point it out precisely because it is so horrendous. You can (choke!) totally tie the logic within your class to
Spring AOP by doing this:

public class SimplePojo implements Pojo {

public void foo() {

// this works, but... gah!
((Pojo) AopContext.currentProxy()).bar();
}

public void bar() {

// some logic...
}
}

This totally couples your code to Spring AOP, and it makes the class itself aware of the fact that it is being used in an AOP context, which ﬂies in the
face of AOP. It also requires some additional conﬁguration when the proxy is being created:

public class Main {

public static void main(String[] args) {

ProxyFactory factory = new ProxyFactory(new SimplePojo());

factory.adddInterface(Pojo.class);
factory.addAdvice(new RetryAdvice());
factory.setExposeProxy(true);

Pojo pojo = (Pojo) factory.getProxy();

// this is a method call on the proxy!

pojo.foo();
}
}

Finally, it must be noted that AspectJ does not have this self-invocation issue because it is not a proxy-based AOP framework.

11.7 Programmatic creation of @AspectJ Proxies

In addition to declaring aspects in your conﬁguration using either <aop:config> or <aop:aspectj-autoproxy> , it is also possible
programmatically to create proxies that advise target objects. For the full details of Spring’s AOP API, see the next chapter. Here we want to focus on
the ability to automatically create proxies using @AspectJ aspects.

The class org.springframework.aop.aspectj.annotation.AspectJProxyFactory can be used to create a proxy for a target object that
is advised by one or more @AspectJ aspects. Basic usage for this class is very simple, as illustrated below. See the javadocs for full information.

// create a factory that can generate a proxy for the given target object
AspectJProxyFactory factory = new AspectJProxyFactory(targetObject);
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 209/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
AspectJProxyFactory factory = new AspectJProxyFactory(targetObject);

// add an aspect, the class must be an @AspectJ aspect

// you can call this as many times as you need with different aspects
factory.addAspect(SecurityManager.class);

// you can also add existing aspect instances, the type of the object supplied must be an @AspectJ aspect
factory.addAspect(usageTracker);

// now get the proxy object...

MyInterfaceType proxy = factory.getProxy();

11.8 Using AspectJ with Spring applications

Everything we’ve covered so far in this chapter is pure Spring AOP. In this section, we’re going to look at how you can use the AspectJ
compiler/weaver instead of, or in addition to, Spring AOP if your needs go beyond the facilities offered by Spring AOP alone.

Spring ships with a small AspectJ aspect library, which is available standalone in your distribution as spring-aspects.jar ; you’ll need to add
this to your classpath in order to use the aspects in it. Section 11.8.1, “Using AspectJ to dependency inject domain objects with Spring” and
Section 11.8.2, “Other Spring aspects for AspectJ” discuss the content of this library and how you can use it. Section 11.8.3, “Conﬁguring AspectJ
aspects using Spring IoC” discusses how to dependency inject AspectJ aspects that are woven using the AspectJ compiler. Finally, Section 11.8.4,
“Load-time weaving with AspectJ in the Spring Framework” provides an introduction to load-time weaving for Spring applications using AspectJ.

11.8.1 Using AspectJ to dependency inject domain objects with Spring

The Spring container instantiates and configures beans defined in your application context. It is also possible to ask a bean factory to configure a
pre-existing object given the name of a bean definition containing the configuration to be applied. The spring-aspects.jar contains an
annotation-driven aspect that exploits this capability to allow dependency injection of any object. The support is intended to be used for objects
created outside of the control of any container. Domain objects often fall into this category because they are often created programmatically using
the new operator, or by an ORM tool as a result of a database query.

The @Configurable annotation marks a class as eligible for Spring-driven conﬁguration. In the simplest case it can be used just as a marker
annotation:

package com.xyz.myapp.domain;

import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Configurable;

@Configurable
public class Account {
// ...
}

When used as a marker interface in this way, Spring will configure new instances of the annotated type ( Account in this case) using a bean
definition (typically prototype-scoped) with the same name as the fully-qualified type name ( com.xyz.myapp.domain.Account ). Since the
default name for a bean is the fully-qualified name of its type, a convenient way to declare the prototype definition is simply to omit the id attribute:

<bean class="com.xyz.myapp.domain.Account" scope="prototype">

If you want to explicitly specify the name of the prototype bean deﬁnition to use, you can do so directly in the annotation:

package com.xyz.myapp.domain;

import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Configurable;

@Configurable("account")
public class Account {
// ...
}

Spring will now look for a bean definition named "account" and use that as the definition to configure new Account instances.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 210/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
You can also use autowiring to avoid having to specify a dedicated bean definition at all. To have Spring apply autowiring use the autowire
property of the @Configurable annotation: specify either @Configurable(autowire=Autowire.BY_TYPE) or
@Configurable(autowire=Autowire.BY_NAME for autowiring by type or by name respectively. As an alternative, as of Spring 2.5 it is
preferable to specify explicit, annotation-driven dependency injection for your @Configurable beans by using @Autowired or @Inject at the
field or method level (see Section 7.9, “Annotation-based container configuration” for further details).

Finally you can enable Spring dependency checking for the object references in the newly created and conﬁgured object by using the
dependencyCheck attribute (for example: @Configurable(autowire=Autowire.BY_NAME,dependencyCheck=true) ). If this attribute is
set to true, then Spring will validate after conﬁguration that all properties (which are not primitives or collections) have been set.

Using the annotation on its own does nothing of course. It is the AnnotationBeanConfigurerAspect in spring-aspects.jar that acts on
the presence of the annotation. In essence the aspect says "after returning from the initialization of a new object of a type annotated with
@Configurable , conﬁgure the newly created object using Spring in accordance with the properties of the annotation". In this context, initialization
refers to newly instantiated objects (e.g., objects instantiated with the new operator) as well as to Serializable objects that are undergoing
deserialization (e.g., via readResolve()).

One of the key phrases in the above paragraph is 'in essence'. For most cases, the exact semantics of 'after returning from the
initialization of a new object' will be fine… in this context, 'after initialization' means that the dependencies will be injected after the
object has been constructed - this means that the dependencies will not be available for use in the constructor bodies of the class. If
you want the dependencies to be injected before the constructor bodies execute, and thus be available for use in the body of the
constructors, then you need to define this on the @Configurable declaration like so:
@Configurable(preConstruction=true)
You can find out more information about the language semantics of the various pointcut types in AspectJ in this appendix of the
AspectJ Programming Guide.

For this to work the annotated types must be woven with the AspectJ weaver - you can either use a build-time Ant or Maven task to do this (see for
example the AspectJ Development Environment Guide) or load-time weaving (see Section 11.8.4, “Load-time weaving with AspectJ in the Spring
Framework”). The AnnotationBeanConfigurerAspect itself needs configuring by Spring (in order to obtain a reference to the bean factory that
is to be used to configure new objects). If you are using Java based configuration simply add @EnableSpringConfigured to any
@Configuration class.

@Configuration
@EnableSpringConfigured
public class AppConfig {

If you prefer XML based conﬁguration, the Spring context namespace deﬁnes a convenient context:spring-configured element:

<context:spring-configured/>

Instances of @Configurable objects created before the aspect has been configured will result in a message being issued to the debug log and no
configuration of the object taking place. An example might be a bean in the Spring configuration that creates domain objects when it is initialized by
Spring. In this case you can use the "depends-on" bean attribute to manually specify that the bean depends on the configuration aspect.

</bean>

Do not activate @Configurable processing through the bean conﬁgurer aspect unless you really mean to rely on its semantics at
runtime. In particular, make sure that you do not use @Configurable on bean classes which are registered as regular Spring beans
with the container: You would get double initialization otherwise, once through the container and once through the aspect.

Unit testing @Conﬁgurable objects

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 211/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
One of the goals of the @Configurable support is to enable independent unit testing of domain objects without the difﬁculties associated with
hard-coded lookups. If @Configurable types have not been woven by AspectJ then the annotation has no affect during unit testing, and you can
simply set mock or stub property references in the object under test and proceed as normal. If @Configurable types have been woven by
AspectJ then you can still unit test outside of the container as normal, but you will see a warning message each time that you construct an
@Configurable object indicating that it has not been conﬁgured by Spring.

Working with multiple application contexts

The AnnotationBeanConfigurerAspect used to implement the @Configurable support is an AspectJ singleton aspect. The scope of a
singleton aspect is the same as the scope of static members, that is to say there is one aspect instance per classloader that defines the type.
This means that if you define multiple application contexts within the same classloader hierarchy you need to consider where to define the
@EnableSpringConfigured bean and where to place spring-aspects.jar on the classpath.

Consider a typical Spring web-app configuration with a shared parent application context defining common business services and everything needed
to support them, and one child application context per servlet containing definitions particular to that servlet. All of these contexts will co-exist within
the same classloader hierarchy, and so the AnnotationBeanConfigurerAspect can only hold a reference to one of them. In this case we
recommend defining the @EnableSpringConfigured bean in the shared (parent) application context: this defines the services that you are likely
to want to inject into domain objects. A consequence is that you cannot configure domain objects with references to beans defined in the child
(servlet-specific) contexts using the @Configurable mechanism (probably not something you want to do anyway!).

When deploying multiple web-apps within the same container, ensure that each web-application loads the types in spring-aspects.jar using
its own classloader (for example, by placing spring-aspects.jar in 'WEB-INF/lib' ). If spring-aspects.jar is only added to the
container wide classpath (and hence loaded by the shared parent classloader), all web applications will share the same aspect instance which is
probably not what you want.

11.8.2 Other Spring aspects for AspectJ

In addition to the @Configurable aspect, spring-aspects.jar contains an AspectJ aspect that can be used to drive Spring’s transaction
management for types and methods annotated with the @Transactional annotation. This is primarily intended for users who want to use the
Spring Framework’s transaction support outside of the Spring container.

The aspect that interprets @Transactional annotations is the AnnotationTransactionAspect . When using this aspect, you must annotate
the implementation class (and/or methods within that class), not the interface (if any) that the class implements. AspectJ follows Java’s rule that
annotations on interfaces are not inherited.

A @Transactional annotation on a class speciﬁes the default transaction semantics for the execution of any public operation in the class.

A @Transactional annotation on a method within the class overrides the default transaction semantics given by the class annotation (if present).
Methods of any visibility may be annotated, including private methods. Annotating non-public methods directly is the only way to get transaction
demarcation for the execution of such methods.

Since Spring Framework 4.2, spring-aspects provides a similar aspect that offers the exact same features for the standard
javax.transaction.Transactional annotation. Check JtaAnnotationTransactionAspect for more details.

For AspectJ programmers that want to use the Spring configuration and transaction management support but don’t want to (or cannot) use
annotations, spring-aspects.jar also contains abstract aspects you can extend to provide your own pointcut definitions. See the sources
for the AbstractBeanConfigurerAspect and AbstractTransactionAspect aspects for more information. As an example, the following
excerpt shows how you could write an aspect to configure all instances of objects defined in the domain model using prototype bean definitions that
match the fully-qualified class names:

public aspect DomainObjectConfiguration extends AbstractBeanConfigurerAspect {

public DomainObjectConfiguration() {
setBeanWiringInfoResolver(new ClassNameBeanWiringInfoResolver());
}

// the creation of a new bean (any object in the domain model)

protected pointcut beanCreation(Object beanInstance) :
initialization(new(..)) &&
SystemArchitecture.inDomainModel() &&
this(beanInstance);

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 212/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
}

11.8.3 Conﬁguring AspectJ aspects using Spring IoC

When using AspectJ aspects with Spring applications, it is natural to both want and expect to be able to conﬁgure such aspects using Spring. The
AspectJ runtime itself is responsible for aspect creation, and the means of conﬁguring the AspectJ created aspects via Spring depends on the
AspectJ instantiation model (the per-xxx clause) used by the aspect.

The majority of AspectJ aspects are singleton aspects. Conﬁguration of these aspects is very easy: simply create a bean deﬁnition referencing the
aspect type as normal, and include the bean attribute 'factory-method="aspectOf"' . This ensures that Spring obtains the aspect instance by
asking AspectJ for it rather than trying to create an instance itself. For example:

<bean id="profiler" class="com.xyz.profiler.Profiler"

factory-method="aspectOf">

<property name="profilingStrategy" ref="jamonProfilingStrategy"/>

</bean>

Non-singleton aspects are harder to configure: however it is possible to do so by creating prototype bean definitions and using the
@Configurable support from spring-aspects.jar to configure the aspect instances once they have bean created by the AspectJ runtime.

If you have some @AspectJ aspects that you want to weave with AspectJ (for example, using load-time weaving for domain model types) and other
@AspectJ aspects that you want to use with Spring AOP, and these aspects are all configured using Spring, then you will need to tell the Spring
AOP @AspectJ autoproxying support which exact subset of the @AspectJ aspects defined in the configuration should be used for autoproxying. You
can do this by using one or more <include/> elements inside the <aop:aspectj-autoproxy/> declaration. Each <include/> element
specifies a name pattern, and only beans with names matched by at least one of the patterns will be used for Spring AOP autoproxy configuration:

<aop:aspectj-autoproxy>
<aop:include name="thisBean"/>
<aop:include name="thatBean"/>
</aop:aspectj-autoproxy>

Do not be misled by the name of the <aop:aspectj-autoproxy/> element: using it will result in the creation of Spring AOP
proxies. The @AspectJ style of aspect declaration is just being used here, but the AspectJ runtime is not involved.

11.8.4 Load-time weaving with AspectJ in the Spring Framework

Load-time weaving (LTW) refers to the process of weaving AspectJ aspects into an application’s class files as they are being loaded into the Java
virtual machine (JVM). The focus of this section is on configuring and using LTW in the specific context of the Spring Framework: this section is not
an introduction to LTW though. For full details on the specifics of LTW and configuring LTW with just AspectJ (with Spring not being involved at all),
see the LTW section of the AspectJ Development Environment Guide.

The value-add that the Spring Framework brings to AspectJ LTW is in enabling much finer-grained control over the weaving process. 'Vanilla'
AspectJ LTW is effected using a Java (5+) agent, which is switched on by specifying a VM argument when starting up a JVM. It is thus a JVM-wide
setting, which may be fine in some situations, but often is a little too coarse. Spring-enabled LTW enables you to switch on LTW on a per-
ClassLoader basis, which obviously is more fine-grained and which can make more sense in a 'single-JVM-multiple-application' environment (such
as is found in a typical application server environment).

Further, in certain environments, this support enables load-time weaving without making any modifications to the application server’s launch script
that will be needed to add -javaagent:path/to/aspectjweaver.jar or (as we describe later in this section)
-javaagent:path/to/org.springframework.instrument-{version}.jar (previously named spring-agent.jar ). Developers
simply modify one or more files that form the application context to enable load-time weaving instead of relying on administrators who typically are in
charge of the deployment configuration such as the launch script.

Now that the sales pitch is over, let us ﬁrst walk through a quick example of AspectJ LTW using Spring, followed by detailed speciﬁcs about elements
introduced in the following example. For a complete example, please see the Petclinic sample application.

A ﬁrst example

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 213/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Let us assume that you are an application developer who has been tasked with diagnosing the cause of some performance problems in a system.
Rather than break out a profiling tool, what we are going to do is switch on a simple profiling aspect that will enable us to very quickly get some
performance metrics, so that we can then apply a finer-grained profiling tool to that specific area immediately afterwards.

The example presented here uses XML style configuration, it is also possible to configure and use @AspectJ with Java Configuration.
Specifically the @EnableLoadTimeWeaving annotation can be used as an alternative to <context:load-time-weaver/> (see
below for details).

Here is the proﬁling aspect. Nothing too fancy, just a quick-and-dirty time-based proﬁler, using the @AspectJ-style of aspect declaration.

package foo;

import org.aspectj.lang.ProceedingJoinPoint;
import org.aspectj.lang.annotation.Aspect;
import org.aspectj.lang.annotation.Around;
import org.aspectj.lang.annotation.Pointcut;
import org.springframework.util.StopWatch;
import org.springframework.core.annotation.Order;

@Aspect
public class ProfilingAspect {

@Around("methodsToBeProfiled()")
public Object profile(ProceedingJoinPoint pjp) throws Throwable {
StopWatch sw = new StopWatch(getClass().getSimpleName());
try {
sw.start(pjp.getSignature().getName());
return pjp.proceed();
} finally {
sw.stop();
System.out.println(sw.prettyPrint());
}
}

@Pointcut("execution(public * foo..*.*(..))")
public void methodsToBeProfiled(){}
}

We will also need to create an META-INF/aop.xml file, to inform the AspectJ weaver that we want to weave our ProfilingAspect into our
classes. This file convention, namely the presence of a file (or files) on the Java classpath called META-INF/aop.xml is standard AspectJ.

<!DOCTYPE aspectj PUBLIC "-//AspectJ//DTD//EN" "http://www.eclipse.org/aspectj/dtd/aspectj.dtd">

</aspectj>

Now to the Spring-specific portion of the configuration. We need to configure a LoadTimeWeaver (all explained later, just take it on trust for now).
This load-time weaver is the essential component responsible for weaving the aspect configuration in one or more META-INF/aop.xml files into
the classes in your application. The good thing is that it does not require a lot of configuration, as can be seen below (there are some more options
that you can specify, but these are detailed later).

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<context:load-time-weaver/>
</beans>

Now that all the required artifacts are in place - the aspect, the META-INF/aop.xml ﬁle, and the Spring conﬁguration -, let us create a simple
driver class with a main(..) method to demonstrate the LTW in action.

package foo;

import org.springframework.context.support.ClassPathXmlApplicationContext;

public final class Main {

public static void main(String[] args) {

ApplicationContext ctx = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("beans.xml", Main.class);

EntitlementCalculationService entitlementCalculationService
= (EntitlementCalculationService) ctx.getBean("entitlementCalculationService");

// the profiling aspect is 'woven' around this method execution

entitlementCalculationService.calculateEntitlement();
}
}

There is one last thing to do. The introduction to this section did say that one could switch on LTW selectively on a per- ClassLoader basis with
Spring, and this is true. However, just for this example, we are going to use a Java agent (supplied with Spring) to switch on the LTW. This is the
command line we will use to run the above Main class:

java -javaagent:C:/projects/foo/lib/global/spring-instrument.jar foo.Main

The -javaagent is a ﬂag for specifying and enabling agents to instrument programs running on the JVM. The Spring Framework ships with such
an agent, the InstrumentationSavingAgent , which is packaged in the spring-instrument.jar that was supplied as the value of the
-javaagent argument in the above example.

The output from the execution of the Main program will look something like that below. (I have introduced a Thread.sleep(..) statement into
the calculateEntitlement() implementation so that the proﬁler actually captures something other than 0 milliseconds - the 01234
milliseconds is not an overhead introduced by the AOP :) )

Calculating entitlement

StopWatch 'ProfilingAspect': running time (millis) = 1234

------ ----- ----------------------------
ms % Task name
------ ----- ----------------------------
01234 100% calculateEntitlement

Since this LTW is effected using full-blown AspectJ, we are not just limited to advising Spring beans; the following slight variation on the Main
program will yield the same result.

package foo;

import org.springframework.context.support.ClassPathXmlApplicationContext;

public final class Main {

public static void main(String[] args) {

new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("beans.xml", Main.class);

EntitlementCalculationService entitlementCalculationService =
new StubEntitlementCalculationService();

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 215/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

// the profiling aspect will be 'woven' around this method execution

entitlementCalculationService.calculateEntitlement();
}
}

Notice how in the above program we are simply bootstrapping the Spring container, and then creating a new instance of the
StubEntitlementCalculationService totally outside the context of Spring… the proﬁling advice still gets woven in.

The example admittedly is simplistic… however the basics of the LTW support in Spring have all been introduced in the above example, and the rest
of this section will explain the 'why' behind each bit of conﬁguration and usage in detail.

The ProfilingAspect used in this example may be basic, but it is quite useful. It is a nice example of a development-time aspect
that developers can use during development (of course), and then quite easily exclude from builds of the application being deployed
into UAT or production.

Aspects
The aspects that you use in LTW have to be AspectJ aspects. They can be written in either the AspectJ language itself or you can write your aspects
in the @AspectJ-style. It means that your aspects are then both valid AspectJ and Spring AOP aspects. Furthermore, the compiled aspect classes
need to be available on the classpath.

'META-INF/aop.xml'
The AspectJ LTW infrastructure is configured using one or more META-INF/aop.xml files, that are on the Java classpath (either directly, or more
typically in jar files).

The structure and contents of this file is detailed in the main AspectJ reference documentation, and the interested reader is referred to that resource.
(I appreciate that this section is brief, but the aop.xml file is 100% AspectJ - there is no Spring-specific information or semantics that apply to it,
and so there is no extra value that I can contribute either as a result), so rather than rehash the quite satisfactory section that the AspectJ developers
wrote, I am just directing you there.)

Required libraries (JARS)

At a minimum you will need the following libraries to use the Spring Framework’s support for AspectJ LTW:

spring-aop.jar (version 2.5 or later, plus all mandatory dependencies)

aspectjweaver.jar (version 1.6.8 or later)

If you are using the Spring-provided agent to enable instrumentation, you will also need:

spring-instrument.jar

Spring conﬁguration
The key component in Spring’s LTW support is the LoadTimeWeaver interface (in the org.springframework.instrument.classloading
package), and the numerous implementations of it that ship with the Spring distribution. A LoadTimeWeaver is responsible for adding one or more
java.lang.instrument.ClassFileTransformers to a ClassLoader at runtime, which opens the door to all manner of interesting
applications, one of which happens to be the LTW of aspects.

If you are unfamiliar with the idea of runtime class ﬁle transformation, you are encouraged to read the javadoc API documentation for
the java.lang.instrument package before continuing. This is not a huge chore because there is - rather annoyingly - precious
little documentation there… the key interfaces and classes will at least be laid out in front of you for reference as you read through this
section.

Conﬁguring a LoadTimeWeaver for a particular ApplicationContext can be as easy as adding one line. (Please note that you almost
certainly will need to be using an ApplicationContext as your Spring container - typically a BeanFactory will not be enough because the
LTW support makes use of BeanFactoryPostProcessors .)

To enable the Spring Framework’s LTW support, you need to conﬁgure a LoadTimeWeaver , which typically is done using the
@EnableLoadTimeWeaving annotation.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 216/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

@Configuration
@EnableLoadTimeWeaving
public class AppConfig {

Alternatively, if you prefer XML based conﬁguration, use the <context:load-time-weaver/> element. Note that the element is deﬁned in the
context namespace.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<context:load-time-weaver/>

</beans>

The above configuration will define and register a number of LTW-specific infrastructure beans for you automatically, such as a LoadTimeWeaver
and an AspectJWeavingEnabler . The default LoadTimeWeaver is the DefaultContextLoadTimeWeaver class, which attempts to
decorate an automatically detected LoadTimeWeaver : the exact type of LoadTimeWeaver that will be 'automatically detected' is dependent
upon your runtime environment (summarized in the following table).

Table 11.1. DefaultContextLoadTimeWeaver LoadTimeWeavers

Runtime Environment LoadTimeWeaver implementation

Running in Oracle’s WebLogic WebLogicLoadTimeWeaver

Running in Oracle’s GlassFish GlassFishLoadTimeWeaver

Running in Apache Tomcat TomcatLoadTimeWeaver

Running in Red Hat’s JBoss AS or WildFly JBossLoadTimeWeaver

Running in IBM’s WebSphere WebSphereLoadTimeWeaver

JVM started with Spring InstrumentationSavingAgent (java -javaagent:path/to/spring- InstrumentationLoadTimeWeaver

instrument.jar)

Fallback, expecting the underlying ClassLoader to follow common conventions (e.g. applicable to ReflectiveLoadTimeWeaver
TomcatInstrumentableClassLoader and Resin)

Note that these are just the LoadTimeWeavers that are autodetected when using the DefaultContextLoadTimeWeaver : it is of course
possible to specify exactly which LoadTimeWeaver implementation that you wish to use.

To specify a speciﬁc LoadTimeWeaver with Java conﬁguration implement the LoadTimeWeavingConfigurer interface and override the
getLoadTimeWeaver() method:

@Configuration
@EnableLoadTimeWeaving
public class AppConfig implements LoadTimeWeavingConfigurer {

@Override
public LoadTimeWeaver getLoadTimeWeaver() {
return new ReflectiveLoadTimeWeaver();
}
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 217/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
If you are using XML based conﬁguration you can specify the fully-qualiﬁed classname as the value of the weaver-class attribute on the
<context:load-time-weaver/> element:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<context:load-time-weaver
weaver-class="org.springframework.instrument.classloading.ReflectiveLoadTimeWeaver"/>

</beans>

The LoadTimeWeaver that is defined and registered by the configuration can be later retrieved from the Spring container using the well-known
name loadTimeWeaver . Remember that the LoadTimeWeaver exists just as a mechanism for Spring’s LTW infrastructure to add one or more
ClassFileTransformers . The actual ClassFileTransformer that does the LTW is the ClassPreProcessorAgentAdapter (from the
org.aspectj.weaver.loadtime package) class. See the class-level javadocs of the ClassPreProcessorAgentAdapter class for further
details, because the specifics of how the weaving is actually effected is beyond the scope of this section.

There is one ﬁnal attribute of the conﬁguration left to discuss: the aspectjWeaving attribute (or aspectj-weaving if you are using XML). This
is a simple attribute that controls whether LTW is enabled or not; it is as simple as that. It accepts one of three possible values, summarized below,
with the default value being autodetect if the attribute is not present.

Table 11.2. AspectJ weaving attribute values

Annotation XML Value Explanation

Value

ENABLED on AspectJ weaving is on, and aspects will be woven at load-time as appropriate.

DISABLED off LTW is off… no aspect will be woven at load-time.

AUTODETECT autodetect If the Spring LTW infrastructure can ﬁnd at least one META-INF/aop.xml ﬁle, then AspectJ weaving is
on, else it is off. This is the default value.

Environment-specific configuration
This last section contains any additional settings and configuration that you will need when using Spring’s LTW support in environments such as
application servers and web containers.

Tomcat
Historically, Apache Tomcat's default class loader did not support class transformation which is why Spring provides an enhanced implementation
that addresses this need. Named TomcatInstrumentableClassLoader , the loader works on Tomcat 6.0 and above.

Do not deﬁne TomcatInstrumentableClassLoader anymore on Tomcat 8.0 and higher. Instead, let Spring automatically use
Tomcat’s new native InstrumentableClassLoader facility through the TomcatLoadTimeWeaver strategy.

If you still need to use TomcatInstrumentableClassLoader , it can be registered individually for each web application as follows:

Copy org.springframework.instrument.tomcat.jar into $CATALINA_HOME/lib, where $CATALINA_HOME represents the root of the
Tomcat installation)
Instruct Tomcat to use the custom class loader (instead of the default) by editing the web application context ﬁle:

<Context path="/myWebApp" docBase="/my/webApp/location">

Apache Tomcat (6.0+) supports several context locations:

server conﬁguration ﬁle - $CATALINA_HOME/conf/server.xml

default context conﬁguration - $CATALINA_HOME/conf/context.xml - that affects all deployed web applications
per-web application conﬁguration which can be deployed either on the server-side at
$CATALINA_HOME/conf/[enginename]/[hostname]/[webapp]-context.xml or embedded inside the web-app archive at META-INF/context.xml

For efficiency, the embedded per-web-app configuration style is recommended because it will impact only applications that use the custom class
loader and does not require any changes to the server configuration. See the Tomcat 6.0.x documentation for more details about available context
locations.

Alternatively, consider the use of the Spring-provided generic VM agent, to be speciﬁed in Tomcat’s launch script (see above). This will make
instrumentation available to all deployed web applications, no matter what ClassLoader they happen to run on.

WebLogic, WebSphere, Resin, GlassFish, JBoss

Recent versions of WebLogic Server (version 10 and above), IBM WebSphere Application Server (version 7 and above), Resin (3.1 and above) and
JBoss (6.x or above) provide a ClassLoader that is capable of local instrumentation. Spring’s native LTW leverages such ClassLoaders to enable
AspectJ weaving. You can enable LTW by simply activating load-time weaving as described earlier. Speciﬁcally, you do not need to modify the
launch script to add -javaagent:path/to/spring-instrument.jar .

Note that GlassFish instrumentation-capable ClassLoader is available only in its EAR environment. For GlassFish web applications, follow the
Tomcat setup instructions as outlined above.

Note that on JBoss 6.x, the app server scanning needs to be disabled to prevent it from loading the classes before the application actually starts. A
quick workaround is to add to your artifact a ﬁle named WEB-INF/jboss-scanning.xml with the following content:

Generic Java applications

When class instrumentation is required in environments that do not support or are not supported by the existing LoadTimeWeaver
implementations, a JDK agent can be the only solution. For such cases, Spring provides InstrumentationLoadTimeWeaver , which requires a
Spring-speciﬁc (but very general) VM agent, org.springframework.instrument-{version}.jar (previously named
spring-agent.jar ).

To use it, you must start the virtual machine with the Spring agent, by supplying the following JVM options:

-javaagent:/path/to/org.springframework.instrument-{version}.jar

Note that this requires modiﬁcation of the VM launch script which may prevent you from using this in application server environments (depending on
your operation policies). Additionally, the JDK agent will instrument the entire VM which can prove expensive.

For performance reasons, it is recommended to use this conﬁguration only if your target environment (such as Jetty) does not have (or does not
support) a dedicated LTW.

11.9 Further Resources
More information on AspectJ can be found on the AspectJ website.

The book Eclipse AspectJ by Adrian Colyer et. al. (Addison-Wesley, 2005) provides a comprehensive introduction and reference for the AspectJ
language.

The book AspectJ in Action, Second Edition by Ramnivas Laddad (Manning, 2009) comes highly recommended; the focus of the book is on AspectJ,
but a lot of general AOP themes are explored (in some depth).

12. Spring AOP APIs

12.1 Introduction
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 219/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The previous chapter described the Spring’s support for AOP using @AspectJ and schema-based aspect deﬁnitions. In this chapter we discuss the
lower-level Spring AOP APIs and the AOP support used in Spring 1.2 applications. For new applications, we recommend the use of the Spring 2.0
and later AOP support described in the previous chapter, but when working with existing applications, or when reading books and articles, you may
come across Spring 1.2 style examples. Spring 4.0 is backwards compatible with Spring 1.2 and everything described in this chapter is fully
supported in Spring 4.0.

12.2 Pointcut API in Spring

Let’s look at how Spring handles the crucial pointcut concept.

12.2.1 Concepts
Spring’s pointcut model enables pointcut reuse independent of advice types. It’s possible to target different advice using the same pointcut.

The org.springframework.aop.Pointcut interface is the central interface, used to target advices to particular classes and methods. The
complete interface is shown below:

public interface Pointcut {

ClassFilter getClassFilter();

MethodMatcher getMethodMatcher();

Splitting the Pointcut interface into two parts allows reuse of class and method matching parts, and ﬁne-grained composition operations (such as
performing a "union" with another method matcher).

The ClassFilter interface is used to restrict the pointcut to a given set of target classes. If the matches() method always returns true, all
target classes will be matched:

public interface ClassFilter {

boolean matches(Class clazz);

}

The MethodMatcher interface is normally more important. The complete interface is shown below:

public interface MethodMatcher {

boolean matches(Method m, Class targetClass);

boolean isRuntime();

boolean matches(Method m, Class targetClass, Object[] args);

}

The matches(Method, Class) method is used to test whether this pointcut will ever match a given method on a target class. This evaluation
can be performed when an AOP proxy is created, to avoid the need for a test on every method invocation. If the 2-argument matches method returns
true for a given method, and the isRuntime() method for the MethodMatcher returns true, the 3-argument matches method will be invoked on
every method invocation. This enables a pointcut to look at the arguments passed to the method invocation immediately before the target advice is
to execute.

Most MethodMatchers are static, meaning that their isRuntime() method returns false. In this case, the 3-argument matches method will never
be invoked.

If possible, try to make pointcuts static, allowing the AOP framework to cache the results of pointcut evaluation when an AOP proxy is
created.

12.2.2 Operations on pointcuts

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 220/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Spring supports operations on pointcuts: notably, union and intersection.

Union means the methods that either pointcut matches.

Intersection means the methods that both pointcuts match.
Union is usually more useful.
Pointcuts can be composed using the static methods in the org.springframework.aop.support.Pointcuts class, or using the ComposablePointcut
class in the same package. However, using AspectJ pointcut expressions is usually a simpler approach.

12.2.3 AspectJ expression pointcuts

Since 2.0, the most important type of pointcut used by Spring is org.springframework.aop.aspectj.AspectJExpressionPointcut . This
is a pointcut that uses an AspectJ supplied library to parse an AspectJ pointcut expression string.

See the previous chapter for a discussion of supported AspectJ pointcut primitives.

12.2.4 Convenience pointcut implementations

Spring provides several convenient pointcut implementations. Some can be used out of the box; others are intended to be subclassed in application-
speciﬁc pointcuts.

Static pointcuts
Static pointcuts are based on method and target class, and cannot take into account the method’s arguments. Static pointcuts are sufﬁcient - and
best - for most usages. It’s possible for Spring to evaluate a static pointcut only once, when a method is ﬁrst invoked: after that, there is no need to
evaluate the pointcut again with each method invocation.

Let’s consider some static pointcut implementations included with Spring.

Regular expression pointcuts

One obvious way to specify static pointcuts is regular expressions. Several AOP frameworks besides Spring make this possible.
org.springframework.aop.support.JdkRegexpMethodPointcut is a generic regular expression pointcut, using the regular expression
support in JDK 1.4+.

Using the JdkRegexpMethodPointcut class, you can provide a list of pattern Strings. If any of these is a match, the pointcut will evaluate to true.
(So the result is effectively the union of these pointcuts.)

The usage is shown below:

<bean id="settersAndAbsquatulatePointcut"
class="org.springframework.aop.support.JdkRegexpMethodPointcut">
<property name="patterns">
<list>
<value>.*set.*</value>
<value>.*absquatulate</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>

Spring provides a convenience class, RegexpMethodPointcutAdvisor , that allows us to also reference an Advice (remember that an Advice
can be an interceptor, before advice, throws advice etc.). Behind the scenes, Spring will use a JdkRegexpMethodPointcut . Using
RegexpMethodPointcutAdvisor simpliﬁes wiring, as the one bean encapsulates both pointcut and advice, as shown below:

<bean id="settersAndAbsquatulateAdvisor"
class="org.springframework.aop.support.RegexpMethodPointcutAdvisor">
<property name="advice">
<ref bean="beanNameOfAopAllianceInterceptor"/>
</property>
<property name="patterns">
<list>
<value>.*set.*</value>
<value>.*absquatulate</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 221/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
</bean>

RegexpMethodPointcutAdvisor can be used with any Advice type.

Attribute-driven pointcuts
An important type of static pointcut is a metadata-driven pointcut. This uses the values of metadata attributes: typically, source-level metadata.

Dynamic pointcuts
Dynamic pointcuts are costlier to evaluate than static pointcuts. They take into account method arguments, as well as static information. This means
that they must be evaluated with every method invocation; the result cannot be cached, as arguments will vary.

The main example is the control flow pointcut.

Control ﬂow pointcuts

Spring control flow pointcuts are conceptually similar to AspectJ cflow pointcuts, although less powerful. (There is currently no way to specify that a
pointcut executes below a join point matched by another pointcut.) A control flow pointcut matches the current call stack. For example, it might fire if
the join point was invoked by a method in the com.mycompany.web package, or by the SomeCaller class. Control flow pointcuts are specified
using the org.springframework.aop.support.ControlFlowPointcut class.

Control ﬂow pointcuts are signiﬁcantly more expensive to evaluate at runtime than even other dynamic pointcuts. In Java 1.4, the cost
is about 5 times that of other dynamic pointcuts.

12.2.5 Pointcut superclasses
Spring provides useful pointcut superclasses to help you to implement your own pointcuts.

Because static pointcuts are most useful, you’ll probably subclass StaticMethodMatcherPointcut, as shown below. This requires implementing just
one abstract method (although it’s possible to override other methods to customize behavior):

class TestStaticPointcut extends StaticMethodMatcherPointcut {

public boolean matches(Method m, Class targetClass) {

// return true if custom criteria match
}
}

There are also superclasses for dynamic pointcuts.

You can use custom pointcuts with any advice type in Spring 1.0 RC2 and above.

12.2.6 Custom pointcuts
Because pointcuts in Spring AOP are Java classes, rather than language features (as in AspectJ) it’s possible to declare custom pointcuts, whether
static or dynamic. Custom pointcuts in Spring can be arbitrarily complex. However, using the AspectJ pointcut expression language is recommended
if possible.

Later versions of Spring may offer support for "semantic pointcuts" as offered by JAC: for example, "all methods that change instance
variables in the target object."

12.3 Advice API in Spring

Let’s now look at how Spring AOP handles advice.

12.3.1 Advice lifecycles

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 222/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Each advice is a Spring bean. An advice instance can be shared across all advised objects, or unique to each advised object. This corresponds to
per-class or per-instance advice.

Per-class advice is used most often. It is appropriate for generic advice such as transaction advisors. These do not depend on the state of the
proxied object or add new state; they merely act on the method and arguments.

Per-instance advice is appropriate for introductions, to support mixins. In this case, the advice adds state to the proxied object.

It’s possible to use a mix of shared and per-instance advice in the same AOP proxy.

12.3.2 Advice types in Spring

Spring provides several advice types out of the box, and is extensible to support arbitrary advice types. Let us look at the basic concepts and
standard advice types.

Interception around advice

The most fundamental advice type in Spring is interception around advice.

Spring is compliant with the AOP Alliance interface for around advice using method interception. MethodInterceptors implementing around advice
should implement the following interface:

public interface MethodInterceptor extends Interceptor {

Object invoke(MethodInvocation invocation) throws Throwable;

}

The MethodInvocation argument to the invoke() method exposes the method being invoked; the target join point; the AOP proxy; and the
arguments to the method. The invoke() method should return the invocation’s result: the return value of the join point.

A simple MethodInterceptor implementation looks as follows:

public class DebugInterceptor implements MethodInterceptor {

public Object invoke(MethodInvocation invocation) throws Throwable {

System.out.println("Before: invocation=[" + invocation + "]");
Object rval = invocation.proceed();
System.out.println("Invocation returned");
return rval;
}
}

Note the call to the MethodInvocation’s proceed() method. This proceeds down the interceptor chain towards the join point. Most interceptors will
invoke this method, and return its return value. However, a MethodInterceptor, like any around advice, can return a different value or throw an
exception rather than invoke the proceed method. However, you don’t want to do this without good reason!

MethodInterceptors offer interoperability with other AOP Alliance-compliant AOP implementations. The other advice types discussed in
the remainder of this section implement common AOP concepts, but in a Spring-specific way. While there is an advantage in using the
most specific advice type, stick with MethodInterceptor around advice if you are likely to want to run the aspect in another AOP
framework. Note that pointcuts are not currently interoperable between frameworks, and the AOP Alliance does not currently define
pointcut interfaces.

Before advice
A simpler advice type is a before advice. This does not need a MethodInvocation object, since it will only be called before entering the method.

The main advantage of a before advice is that there is no need to invoke the proceed() method, and therefore no possibility of inadvertently
failing to proceed down the interceptor chain.

The MethodBeforeAdvice interface is shown below. (Spring’s API design would allow for ﬁeld before advice, although the usual objects apply to
ﬁeld interception and it’s unlikely that Spring will ever implement it).

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 223/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

public interface MethodBeforeAdvice extends BeforeAdvice {

void before(Method m, Object[] args, Object target) throws Throwable;

}

Note the return type is void . Before advice can insert custom behavior before the join point executes, but cannot change the return value. If a
before advice throws an exception, this will abort further execution of the interceptor chain. The exception will propagate back up the interceptor
chain. If it is unchecked, or on the signature of the invoked method, it will be passed directly to the client; otherwise it will be wrapped in an
unchecked exception by the AOP proxy.

An example of a before advice in Spring, which counts all method invocations:

public class CountingBeforeAdvice implements MethodBeforeAdvice {

private int count;

public void before(Method m, Object[] args, Object target) throws Throwable {

++count;
}

public int getCount() {

return count;
}
}

Before advice can be used with any pointcut.

Throws advice
Throws advice is invoked after the return of the join point if the join point threw an exception. Spring offers typed throws advice. Note that this means
that the org.springframework.aop.ThrowsAdvice interface does not contain any methods: It is a tag interface identifying that the given
object implements one or more typed throws advice methods. These should be in the form of:

afterThrowing([Method, args, target], subclassOfThrowable)

Only the last argument is required. The method signatures may have either one or four arguments, depending on whether the advice method is
interested in the method and arguments. The following classes are examples of throws advice.

The advice below is invoked if a RemoteException is thrown (including subclasses):

public class RemoteThrowsAdvice implements ThrowsAdvice {

public void afterThrowing(RemoteException ex) throws Throwable {

// Do something with remote exception
}
}

The following advice is invoked if a ServletException is thrown. Unlike the above advice, it declares 4 arguments, so that it has access to the
invoked method, method arguments and target object:

public class ServletThrowsAdviceWithArguments implements ThrowsAdvice {

public void afterThrowing(Method m, Object[] args, Object target, ServletException ex) {

// Do something with all arguments
}
}

The ﬁnal example illustrates how these two methods could be used in a single class, which handles both RemoteException and
ServletException . Any number of throws advice methods can be combined in a single class.

public static class CombinedThrowsAdvice implements ThrowsAdvice {

public void afterThrowing(RemoteException ex) throws Throwable {

// Do something with remote exception
}
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 224/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
}

public void afterThrowing(Method m, Object[] args, Object target, ServletException ex) {

// Do something with all arguments
}
}

If a throws-advice method throws an exception itself, it will override the original exception (i.e. change the exception thrown to the
user). The overriding exception will typically be a RuntimeException; this is compatible with any method signature. However, if a
throws-advice method throws a checked exception, it will have to match the declared exceptions of the target method and is hence to
some degree coupled to speciﬁc target method signatures. Do not throw an undeclared checked exception that is incompatible with the
target method’s signature!

Throws advice can be used with any pointcut.

After Returning advice

An after returning advice in Spring must implement the org.springframework.aop.AfterReturningAdvice interface, shown below:

public interface AfterReturningAdvice extends Advice {

void afterReturning(Object returnValue, Method m, Object[] args, Object target)

throws Throwable;
}

An after returning advice has access to the return value (which it cannot modify), invoked method, methods arguments and target.

The following after returning advice counts all successful method invocations that have not thrown exceptions:

public class CountingAfterReturningAdvice implements AfterReturningAdvice {

private int count;

public void afterReturning(Object returnValue, Method m, Object[] args, Object target)

throws Throwable {
++count;
}

public int getCount() {

return count;
}
}

This advice doesn’t change the execution path. If it throws an exception, this will be thrown up the interceptor chain instead of the return value.

After returning advice can be used with any pointcut.

Introduction advice
Spring treats introduction advice as a special kind of interception advice.

Introduction requires an IntroductionAdvisor , and an IntroductionInterceptor , implementing the following interface:

public interface IntroductionInterceptor extends MethodInterceptor {

boolean implementsInterface(Class intf);

}

The invoke() method inherited from the AOP Alliance MethodInterceptor interface must implement the introduction: that is, if the invoked
method is on an introduced interface, the introduction interceptor is responsible for handling the method call - it cannot invoke proceed() .

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 225/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Introduction advice cannot be used with any pointcut, as it applies only at class, rather than method, level. You can only use introduction advice with
the IntroductionAdvisor , which has the following methods:

public interface IntroductionAdvisor extends Advisor, IntroductionInfo {

ClassFilter getClassFilter();

void validateInterfaces() throws IllegalArgumentException;

}

public interface IntroductionInfo {

Class[] getInterfaces();
}

There is no MethodMatcher , and hence no Pointcut , associated with introduction advice. Only class ﬁltering is logical.

The getInterfaces() method returns the interfaces introduced by this advisor.

The validateInterfaces() method is used internally to see whether or not the introduced interfaces can be implemented by the conﬁgured
IntroductionInterceptor .

Let’s look at a simple example from the Spring test suite. Let’s suppose we want to introduce the following interface to one or more objects:

public interface Lockable {

void lock();
void unlock();
boolean locked();
}

This illustrates a mixin. We want to be able to cast advised objects to Lockable, whatever their type, and call lock and unlock methods. If we call the
lock() method, we want all setter methods to throw a LockedException . Thus we can add an aspect that provides the ability to make objects
immutable, without them having any knowledge of it: a good example of AOP.

Firstly, we’ll need an IntroductionInterceptor that does the heavy lifting. In this case, we extend the
org.springframework.aop.support.DelegatingIntroductionInterceptor convenience class. We could implement
IntroductionInterceptor directly, but using DelegatingIntroductionInterceptor is best for most cases.

The DelegatingIntroductionInterceptor is designed to delegate an introduction to an actual implementation of the introduced interface(s),
concealing the use of interception to do so. The delegate can be set to any object using a constructor argument; the default delegate (when the no-
arg constructor is used) is this. Thus in the example below, the delegate is the LockMixin subclass of
DelegatingIntroductionInterceptor . Given a delegate (by default itself), a DelegatingIntroductionInterceptor instance looks for
all interfaces implemented by the delegate (other than IntroductionInterceptor), and will support introductions against any of them. It’s possible for
subclasses such as LockMixin to call the suppressInterface(Class intf) method to suppress interfaces that should not be exposed.
However, no matter how many interfaces an IntroductionInterceptor is prepared to support, the IntroductionAdvisor used will control
which interfaces are actually exposed. An introduced interface will conceal any implementation of the same interface by the target.

Thus LockMixin extends DelegatingIntroductionInterceptor and implements Lockable itself. The superclass automatically picks up
that Lockable can be supported for introduction, so we don’t need to specify that. We could introduce any number of interfaces in this way.

Note the use of the locked instance variable. This effectively adds additional state to that held in the target object.

public class LockMixin extends DelegatingIntroductionInterceptor implements Lockable {

private boolean locked;

public void lock() {

this.locked = true;
}

public void unlock() {

this.locked = false;
}

public boolean locked() {

return this.locked;

}
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 226/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
}

public Object invoke(MethodInvocation invocation) throws Throwable {

if (locked() && invocation.getMethod().getName().indexOf("set") == 0) {
throw new LockedException();
}
return super.invoke(invocation);
}

Often it isn’t necessary to override the invoke() method: the DelegatingIntroductionInterceptor implementation - which calls the
delegate method if the method is introduced, otherwise proceeds towards the join point - is usually sufﬁcient. In the present case, we need to add a
check: no setter method can be invoked if in locked mode.

The introduction advisor required is simple. All it needs to do is hold a distinct LockMixin instance, and specify the introduced interfaces - in this
case, just Lockable . A more complex example might take a reference to the introduction interceptor (which would be deﬁned as a prototype): in
this case, there’s no conﬁguration relevant for a LockMixin , so we simply create it using new .

public class LockMixinAdvisor extends DefaultIntroductionAdvisor {

public LockMixinAdvisor() {
super(new LockMixin(), Lockable.class);
}
}

We can apply this advisor very simply: it requires no conﬁguration. (However, it is necessary: It’s impossible to use an
IntroductionInterceptor without an IntroductionAdvisor.) As usual with introductions, the advisor must be per-instance, as it is stateful. We
need a different instance of LockMixinAdvisor , and hence LockMixin , for each advised object. The advisor comprises part of the advised
object’s state.

We can apply this advisor programmatically, using the Advised.addAdvisor() method, or (the recommended way) in XML conﬁguration, like
any other advisor. All proxy creation choices discussed below, including "auto proxy creators," correctly handle introductions and stateful mixins.

12.4 Advisor API in Spring

In Spring, an Advisor is an aspect that contains just a single advice object associated with a pointcut expression.

Apart from the special case of introductions, any advisor can be used with any advice.
org.springframework.aop.support.DefaultPointcutAdvisor is the most commonly used advisor class. For example, it can be used
with a MethodInterceptor , BeforeAdvice or ThrowsAdvice .

It is possible to mix advisor and advice types in Spring in the same AOP proxy. For example, you could use a interception around advice, throws
advice and before advice in one proxy conﬁguration: Spring will automatically create the necessary interceptor chain.

12.5 Using the ProxyFactoryBean to create AOP proxies

If you’re using the Spring IoC container (an ApplicationContext or BeanFactory) for your business objects - and you should be! - you will want to use
one of Spring’s AOP FactoryBeans. (Remember that a factory bean introduces a layer of indirection, enabling it to create objects of a different type.)

The Spring AOP support also uses factory beans under the covers.

The basic way to create an AOP proxy in Spring is to use the org.springframework.aop.framework.ProxyFactoryBean. This gives complete control
over the pointcuts and advice that will apply, and their ordering. However, there are simpler options that are preferable if you don’t need such control.

12.5.1 Basics
The ProxyFactoryBean , like other Spring FactoryBean implementations, introduces a level of indirection. If you deﬁne a
ProxyFactoryBean with name foo , what objects referencing foo see is not the ProxyFactoryBean instance itself, but an object created by
the ProxyFactoryBean’s implementation of the `getObject() method. This method will create an AOP proxy wrapping a target
object.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 227/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
One of the most important beneﬁts of using a ProxyFactoryBean or another IoC-aware class to create AOP proxies, is that it means that advices
and pointcuts can also be managed by IoC. This is a powerful feature, enabling certain approaches that are hard to achieve with other AOP
frameworks. For example, an advice may itself reference application objects (besides the target, which should be available in any AOP framework),
beneﬁting from all the pluggability provided by Dependency Injection.

12.5.2 JavaBean properties
In common with most FactoryBean implementations provided with Spring, the ProxyFactoryBean class is itself a JavaBean. Its properties are
used to:

Specify the target you want to proxy.

Specify whether to use CGLIB (see below and also Section 12.5.3, “JDK- and CGLIB-based proxies”).

Some key properties are inherited from org.springframework.aop.framework.ProxyConfig (the superclass for all AOP proxy factories in
Spring). These key properties include:

proxyTargetClass : true if the target class is to be proxied, rather than the target class' interfaces. If this property value is set to true ,
then CGLIB proxies will be created (but see also Section 12.5.3, “JDK- and CGLIB-based proxies”).
optimize : controls whether or not aggressive optimizations are applied to proxies created via CGLIB. One should not blithely use this setting
unless one fully understands how the relevant AOP proxy handles optimization. This is currently used only for CGLIB proxies; it has no effect
with JDK dynamic proxies.
frozen : if a proxy conﬁguration is frozen , then changes to the conﬁguration are no longer allowed. This is useful both as a slight
optimization and for those cases when you don’t want callers to be able to manipulate the proxy (via the Advised interface) after the proxy has
been created. The default value of this property is false , so changes such as adding additional advice are allowed.
exposeProxy : determines whether or not the current proxy should be exposed in a ThreadLocal so that it can be accessed by the target. If
a target needs to obtain the proxy and the exposeProxy property is set to true , the target can use the AopContext.currentProxy()
method.

Other properties speciﬁc to ProxyFactoryBean include:

proxyInterfaces : array of String interface names. If this isn’t supplied, a CGLIB proxy for the target class will be used (but see also
Section 12.5.3, “JDK- and CGLIB-based proxies”).
interceptorNames : String array of Advisor , interceptor or other advice names to apply. Ordering is significant, on a first come-first served
basis. That is to say that the first interceptor in the list will be the first to be able to intercept the invocation.

The names are bean names in the current factory, including bean names from ancestor factories. You can’t mention bean references here since
doing so would result in the ProxyFactoryBean ignoring the singleton setting of the advice.

You can append an interceptor name with an asterisk ( * ). This will result in the application of all advisor beans with names starting with the part
before the asterisk to be applied. An example of using this feature can be found in Section 12.5.6, “Using 'global' advisors”.

singleton: whether or not the factory should return a single object, no matter how often the getObject() method is called. Several
FactoryBean implementations offer such a method. The default value is true . If you want to use stateful advice - for example, for stateful
mixins - use prototype advices along with a singleton value of false .

12.5.3 JDK- and CGLIB-based proxies

This section serves as the deﬁnitive documentation on how the ProxyFactoryBean chooses to create one of either a JDK- and CGLIB-based
proxy for a particular target object (that is to be proxied).

The behavior of the ProxyFactoryBean with regard to creating JDK- or CGLIB-based proxies changed between versions 1.2.x and
2.0 of Spring. The ProxyFactoryBean now exhibits similar semantics with regard to auto-detecting interfaces as those of the
TransactionProxyFactoryBean class.

If the class of a target object that is to be proxied (hereafter simply referred to as the target class) doesn’t implement any interfaces, then a CGLIB-
based proxy will be created. This is the easiest scenario, because JDK proxies are interface based, and no interfaces means JDK proxying isn’t even
possible. One simply plugs in the target bean, and speciﬁes the list of interceptors via the interceptorNames property. Note that a CGLIB-based
proxy will be created even if the proxyTargetClass property of the ProxyFactoryBean has been set to false . (Obviously this makes no
sense, and is best removed from the bean deﬁnition because it is at best redundant, and at worst confusing.)

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 228/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
If the target class implements one (or more) interfaces, then the type of proxy that is created depends on the conﬁguration of the
ProxyFactoryBean .

If the proxyTargetClass property of the ProxyFactoryBean has been set to true , then a CGLIB-based proxy will be created. This makes
sense, and is in keeping with the principle of least surprise. Even if the proxyInterfaces property of the ProxyFactoryBean has been set to
one or more fully qualiﬁed interface names, the fact that the proxyTargetClass property is set to true will cause CGLIB-based proxying to be
in effect.

If the proxyInterfaces property of the ProxyFactoryBean has been set to one or more fully qualified interface names, then a JDK-based
proxy will be created. The created proxy will implement all of the interfaces that were specified in the proxyInterfaces property; if the target
class happens to implement a whole lot more interfaces than those specified in the proxyInterfaces property, that is all well and good but those
additional interfaces will not be implemented by the returned proxy.

If the proxyInterfaces property of the ProxyFactoryBean has not been set, but the target class does implement one (or more) interfaces,
then the ProxyFactoryBean will auto-detect the fact that the target class does actually implement at least one interface, and a JDK-based proxy
will be created. The interfaces that are actually proxied will be all of the interfaces that the target class implements; in effect, this is the same as
simply supplying a list of each and every interface that the target class implements to the proxyInterfaces property. However, it is signiﬁcantly
less work, and less prone to typos.

12.5.4 Proxying interfaces
Let’s look at a simple example of ProxyFactoryBean in action. This example involves:

A target bean that will be proxied. This is the "personTarget" bean deﬁnition in the example below.
An Advisor and an Interceptor used to provide advice.
An AOP proxy bean deﬁnition specifying the target object (the personTarget bean) and the interfaces to proxy, along with the advices to apply.

<bean id="personTarget" class="com.mycompany.PersonImpl">

<bean id="myAdvisor" class="com.mycompany.MyAdvisor">

<bean id="debugInterceptor" class="org.springframework.aop.interceptor.DebugInterceptor">

</bean>

<property name="target" ref="personTarget"/>

<property name="interceptorNames">
<list>
<value>myAdvisor</value>
<value>debugInterceptor</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>

Note that the interceptorNames property takes a list of String: the bean names of the interceptor or advisors in the current factory. Advisors,
interceptors, before, after returning and throws advice objects can be used. The ordering of advisors is signiﬁcant.

You might be wondering why the list doesn’t hold bean references. The reason for this is that if the ProxyFactoryBean’s singleton
property is set to false, it must be able to return independent proxy instances. If any of the advisors is itself a prototype, an
independent instance would need to be returned, so it’s necessary to be able to obtain an instance of the prototype from the factory;
holding a reference isn’t sufﬁcient.

The "person" bean deﬁnition above can be used in place of a Person implementation, as follows:

Person person = (Person) factory.getBean("person");

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 229/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Other beans in the same IoC context can express a strongly typed dependency on it, as with an ordinary Java object:

<bean id="personUser" class="com.mycompany.PersonUser">

The PersonUser class in this example would expose a property of type Person. As far as it’s concerned, the AOP proxy can be used transparently
in place of a "real" person implementation. However, its class would be a dynamic proxy class. It would be possible to cast it to the Advised
interface (discussed below).

It’s possible to conceal the distinction between target and proxy using an anonymous inner bean, as follows. Only the ProxyFactoryBean
deﬁnition is different; the advice is included only for completeness:

<bean id="myAdvisor" class="com.mycompany.MyAdvisor">

<bean id="debugInterceptor" class="org.springframework.aop.interceptor.DebugInterceptor"/>

<bean id="person" class="org.springframework.aop.framework.ProxyFactoryBean">

<property name="proxyInterfaces" value="com.mycompany.Person"/>

<property name="target">
<bean class="com.mycompany.PersonImpl">
<property name="name" value="Tony"/>
<property name="age" value="51"/>
</bean>
</property>
<property name="interceptorNames">
<list>
<value>myAdvisor</value>
<value>debugInterceptor</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>

This has the advantage that there’s only one object of type Person : useful if we want to prevent users of the application context from obtaining a
reference to the un-advised object, or need to avoid any ambiguity with Spring IoC autowiring. There’s also arguably an advantage in that the
ProxyFactoryBean deﬁnition is self-contained. However, there are times when being able to obtain the un-advised target from the factory might
actually be an advantage: for example, in certain test scenarios.

12.5.5 Proxying classes
What if you need to proxy a class, rather than one or more interfaces?

Imagine that in our example above, there was no Person interface: we needed to advise a class called Person that didn’t implement any
business interface. In this case, you can conﬁgure Spring to use CGLIB proxying, rather than dynamic proxies. Simply set the proxyTargetClass
property on the ProxyFactoryBean above to true. While it’s best to program to interfaces, rather than classes, the ability to advise classes that don’t
implement interfaces can be useful when working with legacy code. (In general, Spring isn’t prescriptive. While it makes it easy to apply good
practices, it avoids forcing a particular approach.)

If you want to, you can force the use of CGLIB in any case, even if you do have interfaces.

CGLIB proxying works by generating a subclass of the target class at runtime. Spring conﬁgures this generated subclass to delegate method calls to
the original target: the subclass is used to implement the Decorator pattern, weaving in the advice.

CGLIB proxying should generally be transparent to users. However, there are some issues to consider:

Final methods can’t be advised, as they can’t be overridden.

There is no need to add CGLIB to your classpath. As of Spring 3.2, CGLIB is repackaged and included in the spring-core JAR. In other words,
CGLIB-based AOP will work "out of the box" just as do JDK dynamic proxies.

There’s little performance difference between CGLIB proxying and dynamic proxies. As of Spring 1.0, dynamic proxies are slightly faster. However,
this may change in the future. Performance should not be a decisive consideration in this case.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 230/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

12.5.6 Using 'global' advisors

By appending an asterisk to an interceptor name, all advisors with bean names matching the part before the asterisk, will be added to the advisor
chain. This can come in handy if you need to add a standard set of 'global' advisors:

<bean id="proxy" class="org.springframework.aop.framework.ProxyFactoryBean">

<property name="target" ref="service"/>
<property name="interceptorNames">
<list>
<value>global*</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>

<bean id="global_debug" class="org.springframework.aop.interceptor.DebugInterceptor"/>

12.6 Concise proxy deﬁnitions

Especially when defining transactional proxies, you may end up with many similar proxy definitions. The use of parent and child bean definitions,
along with inner bean definitions, can result in much cleaner and more concise proxy definitions.

First a parent, template, bean deﬁnition is created for the proxy:

<bean id="txProxyTemplate" abstract="true"

class="org.springframework.transaction.interceptor.TransactionProxyFactoryBean">
<property name="transactionManager" ref="transactionManager"/>
<property name="transactionAttributes">
<props>
<prop key="*">PROPAGATION_REQUIRED</prop>
</props>
</property>
</bean>

This will never be instantiated itself, so may actually be incomplete. Then each proxy which needs to be created is just a child bean deﬁnition, which
wraps the target of the proxy as an inner bean deﬁnition, since the target will never be used on its own anyway.

<bean id="myService" parent="txProxyTemplate">

It is of course possible to override properties from the parent template, such as in this case, the transaction propagation settings:

<bean id="mySpecialService" parent="txProxyTemplate">

<property name="target">
<bean class="org.springframework.samples.MySpecialServiceImpl">
</bean>
</property>
<property name="transactionAttributes">
<props>
<prop key="get*">PROPAGATION_REQUIRED,readOnly</prop>
<prop key="find*">PROPAGATION_REQUIRED,readOnly</prop>
<prop key="load*">PROPAGATION_REQUIRED,readOnly</prop>
<prop key="store*">PROPAGATION_REQUIRED</prop>
</props>
</property>
</bean>

Note that in the example above, we have explicitly marked the parent bean definition as abstract by using the abstract attribute, as described
previously, so that it may not actually ever be instantiated. Application contexts (but not simple bean factories) will by default pre-instantiate all
singletons. It is therefore important (at least for singleton beans) that if you have a (parent) bean definition which you intend to use only as a
template, and this definition specifies a class, you must make sure to set the abstract attribute to true, otherwise the application context will actually
try to pre-instantiate it.
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 231/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

12.7 Creating AOP proxies programmatically with the ProxyFactory

It’s easy to create AOP proxies programmatically using Spring. This enables you to use Spring AOP without dependency on Spring IoC.

The following listing shows creation of a proxy for a target object, with one interceptor and one advisor. The interfaces implemented by the target
object will automatically be proxied:

ProxyFactory factory = new ProxyFactory(myBusinessInterfaceImpl);

factory.addAdvice(myMethodInterceptor);
factory.addAdvisor(myAdvisor);
MyBusinessInterface tb = (MyBusinessInterface) factory.getProxy();

The ﬁrst step is to construct an object of type org.springframework.aop.framework.ProxyFactory . You can create this with a target
object, as in the above example, or specify the interfaces to be proxied in an alternate constructor.

You can add advices (with interceptors as a specialized kind of advice) and/or advisors, and manipulate them for the life of the ProxyFactory. If you
add an IntroductionInterceptionAroundAdvisor, you can cause the proxy to implement additional interfaces.

There are also convenience methods on ProxyFactory (inherited from AdvisedSupport ) which allow you to add other advice types such as
before and throws advice. AdvisedSupport is the superclass of both ProxyFactory and ProxyFactoryBean.

Integrating AOP proxy creation with the IoC framework is best practice in most applications. We recommend that you externalize
conﬁguration from Java code with AOP, as in general.

12.8 Manipulating advised objects

However you create AOP proxies, you can manipulate them using the org.springframework.aop.framework.Advised interface. Any AOP
proxy can be cast to this interface, whichever other interfaces it implements. This interface includes the following methods:

Advisor[] getAdvisors();

void addAdvice(Advice advice) throws AopConfigException;

void addAdvice(int pos, Advice advice) throws AopConfigException;

void addAdvisor(Advisor advisor) throws AopConfigException;

void addAdvisor(int pos, Advisor advisor) throws AopConfigException;

int indexOf(Advisor advisor);

boolean removeAdvisor(Advisor advisor) throws AopConfigException;

void removeAdvisor(int index) throws AopConfigException;

boolean replaceAdvisor(Advisor a, Advisor b) throws AopConfigException;

boolean isFrozen();

The getAdvisors() method will return an Advisor for every advisor, interceptor or other advice type that has been added to the factory. If you
added an Advisor, the returned advisor at this index will be the object that you added. If you added an interceptor or other advice type, Spring will
have wrapped this in an advisor with a pointcut that always returns true. Thus if you added a MethodInterceptor , the advisor returned for this
index will be an DefaultPointcutAdvisor returning your MethodInterceptor and a pointcut that matches all classes and methods.

The addAdvisor() methods can be used to add any Advisor. Usually the advisor holding pointcut and advice will be the generic
DefaultPointcutAdvisor , which can be used with any advice or pointcut (but not for introductions).

By default, it’s possible to add or remove advisors or interceptors even once a proxy has been created. The only restriction is that it’s impossible to
add or remove an introduction advisor, as existing proxies from the factory will not show the interface change. (You can obtain a new proxy from the
factory to avoid this problem.)

A simple example of casting an AOP proxy to the Advised interface and examining and manipulating its advice:

Advised advised = (Advised) myObject;

Advisor[] advisors = advised.getAdvisors();
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 232/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Advisor[] advisors = advised.getAdvisors();
int oldAdvisorCount = advisors.length;
System.out.println(oldAdvisorCount + " advisors");

// Add an advice like an interceptor without a pointcut

// Will match all proxied methods
// Can use for interceptors, before, after returning or throws advice
advised.addAdvice(new DebugInterceptor());

// Add selective advice using a pointcut

advised.addAdvisor(new DefaultPointcutAdvisor(mySpecialPointcut, myAdvice));

assertEquals("Added two advisors", oldAdvisorCount + 2, advised.getAdvisors().length);

It’s questionable whether it’s advisable (no pun intended) to modify advice on a business object in production, although there are no
doubt legitimate usage cases. However, it can be very useful in development: for example, in tests. I have sometimes found it very
useful to be able to add test code in the form of an interceptor or other advice, getting inside a method invocation I want to test. (For
example, the advice can get inside a transaction created for that method: for example, to run SQL to check that a database was
correctly updated, before marking the transaction for roll back.)

Depending on how you created the proxy, you can usually set a frozen ﬂag, in which case the Advised isFrozen() method will return true,
and any attempts to modify advice through addition or removal will result in an AopConfigException . The ability to freeze the state of an advised
object is useful in some cases, for example, to prevent calling code removing a security interceptor. It may also be used in Spring 1.1 to allow
aggressive optimization if runtime advice modiﬁcation is known not to be required.

12.9 Using the "auto-proxy" facility

So far we’ve considered explicit creation of AOP proxies using a ProxyFactoryBean or similar factory bean.

Spring also allows us to use "auto-proxy" bean definitions, which can automatically proxy selected bean definitions. This is built on Spring "bean post
processor" infrastructure, which enables modification of any bean definition as the container loads.

In this model, you set up some special bean definitions in your XML bean definition file to configure the auto proxy infrastructure. This allows you just
to declare the targets eligible for auto-proxying: you don’t need to use ProxyFactoryBean .

There are two ways to do this:

Using an auto-proxy creator that refers to speciﬁc beans in the current context.
A special case of auto-proxy creation that deserves to be considered separately; auto-proxy creation driven by source-level metadata attributes.

12.9.1 Autoproxy bean deﬁnitions

The org.springframework.aop.framework.autoproxy package provides the following standard auto-proxy creators.

BeanNameAutoProxyCreator
The BeanNameAutoProxyCreator class is a BeanPostProcessor that automatically creates AOP proxies for beans with names matching
literal values or wildcards.

<bean class="org.springframework.aop.framework.autoproxy.BeanNameAutoProxyCreator">
<property name="beanNames" value="jdk*,onlyJdk"/>
<property name="interceptorNames">
<list>
<value>myInterceptor</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>

As with ProxyFactoryBean , there is an interceptorNames property rather than a list of interceptors, to allow correct behavior for prototype
advisors. Named "interceptors" can be advisors or any advice type.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 233/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
As with auto proxying in general, the main point of using BeanNameAutoProxyCreator is to apply the same conﬁguration consistently to multiple
objects, with minimal volume of conﬁguration. It is a popular choice for applying declarative transactions to multiple objects.

Bean deﬁnitions whose names match, such as "jdkMyBean" and "onlyJdk" in the above example, are plain old bean deﬁnitions with the target class.
An AOP proxy will be created automatically by the BeanNameAutoProxyCreator . The same advice will be applied to all matching beans. Note
that if advisors are used (rather than the interceptor in the above example), the pointcuts may apply differently to different beans.

DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator
A more general and extremely powerful auto proxy creator is DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator . This will automagically apply eligible
advisors in the current context, without the need to include specific bean names in the auto-proxy advisor’s bean definition. It offers the same merit
of consistent configuration and avoidance of duplication as BeanNameAutoProxyCreator .

Using this mechanism involves:

Specifying a DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator bean deﬁnition.

Specifying any number of Advisors in the same or related contexts. Note that these must be Advisors, not just interceptors or other advices. This
is necessary because there must be a pointcut to evaluate, to check the eligibility of each advice to candidate bean deﬁnitions.

The DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator will automatically evaluate the pointcut contained in each advisor, to see what (if any) advice it should
apply to each business object (such as "businessObject1" and "businessObject2" in the example).

This means that any number of advisors can be applied automatically to each business object. If no pointcut in any of the advisors matches any
method in a business object, the object will not be proxied. As bean deﬁnitions are added for new business objects, they will automatically be proxied
if necessary.

Autoproxying in general has the advantage of making it impossible for callers or dependencies to obtain an un-advised object. Calling
getBean("businessObject1") on this ApplicationContext will return an AOP proxy, not the target business object. (The "inner bean" idiom shown
earlier also offers this beneﬁt.)

<bean id="customAdvisor" class="com.mycompany.MyAdvisor"/>

<bean id="businessObject1" class="com.mycompany.BusinessObject1">

</bean>

<bean id="businessObject2" class="com.mycompany.BusinessObject2"/>

The DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator is very useful if you want to apply the same advice consistently to many business objects. Once the
infrastructure definitions are in place, you can simply add new business objects without including specific proxy configuration. You can also drop in
additional aspects very easily - for example, tracing or performance monitoring aspects - with minimal change to configuration.

The DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator offers support for filtering (using a naming convention so that only certain advisors are evaluated, allowing use
of multiple, differently configured, AdvisorAutoProxyCreators in the same factory) and ordering. Advisors can implement the
org.springframework.core.Ordered interface to ensure correct ordering if this is an issue. The TransactionAttributeSourceAdvisor used in
the above example has a configurable order value; the default setting is unordered.

AbstractAdvisorAutoProxyCreator
This is the superclass of DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator. You can create your own auto-proxy creators by subclassing this class, in the unlikely
event that advisor deﬁnitions offer insufﬁcient customization to the behavior of the framework DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator .

12.9.2 Using metadata-driven auto-proxying

A particularly important type of auto-proxying is driven by metadata. This produces a similar programming model to .NET ServicedComponents .
Instead of deﬁning metadata in XML descriptors, conﬁguration for transaction management and other enterprise services is held in source-level
attributes.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 234/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
In this case, you use the DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator , in combination with Advisors that understand metadata attributes. The metadata
speciﬁcs are held in the pointcut part of the candidate advisors, rather than in the auto-proxy creation class itself.

This is really a special case of the DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator , but deserves consideration on its own. (The metadata-aware code is in
the pointcuts contained in the advisors, not the AOP framework itself.)

The /attributes directory of the JPetStore sample application shows the use of attribute-driven auto-proxying. In this case, there’s no need to
use the TransactionProxyFactoryBean . Simply defining transactional attributes on business objects is sufficient, because of the use of
metadata-aware pointcuts. The bean definitions include the following code, in /WEB-INF/declarativeServices.xml . Note that this is generic,
and can be used outside the JPetStore:

<bean id="attributes" class="org.springframework.metadata.commons.CommonsAttributes"/>

The DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator bean definition (the name is not significant, hence it can even be omitted) will pick up all eligible
pointcuts in the current application context. In this case, the "transactionAdvisor" bean definition, of type
TransactionAttributeSourceAdvisor , will apply to classes or methods carrying a transaction attribute. The
TransactionAttributeSourceAdvisor depends on a TransactionInterceptor, via constructor dependency. The example resolves this via autowiring. The
AttributesTransactionAttributeSource depends on an implementation of the org.springframework.metadata.Attributes
interface. In this fragment, the "attributes" bean satisfies this, using the Jakarta Commons Attributes API to obtain attribute information. (The
application code must have been compiled using the Commons Attributes compilation task.)

The /annotation directory of the JPetStore sample application contains an analogous example for auto-proxying driven by JDK 1.5+
annotations. The following conﬁguration enables automatic detection of Spring’s Transactional annotation, leading to implicit proxies for beans
containing that annotation:

The TransactionInterceptor defined here depends on a PlatformTransactionManager definition, which is not included in this generic
file (although it could be) because it will be specific to the application’s transaction requirements (typically JTA, as in this example, or Hibernate, JDO
or JDBC):

If you require only declarative transaction management, using these generic XML deﬁnitions will result in Spring automatically proxying
all classes or methods with transaction attributes. You won’t need to work directly with AOP, and the programming model is similar to
that of .NET ServicedComponents.
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 235/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

This mechanism is extensible. It’s possible to do auto-proxying based on custom attributes. You need to:

Deﬁne your custom attribute.

Specify an Advisor with the necessary advice, including a pointcut that is triggered by the presence of the custom attribute on a class or method.
You may be able to use an existing advice, merely implementing a static pointcut that picks up the custom attribute.

It’s possible for such advisors to be unique to each advised class (for example, mixins): they simply need to be deﬁned as prototype, rather than
singleton, bean deﬁnitions. For example, the LockMixin introduction interceptor from the Spring test suite, shown above, could be used in
conjunction with a generic DefaultIntroductionAdvisor :

<bean id="lockMixin" class="test.mixin.LockMixin" scope="prototype"/>

<bean id="lockableAdvisor" class="org.springframework.aop.support.DefaultIntroductionAdvisor"

scope="prototype">
<constructor-arg ref="lockMixin"/>
</bean>

Note that both lockMixin and lockableAdvisor are deﬁned as prototypes.

12.10 Using TargetSources
Spring offers the concept of a TargetSource, expressed in the org.springframework.aop.TargetSource interface. This interface is
responsible for returning the "target object" implementing the join point. The TargetSource implementation is asked for a target instance each
time the AOP proxy handles a method invocation.

Developers using Spring AOP don’t normally need to work directly with TargetSources, but this provides a powerful means of supporting pooling, hot
swappable and other sophisticated targets. For example, a pooling TargetSource can return a different target instance for each invocation, using a
pool to manage instances.

If you do not specify a TargetSource, a default implementation is used that wraps a local object. The same target is returned for each invocation (as
you would expect).

Let’s look at the standard target sources provided with Spring, and how you can use them.

When using a custom target source, your target will usually need to be a prototype rather than a singleton bean deﬁnition. This allows
Spring to create a new target instance when required.

12.10.1 Hot swappable target sources

The org.springframework.aop.target.HotSwappableTargetSource exists to allow the target of an AOP proxy to be switched while
allowing callers to keep their references to it.

Changing the target source’s target takes effect immediately. The HotSwappableTargetSource is threadsafe.

You can change the target via the swap() method on HotSwappableTargetSource as follows:

HotSwappableTargetSource swapper = (HotSwappableTargetSource) beanFactory.getBean("swapper");

Object oldTarget = swapper.swap(newTarget);

The XML deﬁnitions required look as follows:

<bean id="initialTarget" class="mycompany.OldTarget"/>

<bean id="swapper" class="org.springframework.aop.target.HotSwappableTargetSource">

<constructor-arg ref="initialTarget"/>
</bean>

<bean id="swappable" class="org.springframework.aop.framework.ProxyFactoryBean">

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 236/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The above swap() call changes the target of the swappable bean. Clients who hold a reference to that bean will be unaware of the change, but will
immediately start hitting the new target.

Although this example doesn’t add any advice - and it’s not necessary to add advice to use a TargetSource - of course any TargetSource can
be used in conjunction with arbitrary advice.

12.10.2 Pooling target sources

Using a pooling target source provides a similar programming model to stateless session EJBs, in which a pool of identical instances is maintained,
with method invocations going to free objects in the pool.

A crucial difference between Spring pooling and SLSB pooling is that Spring pooling can be applied to any POJO. As with Spring in general, this
service can be applied in a non-invasive way.

Spring provides out-of-the-box support for Commons Pool 2.2, which provides a fairly efﬁcient pooling implementation. You’ll need the commons-
pool Jar on your application’s classpath to use this feature. It’s also possible to subclass
org.springframework.aop.target.AbstractPoolingTargetSource to support any other pooling API.

Commons Pool 1.5+ is also supported but deprecated as of Spring Framework 4.2.

Sample conﬁguration is shown below:

<bean id="businessObjectTarget" class="com.mycompany.MyBusinessObject"

scope="prototype">
... properties omitted
</bean>

<bean id="poolTargetSource" class="org.springframework.aop.target.CommonsPool2TargetSource">

<bean id="businessObject" class="org.springframework.aop.framework.ProxyFactoryBean">

Note that the target object - "businessObjectTarget" in the example - must be a prototype. This allows the PoolingTargetSource implementation
to create new instances of the target to grow the pool as necessary. See the javadocs of AbstractPoolingTargetSource and the concrete
subclass you wish to use for information about its properties: "maxSize" is the most basic, and always guaranteed to be present.

In this case, "myInterceptor" is the name of an interceptor that would need to be deﬁned in the same IoC context. However, it isn’t necessary to
specify interceptors to use pooling. If you want only pooling, and no other advice, don’t set the interceptorNames property at all.

It’s possible to configure Spring so as to be able to cast any pooled object to the org.springframework.aop.target.PoolingConfig
interface, which exposes information about the configuration and current size of the pool through an introduction. You’ll need to define an advisor like
this:

<bean id="poolConfigAdvisor" class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.MethodInvokingFactoryBean">

This advisor is obtained by calling a convenience method on the AbstractPoolingTargetSource class, hence the use of
MethodInvokingFactoryBean. This advisor’s name ("poolConﬁgAdvisor" here) must be in the list of interceptors names in the ProxyFactoryBean
exposing the pooled object.

The cast will look as follows:

PoolingConfig conf = (PoolingConfig) beanFactory.getBean("businessObject");

System.out.println("Max pool size is " + conf.getMaxSize());

Pooling stateless service objects is not usually necessary. We don’t believe it should be the default choice, as most stateless objects
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 237/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
are naturally thread safe, and instance pooling is problematic if resources are cached.

Simpler pooling is available using auto-proxying. It’s possible to set the TargetSources used by any auto-proxy creator.

12.10.3 Prototype target sources

Setting up a "prototype" target source is similar to a pooling TargetSource. In this case, a new instance of the target will be created on every method
invocation. Although the cost of creating a new object isn’t high in a modern JVM, the cost of wiring up the new object (satisfying its IoC
dependencies) may be more expensive. Thus you shouldn’t use this approach without very good reason.

To do this, you could modify the poolTargetSource deﬁnition shown above as follows. (I’ve also changed the name, for clarity.)

<bean id="prototypeTargetSource" class="org.springframework.aop.target.PrototypeTargetSource">

There’s only one property: the name of the target bean. Inheritance is used in the TargetSource implementations to ensure consistent naming. As
with the pooling target source, the target bean must be a prototype bean deﬁnition.

12.10.4 ThreadLocal target sources

ThreadLocal target sources are useful if you need an object to be created for each incoming request (per thread that is). The concept of a
ThreadLocal provide a JDK-wide facility to transparently store resource alongside a thread. Setting up a ThreadLocalTargetSource is pretty
much the same as was explained for the other types of target source:

<bean id="threadlocalTargetSource" class="org.springframework.aop.target.ThreadLocalTargetSource">

ThreadLocals come with serious issues (potentially resulting in memory leaks) when incorrectly using them in a multi-threaded and
multi-classloader environments. One should always consider wrapping a threadlocal in some other class and never directly use the
ThreadLocal itself (except of course in the wrapper class). Also, one should always remember to correctly set and unset (where the
latter simply involved a call to ThreadLocal.set(null) ) the resource local to the thread. Unsetting should be done in any case
since not unsetting it might result in problematic behavior. Spring’s ThreadLocal support does this for you and should always be
considered in favor of using ThreadLocals without other proper handling code.

12.11 Deﬁning new Advice types

Spring AOP is designed to be extensible. While the interception implementation strategy is presently used internally, it is possible to support arbitrary
advice types in addition to the out-of-the-box interception around advice, before, throws advice and after returning advice.

The org.springframework.aop.framework.adapter package is an SPI package allowing support for new custom advice types to be added
without changing the core framework. The only constraint on a custom Advice type is that it must implement the
org.aopalliance.aop.Advice marker interface.

Please refer to the org.springframework.aop.framework.adapter javadocs for further information.

12.12 Further resources
Please refer to the Spring sample applications for further examples of Spring AOP:

The JPetStore’s default conﬁguration illustrates the use of the TransactionProxyFactoryBean for declarative transaction management.
The /attributes directory of the JPetStore illustrates the use of attribute-driven declarative transaction management.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 238/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Part IV. Testing
The adoption of the test-driven-development (TDD) approach to software development is certainly advocated by the Spring team, and so coverage
of Spring’s support for integration testing is covered (alongside best practices for unit testing). The Spring team has found that the correct use of IoC
certainly does make both unit and integration testing easier (in that the presence of setter methods and appropriate constructors on classes makes
them easier to wire together in a test without having to set up service locator registries and suchlike)… the chapter dedicated solely to testing will
hopefully convince you of this as well.

13. Introduction to Spring Testing

Testing is an integral part of enterprise software development. This chapter focuses on the value-add of the IoC principle to unit testing and on the
beneﬁts of the Spring Framework’s support for integration testing. (A thorough treatment of testing in the enterprise is beyond the scope of this
reference manual.)

14. Unit Testing
Dependency Injection should make your code less dependent on the container than it would be with traditional Java EE development. The POJOs
that make up your application should be testable in JUnit or TestNG tests, with objects simply instantiated using the new operator, without Spring or
any other container. You can use mock objects (in conjunction with other valuable testing techniques) to test your code in isolation. If you follow the
architecture recommendations for Spring, the resulting clean layering and componentization of your codebase will facilitate easier unit testing. For
example, you can test service layer objects by stubbing or mocking DAO or Repository interfaces, without needing to access persistent data while
running unit tests.

True unit tests typically run extremely quickly, as there is no runtime infrastructure to set up. Emphasizing true unit tests as part of your development
methodology will boost your productivity. You may not need this section of the testing chapter to help you write effective unit tests for your IoC-based
applications. For certain unit testing scenarios, however, the Spring Framework provides the following mock objects and testing support classes.

14.1 Mock Objects

14.1.1 Environment
The org.springframework.mock.env package contains mock implementations of the Environment and PropertySource abstractions
(see Section 7.13.1, “Bean definition profiles” and Section 7.13.2, “PropertySource abstraction”). MockEnvironment and
MockPropertySource are useful for developing out-of-container tests for code that depends on environment-specific properties.

14.1.2 JNDI
The org.springframework.mock.jndi package contains an implementation of the JNDI SPI, which you can use to set up a simple JNDI
environment for test suites or stand-alone applications. If, for example, JDBC DataSource s get bound to the same JNDI names in test code as
within a Java EE container, you can reuse both application code and conﬁguration in testing scenarios without modiﬁcation.

14.1.3 Servlet API
The org.springframework.mock.web package contains a comprehensive set of Servlet API mock objects, which are useful for testing web
contexts, controllers, and ﬁlters. These mock objects are targeted at usage with Spring’s Web MVC framework and are generally more convenient to
use than dynamic mock objects such as EasyMock or alternative Servlet API mock objects such as MockObjects. Since Spring Framework 4.0, the
set of mocks in the org.springframework.mock.web package is based on the Servlet 3.0 API.

For thorough integration testing of your Spring MVC and REST Controller s in conjunction with your WebApplicationContext conﬁguration
for Spring MVC, see the Spring MVC Test Framework.

14.1.4 Portlet API

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 239/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The org.springframework.mock.web.portlet package contains a set of Portlet API mock objects, targeted at usage with Spring’s Portlet
MVC framework.

14.2 Unit Testing support Classes

14.2.1 General testing utilities

The org.springframework.test.util package contains several general purpose utilities for use in unit and integration testing.

ReflectionTestUtils is a collection of reflection-based utility methods. Developers use these methods in testing scenarios where they need to
change the value of a constant, set a non- public field, invoke a non- public setter method, or invoke a non- public configuration or lifecycle
callback method when testing application code involving use cases such as the following.

ORM frameworks such as JPA and Hibernate that condone private or protected field access as opposed to public setter methods for
properties in a domain entity.
Spring’s support for annotations such as @Autowired , @Inject , and @Resource , which provides dependency injection for private or
protected fields, setter methods, and configuration methods.
Use of annotations such as @PostConstruct and @PreDestroy for lifecycle callback methods.

AopTestUtils is a collection of AOP-related utility methods. These methods can be used to obtain a reference to the underlying target object
hidden behind one or more Spring proxies. For example, if you have configured a bean as a dynamic mock using a library like EasyMock or Mockito
and the mock is wrapped in a Spring proxy, you may need direct access to the underlying mock in order to configure expectations on it and perform
verifications. For Spring’s core AOP utilities, see AopUtils and AopProxyUtils .

14.2.2 Spring MVC
The org.springframework.test.web package contains ModelAndViewAssert , which you can use in combination with JUnit, TestNG, or
any other testing framework for unit tests dealing with Spring MVC ModelAndView objects.

To unit test your Spring MVC Controller s as POJOs, use ModelAndViewAssert combined with MockHttpServletRequest ,
MockHttpSession , and so on from Spring’s Servlet API mocks. For thorough integration testing of your Spring MVC and REST
Controller s in conjunction with your WebApplicationContext conﬁguration for Spring MVC, use the Spring MVC Test
Framework instead.

15. Integration Testing

15.1 Overview
It is important to be able to perform some integration testing without requiring deployment to your application server or connecting to other enterprise
infrastructure. This will enable you to test things such as:

The correct wiring of your Spring IoC container contexts.

Data access using JDBC or an ORM tool. This would include such things as the correctness of SQL statements, Hibernate queries, JPA entity
mappings, etc.

The Spring Framework provides ﬁrst-class support for integration testing in the spring-test module. The name of the actual JAR ﬁle might
include the release version and might also be in the long org.springframework.test form, depending on where you get it from (see the
section on Dependency Management for an explanation). This library includes the org.springframework.test package, which contains
valuable classes for integration testing with a Spring container. This testing does not rely on an application server or other deployment environment.
Such tests are slower to run than unit tests but much faster than the equivalent Selenium tests or remote tests that rely on deployment to an
application server.

In Spring 2.5 and later, unit and integration testing support is provided in the form of the annotation-driven Spring TestContext Framework. The
TestContext framework is agnostic of the actual testing framework in use, thus allowing instrumentation of tests in various environments including
JUnit, TestNG, and so on.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 240/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

15.2 Goals of Integration Testing

Spring’s integration testing support has the following primary goals:

To manage Spring IoC container caching between test execution.

To provide Dependency Injection of test ﬁxture instances.
To provide transaction management appropriate to integration testing.
To supply Spring-speciﬁc base classes that assist developers in writing integration tests.

The next few sections describe each goal and provide links to implementation and conﬁguration details.

15.2.1 Context management and caching

The Spring TestContext Framework provides consistent loading of Spring ApplicationContext s and WebApplicationContext s as well as
caching of those contexts. Support for the caching of loaded contexts is important, because startup time can become an issue — not because of the
overhead of Spring itself, but because the objects instantiated by the Spring container take time to instantiate. For example, a project with 50 to 100
Hibernate mapping files might take 10 to 20 seconds to load the mapping files, and incurring that cost before running every test in every test fixture
leads to slower overall test runs that reduce developer productivity.

Test classes typically declare either an array of resource locations for XML or Groovy configuration metadata — often in the classpath — or an array
of annotated classes that is used to configure the application. These locations or classes are the same as or similar to those specified in web.xml
or other configuration files for production deployments.

By default, once loaded, the configured ApplicationContext is reused for each test. Thus the setup cost is incurred only once per test suite,
and subsequent test execution is much faster. In this context, the term test suite means all tests run in the same JVM — for example, all tests run
from an Ant, Maven, or Gradle build for a given project or module. In the unlikely case that a test corrupts the application context and requires
reloading — for example, by modifying a bean definition or the state of an application object — the TestContext framework can be configured to reload
the configuration and rebuild the application context before executing the next test.

See Section 15.5.4, “Context management” and the section called “Context caching” with the TestContext framework.

15.2.2 Dependency Injection of test ﬁxtures

When the TestContext framework loads your application context, it can optionally configure instances of your test classes via Dependency Injection.
This provides a convenient mechanism for setting up test fixtures using preconfigured beans from your application context. A strong benefit here is
that you can reuse application contexts across various testing scenarios (e.g., for configuring Spring-managed object graphs, transactional proxies,
DataSource s, etc.), thus avoiding the need to duplicate complex test fixture setup for individual test cases.

As an example, consider the scenario where we have a class, HibernateTitleRepository , that implements data access logic for a Title
domain entity. We want to write integration tests that test the following areas:

The Spring configuration: basically, is everything related to the configuration of the HibernateTitleRepository bean correct and present?
The Hibernate mapping file configuration: is everything mapped correctly, and are the correct lazy-loading settings in place?
The logic of the HibernateTitleRepository : does the configured instance of this class perform as anticipated?

See dependency injection of test ﬁxtures with the TestContext framework.

15.2.3 Transaction management
One common issue in tests that access a real database is their effect on the state of the persistence store. Even when you’re using a development
database, changes to the state may affect future tests. Also, many operations — such as inserting or modifying persistent data — cannot be
performed (or veriﬁed) outside a transaction.

The TestContext framework addresses this issue. By default, the framework will create and roll back a transaction for each test. You simply write
code that can assume the existence of a transaction. If you call transactionally proxied objects in your tests, they will behave correctly, according to
their conﬁgured transactional semantics. In addition, if a test method deletes the contents of selected tables while running within the transaction
managed for the test, the transaction will roll back by default, and the database will return to its state prior to execution of the test. Transactional
support is provided to a test via a PlatformTransactionManager bean deﬁned in the test’s application context.

If you want a transaction to commit — unusual, but occasionally useful when you want a particular test to populate or modify the database — the
TestContext framework can be instructed to cause the transaction to commit instead of roll back via the @Commit annotation.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 241/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
See transaction management with the TestContext framework.

15.2.4 Support classes for integration testing

The Spring TestContext Framework provides several abstract support classes that simplify the writing of integration tests. These base test
classes provide well-deﬁned hooks into the testing framework as well as convenient instance variables and methods, which enable you to access:

The ApplicationContext , for performing explicit bean lookups or testing the state of the context as a whole.
A JdbcTemplate , for executing SQL statements to query the database. Such queries can be used to conﬁrm database state both prior to and
after execution of database-related application code, and Spring ensures that such queries run in the scope of the same transaction as the
application code. When used in conjunction with an ORM tool, be sure to avoid false positives.

In addition, you may want to create your own custom, application-wide superclass with instance variables and methods speciﬁc to your project.

See support classes for the TestContext framework.

15.3 JDBC Testing Support

The org.springframework.test.jdbc package contains JdbcTestUtils , which is a collection of JDBC related utility functions intended to
simplify standard database testing scenarios. Speciﬁcally, JdbcTestUtils provides the following static utility methods.

countRowsInTable(..) : counts the number of rows in the given table

countRowsInTableWhere(..) : counts the number of rows in the given table, using the provided WHERE clause
deleteFromTables(..) : deletes all rows from the speciﬁed tables
deleteFromTableWhere(..) : deletes rows from the given table, using the provided WHERE clause
dropTables(..) : drops the speciﬁed tables

Note that AbstractTransactionalJUnit4SpringContextTests and AbstractTransactionalTestNGSpringContextTests provide

convenience methods which delegate to the aforementioned methods in JdbcTestUtils .

The spring-jdbc module provides support for conﬁguring and launching an embedded database which can be used in integration tests that
interact with a database. For details, see Section 19.8, “Embedded database support” and Section 19.8.5, “Testing data access logic with an
embedded database”.

15.4 Annotations

15.4.1 Spring Testing Annotations

The Spring Framework provides the following set of Spring-speciﬁc annotations that you can use in your unit and integration tests in conjunction with
the TestContext framework. Refer to the corresponding javadocs for further information, including default attribute values, attribute aliases, and so
on.

@BootstrapWith
@BootstrapWith is a class-level annotation that is used to conﬁgure how the Spring TestContext Framework is bootstrapped. Speciﬁcally,
@BootstrapWith is used to specify a custom TestContextBootstrapper . Consult the Bootstrapping the TestContext framework section for
further details.

@ContextConfiguration
@ContextConfiguration defines class-level metadata that is used to determine how to load and configure an ApplicationContext for
integration tests. Specifically, @ContextConfiguration declares the application context resource locations or the annotated classes that
will be used to load the context.

Resource locations are typically XML configuration files or Groovy scripts located in the classpath; whereas, annotated classes are typically
@Configuration classes. However, resource locations can also refer to files and scripts in the file system, and annotated classes can be
component classes, etc.

@ContextConfiguration("/test-config.xml")
public class XmlApplicationContextTests {

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 242/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
// class body...
}

@ContextConfiguration(classes = TestConfig.class)
public class ConfigClassApplicationContextTests {
// class body...
}

As an alternative or in addition to declaring resource locations or annotated classes, @ContextConfiguration may be used to declare
ApplicationContextInitializer classes.

@ContextConfiguration(initializers = CustomContextIntializer.class)
public class ContextInitializerTests {
// class body...
}

@ContextConfiguration may optionally be used to declare the ContextLoader strategy as well. Note, however, that you typically do not
need to explicitly conﬁgure the loader since the default loader supports either resource locations or annotated classes as well as
initializers .

@ContextConfiguration(locations = "/test-context.xml", loader = CustomContextLoader.class)

public class CustomLoaderXmlApplicationContextTests {
// class body...
}

@ContextConfiguration provides support for inheriting resource locations or conﬁguration classes as well as context initializers
declared by superclasses by default.

See Section 15.5.4, “Context management” and the @ContextConfiguration javadocs for further details.

@WebAppConﬁguration
@WebAppConfiguration is a class-level annotation that is used to declare that the ApplicationContext loaded for an integration test should
be a WebApplicationContext . The mere presence of @WebAppConfiguration on a test class ensures that a WebApplicationContext
will be loaded for the test, using the default value of "file:src/main/webapp" for the path to the root of the web application (i.e., the resource
base path). The resource base path is used behind the scenes to create a MockServletContext which serves as the ServletContext for the
test’s WebApplicationContext .

@ContextConfiguration
@WebAppConfiguration
public class WebAppTests {
// class body...
}

To override the default, specify a different base resource path via the implicit value attribute. Both classpath: and file: resource prefixes
are supported. If no resource prefix is supplied the path is assumed to be a file system resource.

@ContextConfiguration
@WebAppConfiguration("classpath:test-web-resources")
public class WebAppTests {
// class body...
}

Note that @WebAppConfiguration must be used in conjunction with @ContextConfiguration , either within a single test class or within a test
class hierarchy. See the @WebAppConfiguration javadocs for further details.

@ContextHierarchy
@ContextHierarchy is a class-level annotation that is used to deﬁne a hierarchy of ApplicationContext s for integration tests.
@ContextHierarchy should be declared with a list of one or more @ContextConfiguration instances, each of which deﬁnes a level in the
context hierarchy. The following examples demonstrate the use of @ContextHierarchy within a single test class; however,
@ContextHierarchy can also be used within a test class hierarchy.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 243/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

@ContextHierarchy({
@ContextConfiguration("/parent-config.xml"),
@ContextConfiguration("/child-config.xml")
})
public class ContextHierarchyTests {
// class body...
}

@WebAppConfiguration
@ContextHierarchy({
@ContextConfiguration(classes = AppConfig.class),
@ContextConfiguration(classes = WebConfig.class)
})
public class WebIntegrationTests {
// class body...
}

If you need to merge or override the conﬁguration for a given level of the context hierarchy within a test class hierarchy, you must explicitly name that
level by supplying the same value to the name attribute in @ContextConfiguration at each corresponding level in the class hierarchy. See the
section called “Context hierarchies” and the @ContextHierarchy javadocs for further examples.

@ActiveProfiles
@ActiveProfiles is a class-level annotation that is used to declare which bean definition profiles should be active when loading an
ApplicationContext for an integration test.

@ContextConfiguration
@ActiveProfiles("dev")
public class DeveloperTests {
// class body...
}

@ContextConfiguration
@ActiveProfiles({"dev", "integration"})
public class DeveloperIntegrationTests {
// class body...
}

@ActiveProfiles provides support for inheriting active bean definition profiles declared by superclasses by default. It is also
possible to resolve active bean definition profiles programmatically by implementing a custom ActiveProfilesResolver and
registering it via the resolver attribute of @ActiveProfiles .

See the section called “Context conﬁguration with environment proﬁles” and the @ActiveProfiles javadocs for examples and further details.

@TestPropertySource
@TestPropertySource is a class-level annotation that is used to conﬁgure the locations of properties ﬁles and inlined properties to be added to
the set of PropertySources in the Environment for an ApplicationContext loaded for an integration test.

Test property sources have higher precedence than those loaded from the operating system’s environment or Java system properties as well as
property sources added by the application declaratively via @PropertySource or programmatically. Thus, test property sources can be used to
selectively override properties deﬁned in system and application property sources. Furthermore, inlined properties have higher precedence than
properties loaded from resource locations.

The following example demonstrates how to declare a properties ﬁle from the classpath.

@ContextConfiguration
@TestPropertySource("/test.properties")
public class MyIntegrationTests {
// class body...
}

The following example demonstrates how to declare inlined properties.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 244/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

@ContextConfiguration
@TestPropertySource(properties = { "timezone = GMT", "port: 4242" })
public class MyIntegrationTests {
// class body...
}

@DirtiesContext
@DirtiesContext indicates that the underlying Spring ApplicationContext has been dirtied during the execution of a test (i.e., modiﬁed or
corrupted in some manner — for example, by changing the state of a singleton bean) and should be closed. When an application context is marked
dirty, it is removed from the testing framework’s cache and closed. As a consequence, the underlying Spring container will be rebuilt for any
subsequent test that requires a context with the same conﬁguration metadata.

@DirtiesContext can be used as both a class-level and method-level annotation within the same class or class hierarchy. In such scenarios, the
ApplicationContext is marked as dirty before or after any such annotated method as well as before or after the current test class, depending
on the conﬁgured methodMode and classMode .

The following examples explain when the context would be dirtied for various conﬁguration scenarios:

Before the current test class, when declared on a class with class mode set to BEFORE_CLASS .

@DirtiesContext(classMode = BEFORE_CLASS)
public class FreshContextTests {
// some tests that require a new Spring container
}

After the current test class, when declared on a class with class mode set to AFTER_CLASS (i.e., the default class mode).

@DirtiesContext
public class ContextDirtyingTests {
// some tests that result in the Spring container being dirtied
}

Before each test method in the current test class, when declared on a class with class mode set to BEFORE_EACH_TEST_METHOD.

@DirtiesContext(classMode = BEFORE_EACH_TEST_METHOD)
public class FreshContextTests {
// some tests that require a new Spring container
}

After each test method in the current test class, when declared on a class with class mode set to AFTER_EACH_TEST_METHOD.

@DirtiesContext(classMode = AFTER_EACH_TEST_METHOD)
public class ContextDirtyingTests {
// some tests that result in the Spring container being dirtied
}

Before the current test, when declared on a method with the method mode set to BEFORE_METHOD .

@DirtiesContext(methodMode = BEFORE_METHOD)
@Test
public void testProcessWhichRequiresFreshAppCtx() {
// some logic that requires a new Spring container
}

After the current test, when declared on a method with the method mode set to AFTER_METHOD (i.e., the default method mode).

@DirtiesContext
@Test
public void testProcessWhichDirtiesAppCtx() {
// some logic that results in the Spring container being dirtied
}

If @DirtiesContext is used in a test whose context is configured as part of a context hierarchy via @ContextHierarchy , the
hierarchyMode flag can be used to control how the context cache is cleared. By default an exhaustive algorithm will be used that clears the
context cache including not only the current level but also all other context hierarchies that share an ancestor context common to the current test; all
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 245/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
ApplicationContext s that reside in a sub-hierarchy of the common ancestor context will be removed from the context cache and closed. If the
exhaustive algorithm is overkill for a particular use case, the simpler current level algorithm can be specified instead, as seen below.

@ContextHierarchy({
@ContextConfiguration("/parent-config.xml"),
@ContextConfiguration("/child-config.xml")
})
public class BaseTests {
// class body...
}

public class ExtendedTests extends BaseTests {

@Test
@DirtiesContext(hierarchyMode = CURRENT_LEVEL)
public void test() {
// some logic that results in the child context being dirtied
}
}

For further details regarding the EXHAUSTIVE and CURRENT_LEVEL algorithms see the DirtiesContext.HierarchyMode javadocs.

@TestExecutionListeners
@TestExecutionListeners deﬁnes class-level metadata for conﬁguring the TestExecutionListener implementations that should be
registered with the TestContextManager . Typically, @TestExecutionListeners is used in conjunction with @ContextConfiguration .

@ContextConfiguration
@TestExecutionListeners({CustomTestExecutionListener.class, AnotherTestExecutionListener.class})
public class CustomTestExecutionListenerTests {
// class body...
}

@TestExecutionListeners supports inherited listeners by default. See the javadocs for an example and further details.

@Commit
@Commit indicates that the transaction for a transactional test method should be committed after the test method has completed. @Commit can be
used as a direct replacement for @Rollback(false) in order to more explicitly convey the intent of the code. Analogous to @Rollback ,
@Commit may also be declared as a class-level or method-level annotation.

@Commit
@Test
public void testProcessWithoutRollback() {
// ...
}

@Rollback
@Rollback indicates whether the transaction for a transactional test method should be rolled back after the test method has completed. If true ,
the transaction is rolled back; otherwise, the transaction is committed (see also @Commit ). Rollback semantics for integration tests in the Spring
TestContext Framework default to true even if @Rollback is not explicitly declared.

When declared as a class-level annotation, @Rollback defines the default rollback semantics for all test methods within the test class hierarchy.
When declared as a method-level annotation, @Rollback defines rollback semantics for the specific test method, potentially overriding class-level
@Rollback or @Commit semantics.

@Rollback(false)
@Test
public void testProcessWithoutRollback() {
// ...
}

@BeforeTransaction

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 246/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
@BeforeTransaction indicates that the annotated void method should be executed before a transaction is started for test methods conﬁgured
to run within a transaction via Spring’s @Transactional annotation. As of Spring Framework 4.3, @BeforeTransaction methods are not
required to be public and may be declared on Java 8 based interface default methods.

@BeforeTransaction
void beforeTransaction() {
// logic to be executed before a transaction is started
}

@AfterTransaction
@AfterTransaction indicates that the annotated void method should be executed after a transaction is ended for test methods conﬁgured to
run within a transaction via Spring’s @Transactional annotation. As of Spring Framework 4.3, @AfterTransaction methods are not required
to be public and may be declared on Java 8 based interface default methods.

@AfterTransaction
void afterTransaction() {
// logic to be executed after a transaction has ended
}

@Sql
@Sql is used to annotate a test class or test method to conﬁgure SQL scripts to be executed against a given database during integration tests.

@Test
@Sql({"/test-schema.sql", "/test-user-data.sql"})
public void userTest {
// execute code that relies on the test schema and test data
}

See the section called “Executing SQL scripts declaratively with @Sql” for further details.

@SqlConfig
@SqlConfig defines metadata that is used to determine how to parse and execute SQL scripts configured via the @Sql annotation.

@Test
@Sql(
scripts = "/test-user-data.sql",
config = @SqlConfig(commentPrefix = "`", separator = "@@")
)
public void userTest {
// execute code that relies on the test data
}

@SqlGroup
@SqlGroup is a container annotation that aggregates several @Sql annotations. @SqlGroup can be used natively, declaring several nested
@Sql annotations, or it can be used in conjunction with Java 8’s support for repeatable annotations, where @Sql can simply be declared several
times on the same class or method, implicitly generating this container annotation.

@Test
@SqlGroup({
@Sql(scripts = "/test-schema.sql", config = @SqlConfig(commentPrefix = "`")),
@Sql("/test-user-data.sql")
)}
public void userTest {
// execute code that uses the test schema and test data
}

15.4.2 Standard Annotation Support

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 247/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The following annotations are supported with standard semantics for all conﬁgurations of the Spring TestContext Framework. Note that these
annotations are not speciﬁc to tests and can be used anywhere in the Spring Framework.

@Autowired
@Qualifier
@Resource (javax.annotation) if JSR-250 is present
@ManagedBean (javax.annotation) if JSR-250 is present
@Inject (javax.inject) if JSR-330 is present
@Named (javax.inject) if JSR-330 is present
@PersistenceContext (javax.persistence) if JPA is present
@PersistenceUnit (javax.persistence) if JPA is present
@Required
@Transactional

In the Spring TestContext Framework @PostConstruct and @PreDestroy may be used with standard semantics on any
application components conﬁgured in the ApplicationContext ; however, these lifecycle annotations have limited usage within an
actual test class.
If a method within a test class is annotated with @PostConstruct , that method will be executed before any before methods of the
underlying test framework (e.g., methods annotated with JUnit 4’s @Before ), and that will apply for every test method in the test
class. On the other hand, if a method within a test class is annotated with @PreDestroy , that method will never be executed. Within
a test class it is therefore recommended to use test lifecycle callbacks from the underlying test framework instead of
@PostConstruct and @PreDestroy .

15.4.3 Spring JUnit 4 Testing Annotations

The following annotations are only supported when used in conjunction with the SpringRunner, Spring’s JUnit rules, or Spring’s JUnit 4 support
classes.

@IfProfileValue
@IfProfileValue indicates that the annotated test is enabled for a specific testing environment. If the configured ProfileValueSource
returns a matching value for the provided name , the test is enabled. Otherwise, the test will be disabled and effectively ignored.

@IfProfileValue can be applied at the class level, the method level, or both. Class-level usage of @IfProfileValue takes precedence over
method-level usage for any methods within that class or its subclasses. Speciﬁcally, a test is enabled if it is enabled both at the class level and at the
method level; the absence of @IfProfileValue means the test is implicitly enabled. This is analogous to the semantics of JUnit 4’s @Ignore
annotation, except that the presence of @Ignore always disables a test.

@IfProfileValue(name="java.vendor", value="Oracle Corporation")

@Test
public void testProcessWhichRunsOnlyOnOracleJvm() {
// some logic that should run only on Java VMs from Oracle Corporation
}

Alternatively, you can conﬁgure @IfProfileValue with a list of values (with OR semantics) to achieve TestNG-like support for test groups in a
JUnit 4 environment. Consider the following example:

@IfProfileValue(name="test-groups", values={"unit-tests", "integration-tests"})

@Test
public void testProcessWhichRunsForUnitOrIntegrationTestGroups() {
// some logic that should run only for unit and integration test groups
}

@ProfileValueSourceConfiguration
@ProfileValueSourceConfiguration is a class-level annotation that specifies what type of ProfileValueSource to use when retrieving
profile values configured through the @IfProfileValue annotation. If @ProfileValueSourceConfiguration is not declared for a test,
SystemProfileValueSource is used by default.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 248/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

@ProfileValueSourceConfiguration(CustomProfileValueSource.class)
public class CustomProfileValueSourceTests {
// class body...
}

@Timed
@Timed indicates that the annotated test method must finish execution in a specified time period (in milliseconds). If the text execution time
exceeds the specified time period, the test fails.

The time period includes execution of the test method itself, any repetitions of the test (see @Repeat ), as well as any set up or tear down of the test
ﬁxture.

@Timed(millis=1000)
public void testProcessWithOneSecondTimeout() {
// some logic that should not take longer than 1 second to execute
}

Spring’s @Timed annotation has different semantics than JUnit 4’s @Test(timeout=…) support. Speciﬁcally, due to the manner in which JUnit 4
handles test execution timeouts (that is, by executing the test method in a separate Thread ), @Test(timeout=…) preemptively fails the test if
the test takes too long. Spring’s @Timed , on the other hand, does not preemptively fail the test but rather waits for the test to complete before
failing.

@Repeat
@Repeat indicates that the annotated test method must be executed repeatedly. The number of times that the test method is to be executed is
speciﬁed in the annotation.

The scope of execution to be repeated includes execution of the test method itself as well as any set up or tear down of the test ﬁxture.

@Repeat(10)
@Test
public void testProcessRepeatedly() {
// ...
}

15.4.4 Meta-Annotation Support for Testing

It is possible to use most test-related annotations as meta-annotations in order to create custom composed annotations and reduce conﬁguration
duplication across a test suite.

Each of the following may be used as meta-annotations in conjunction with the TestContext framework.

@BootstrapWith
@ContextConfiguration
@ContextHierarchy
@ActiveProfiles
@TestPropertySource
@DirtiesContext
@WebAppConfiguration
@TestExecutionListeners
@Transactional
@BeforeTransaction
@AfterTransaction
@Commit
@Rollback
@Sql
@SqlConfig
@SqlGroup
@Repeat
@Timed
@IfProfileValue

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 249/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
@ProfileValueSourceConfiguration

For example, if we discover that we are repeating the following conﬁguration across our JUnit 4 based test suite…

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
@ContextConfiguration({"/app-config.xml", "/test-data-access-config.xml"})
@ActiveProfiles("dev")
@Transactional
public class OrderRepositoryTests { }

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
@ContextConfiguration({"/app-config.xml", "/test-data-access-config.xml"})
@ActiveProfiles("dev")
@Transactional
public class UserRepositoryTests { }

We can reduce the above duplication by introducing a custom composed annotation that centralizes the common test conﬁguration like this:

@Target(ElementType.TYPE)
@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@ContextConfiguration({"/app-config.xml", "/test-data-access-config.xml"})
@ActiveProfiles("dev")
@Transactional
public @interface TransactionalDevTest { }

Then we can use our custom @TransactionalDevTest annotation to simplify the conﬁguration of individual test classes as follows:

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
@TransactionalDevTest
public class OrderRepositoryTests { }

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
@TransactionalDevTest
public class UserRepositoryTests { }

For further details, consult the Spring Annotation Programming Model.

15.5 Spring TestContext Framework

The Spring TestContext Framework (located in the org.springframework.test.context package) provides generic, annotation-driven unit
and integration testing support that is agnostic of the testing framework in use. The TestContext framework also places a great deal of importance on
convention over conﬁguration with reasonable defaults that can be overridden through annotation-based conﬁguration.

In addition to generic testing infrastructure, the TestContext framework provides explicit support for JUnit 4 and TestNG in the form of abstract
support classes. For JUnit 4, Spring also provides a custom JUnit Runner and custom JUnit Rules that allow one to write so-called POJO test
classes. POJO test classes are not required to extend a particular class hierarchy.

The following section provides an overview of the internals of the TestContext framework. If you are only interested in using the framework and not
necessarily interested in extending it with your own custom listeners or custom loaders, feel free to go directly to the conﬁguration (context
management, dependency injection, transaction management), support classes, and annotation support sections.

15.5.1 Key abstractions
The core of the framework consists of the TestContextManager class and the TestContext , TestExecutionListener , and
SmartContextLoader interfaces. A TestContextManager is created per test class (e.g., for the execution of all test methods within a single
test class in JUnit 4). The TestContextManager in turn manages a TestContext that holds the context of the current test. The
TestContextManager also updates the state of the TestContext as the test progresses and delegates to TestExecutionListener
implementations, which instrument the actual test execution by providing dependency injection, managing transactions, and so on. A
SmartContextLoader is responsible for loading an ApplicationContext for a given test class. Consult the javadocs and the Spring test
suite for further information and examples of various implementations.

TestContext

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 250/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
TestContext encapsulates the context in which a test is executed, agnostic of the actual testing framework in use, and provides context
management and caching support for the test instance for which it is responsible. The TestContext also delegates to a SmartContextLoader
to load an ApplicationContext if requested.

TestContextManager
TestContextManager is the main entry point into the Spring TestContext Framework, which manages a single TestContext and signals
events to each registered TestExecutionListener at well-deﬁned test execution points:

prior to any before class or before all methods of a particular testing framework
test instance post-processing
prior to any before or before each methods of a particular testing framework
after any after or after each methods of a particular testing framework
after any after class or after all methods of a particular testing framework

TestExecutionListener
TestExecutionListener deﬁnes the API for reacting to test execution events published by the TestContextManager with which the listener
is registered. See Section 15.5.3, “TestExecutionListener conﬁguration”.

Context Loaders
ContextLoader is a strategy interface that was introduced in Spring 2.5 for loading an ApplicationContext for an integration test managed
by the Spring TestContext Framework. Implement SmartContextLoader instead of this interface in order to provide support for annotated
classes, active bean deﬁnition proﬁles, test property sources, context hierarchies, and WebApplicationContext support.

SmartContextLoader is an extension of the ContextLoader interface introduced in Spring 3.1. The SmartContextLoader SPI supersedes
the ContextLoader SPI that was introduced in Spring 2.5. Specifically, a SmartContextLoader can choose to process resource locations ,
annotated classes , or context initializers . Furthermore, a SmartContextLoader can set active bean definition profiles and test property
sources in the context that it loads.

Spring provides the following implementations:

DelegatingSmartContextLoader : one of two default loaders which delegates internally to an AnnotationConfigContextLoader , a

GenericXmlContextLoader , or a GenericGroovyXmlContextLoader depending either on the configuration declared for the test class
or on the presence of default locations or default configuration classes. Groovy support is only enabled if Groovy is on the classpath.
WebDelegatingSmartContextLoader : one of two default loaders which delegates internally to an
AnnotationConfigWebContextLoader , a GenericXmlWebContextLoader , or a GenericGroovyXmlWebContextLoader
depending either on the configuration declared for the test class or on the presence of default locations or default configuration classes. A web
ContextLoader will only be used if @WebAppConfiguration is present on the test class. Groovy support is only enabled if Groovy is on
the classpath.
AnnotationConfigContextLoader : loads a standard ApplicationContext from annotated classes.
AnnotationConfigWebContextLoader : loads a WebApplicationContext from annotated classes.
GenericGroovyXmlContextLoader : loads a standard ApplicationContext from resource locations that are either Groovy scripts or
XML configuration files.
GenericGroovyXmlWebContextLoader : loads a WebApplicationContext from resource locations that are either Groovy scripts or
XML configuration files.
GenericXmlContextLoader : loads a standard ApplicationContext from XML resource locations.
GenericXmlWebContextLoader : loads a WebApplicationContext from XML resource locations.
GenericPropertiesContextLoader : loads a standard ApplicationContext from Java Properties files.

15.5.2 Bootstrapping the TestContext framework

The default conﬁguration for the internals of the Spring TestContext Framework is sufﬁcient for all common use cases. However, there are times
when a development team or third party framework would like to change the default ContextLoader , implement a custom TestContext or
ContextCache , augment the default sets of ContextCustomizerFactory and TestExecutionListener implementations, etc. For such
low level control over how the TestContext framework operates, Spring provides a bootstrapping strategy.

TestContextBootstrapper deﬁnes the SPI for bootstrapping the TestContext framework. A TestContextBootstrapper is used by the
TestContextManager to load the TestExecutionListener implementations for the current test and to build the TestContext that it
manages. A custom bootstrapping strategy can be conﬁgured for a test class (or test class hierarchy) via @BootstrapWith , either directly or as a

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 251/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
meta-annotation. If a bootstrapper is not explicitly conﬁgured via @BootstrapWith , either the DefaultTestContextBootstrapper or the
WebTestContextBootstrapper will be used, depending on the presence of @WebAppConfiguration .

Since the TestContextBootstrapper SPI is likely to change in the future in order to accommodate new requirements, implementers are
strongly encouraged not to implement this interface directly but rather to extend AbstractTestContextBootstrapper or one of its concrete
subclasses instead.

15.5.3 TestExecutionListener conﬁguration
Spring provides the following TestExecutionListener implementations that are registered by default, exactly in this order.

ServletTestExecutionListener : conﬁgures Servlet API mocks for a WebApplicationContext

DirtiesContextBeforeModesTestExecutionListener : handles the @DirtiesContext annotation for before modes
DependencyInjectionTestExecutionListener : provides dependency injection for the test instance
DirtiesContextTestExecutionListener : handles the @DirtiesContext annotation for after modes
TransactionalTestExecutionListener : provides transactional test execution with default rollback semantics
SqlScriptsTestExecutionListener : executes SQL scripts conﬁgured via the @Sql annotation

Registering custom TestExecutionListeners

Custom TestExecutionListener s can be registered for a test class and its subclasses via the @TestExecutionListeners annotation. See
annotation support and the javadocs for @TestExecutionListeners for details and examples.

Automatic discovery of default TestExecutionListeners

Registering custom TestExecutionListener s via @TestExecutionListeners is suitable for custom listeners that are used in limited testing
scenarios; however, it can become cumbersome if a custom listener needs to be used across a test suite. Since Spring Framework 4.1, this issue is
addressed via support for automatic discovery of default TestExecutionListener implementations via the SpringFactoriesLoader
mechanism.

Specifically, the spring-test module declares all core default TestExecutionListener s under the
org.springframework.test.context.TestExecutionListener key in its META-INF/spring.factories properties file. Third-party
frameworks and developers can contribute their own TestExecutionListener s to the list of default listeners in the same manner via their own
META-INF/spring.factories properties file.

Ordering TestExecutionListeners
When the TestContext framework discovers default TestExecutionListener s via the aforementioned SpringFactoriesLoader
mechanism, the instantiated listeners are sorted using Spring’s AnnotationAwareOrderComparator which honors Spring’s Ordered interface
and @Order annotation for ordering. AbstractTestExecutionListener and all default TestExecutionListener s provided by Spring
implement Ordered with appropriate values. Third-party frameworks and developers should therefore make sure that their default
TestExecutionListener s are registered in the proper order by implementing Ordered or declaring @Order . Consult the javadocs for the
getOrder() methods of the core default TestExecutionListener s for details on what values are assigned to each core listener.

Merging TestExecutionListeners
If a custom TestExecutionListener is registered via @TestExecutionListeners , the default listeners will not be registered. In most
common testing scenarios, this effectively forces the developer to manually declare all default listeners in addition to any custom listeners. The
following listing demonstrates this style of conﬁguration.

@ContextConfiguration
@TestExecutionListeners({
MyCustomTestExecutionListener.class,
ServletTestExecutionListener.class,
DirtiesContextBeforeModesTestExecutionListener.class,
DependencyInjectionTestExecutionListener.class,
DirtiesContextTestExecutionListener.class,
TransactionalTestExecutionListener.class,
SqlScriptsTestExecutionListener.class
})
public class MyTest {
// class body...
}
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 252/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

The challenge with this approach is that it requires that the developer know exactly which listeners are registered by default. Moreover, the set of
default listeners can change from release to release — for example, SqlScriptsTestExecutionListener was introduced in Spring Framework
4.1, and DirtiesContextBeforeModesTestExecutionListener was introduced in Spring Framework 4.2. Furthermore, third-party
frameworks like Spring Security register their own default TestExecutionListener s via the aforementioned automatic discovery mechanism.

To avoid having to be aware of and re-declare all default listeners, the mergeMode attribute of @TestExecutionListeners can be set to
MergeMode.MERGE_WITH_DEFAULTS . MERGE_WITH_DEFAULTS indicates that locally declared listeners should be merged with the default
listeners. The merging algorithm ensures that duplicates are removed from the list and that the resulting set of merged listeners is sorted according
to the semantics of AnnotationAwareOrderComparator as described in the section called “Ordering TestExecutionListeners”. If a listener
implements Ordered or is annotated with @Order it can inﬂuence the position in which it is merged with the defaults; otherwise, locally declared
listeners will simply be appended to the list of default listeners when merged.

For example, if the MyCustomTestExecutionListener class in the previous example conﬁgures its order value (for example, 500 ) to be
less than the order of the ServletTestExecutionListener (which happens to be 1000 ), the MyCustomTestExecutionListener can
then be automatically merged with the list of defaults in front of the ServletTestExecutionListener , and the previous example could be
replaced with the following.

@ContextConfiguration
@TestExecutionListeners(
listeners = MyCustomTestExecutionListener.class,
mergeMode = MERGE_WITH_DEFAULTS
)
public class MyTest {
// class body...
}

15.5.4 Context management
Each TestContext provides context management and caching support for the test instance it is responsible for. Test instances do not
automatically receive access to the conﬁgured ApplicationContext . However, if a test class implements the ApplicationContextAware
interface, a reference to the ApplicationContext is supplied to the test instance. Note that AbstractJUnit4SpringContextTests and
AbstractTestNGSpringContextTests implement ApplicationContextAware and therefore provide access to the
ApplicationContext automatically.

As an alternative to implementing the ApplicationContextAware interface, you can inject the application context for your test
class through the @Autowired annotation on either a ﬁeld or setter method. For example:
@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
@ContextConfiguration
public class MyTest {

@Autowired
private ApplicationContext applicationContext;

// class body...
}
Similarly, if your test is conﬁgured to load a WebApplicationContext , you can inject the web application context into your test as
follows:
@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
@WebAppConfiguration
@ContextConfiguration
public class MyWebAppTest {
@Autowired
private WebApplicationContext wac;

// class body...
}
Dependency injection via @Autowired is provided by the DependencyInjectionTestExecutionListener which is conﬁgured
by default (see Section 15.5.5, “Dependency injection of test ﬁxtures”).

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 253/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Test classes that use the TestContext framework do not need to extend any particular class or implement a specific interface to configure their
application context. Instead, configuration is achieved simply by declaring the @ContextConfiguration annotation at the class level. If your test
class does not explicitly declare application context resource locations or annotated classes , the configured ContextLoader determines
how to load a context from a default location or default configuration classes. In addition to context resource locations and annotated classes ,
an application context can also be configured via application context initializers .

The following sections explain how to configure an ApplicationContext via XML configuration files, Groovy scripts, annotated classes (typically
@Configuration classes), or context initializers using Spring’s @ContextConfiguration annotation. Alternatively, you can implement and
configure your own custom SmartContextLoader for advanced use cases.

Context conﬁguration with XML resources

To load an ApplicationContext for your tests using XML configuration files, annotate your test class with @ContextConfiguration and
configure the locations attribute with an array that contains the resource locations of XML configuration metadata. A plain or relative path — for
example "context.xml" — will be treated as a classpath resource that is relative to the package in which the test class is defined. A path starting
with a slash is treated as an absolute classpath location, for example "/org/example/config.xml" . A path which represents a resource URL
(i.e., a path prefixed with classpath: , file: , http: , etc.) will be used as is.

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
// ApplicationContext will be loaded from "/app-config.xml" and
// "/test-config.xml" in the root of the classpath
@ContextConfiguration(locations={"/app-config.xml", "/test-config.xml"})
public class MyTest {
// class body...
}

@ContextConfiguration supports an alias for the locations attribute through the standard Java value attribute. Thus, if you do not need
to declare additional attributes in @ContextConfiguration , you can omit the declaration of the locations attribute name and declare the
resource locations by using the shorthand format demonstrated in the following example.

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
@ContextConfiguration({"/app-config.xml", "/test-config.xml"})
public class MyTest {
// class body...
}

If you omit both the locations and value attributes from the @ContextConfiguration annotation, the TestContext framework will attempt
to detect a default XML resource location. Speciﬁcally, GenericXmlContextLoader and GenericXmlWebContextLoader detect a default
location based on the name of the test class. If your class is named com.example.MyTest , GenericXmlContextLoader loads your
application context from "classpath:com/example/MyTest-context.xml" .

package com.example;

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
// ApplicationContext will be loaded from
// "classpath:com/example/MyTest-context.xml"
@ContextConfiguration
public class MyTest {
// class body...
}

Context conﬁguration with Groovy scripts

To load an ApplicationContext for your tests using Groovy scripts that utilize the Groovy Bean Definition DSL, annotate your test class with
@ContextConfiguration and configure the locations or value attribute with an array that contains the resource locations of Groovy
scripts. Resource lookup semantics for Groovy scripts are the same as those described for XML configuration files.

Support for using Groovy scripts to load an ApplicationContext in the Spring TestContext Framework is enabled automatically if
Groovy is on the classpath.

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
// ApplicationContext will be loaded from "/AppConfig.groovy" and

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 254/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
// "/TestConfig.groovy" in the root of the classpath
@ContextConfiguration({"/AppConfig.groovy", "/TestConfig.Groovy"})
public class MyTest {
// class body...
}

If you omit both the locations and value attributes from the @ContextConfiguration annotation, the TestContext framework will attempt
to detect a default Groovy script. Speciﬁcally, GenericGroovyXmlContextLoader and GenericGroovyXmlWebContextLoader detect a
default location based on the name of the test class. If your class is named com.example.MyTest , the Groovy context loader will load your
application context from "classpath:com/example/MyTestContext.groovy" .

package com.example;

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
// ApplicationContext will be loaded from
// "classpath:com/example/MyTestContext.groovy"
@ContextConfiguration
public class MyTest {
// class body...
}

Both XML configuration files and Groovy scripts can be declared simultaneously via the locations or value attribute of
@ContextConfiguration . If the path to a configured resource location ends with .xml it will be loaded using an
XmlBeanDefinitionReader ; otherwise it will be loaded using a GroovyBeanDefinitionReader .
The following listing demonstrates how to combine both in an integration test.
@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
// ApplicationContext will be loaded from
// "/app-config.xml" and "/TestConfig.groovy"
@ContextConfiguration({ "/app-config.xml", "/TestConfig.groovy" })
public class MyTest {
// class body...
}

Context conﬁguration with annotated classes

To load an ApplicationContext for your tests using annotated classes (see Section 7.12, “Java-based container conﬁguration”), annotate your
test class with @ContextConfiguration and conﬁgure the classes attribute with an array that contains references to annotated classes.

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
// ApplicationContext will be loaded from AppConfig and TestConfig
@ContextConfiguration(classes = {AppConfig.class, TestConfig.class})
public class MyTest {
// class body...
}

The term annotated class can refer to any of the following.

A class annotated with @Configuration
A component (i.e., a class annotated with @Component , @Service , @Repository , etc.)
A JSR-330 compliant class that is annotated with javax.inject annotations
Any other class that contains @Bean -methods
Consult the javadocs of @Configuration and @Bean for further information regarding the conﬁguration and semantics of
annotated classes, paying special attention to the discussion of `@Bean` Lite Mode.

If you omit the classes attribute from the @ContextConfiguration annotation, the TestContext framework will attempt to detect the presence
of default configuration classes. Specifically, AnnotationConfigContextLoader and AnnotationConfigWebContextLoader will detect all
static nested classes of the test class that meet the requirements for configuration class implementations as specified in the @Configuration
javadocs. In the following example, the OrderServiceTest class declares a static nested configuration class named Config that will be
automatically used to load the ApplicationContext for the test class. Note that the name of the configuration class is arbitrary. In addition, a test
class can contain more than one static nested configuration class if desired.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 255/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
// ApplicationContext will be loaded from the
// static nested Config class
@ContextConfiguration
public class OrderServiceTest {

@Configuration
static class Config {

// this bean will be injected into the OrderServiceTest class

@Bean
public OrderService orderService() {
OrderService orderService = new OrderServiceImpl();
// set properties, etc.
return orderService;
}
}

@Autowired
private OrderService orderService;

@Test
public void testOrderService() {
// test the orderService
}

Mixing XML, Groovy scripts, and annotated classes

It may sometimes be desirable to mix XML configuration files, Groovy scripts, and annotated classes (i.e., typically @Configuration classes) to
configure an ApplicationContext for your tests. For example, if you use XML configuration in production, you may decide that you want to use
@Configuration classes to configure specific Spring-managed components for your tests, or vice versa.

Furthermore, some third-party frameworks (like Spring Boot) provide first-class support for loading an ApplicationContext from different types
of resources simultaneously (e.g., XML configuration files, Groovy scripts, and @Configuration classes). The Spring Framework historically has
not supported this for standard deployments. Consequently, most of the SmartContextLoader implementations that the Spring Framework
delivers in the spring-test module support only one resource type per test context; however, this does not mean that you cannot use both. One
exception to the general rule is that the GenericGroovyXmlContextLoader and GenericGroovyXmlWebContextLoader support both XML
configuration files and Groovy scripts simultaneously. Furthermore, third-party frameworks may choose to support the declaration of both
locations and classes via @ContextConfiguration , and with the standard testing support in the TestContext framework, you have the
following options.

If you want to use resource locations (e.g., XML or Groovy) and @Configuration classes to configure your tests, you will have to pick one as the
entry point, and that one will have to include or import the other. For example, in XML or Groovy scripts you can include @Configuration classes
via component scanning or define them as normal Spring beans; whereas, in a @Configuration class you can use @ImportResource to
import XML configuration files or Groovy scripts. Note that this behavior is semantically equivalent to how you configure your application in
production: in production configuration you will define either a set of XML or Groovy resource locations or a set of @Configuration classes that
your production ApplicationContext will be loaded from, but you still have the freedom to include or import the other type of configuration.

Context conﬁguration with context initializers

To conﬁgure an ApplicationContext for your tests using context initializers, annotate your test class with @ContextConfiguration and
conﬁgure the initializers attribute with an array that contains references to classes that implement ApplicationContextInitializer .
The declared context initializers will then be used to initialize the ConfigurableApplicationContext that is loaded for your tests. Note that the
concrete ConfigurableApplicationContext type supported by each declared initializer must be compatible with the type of
ApplicationContext created by the SmartContextLoader in use (i.e., typically a GenericApplicationContext ). Furthermore, the
order in which the initializers are invoked depends on whether they implement Spring’s Ordered interface or are annotated with Spring’s @Order
annotation or the standard @Priority annotation.

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
// ApplicationContext will be loaded from TestConfig
// and initialized by TestAppCtxInitializer
@ContextConfiguration(

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 256/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
classes = TestConfig.class,
initializers = TestAppCtxInitializer.class)
public class MyTest {
// class body...
}

It is also possible to omit the declaration of XML configuration files, Groovy scripts, or annotated classes in @ContextConfiguration entirely
and instead declare only ApplicationContextInitializer classes which are then responsible for registering beans in the context — for
example, by programmatically loading bean definitions from XML files or configuration classes.

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
// ApplicationContext will be initialized by EntireAppInitializer
// which presumably registers beans in the context
@ContextConfiguration(initializers = EntireAppInitializer.class)
public class MyTest {
// class body...
}

Context conﬁguration inheritance

@ContextConfiguration supports boolean inheritLocations and inheritInitializers attributes that denote whether resource
locations or annotated classes and context initializers declared by superclasses should be inherited. The default value for both flags is true . This
means that a test class inherits the resource locations or annotated classes as well as the context initializers declared by any superclasses.
Specifically, the resource locations or annotated classes for a test class are appended to the list of resource locations or annotated classes declared
by superclasses. Similarly, the initializers for a given test class will be added to the set of initializers defined by test superclasses. Thus, subclasses
have the option of extending the resource locations, annotated classes, or context initializers.

If the inheritLocations or inheritInitializers attribute in @ContextConfiguration is set to false , the resource locations or
annotated classes and the context initializers, respectively, for the test class shadow and effectively replace the conﬁguration deﬁned by
superclasses.

In the following example that uses XML resource locations, the ApplicationContext for ExtendedTest will be loaded from "base-config.xml"
and "extended-config.xml", in that order. Beans defined in "extended-config.xml" may therefore override (i.e., replace) those defined in "base-
config.xml".

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
// ApplicationContext will be loaded from "/base-config.xml"
// in the root of the classpath
@ContextConfiguration("/base-config.xml")
public class BaseTest {
// class body...
}

// ApplicationContext will be loaded from "/base-config.xml" and

// "/extended-config.xml" in the root of the classpath
@ContextConfiguration("/extended-config.xml")
public class ExtendedTest extends BaseTest {
// class body...
}

Similarly, in the following example that uses annotated classes, the ApplicationContext for ExtendedTest will be loaded from the
BaseConfig and ExtendedConfig classes, in that order. Beans deﬁned in ExtendedConfig may therefore override (i.e., replace) those
deﬁned in BaseConfig .

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
// ApplicationContext will be loaded from BaseConfig
@ContextConfiguration(classes = BaseConfig.class)
public class BaseTest {
// class body...
}

// ApplicationContext will be loaded from BaseConfig and ExtendedConfig

@ContextConfiguration(classes = ExtendedConfig.class)
public class ExtendedTest extends BaseTest {
// class body...
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 257/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
In the following example that uses context initializers, the ApplicationContext for ExtendedTest will be initialized using
BaseInitializer and ExtendedInitializer . Note, however, that the order in which the initializers are invoked depends on whether they
implement Spring’s Ordered interface or are annotated with Spring’s @Order annotation or the standard @Priority annotation.

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
// ApplicationContext will be initialized by BaseInitializer
@ContextConfiguration(initializers = BaseInitializer.class)
public class BaseTest {
// class body...
}

// ApplicationContext will be initialized by BaseInitializer

// and ExtendedInitializer
@ContextConfiguration(initializers = ExtendedInitializer.class)
public class ExtendedTest extends BaseTest {
// class body...
}

Context conﬁguration with environment proﬁles

Spring 3.1 introduced first-class support in the framework for the notion of environments and profiles (a.k.a., bean definition profiles), and integration
tests can be configured to activate particular bean definition profiles for various testing scenarios. This is achieved by annotating a test class with the
@ActiveProfiles annotation and supplying a list of profiles that should be activated when loading the ApplicationContext for the test.

@ActiveProfiles may be used with any implementation of the new SmartContextLoader SPI, but @ActiveProfiles is not
supported with implementations of the older ContextLoader SPI.

Let’s take a look at some examples with XML conﬁguration and @Configuration classes.

<beans profile="default">
<jdbc:embedded-database id="dataSource">
<jdbc:script

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 258/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
location="classpath:com/bank/config/sql/schema.sql"/>
</jdbc:embedded-database>
</beans>

</beans>

package com.bank.service;

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
// ApplicationContext will be loaded from "classpath:/app-config.xml"
@ContextConfiguration("/app-config.xml")
@ActiveProfiles("dev")
public class TransferServiceTest {

@Autowired
private TransferService transferService;

@Test
public void testTransferService() {
// test the transferService
}
}

When TransferServiceTest is run, its ApplicationContext will be loaded from the app-config.xml configuration file in the root of the
classpath. If you inspect app-config.xml you’ll notice that the accountRepository bean has a dependency on a dataSource bean;
however, dataSource is not defined as a top-level bean. Instead, dataSource is defined three times: in the production profile, the dev profile,
and the default profile.

By annotating TransferServiceTest with @ActiveProfiles("dev") we instruct the Spring TestContext Framework to load the
ApplicationContext with the active proﬁles set to {"dev"} . As a result, an embedded database will be created and populated with test data,
and the accountRepository bean will be wired with a reference to the development DataSource . And that’s likely what we want in an
integration test.

It is sometimes useful to assign beans to a default profile. Beans within the default profile are only included when no other profile is specifically
activated. This can be used to define fallback beans to be used in the application’s default state. For example, you may explicitly provide a data
source for dev and production profiles, but define an in-memory data source as a default when neither of these is active.

The following code listings demonstrate how to implement the same conﬁguration and integration test but using @Configuration classes instead
of XML.

@Configuration
@Profile("dev")
public class StandaloneDataConfig {

@Configuration
@Profile("production")
public class JndiDataConfig {

@Bean(destroyMethod="")
public DataSource dataSource() throws Exception {
Context ctx = new InitialContext();
return (DataSource) ctx.lookup("java:comp/env/jdbc/datasource");
}
}

@Configuration
@Profile("default")

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 259/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
public class DefaultDataConfig {

@Bean
public DataSource dataSource() {
return new EmbeddedDatabaseBuilder()
.setType(EmbeddedDatabaseType.HSQL)
.addScript("classpath:com/bank/config/sql/schema.sql")
.build();
}
}

@Configuration
public class TransferServiceConfig {

@Autowired DataSource dataSource;

@Bean
public TransferService transferService() {
return new DefaultTransferService(accountRepository(), feePolicy());
}

@Bean
public AccountRepository accountRepository() {
return new JdbcAccountRepository(dataSource);
}

@Bean
public FeePolicy feePolicy() {
return new ZeroFeePolicy();
}

package com.bank.service;

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
@ContextConfiguration(classes = {
TransferServiceConfig.class,
StandaloneDataConfig.class,
JndiDataConfig.class,
DefaultDataConfig.class})
@ActiveProfiles("dev")
public class TransferServiceTest {

@Autowired
private TransferService transferService;

@Test
public void testTransferService() {
// test the transferService
}
}

In this variation, we have split the XML conﬁguration into four independent @Configuration classes:

TransferServiceConfig : acquires a dataSource via dependency injection using @Autowired

StandaloneDataConfig : defines a dataSource for an embedded database suitable for developer tests
JndiDataConfig : defines a dataSource that is retrieved from JNDI in a production environment
DefaultDataConfig : defines a dataSource for a default embedded database in case no profile is active

As with the XML-based conﬁguration example, we still annotate TransferServiceTest with @ActiveProfiles("dev") , but this time we
specify all four conﬁguration classes via the @ContextConfiguration annotation. The body of the test class itself remains completely
unchanged.

It is often the case that a single set of proﬁles is used across multiple test classes within a given project. Thus, to avoid duplicate declarations of the
@ActiveProfiles annotation it is possible to declare @ActiveProfiles once on a base class, and subclasses will automatically inherit the

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 260/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
@ActiveProfiles conﬁguration from the base class. In the following example, the declaration of @ActiveProfiles (as well as other
annotations) has been moved to an abstract superclass, AbstractIntegrationTest .

package com.bank.service;

// "dev" profile inherited from superclass

public class TransferServiceTest extends AbstractIntegrationTest {

@Autowired
private TransferService transferService;

@Test
public void testTransferService() {
// test the transferService
}
}

@ActiveProfiles also supports an inheritProfiles attribute that can be used to disable the inheritance of active proﬁles.

package com.bank.service;

// "dev" profile overridden with "production"

@ActiveProfiles(profiles = "production", inheritProfiles = false)
public class ProductionTransferServiceTest extends AbstractIntegrationTest {
// test body
}

Furthermore, it is sometimes necessary to resolve active proﬁles for tests programmatically instead of declaratively — for example, based on:

the current operating system

whether tests are being executed on a continuous integration build server
the presence of certain environment variables
the presence of custom class-level annotations
etc.

To resolve active bean deﬁnition proﬁles programmatically, simply implement a custom ActiveProfilesResolver and register it via the
resolver attribute of @ActiveProfiles . The following example demonstrates how to implement and register a custom
OperatingSystemActiveProfilesResolver . For further information, refer to the corresponding javadocs.

package com.bank.service;

// "dev" profile overridden programmatically via a custom resolver

@ActiveProfiles(
resolver = OperatingSystemActiveProfilesResolver.class,
inheritProfiles = false)
public class TransferServiceTest extends AbstractIntegrationTest {
// test body
}

package com.bank.service.test;

public class OperatingSystemActiveProfilesResolver implements ActiveProfilesResolver {

@Override
String[] resolve(Class<?> testClass) {

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 261/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
String profile = ...;
// determine the value of profile based on the operating system
return new String[] {profile};
}
}

Context conﬁguration with test property sources

Spring 3.1 introduced first-class support in the framework for the notion of an environment with a hierarchy of property sources, and since Spring 4.1
integration tests can be configured with test-specific property sources. In contrast to the @PropertySource annotation used on
@Configuration classes, the @TestPropertySource annotation can be declared on a test class to declare resource locations for test
properties files or inlined properties. These test property sources will be added to the set of PropertySources in the Environment for the
ApplicationContext loaded for the annotated integration test.

@TestPropertySource may be used with any implementation of the SmartContextLoader SPI, but @TestPropertySource
is not supported with implementations of the older ContextLoader SPI.
Implementations of SmartContextLoader gain access to merged test property source values via the
getPropertySourceLocations() and getPropertySourceProperties() methods in MergedContextConfiguration .

Declaring test property sources

Test properties ﬁles can be conﬁgured via the locations or value attribute of @TestPropertySource as shown in the following example.

Both traditional and XML-based properties ﬁle formats are supported — for example, "classpath:/com/example/test.properties" or
"file:///path/to/file.xml" .

Each path will be interpreted as a Spring Resource . A plain path — for example, "test.properties" — will be treated as a classpath resource
that is relative to the package in which the test class is defined. A path starting with a slash will be treated as an absolute classpath resource, for
example: "/org/example/test.xml" . A path which references a URL (e.g., a path prefixed with classpath: , file: , http: , etc.) will be
loaded using the specified resource protocol. Resource location wildcards (e.g. */.properties ) are not permitted: each location must evaluate to
exactly one .properties or .xml resource.

@ContextConfiguration
@TestPropertySource("/test.properties")
public class MyIntegrationTests {
// class body...
}

Inlined properties in the form of key-value pairs can be conﬁgured via the properties attribute of @TestPropertySource as shown in the
following example. All key-value pairs will be added to the enclosing Environment as a single test PropertySource with the highest
precedence.

The supported syntax for key-value pairs is the same as the syntax deﬁned for entries in a Java properties ﬁle:

"key=value"
"key:value"
"key value"

@ContextConfiguration
@TestPropertySource(properties = {"timezone = GMT", "port: 4242"})
public class MyIntegrationTests {
// class body...
}

Default properties ﬁle detection

If @TestPropertySource is declared as an empty annotation (i.e., without explicit values for the locations or properties attributes), an
attempt will be made to detect a default properties ﬁle relative to the class that declared the annotation. For example, if the annotated test class is
com.example.MyTest , the corresponding default properties ﬁle is "classpath:com/example/MyTest.properties" . If the default cannot
be detected, an IllegalStateException will be thrown.

Precedence

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 262/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Test property sources have higher precedence than those loaded from the operating system’s environment or Java system properties as well as
property sources added by the application declaratively via @PropertySource or programmatically. Thus, test property sources can be used to
selectively override properties deﬁned in system and application property sources. Furthermore, inlined properties have higher precedence than
properties loaded from resource locations.

In the following example, the timezone and port properties as well as any properties defined in "/test.properties" will override any
properties of the same name that are defined in system and application property sources. Furthermore, if the "/test.properties" file defines
entries for the timezone and port properties those will be overridden by the inlined properties declared via the properties attribute.

@ContextConfiguration
@TestPropertySource(
locations = "/test.properties",
properties = {"timezone = GMT", "port: 4242"}
)
public class MyIntegrationTests {
// class body...
}

Inheriting and overriding test property sources

@TestPropertySource supports boolean inheritLocations and inheritProperties attributes that denote whether resource locations
for properties files and inlined properties declared by superclasses should be inherited. The default value for both flags is true . This means that a
test class inherits the locations and inlined properties declared by any superclasses. Specifically, the locations and inlined properties for a test class
are appended to the locations and inlined properties declared by superclasses. Thus, subclasses have the option of extending the locations and
inlined properties. Note that properties that appear later will shadow (i.e.., override) properties of the same name that appear earlier. In addition, the
aforementioned precedence rules apply for inherited test property sources as well.

If the inheritLocations or inheritProperties attribute in @TestPropertySource is set to false , the locations or inlined properties,
respectively, for the test class shadow and effectively replace the conﬁguration deﬁned by superclasses.

In the following example, the ApplicationContext for BaseTest will be loaded using only the "base.properties" ﬁle as a test property
source. In contrast, the ApplicationContext for ExtendedTest will be loaded using the "base.properties" and
"extended.properties" ﬁles as test property source locations.

@TestPropertySource("base.properties")
@ContextConfiguration
public class BaseTest {
// ...
}

@TestPropertySource("extended.properties")
@ContextConfiguration
public class ExtendedTest extends BaseTest {
// ...
}

In the following example, the ApplicationContext for BaseTest will be loaded using only the inlined key1 property. In contrast, the
ApplicationContext for ExtendedTest will be loaded using the inlined key1 and key2 properties.

@TestPropertySource(properties = "key1 = value1")

@ContextConfiguration
public class BaseTest {
// ...
}

@TestPropertySource(properties = "key2 = value2")

@ContextConfiguration
public class ExtendedTest extends BaseTest {
// ...
}

Loading a WebApplicationContext
Spring 3.2 introduced support for loading a WebApplicationContext in integration tests. To instruct the TestContext framework to load a
WebApplicationContext instead of a standard ApplicationContext , simply annotate the respective test class with

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 263/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
@WebAppConfiguration .

The presence of @WebAppConfiguration on your test class instructs the TestContext framework (TCF) that a WebApplicationContext
(WAC) should be loaded for your integration tests. In the background the TCF makes sure that a MockServletContext is created and supplied to
your test’s WAC. By default the base resource path for your MockServletContext will be set to "src/main/webapp". This is interpreted as a path
relative to the root of your JVM (i.e., normally the path to your project). If you’re familiar with the directory structure of a web application in a Maven
project, you’ll know that "src/main/webapp" is the default location for the root of your WAR. If you need to override this default, simply provide an
alternate path to the @WebAppConfiguration annotation (e.g., @WebAppConfiguration("src/test/webapp") ). If you wish to reference a
base resource path from the classpath instead of the ﬁle system, just use Spring’s classpath: preﬁx.

Please note that Spring’s testing support for WebApplicationContexts is on par with its support for standard ApplicationContexts . When
testing with a WebApplicationContext you are free to declare XML conﬁguration ﬁles, Groovy scripts, or @Configuration classes via
@ContextConfiguration . You are of course also free to use any other test annotations such as @ActiveProfiles ,
@TestExecutionListeners , @Sql , @Rollback , etc.

The following examples demonstrate some of the various conﬁguration options for loading a WebApplicationContext .

Conventions.

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)

// defaults to "file:src/main/webapp"
@WebAppConfiguration

// detects "WacTests-context.xml" in same package

// or static nested @Configuration class
@ContextConfiguration

public class WacTests {

//...
}

The above example demonstrates the TestContext framework’s support for convention over configuration. If you annotate a test class with
@WebAppConfiguration without specifying a resource base path, the resource path will effectively default to "file:src/main/webapp". Similarly, if
you declare @ContextConfiguration without specifying resource locations , annotated classes , or context initializers , Spring will
attempt to detect the presence of your configuration using conventions (i.e., "WacTests-context.xml" in the same package as the WacTests class
or static nested @Configuration classes).

Default resource semantics.

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)

// file system resource

@WebAppConfiguration("webapp")

// classpath resource
@ContextConfiguration("/spring/test-servlet-config.xml")

public class WacTests {

//...
}

This example demonstrates how to explicitly declare a resource base path with @WebAppConfiguration and an XML resource location with
@ContextConfiguration . The important thing to note here is the different semantics for paths with these two annotations. By default,
@WebAppConfiguration resource paths are ﬁle system based; whereas, @ContextConfiguration resource locations are classpath based.

Explicit resource semantics.

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)

// classpath resource
@WebAppConfiguration("classpath:test-web-resources")

// file system resource

@ContextConfiguration("file:src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/servlet-config.xml")

public class WacTests {

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 264/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
//...
}

In this third example, we see that we can override the default resource semantics for both annotations by specifying a Spring resource preﬁx.
Contrast the comments in this example with the previous example.

To provide comprehensive web testing support, Spring 3.2 introduced a ServletTestExecutionListener that is enabled by default. When
testing against a WebApplicationContext this TestExecutionListener sets up default thread-local state via Spring Web’s
RequestContextHolder before each test method and creates a MockHttpServletRequest , MockHttpServletResponse , and
ServletWebRequest based on the base resource path conﬁgured via @WebAppConfiguration . ServletTestExecutionListener also
ensures that the MockHttpServletResponse and ServletWebRequest can be injected into the test instance, and once the test is complete it
cleans up thread-local state.

Once you have a WebApplicationContext loaded for your test you might ﬁnd that you need to interact with the web mocks — for example, to set
up your test ﬁxture or to perform assertions after invoking your web component. The following example demonstrates which mocks can be autowired
into your test instance. Note that the WebApplicationContext and MockServletContext are both cached across the test suite; whereas,
the other mocks are managed per test method by the ServletTestExecutionListener .

Injecting mocks.

@WebAppConfiguration
@ContextConfiguration
public class WacTests {

@Autowired
WebApplicationContext wac; // cached

@Autowired
MockServletContext servletContext; // cached

@Autowired
MockHttpSession session;

@Autowired
MockHttpServletRequest request;

@Autowired
MockHttpServletResponse response;

@Autowired
ServletWebRequest webRequest;

//...
}

Context caching
Once the TestContext framework loads an ApplicationContext (or WebApplicationContext ) for a test, that context will be cached and
reused for all subsequent tests that declare the same unique context conﬁguration within the same test suite. To understand how caching works, it is
important to understand what is meant by unique and test suite.

An ApplicationContext can be uniquely identified by the combination of configuration parameters that are used to load it. Consequently, the
unique combination of configuration parameters are used to generate a key under which the context is cached. The TestContext framework uses the
following configuration parameters to build the context cache key:

locations (from @ContextConﬁguration)

classes (from @ContextConfiguration)
contextInitializerClasses (from @ContextConfiguration)
contextCustomizers (from ContextCustomizerFactory)
contextLoader (from @ContextConfiguration)
parent (from @ContextHierarchy)
activeProfiles (from @ActiveProfiles)
propertySourceLocations (from @TestPropertySource)
propertySourceProperties (from @TestPropertySource)
resourceBasePath (from @WebAppConfiguration)

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 265/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
For example, if TestClassA specifies {"app-config.xml", "test-config.xml"} for the locations (or value ) attribute of
@ContextConfiguration , the TestContext framework will load the corresponding ApplicationContext and store it in a static context
cache under a key that is based solely on those locations. So if TestClassB also defines {"app-config.xml", "test-config.xml"} for
its locations (either explicitly or implicitly through inheritance) but does not define @WebAppConfiguration , a different ContextLoader ,
different active profiles, different context initializers, different test property sources, or a different parent context, then the same
ApplicationContext will be shared by both test classes. This means that the setup cost for loading an application context is incurred only once
(per test suite), and subsequent test execution is much faster.

The Spring TestContext framework stores application contexts in a static cache. This means that the context is literally stored in a
static variable. In other words, if tests execute in separate processes the static cache will be cleared between each test execution,
and this will effectively disable the caching mechanism.
To benefit from the caching mechanism, all tests must run within the same process or test suite. This can be achieved by executing all
tests as a group within an IDE. Similarly, when executing tests with a build framework such as Ant, Maven, or Gradle it is important to
make sure that the build framework does not fork between tests. For example, if the forkMode for the Maven Surefire plug-in is set to
always or pertest , the TestContext framework will not be able to cache application contexts between test classes and the build
process will run significantly slower as a result.

Since Spring Framework 4.3, the size of the context cache is bounded with a default maximum size of 32. Whenever the maximum size is reached, a
least recently used (LRU) eviction policy is used to evict and close stale contexts. The maximum size can be conﬁgured from the command line or a
build script by setting a JVM system property named spring.test.context.cache.maxSize . As an alternative, the same property can be set
programmatically via the SpringProperties API.

Since having a large number of application contexts loaded within a given test suite can cause the suite to take an unnecessarily long time to
execute, it is often beneﬁcial to know exactly how many contexts have been loaded and cached. To view the statistics for the underlying context
cache, simply set the log level for the org.springframework.test.context.cache logging category to DEBUG .

In the unlikely case that a test corrupts the application context and requires reloading — for example, by modifying a bean deﬁnition or the state of an
application object — you can annotate your test class or test method with @DirtiesContext (see the discussion of @DirtiesContext in
Section 15.4.1, “Spring Testing Annotations”). This instructs Spring to remove the context from the cache and rebuild the application context before
executing the next test. Note that support for the @DirtiesContext annotation is provided by the
DirtiesContextBeforeModesTestExecutionListener and the DirtiesContextTestExecutionListener which are enabled by
default.

Context hierarchies
When writing integration tests that rely on a loaded Spring ApplicationContext , it is often sufficient to test against a single context; however,
there are times when it is beneficial or even necessary to test against a hierarchy of ApplicationContext s. For example, if you are developing a
Spring MVC web application you will typically have a root WebApplicationContext loaded via Spring’s ContextLoaderListener and a
child WebApplicationContext loaded via Spring’s DispatcherServlet . This results in a parent-child context hierarchy where shared
components and infrastructure configuration are declared in the root context and consumed in the child context by web-specific components.
Another use case can be found in Spring Batch applications where you often have a parent context that provides configuration for shared batch
infrastructure and a child context for the configuration of a specific batch job.

Since Spring Framework 3.2.2, it is possible to write integration tests that use context hierarchies by declaring context configuration via the
@ContextHierarchy annotation, either on an individual test class or within a test class hierarchy. If a context hierarchy is declared on multiple
classes within a test class hierarchy it is also possible to merge or override the context configuration for a specific, named level in the context
hierarchy. When merging configuration for a given level in the hierarchy the configuration resource type (i.e., XML configuration files or annotated
classes) must be consistent; otherwise, it is perfectly acceptable to have different levels in a context hierarchy configured using different resource
types.

The following JUnit 4 based examples demonstrate common conﬁguration scenarios for integration tests that require the use of context hierarchies.

ControllerIntegrationTests represents a typical integration testing scenario for a Spring MVC web application by declaring a context
hierarchy consisting of two levels, one for the root WebApplicationContext (loaded using the TestAppConfig @Configuration class) and one
for the dispatcher servlet WebApplicationContext (loaded using the WebConfig @Configuration class). The
WebApplicationContext that is autowired into the test instance is the one for the child context (i.e., the lowest context in the hierarchy).

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
@WebAppConfiguration
@ContextHierarchy({
@ContextConfiguration(classes = TestAppConfig.class),
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 266/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
@ContextConfiguration(classes = WebConfig.class)
})
public class ControllerIntegrationTests {

@Autowired
private WebApplicationContext wac;

// ...
}

The following test classes define a context hierarchy within a test class hierarchy. AbstractWebTests declares the configuration for a root
WebApplicationContext in a Spring-powered web application. Note, however, that AbstractWebTests does not declare
@ContextHierarchy ; consequently, subclasses of AbstractWebTests can optionally participate in a context hierarchy or simply follow the
standard semantics for @ContextConfiguration . SoapWebServiceTests and RestWebServiceTests both extend
AbstractWebTests and define a context hierarchy via @ContextHierarchy . The result is that three application contexts will be loaded (one
for each declaration of @ContextConfiguration ), and the application context loaded based on the configuration in AbstractWebTests will
be set as the parent context for each of the contexts loaded for the concrete subclasses.

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
@WebAppConfiguration
@ContextConfiguration("file:src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml")
public abstract class AbstractWebTests {}

@ContextHierarchy(@ContextConfiguration("/spring/soap-ws-config.xml")
public class SoapWebServiceTests extends AbstractWebTests {}

@ContextHierarchy(@ContextConfiguration("/spring/rest-ws-config.xml")
public class RestWebServiceTests extends AbstractWebTests {}

The following classes demonstrate the use of named hierarchy levels in order to merge the configuration for specific levels in a context hierarchy.
BaseTests defines two levels in the hierarchy, parent and child . ExtendedTests extends BaseTests and instructs the Spring
TestContext Framework to merge the context configuration for the child hierarchy level, simply by ensuring that the names declared via the
name attribute in @ContextConfiguration are both "child" . The result is that three application contexts will be loaded: one for
"/app-config.xml" , one for "/user-config.xml" , and one for {"/user-config.xml", "/order-config.xml"} . As with the
previous example, the application context loaded from "/app-config.xml" will be set as the parent context for the contexts loaded from
"/user-config.xml" and {"/user-config.xml", "/order-config.xml"} .

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
@ContextHierarchy({
@ContextConfiguration(name = "parent", locations = "/app-config.xml"),
@ContextConfiguration(name = "child", locations = "/user-config.xml")
})
public class BaseTests {}

@ContextHierarchy(
@ContextConfiguration(name = "child", locations = "/order-config.xml")
)
public class ExtendedTests extends BaseTests {}

In contrast to the previous example, this example demonstrates how to override the conﬁguration for a given named level in a context hierarchy by
setting the inheritLocations ﬂag in @ContextConfiguration to false . Consequently, the application context for ExtendedTests will
be loaded only from "/test-user-config.xml" and will have its parent set to the context loaded from "/app-config.xml" .

@ContextHierarchy(
@ContextConfiguration(
name = "child",
locations = "/test-user-config.xml",
inheritLocations = false
))
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 267/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
))
public class ExtendedTests extends BaseTests {}

If @DirtiesContext is used in a test whose context is conﬁgured as part of a context hierarchy, the hierarchyMode ﬂag can be
used to control how the context cache is cleared. For further details consult the discussion of @DirtiesContext in Spring Testing
Annotations and the @DirtiesContext javadocs.

15.5.5 Dependency injection of test ﬁxtures

When you use the DependencyInjectionTestExecutionListener — which is configured by default — the dependencies of your test
instances are injected from beans in the application context that you configured with @ContextConfiguration . You may use setter injection,
field injection, or both, depending on which annotations you choose and whether you place them on setter methods or fields. For consistency with
the annotation support introduced in Spring 2.5 and 3.0, you can use Spring’s @Autowired annotation or the @Inject annotation from JSR 330.

The TestContext framework does not instrument the manner in which a test instance is instantiated. Thus the use of @Autowired or
@Inject for constructors has no effect for test classes.

Because @Autowired is used to perform autowiring by type, if you have multiple bean deﬁnitions of the same type, you cannot rely on this
approach for those particular beans. In that case, you can use @Autowired in conjunction with @Qualifier . As of Spring 3.0 you may also
choose to use @Inject in conjunction with @Named . Alternatively, if your test class has access to its ApplicationContext , you can perform
an explicit lookup by using (for example) a call to applicationContext.getBean("titleRepository") .

If you do not want dependency injection applied to your test instances, simply do not annotate ﬁelds or setter methods with @Autowired or
@Inject . Alternatively, you can disable dependency injection altogether by explicitly conﬁguring your class with @TestExecutionListeners
and omitting DependencyInjectionTestExecutionListener.class from the list of listeners.

Consider the scenario of testing a HibernateTitleRepository class, as outlined in the Goals section. The next two code listings demonstrate
the use of @Autowired on ﬁelds and setter methods. The application context conﬁguration is presented after all sample code listings.

The dependency injection behavior in the following code listings is not speciﬁc to JUnit 4. The same DI techniques can be used in
conjunction with any testing framework.
The following examples make calls to static assertion methods such as assertNotNull() but without prepending the call with
Assert . In such cases, assume that the method was properly imported through an import static declaration that is not shown
in the example.

The ﬁrst code listing shows a JUnit 4 based implementation of the test class that uses @Autowired for ﬁeld injection.

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
// specifies the Spring configuration to load for this test fixture
@ContextConfiguration("repository-config.xml")
public class HibernateTitleRepositoryTests {

// this instance will be dependency injected by type

@Autowired
private HibernateTitleRepository titleRepository;

@Test
public void findById() {
Title title = titleRepository.findById(new Long(10));
assertNotNull(title);
}
}

Alternatively, you can conﬁgure the class to use @Autowired for setter injection as seen below.

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
// specifies the Spring configuration to load for this test fixture
@ContextConfiguration("repository-config.xml")
public class HibernateTitleRepositoryTests {

// this instance will be dependency injected by type

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 268/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
// this instance will be dependency injected by type
private HibernateTitleRepository titleRepository;

@Autowired
public void setTitleRepository(HibernateTitleRepository titleRepository) {
this.titleRepository = titleRepository;
}

@Test
public void findById() {
Title title = titleRepository.findById(new Long(10));
assertNotNull(title);
}
}

The preceding code listings use the same XML context ﬁle referenced by the @ContextConfiguration annotation (that is,
repository-config.xml ), which looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<bean id="titleRepository" class="com.foo.repository.hibernate.HibernateTitleRepository">
<property name="sessionFactory" ref="sessionFactory"/>
</bean>

<bean id="sessionFactory" class="org.springframework.orm.hibernate5.LocalSessionFactoryBean">

</bean>

</beans>

If you are extending from a Spring-provided test base class that happens to use @Autowired on one of its setter methods, you might
have multiple beans of the affected type deﬁned in your application context: for example, multiple DataSource beans. In such a
case, you can override the setter method and use the @Qualifier annotation to indicate a speciﬁc target bean as follows, but make
sure to delegate to the overridden method in the superclass as well.
// ...

@Autowired
@Override
public void setDataSource(@Qualifier("myDataSource") DataSource dataSource) {
super.setDataSource(dataSource);
}

// ...
The specified qualifier value indicates the specific DataSource bean to inject, narrowing the set of type matches to a specific bean.
Its value is matched against <qualifier> declarations within the corresponding <bean> definitions. The bean name is used as a
fallback qualifier value, so you may effectively also point to a specific bean by name there (as shown above, assuming that
"myDataSource" is the bean id).

15.5.6 Testing request and session scoped beans

Request and session scoped beans have been supported by Spring since the early years, and since Spring 3.2 it’s a breeze to test your request-
scoped and session-scoped beans by following these steps.

Ensure that a WebApplicationContext is loaded for your test by annotating your test class with @WebAppConfiguration .
Inject the mock request or session into your test instance and prepare your test ﬁxture as appropriate.
Invoke your web component that you retrieved from the conﬁgured WebApplicationContext (i.e., via dependency injection).
Perform assertions against the mocks.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 269/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The following code snippet displays the XML conﬁguration for a login use case. Note that the userService bean has a dependency on a request-
scoped loginAction bean. Also, the LoginAction is instantiated using SpEL expressions that retrieve the username and password from the
current HTTP request. In our test, we will want to conﬁgure these request parameters via the mock managed by the TestContext framework.

Request-scoped bean conﬁguration.

<beans>

<bean id="loginAction" class="com.example.LoginAction"

c:username="{request.getParameter('user')}"
c:password="{request.getParameter('pswd')}"
scope="request">
<aop:scoped-proxy />
</bean>

</beans>

In RequestScopedBeanTests we inject both the UserService (i.e., the subject under test) and the MockHttpServletRequest into our test
instance. Within our requestScope() test method we set up our test ﬁxture by setting request parameters in the provided
MockHttpServletRequest . When the loginUser() method is invoked on our userService we are assured that the user service has
access to the request-scoped loginAction for the current MockHttpServletRequest (i.e., the one we just set parameters in). We can then
perform assertions against the results based on the known inputs for the username and password.

Request-scoped bean test.

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
@ContextConfiguration
@WebAppConfiguration
public class RequestScopedBeanTests {

@Autowired UserService userService;

@Autowired MockHttpServletRequest request;

@Test
public void requestScope() {

request.setParameter("user", "enigma");
request.setParameter("pswd", "$pr!ng");

LoginResults results = userService.loginUser();

// assert results
}
}

The following code snippet is similar to the one we saw above for a request-scoped bean; however, this time the userService bean has a
dependency on a session-scoped userPreferences bean. Note that the UserPreferences bean is instantiated using a SpEL expression that
retrieves the theme from the current HTTP session. In our test, we will need to conﬁgure a theme in the mock session managed by the TestContext
framework.

Session-scoped bean conﬁguration.

<beans>

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 270/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
</bean>

</beans>

In SessionScopedBeanTests we inject the UserService and the MockHttpSession into our test instance. Within our sessionScope()
test method we set up our test ﬁxture by setting the expected "theme" attribute in the provided MockHttpSession . When the
processUserPreferences() method is invoked on our userService we are assured that the user service has access to the session-scoped
userPreferences for the current MockHttpSession , and we can perform assertions against the results based on the conﬁgured theme.

Session-scoped bean test.

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
@ContextConfiguration
@WebAppConfiguration
public class SessionScopedBeanTests {

@Autowired UserService userService;

@Autowired MockHttpSession session;

@Test
public void sessionScope() throws Exception {

session.setAttribute("theme", "blue");

Results results = userService.processUserPreferences();

// assert results
}
}

15.5.7 Transaction management
In the TestContext framework, transactions are managed by the TransactionalTestExecutionListener which is conﬁgured by default, even
if you do not explicitly declare @TestExecutionListeners on your test class. To enable support for transactions, however, you must conﬁgure a
PlatformTransactionManager bean in the ApplicationContext that is loaded via @ContextConfiguration semantics (further details
are provided below). In addition, you must declare Spring’s @Transactional annotation either at the class or method level for your tests.

Test-managed transactions
Test-managed transactions are transactions that are managed declaratively via the TransactionalTestExecutionListener or
programmatically via TestTransaction (see below). Such transactions should not be confused with Spring-managed transactions (i.e., those
managed directly by Spring within the ApplicationContext loaded for tests) or application-managed transactions (i.e., those managed
programmatically within application code that is invoked via tests). Spring-managed and application-managed transactions will typically participate in
test-managed transactions; however, caution should be taken if Spring-managed or application-managed transactions are conﬁgured with any
propagation type other than REQUIRED or SUPPORTS (see the discussion on transaction propagation for details).

Enabling and disabling transactions

Annotating a test method with @Transactional causes the test to be run within a transaction that will, by default, be automatically rolled back
after completion of the test. If a test class is annotated with @Transactional , each test method within that class hierarchy will be run within a
transaction. Test methods that are not annotated with @Transactional (at the class or method level) will not be run within a transaction.
Furthermore, tests that are annotated with @Transactional but have the propagation type set to NOT_SUPPORTED will not be run within a
transaction.

Note that AbstractTransactionalJUnit4SpringContextTests and AbstractTransactionalTestNGSpringContextTests are

preconﬁgured for transactional support at the class level.

The following example demonstrates a common scenario for writing an integration test for a Hibernate-based UserRepository . As explained in
the section called “Transaction rollback and commit behavior”, there is no need to clean up the database after the createUser() method is
executed since any changes made to the database will be automatically rolled back by the TransactionalTestExecutionListener . See
Section 15.7, “PetClinic Example” for an additional example.

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
@ContextConfiguration(classes = TestConfig.class)
@Transactional
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 271/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
@Transactional
public class HibernateUserRepositoryTests {

@Autowired
HibernateUserRepository repository;

@Autowired
SessionFactory sessionFactory;

JdbcTemplate jdbcTemplate;

@Autowired
public void setDataSource(DataSource dataSource) {
this.jdbcTemplate = new JdbcTemplate(dataSource);
}

@Test
public void createUser() {
// track initial state in test database:
final int count = countRowsInTable("user");

User user = new User(...);

repository.save(user);

// Manual flush is required to avoid false positive in test

sessionFactory.getCurrentSession().flush();
assertNumUsers(count + 1);
}

protected int countRowsInTable(String tableName) {

return JdbcTestUtils.countRowsInTable(this.jdbcTemplate, tableName);
}

protected void assertNumUsers(int expected) {

assertEquals("Number of rows in the [user] table.", expected, countRowsInTable("user"));
}
}

Transaction rollback and commit behavior

By default, test transactions will be automatically rolled back after completion of the test; however, transactional commit and rollback behavior can be
conﬁgured declaratively via the @Commit and @Rollback annotations. See the corresponding entries in the annotation support section for further
details.

Programmatic transaction management

Since Spring Framework 4.1, it is possible to interact with test-managed transactions programmatically via the static methods in
TestTransaction . For example, TestTransaction may be used within test methods, before methods, and after methods to start or end the
current test-managed transaction or to conﬁgure the current test-managed transaction for rollback or commit. Support for TestTransaction is
automatically available whenever the TransactionalTestExecutionListener is enabled.

The following example demonstrates some of the features of TestTransaction . Consult the javadocs for TestTransaction for further details.

@ContextConfiguration(classes = TestConfig.class)
public class ProgrammaticTransactionManagementTests extends
AbstractTransactionalJUnit4SpringContextTests {

@Test

public void transactionalTest() {

// assert initial state in test database:
assertNumUsers(2);

deleteFromTables("user");

// changes to the database will be committed!

TestTransaction.flagForCommit();
TestTransaction.end();
assertFalse(TestTransaction.isActive());
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 272/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
assertFalse(TestTransaction.isActive());
assertNumUsers(0);

TestTransaction.start();
// perform other actions against the database that will
// be automatically rolled back after the test completes...
}

protected void assertNumUsers(int expected) {

assertEquals("Number of rows in the [user] table.", expected, countRowsInTable("user"));
}
}

Executing code outside of a transaction

Occasionally you need to execute certain code before or after a transactional test method but outside the transactional context — for example, to
verify the initial database state prior to execution of your test or to verify expected transactional commit behavior after test execution (if the test was
conﬁgured to commit the transaction). TransactionalTestExecutionListener supports the @BeforeTransaction and
@AfterTransaction annotations exactly for such scenarios. Simply annotate any void method in a test class or any void default method in a
test interface with one of these annotations, and the TransactionalTestExecutionListener ensures that your before transaction method or
after transaction method is executed at the appropriate time.

Any before methods (such as methods annotated with JUnit 4’s @Before ) and any after methods (such as methods annotated with
JUnit 4’s @After ) are executed within a transaction. In addition, methods annotated with @BeforeTransaction or
@AfterTransaction are naturally not executed for test methods that are not conﬁgured to run within a transaction.

Conﬁguring a transaction manager

TransactionalTestExecutionListener expects a PlatformTransactionManager bean to be deﬁned in the Spring
ApplicationContext for the test. In case there are multiple instances of PlatformTransactionManager within the test’s
ApplicationContext , a qualiﬁer may be declared via @Transactional("myTxMgr") or
@Transactional(transactionManager = "myTxMgr") , or TransactionManagementConfigurer can be implemented by an
@Configuration class. Consult the javadocs for TestContextTransactionUtils.retrieveTransactionManager() for details on the
algorithm used to look up a transaction manager in the test’s ApplicationContext .

Demonstration of all transaction-related annotations

The following JUnit 4 based example displays a ﬁctitious integration testing scenario highlighting all transaction-related annotations. The example is
not intended to demonstrate best practices but rather to demonstrate how these annotations can be used. Consult the annotation support section for
further information and conﬁguration examples. Transaction management for @Sql contains an additional example using @Sql for declarative SQL
script execution with default transaction rollback semantics.

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
@ContextConfiguration
@Transactional(transactionManager = "txMgr")
@Commit
public class FictitiousTransactionalTest {

@BeforeTransaction
void verifyInitialDatabaseState() {
// logic to verify the initial state before a transaction is started
}

@Before
public void setUpTestDataWithinTransaction() {
// set up test data within the transaction

@Test
// overrides the class-level @Commit setting
@Rollback
public void modifyDatabaseWithinTransaction() {
// logic which uses the test data and modifies database state
}
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 273/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
}

@After
public void tearDownWithinTransaction() {
// execute "tear down" logic within the transaction
}

@AfterTransaction
void verifyFinalDatabaseState() {
// logic to verify the final state after transaction has rolled back
}

When you test application code that manipulates the state of a Hibernate session or JPA persistence context, make sure to flush the
underlying unit of work within test methods that execute that code. Failing to flush the underlying unit of work can produce false
positives: your test may pass, but the same code throws an exception in a live, production environment. In the following Hibernate-
based example test case, one method demonstrates a false positive, and the other method correctly exposes the results of flushing the
session. Note that this applies to any ORM frameworks that maintain an in-memory unit of work.
// ...

@Autowired
SessionFactory sessionFactory;

@Transactional
@Test // no expected exception!
public void falsePositive() {
updateEntityInHibernateSession();
// False positive: an exception will be thrown once the Hibernate
// Session is finally flushed (i.e., in production code)
}

@Transactional
@Test(expected = ...)
public void updateWithSessionFlush() {
updateEntityInHibernateSession();
// Manual flush is required to avoid false positive in test
sessionFactory.getCurrentSession().flush();
}

// ...
Or for JPA:
// ...

@PersistenceContext
EntityManager entityManager;

@Transactional
@Test // no expected exception!
public void falsePositive() {
updateEntityInJpaPersistenceContext();
// False positive: an exception will be thrown once the JPA
// EntityManager is finally flushed (i.e., in production code)
}

@Transactional
@Test(expected = ...)
public void updateWithEntityManagerFlush() {
updateEntityInJpaPersistenceContext();
// Manual flush is required to avoid false positive in test
entityManager.flush();
}

// ...

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 274/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

15.5.8 Executing SQL scripts

When writing integration tests against a relational database, it is often beneﬁcial to execute SQL scripts to modify the database schema or insert test
data into tables. The spring-jdbc module provides support for initializing an embedded or existing database by executing SQL scripts when the
Spring ApplicationContext is loaded. See Section 19.8, “Embedded database support” and Section 19.8.5, “Testing data access logic with an
embedded database” for details.

Although it is very useful to initialize a database for testing once when the ApplicationContext is loaded, sometimes it is essential to be able to
modify the database during integration tests. The following sections explain how to execute SQL scripts programmatically and declaratively during
integration tests.

Executing SQL scripts programmatically

Spring provides the following options for executing SQL scripts programmatically within integration test methods.

org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.init.ScriptUtils
org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.init.ResourceDatabasePopulator
org.springframework.test.context.junit4.AbstractTransactionalJUnit4SpringContextTests
org.springframework.test.context.testng.AbstractTransactionalTestNGSpringContextTests

ScriptUtils provides a collection of static utility methods for working with SQL scripts and is mainly intended for internal use within the
framework. However, if you require full control over how SQL scripts are parsed and executed, ScriptUtils may suit your needs better than
some of the other alternatives described below. Consult the javadocs for individual methods in ScriptUtils for further details.

ResourceDatabasePopulator provides a simple object-based API for programmatically populating, initializing, or cleaning up a database using
SQL scripts defined in external resources. ResourceDatabasePopulator provides options for configuring the character encoding, statement
separator, comment delimiters, and error handling flags used when parsing and executing the scripts, and each of the configuration options has a
reasonable default value. Consult the javadocs for details on default values. To execute the scripts configured in a
ResourceDatabasePopulator , you can invoke either the populate(Connection) method to execute the populator against a
java.sql.Connection or the execute(DataSource) method to execute the populator against a javax.sql.DataSource . The following
example specifies SQL scripts for a test schema and test data, sets the statement separator to "@@" , and then executes the scripts against a
DataSource .

@Test
public void databaseTest {
ResourceDatabasePopulator populator = new ResourceDatabasePopulator();
populator.addScripts(
new ClassPathResource("test-schema.sql"),
new ClassPathResource("test-data.sql"));
populator.setSeparator("@@");
populator.execute(this.dataSource);
// execute code that uses the test schema and data
}

Note that ResourceDatabasePopulator internally delegates to ScriptUtils for parsing and executing SQL scripts. Similarly, the
executeSqlScript(..) methods in AbstractTransactionalJUnit4SpringContextTests and
AbstractTransactionalTestNGSpringContextTests internally use a ResourceDatabasePopulator for executing SQL scripts. Consult
the javadocs for the various executeSqlScript(..) methods for further details.

Executing SQL scripts declaratively with @Sql

In addition to the aforementioned mechanisms for executing SQL scripts programmatically, SQL scripts can also be configured declaratively in the
Spring TestContext Framework. Specifically, the @Sql annotation can be declared on a test class or test method to configure the resource paths to
SQL scripts that should be executed against a given database either before or after an integration test method. Note that method-level declarations
override class-level declarations and that support for @Sql is provided by the SqlScriptsTestExecutionListener which is enabled by
default.

Path resource semantics

Each path will be interpreted as a Spring Resource . A plain path — for example, "schema.sql" — will be treated as a classpath resource that is
relative to the package in which the test class is defined. A path starting with a slash will be treated as an absolute classpath resource, for example:
"/org/example/schema.sql" . A path which references a URL (e.g., a path prefixed with classpath: , file: , http: , etc.) will be loaded
using the specified resource protocol.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 275/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The following example demonstrates how to use @Sql at the class level and at the method level within a JUnit 4 based integration test class.

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
@ContextConfiguration
@Sql("/test-schema.sql")
public class DatabaseTests {

@Test
public void emptySchemaTest {
// execute code that uses the test schema without any test data
}

@Test
@Sql({"/test-schema.sql", "/test-user-data.sql"})
public void userTest {
// execute code that uses the test schema and test data
}
}

Default script detection

If no SQL scripts are speciﬁed, an attempt will be made to detect a default script depending on where @Sql is declared. If a default cannot be
detected, an IllegalStateException will be thrown.

class-level declaration: if the annotated test class is com.example.MyTest , the corresponding default script is
"classpath:com/example/MyTest.sql" .
method-level declaration: if the annotated test method is named testMethod() and is deﬁned in the class com.example.MyTest , the
corresponding default script is "classpath:com/example/MyTest.testMethod.sql" .

Declaring multiple @Sql sets

If multiple sets of SQL scripts need to be conﬁgured for a given test class or test method but with different syntax conﬁguration, different error
handling rules, or different execution phases per set, it is possible to declare multiple instances of @Sql . With Java 8, @Sql can be used as a
repeatable annotation. Otherwise, the @SqlGroup annotation can be used as an explicit container for declaring multiple instances of @Sql .

The following example demonstrates the use of @Sql as a repeatable annotation using Java 8. In this scenario the test-schema.sql script
uses a different syntax for single-line comments.

@Test
@Sql(scripts = "/test-schema.sql", config = @SqlConfig(commentPrefix = "`"))
@Sql("/test-user-data.sql")
public void userTest {
// execute code that uses the test schema and test data
}

The following example is identical to the above except that the @Sql declarations are grouped together within @SqlGroup for compatibility with
Java 6 and Java 7.

Script execution phases

By default, SQL scripts will be executed before the corresponding test method. However, if a particular set of scripts needs to be executed after the
test method — for example, to clean up database state — the executionPhase attribute in @Sql can be used as seen in the following example.
Note that ISOLATED and AFTER_TEST_METHOD are statically imported from Sql.TransactionMode and Sql.ExecutionPhase
respectively.

@Test
@Sql(
scripts = "create-test-data.sql",

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 276/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
config = @SqlConfig(transactionMode = ISOLATED)
)
@Sql(
scripts = "delete-test-data.sql",
config = @SqlConfig(transactionMode = ISOLATED),
executionPhase = AFTER_TEST_METHOD
)
public void userTest {
// execute code that needs the test data to be committed
// to the database outside of the test's transaction
}

Script conﬁguration with @SqlConfig

Configuration for script parsing and error handling can be configured via the @SqlConfig annotation. When declared as a class-level annotation
on an integration test class, @SqlConfig serves as global configuration for all SQL scripts within the test class hierarchy. When declared directly
via the config attribute of the @Sql annotation, @SqlConfig serves as local configuration for the SQL scripts declared within the enclosing
@Sql annotation. Every attribute in @SqlConfig has an implicit default value which is documented in the javadocs of the corresponding attribute.
Due to the rules defined for annotation attributes in the Java Language Specification, it is unfortunately not possible to assign a value of null to an
annotation attribute. Thus, in order to support overrides of inherited global configuration, @SqlConfig attributes have an explicit default value of
either "" for Strings or DEFAULT for Enums. This approach allows local declarations of @SqlConfig to selectively override individual attributes
from global declarations of @SqlConfig by providing a value other than "" or DEFAULT . Global @SqlConfig attributes are inherited whenever
local @SqlConfig attributes do not supply an explicit value other than "" or DEFAULT . Explicit local configuration therefore overrides global
configuration.

The conﬁguration options provided by @Sql and @SqlConfig are equivalent to those supported by ScriptUtils and
ResourceDatabasePopulator but are a superset of those provided by the <jdbc:initialize-database/> XML namespace element.
Consult the javadocs of individual attributes in @Sql and @SqlConfig for details.

Transaction management for @Sql

By default, the SqlScriptsTestExecutionListener will infer the desired transaction semantics for scripts configured via @Sql . Specifically,
SQL scripts will be executed without a transaction, within an existing Spring-managed transaction — for example, a transaction managed by the
TransactionalTestExecutionListener for a test annotated with @Transactional — or within an isolated transaction, depending on the
configured value of the transactionMode attribute in @SqlConfig and the presence of a PlatformTransactionManager in the test’s
ApplicationContext . As a bare minimum however, a javax.sql.DataSource must be present in the test’s ApplicationContext .

If the algorithms used by SqlScriptsTestExecutionListener to detect a DataSource and PlatformTransactionManager and infer
the transaction semantics do not suit your needs, you may specify explicit names via the dataSource and transactionManager attributes of
@SqlConfig . Furthermore, the transaction propagation behavior can be controlled via the transactionMode attribute of @SqlConfig — for
example, if scripts should be executed in an isolated transaction. Although a thorough discussion of all supported options for transaction
management with @Sql is beyond the scope of this reference manual, the javadocs for @SqlConfig and
SqlScriptsTestExecutionListener provide detailed information, and the following example demonstrates a typical testing scenario using
JUnit 4 and transactional tests with @Sql . Note that there is no need to clean up the database after the usersTest() method is executed since
any changes made to the database (either within the test method or within the /test-data.sql script) will be automatically rolled back by the
TransactionalTestExecutionListener (see transaction management for details).

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
@ContextConfiguration(classes = TestDatabaseConfig.class)
@Transactional
public class TransactionalSqlScriptsTests {

protected JdbcTemplate jdbcTemplate;

@Autowired
public void setDataSource(DataSource dataSource) {
this.jdbcTemplate = new JdbcTemplate(dataSource);
}

@Test
@Sql("/test-data.sql")
public void usersTest() {
// verify state in test database:
assertNumUsers(2);
// execute code that uses the test data...

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 277/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
}

protected int countRowsInTable(String tableName) {

return JdbcTestUtils.countRowsInTable(this.jdbcTemplate, tableName);
}

protected void assertNumUsers(int expected) {

assertEquals("Number of rows in the [user] table.", expected, countRowsInTable("user"));
}
}

15.5.9 TestContext Framework support classes

Spring JUnit 4 Runner

The Spring TestContext Framework offers full integration with JUnit 4 through a custom runner (supported on JUnit 4.12 or higher). By annotating
test classes with @RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class) or the shorter @RunWith(SpringRunner.class) variant, developers
can implement standard JUnit 4 based unit and integration tests and simultaneously reap the beneﬁts of the TestContext framework such as support
for loading application contexts, dependency injection of test instances, transactional test method execution, and so on. If you would like to use the
Spring TestContext Framework with an alternative runner such as JUnit 4’s Parameterized or third-party runners such as the
MockitoJUnitRunner , you may optionally use Spring’s support for JUnit rules instead.

The following code listing displays the minimal requirements for configuring a test class to run with the custom Spring Runner .
@TestExecutionListeners is configured with an empty list in order to disable the default listeners, which otherwise would require an
ApplicationContext to be configured through @ContextConfiguration .

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
@TestExecutionListeners({})
public class SimpleTest {

@Test
public void testMethod() {
// execute test logic...
}
}

Spring JUnit 4 Rules

The org.springframework.test.context.junit4.rules package provides the following JUnit 4 rules (supported on JUnit 4.12 or higher).

SpringClassRule
SpringMethodRule

SpringClassRule is a JUnit TestRule that supports class-level features of the Spring TestContext Framework; whereas,
SpringMethodRule is a JUnit MethodRule that supports instance-level and method-level features of the Spring TestContext Framework.

In contrast to the SpringRunner , Spring’s rule-based JUnit support has the advantage that it is independent of any
org.junit.runner.Runner implementation and can therefore be combined with existing alternative runners like JUnit 4’s Parameterized or
third-party runners such as the MockitoJUnitRunner .

In order to support the full functionality of the TestContext framework, a SpringClassRule must be combined with a SpringMethodRule . The
following example demonstrates the proper way to declare these rules in an integration test.

// Optionally specify a non-Spring Runner via @RunWith(...)

@ContextConfiguration
public class IntegrationTest {

@ClassRule
public static final SpringClassRule SPRING_CLASS_RULE = new SpringClassRule();

@Rule
public final SpringMethodRule springMethodRule = new SpringMethodRule();

@Test
public void testMethod() {
// execute test logic...
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 278/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
// execute test logic...
}
}

JUnit 4 support classes

The org.springframework.test.context.junit4 package provides the following support classes for JUnit 4 based test cases (supported
on JUnit 4.12 or higher).

AbstractJUnit4SpringContextTests
AbstractTransactionalJUnit4SpringContextTests

AbstractJUnit4SpringContextTests is an abstract base test class that integrates the Spring TestContext Framework with explicit
ApplicationContext testing support in a JUnit 4 environment. When you extend AbstractJUnit4SpringContextTests , you can access a
protected applicationContext instance variable that can be used to perform explicit bean lookups or to test the state of the context as a
whole.

AbstractTransactionalJUnit4SpringContextTests is an abstract transactional extension of AbstractJUnit4SpringContextTests

that adds some convenience functionality for JDBC access. This class expects a javax.sql.DataSource bean and a
PlatformTransactionManager bean to be defined in the ApplicationContext . When you extend
AbstractTransactionalJUnit4SpringContextTests you can access a protected jdbcTemplate instance variable that can be used
to execute SQL statements to query the database. Such queries can be used to confirm database state both prior to and after execution of
database-related application code, and Spring ensures that such queries run in the scope of the same transaction as the application code. When
used in conjunction with an ORM tool, be sure to avoid false positives. As mentioned in Section 15.3, “JDBC Testing Support”,
AbstractTransactionalJUnit4SpringContextTests also provides convenience methods which delegate to methods in JdbcTestUtils
using the aforementioned jdbcTemplate . Furthermore, AbstractTransactionalJUnit4SpringContextTests provides an
executeSqlScript(..) method for executing SQL scripts against the configured DataSource .

TestNG support classes

The org.springframework.test.context.testng package provides the following support classes for TestNG based test cases.

AbstractTestNGSpringContextTests
AbstractTransactionalTestNGSpringContextTests

AbstractTestNGSpringContextTests is an abstract base test class that integrates the Spring TestContext Framework with explicit
ApplicationContext testing support in a TestNG environment. When you extend AbstractTestNGSpringContextTests , you can access
a protected applicationContext instance variable that can be used to perform explicit bean lookups or to test the state of the context as a
whole.

AbstractTransactionalTestNGSpringContextTests is an abstract transactional extension of AbstractTestNGSpringContextTests

that adds some convenience functionality for JDBC access. This class expects a javax.sql.DataSource bean and a
PlatformTransactionManager bean to be defined in the ApplicationContext . When you extend
AbstractTransactionalTestNGSpringContextTests you can access a protected jdbcTemplate instance variable that can be used
to execute SQL statements to query the database. Such queries can be used to confirm database state both prior to and after execution of
database-related application code, and Spring ensures that such queries run in the scope of the same transaction as the application code. When
used in conjunction with an ORM tool, be sure to avoid false positives. As mentioned in Section 15.3, “JDBC Testing Support”,
AbstractTransactionalTestNGSpringContextTests also provides convenience methods which delegate to methods in JdbcTestUtils
using the aforementioned jdbcTemplate . Furthermore, AbstractTransactionalTestNGSpringContextTests provides an
executeSqlScript(..) method for executing SQL scripts against the configured DataSource .

These classes are a convenience for extension. If you do not want your test classes to be tied to a Spring-speciﬁc class hierarchy, you
can conﬁgure your own custom test classes by using @ContextConfiguration , @TestExecutionListeners , and so on, and
by manually instrumenting your test class with a TestContextManager . See the source code of
AbstractTestNGSpringContextTests for an example of how to instrument your test class.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 279/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

15.6 Spring MVC Test Framework

The Spring MVC Test framework provides first class support for testing Spring MVC code using a fluent API that can be used with JUnit, TestNG, or
any other testing framework. It’s built on the Servlet API mock objects from the spring-test module and hence does not use a running Servlet
container. It uses the DispatcherServlet to provide full Spring MVC runtime behavior and provides support for loading actual Spring
configuration with the TestContext framework in addition to a standalone mode in which controllers may be instantiated manually and tested one at a
time.

Spring MVC Test also provides client-side support for testing code that uses the RestTemplate . Client-side tests mock the server responses and
also do not use a running server.

Spring Boot provides an option to write full, end-to-end integration tests that include a running server. If this is your goal please have a
look at the Spring Boot reference page. For more information on the differences between out-of-container and end-to-end integration
tests, see the section called “Differences between Out-of-Container and End-to-End Integration Tests”.

15.6.1 Server-Side Tests
It’s easy to write a plain unit test for a Spring MVC controller using JUnit or TestNG: simply instantiate the controller, inject it with mocked or stubbed
dependencies, and call its methods passing MockHttpServletRequest , MockHttpServletResponse , etc., as necessary. However, when
writing such a unit test, much remains untested: for example, request mappings, data binding, type conversion, validation, and much more.
Furthermore, other controller methods such as @InitBinder , @ModelAttribute , and @ExceptionHandler may also be invoked as part of
the request processing lifecycle.

The goal of Spring MVC Test is to provide an effective way for testing controllers by performing requests and generating responses through the
actual DispatcherServlet .

Spring MVC Test builds on the familiar "mock" implementations of the Servlet API available in the spring-test module. This allows performing
requests and generating responses without the need for running in a Servlet container. For the most part everything should work as it does at
runtime with a few notable exceptions as explained in the section called “Differences between Out-of-Container and End-to-End Integration Tests”.
Here is a JUnit 4 based example of using Spring MVC Test:

import static org.springframework.test.web.servlet.request.MockMvcRequestBuilders.*;

import static org.springframework.test.web.servlet.result.MockMvcResultMatchers.*;

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
@WebAppConfiguration
@ContextConfiguration("test-servlet-context.xml")
public class ExampleTests {

@Autowired
private WebApplicationContext wac;

private MockMvc mockMvc;

@Before
public void setup() {
this.mockMvc = MockMvcBuilders.webAppContextSetup(this.wac).build();
}

@Test
public void getAccount() throws Exception {
this.mockMvc.perform(get("/accounts/1").accept(MediaType.parseMediaType("application/json;charset=UTF-8")))
.andExpect(status().isOk())
.andExpect(content().contentType("application/json"))
.andExpect(jsonPath("$.name").value("Lee"));
}

The above test relies on the WebApplicationContext support of the TestContext framework for loading Spring configuration from an XML
configuration file located in the same package as the test class, but Java-based and Groovy-based configuration are also supported. See these
sample tests.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 280/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The MockMvc instance is used to perform a GET request to "/accounts/1" and verify that the resulting response has status 200, the content
type is "application/json" , and the response body has a JSON property called "name" with the value "Lee". The jsonPath syntax is
supported through the Jayway JsonPath project. There are lots of other options for verifying the result of the performed request that will be
discussed below.

Static Imports
The fluent API in the example above requires a few static imports such as MockMvcRequestBuilders.* , MockMvcResultMatchers.* , and
MockMvcBuilders.* . An easy way to find these classes is to search for types matching "MockMvc*". If using Eclipse, be sure to add them as
"favorite static members" in the Eclipse preferences under Java → Editor → Content Assist → Favorites. That will allow use of content assist after
typing the first character of the static method name. Other IDEs (e.g. IntelliJ) may not require any additional configuration. Just check the support for
code completion on static members.

Setup Options
There are two main options for creating an instance of MockMvc . The first is to load Spring MVC configuration through the TestContext framework,
which loads the Spring configuration and injects a WebApplicationContext into the test to use to build a MockMvc instance:

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
@WebAppConfiguration
@ContextConfiguration("my-servlet-context.xml")
public class MyWebTests {

@Autowired
private WebApplicationContext wac;

private MockMvc mockMvc;

@Before
public void setup() {
this.mockMvc = MockMvcBuilders.webAppContextSetup(this.wac).build();
}

// ...

The second is to simply create a controller instance manually without loading Spring configuration. Instead basic default configuration, roughly
comparable to that of the MVC JavaConfig or the MVC namespace, is automatically created and can be customized to a degree:

public class MyWebTests {

private MockMvc mockMvc;

@Before
public void setup() {
this.mockMvc = MockMvcBuilders.standaloneSetup(new AccountController()).build();
}

// ...

Which setup option should you use?

The "webAppContextSetup" loads your actual Spring MVC configuration resulting in a more complete integration test. Since the TestContext
framework caches the loaded Spring configuration, it helps keep tests running fast, even as you introduce more tests in your test suite. Furthermore,
you can inject mock services into controllers through Spring configuration in order to remain focused on testing the web layer. Here is an example of
declaring a mock service with Mockito:

<bean id="accountService" class="org.mockito.Mockito" factory-method="mock">

<constructor-arg value="org.example.AccountService"/>
</bean>

You can then inject the mock service into the test in order set up and verify expectations:

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 281/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
@WebAppConfiguration
@ContextConfiguration("test-servlet-context.xml")
public class AccountTests {

@Autowired
private WebApplicationContext wac;

private MockMvc mockMvc;

@Autowired
private AccountService accountService;

// ...

The "standaloneSetup" on the other hand is a little closer to a unit test. It tests one controller at a time: the controller can be injected with mock
dependencies manually, and it doesn’t involve loading Spring configuration. Such tests are more focused on style and make it easier to see which
controller is being tested, whether any specific Spring MVC configuration is required to work, and so on. The "standaloneSetup" is also a very
convenient way to write ad-hoc tests to verify specific behavior or to debug an issue.

Just like with any "integration vs. unit testing" debate, there is no right or wrong answer. However, using the "standaloneSetup" does imply the need
for additional "webAppContextSetup" tests in order to verify your Spring MVC conﬁguration. Alternatively, you may choose to write all tests with
"webAppContextSetup" in order to always test against your actual Spring MVC conﬁguration.

Performing Requests
It’s easy to perform requests using any HTTP method:

mockMvc.perform(post("/hotels/{id}", 42).accept(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON));

You can also perform ﬁle upload requests that internally use MockMultipartHttpServletRequest so that there is no actual parsing of a
multipart request but rather you have to set it up:

mockMvc.perform(fileUpload("/doc").file("a1", "ABC".getBytes("UTF-8")));

You can specify query parameters in URI template style:

mockMvc.perform(get("/hotels?foo={foo}", "bar"));

Or you can add Servlet request parameters representing either query of form parameters:

mockMvc.perform(get("/hotels").param("foo", "bar"));

If application code relies on Servlet request parameters and doesn’t check the query string explicitly (as is most often the case) then it doesn’t matter
which option you use. Keep in mind however that query params provided with the URI template will be decoded while request parameters provided
through the param(…) method are expected to already be decoded.

In most cases it’s preferable to leave out the context path and the Servlet path from the request URI. If you must test with the full request URI, be
sure to set the contextPath and servletPath accordingly so that request mappings will work:

mockMvc.perform(get("/app/main/hotels/{id}").contextPath("/app").servletPath("/main"))

Looking at the above example, it would be cumbersome to set the contextPath and servletPath with every performed request. Instead you can set up
default request properties:

public class MyWebTests {

private MockMvc mockMvc;

@Before
public void setup() {
mockMvc = standaloneSetup(new AccountController())
.defaultRequest(get("/")

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 282/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
.contextPath("/app").servletPath("/main")
.accept(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON).build();
}

The above properties will affect every request performed through the MockMvc instance. If the same property is also speciﬁed on a given request, it
overrides the default value. That is why the HTTP method and URI in the default request don’t matter since they must be speciﬁed on every request.

Deﬁning Expectations
Expectations can be deﬁned by appending one or more .andExpect(..) calls after performing a request:

mockMvc.perform(get("/accounts/1")).andExpect(status().isOk());

MockMvcResultMatchers.* provides a number of expectations, some of which are further nested with more detailed expectations.

Expectations fall in two general categories. The ﬁrst category of assertions veriﬁes properties of the response: for example, the response status,
headers, and content. These are the most important results to assert.

The second category of assertions goes beyond the response. These assertions allow one to inspect Spring MVC specific aspects such as which
controller method processed the request, whether an exception was raised and handled, what the content of the model is, what view was selected,
what flash attributes were added, and so on. They also allow one to inspect Servlet specific aspects such as request and session attributes.

The following test asserts that binding or validation failed:

mockMvc.perform(post("/persons"))
.andExpect(status().isOk())
.andExpect(model().attributeHasErrors("person"));

Many times when writing tests, it’s useful to dump the results of the performed request. This can be done as follows, where print() is a static
import from MockMvcResultHandlers :

mockMvc.perform(post("/persons"))
.andDo(print())
.andExpect(status().isOk())
.andExpect(model().attributeHasErrors("person"));

As long as request processing does not cause an unhandled exception, the print() method will print all the available result data to
System.out . Spring Framework 4.2 introduced a log() method and two additional variants of the print() method, one that accepts an
OutputStream and one that accepts a Writer . For example, invoking print(System.err) will print the result data to System.err ; while
invoking print(myWriter) will print the result data to a custom writer. If you would like to have the result data logged instead of printed, simply
invoke the log() method which will log the result data as a single DEBUG message under the
org.springframework.test.web.servlet.result logging category.

In some cases, you may want to get direct access to the result and verify something that cannot be veriﬁed otherwise. This can be achieved by
appending .andReturn() after all other expectations:

MvcResult mvcResult = mockMvc.perform(post("/persons")).andExpect(status().isOk()).andReturn();

// ...

If all tests repeat the same expectations you can set up common expectations once when building the MockMvc instance:

standaloneSetup(new SimpleController())
.alwaysExpect(status().isOk())
.alwaysExpect(content().contentType("application/json;charset=UTF-8"))
.build()

Note that common expectations are always applied and cannot be overridden without creating a separate MockMvc instance.

When JSON response content contains hypermedia links created with Spring HATEOAS, the resulting links can be veriﬁed using JsonPath
expressions:

mockMvc.perform(get("/people").accept(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON))
.andExpect(jsonPath("$.links[?(@.rel == 'self')].href").value("http://localhost:8080/people"));

When XML response content contains hypermedia links created with Spring HATEOAS, the resulting links can be veriﬁed using XPath expressions:

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 283/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Map<String, String> ns = Collections.singletonMap("ns", "http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom");
mockMvc.perform(get("/handle").accept(MediaType.APPLICATION_XML))
.andExpect(xpath("/person/ns:link[@rel='self']/@href", ns).string("http://localhost:8080/people"));

Filter Registrations
When setting up a MockMvc instance, you can register one or more Servlet Filter instances:

mockMvc = standaloneSetup(new PersonController()).addFilters(new CharacterEncodingFilter()).build();

Registered ﬁlters will be invoked through via the MockFilterChain from spring-test , and the last ﬁlter will delegate to the
DispatcherServlet .

Differences between Out-of-Container and End-to-End Integration Tests

As mentioned earlier Spring MVC Test is built on the Servlet API mock objects from the spring-test module and does not use a running Servlet
container. Therefore there are some important differences compared to full end-to-end integration tests with an actual client and server running.

The easiest way to think about this is starting with a blank MockHttpServletRequest . Whatever you add to it is what the request will be. Things
that may catch you by surprise are that there is no context path by default, no jsessionid cookie, no forwarding, error, or async dispatches, and
therefore no actual JSP rendering. Instead, "forwarded" and "redirected" URLs are saved in the MockHttpServletResponse and can be
asserted with expectations.

This means if you are using JSPs you can verify the JSP page to which the request was forwarded, but there won’t be any HTML rendered. In other
words, the JSP will not be invoked. Note however that all other rendering technologies which don’t rely on forwarding such as Thymeleaf,
Freemarker, and Velocity will render HTML to the response body as expected. The same is true for rendering JSON, XML, and other formats via
@ResponseBody methods.

Alternatively you may consider the full end-to-end integration testing support from Spring Boot via @WebIntegrationTest . See the Spring Boot
reference.

There are pros and cons for each approach. The options provided in Spring MVC Test are different stops on the scale from classic unit testing to full
integration testing. To be certain, none of the options in Spring MVC Test fall under the category of classic unit testing, but they are a little closer to it.
For example, you can isolate the web layer by injecting mocked services into controllers, in which case you’re testing the web layer only through the
DispatcherServlet but with actual Spring conﬁguration, just like you might test the data access layer in isolation from the layers above. Or you
can use the standalone setup focusing on one controller at a time and manually providing the conﬁguration required to make it work.

Another important distinction when using Spring MVC Test is that conceptually such tests are on the inside of the server-side so you can check what
handler was used, if an exception was handled with a HandlerExceptionResolver, what the content of the model is, what binding errors there were,
etc. That means it’s easier to write expectations since the server is not a black box as it is when testing it through an actual HTTP client. This is
generally an advantage of classic unit testing, that it’s easier to write, reason about, and debug but does not replace the need for full integration
tests. At the same time it’s important not to lose sight of the fact that the response is the most important thing to check. In short, there is room here
for multiple styles and strategies of testing even within the same project.

Further Server-Side Test Examples

The framework’s own tests include many sample tests intended to demonstrate how to use Spring MVC Test. Browse these examples for further
ideas. Also the spring-mvc-showcase has full test coverage based on Spring MVC Test.

15.6.2 HtmlUnit Integration
Spring provides integration between MockMvc and HtmlUnit. This simpliﬁes performing end-to-end testing when using HTML based views. This
integration enables developers to:

Easily test HTML pages using tools such as HtmlUnit, WebDriver, & Geb without the need to deploy to a Servlet container
Test JavaScript within pages
Optionally test using mock services to speed up testing
Share logic between in-container end-to-end tests and out-of-container integration tests

MockMvc works with templating technologies that do not rely on a Servlet Container (e.g., Thymeleaf, Freemarker, Velocity, etc.), but
it does not work with JSPs since they rely on the Servlet Container.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 284/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Why HtmlUnit Integration?

The most obvious question that comes to mind is, "Why do I need this?". The answer is best found by exploring a very basic sample application.
Assume you have a Spring MVC web application that supports CRUD operations on a Message object. The application also supports paging
through all messages. How would you go about testing it?

With Spring MVC Test, we can easily test if we are able to create a Message .

MockHttpServletRequestBuilder createMessage = post("/messages/")

.param("summary", "Spring Rocks")
.param("text", "In case you didn't know, Spring Rocks!");

mockMvc.perform(createMessage)
.andExpect(status().is3xxRedirection())
.andExpect(redirectedUrl("/messages/123"));

What if we want to test our form view that allows us to create the message? For example, assume our form looks like the following snippet:

<form id="messageForm" action="/messages/" method="post">

<div class="pull-right"><a href="/messages/">Messages</a></div>

<label for="summary">Summary</label>
<input type="text" class="required" id="summary" name="summary" value="" />

<label for="text">Message</label>
<textarea id="text" name="text"></textarea>

How do we ensure that our form will produce the correct request to create a new message? A naive attempt would look like this:

mockMvc.perform(get("/messages/form"))
.andExpect(xpath("//input[@name='summary']").exists())
.andExpect(xpath("//textarea[@name='text']").exists());

This test has some obvious drawbacks. If we update our controller to use the parameter message instead of text , our form test would continue to
pass even though the HTML form is out of synch with the controller. To resolve this we can combine our two tests.

String summaryParamName = "summary";

String textParamName = "text";
mockMvc.perform(get("/messages/form"))
.andExpect(xpath("//input[@name='" + summaryParamName + "']").exists())
.andExpect(xpath("//textarea[@name='" + textParamName + "']").exists());

MockHttpServletRequestBuilder createMessage = post("/messages/")

.param(summaryParamName, "Spring Rocks")
.param(textParamName, "In case you didn't know, Spring Rocks!");

mockMvc.perform(createMessage)
.andExpect(status().is3xxRedirection())
.andExpect(redirectedUrl("/messages/123"));

This would reduce the risk of our test incorrectly passing, but there are still some problems.

What if we have multiple forms on our page? Admittedly we could update our xpath expressions, but they get more complicated the more factors
we take into account (Are the fields the correct type? Are the fields enabled? etc.).
Another issue is that we are doing double the work we would expect. We must first verify the view, and then we submit the view with the same
parameters we just verified. Ideally this could be done all at once.
Finally, there are some things that we still cannot account for. For example, what if the form has JavaScript validation that we wish to test as
well?

The overall problem is that testing a web page does not involve a single interaction. Instead, it is a combination of how the user interacts with a web
page and how that web page interacts with other resources. For example, the result of a form view is used as the input to a user for creating a
message. In addition, our form view may potentially utilize additional resources which impact the behavior of the page, such as JavaScript validation.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 285/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Integration testing to the rescue?

To resolve the issues above we could perform end-to-end integration testing, but this has some obvious drawbacks. Consider testing the view that
allows us to page through the messages. We might need the following tests.

Does our page display a notiﬁcation to the user indicating that no results are available when the messages are empty?
Does our page properly display a single message?
Does our page properly support paging?

To set up these tests, we would need to ensure our database contained the proper messages in it. This leads to a number of additional challenges.

Ensuring the proper messages are in the database can be tedious; consider foreign key constraints.
Testing can become slow since each test would need to ensure that the database is in the correct state.
Since our database needs to be in a speciﬁc state, we cannot run tests in parallel.
Performing assertions on things like auto-generated ids, timestamps, etc. can be difﬁcult.

These challenges do not mean that we should abandon end-to-end integration testing altogether. Instead, we can reduce the number of end-to-end
integration tests by refactoring our detailed tests to use mock services which will execute much faster, more reliably, and without side effects. We can
then implement a small number of true end-to-end integration tests that validate simple workﬂows to ensure that everything works together properly.

Enter HtmlUnit Integration

So how can we achieve a balance between testing the interactions of our pages and still retain good performance within our test suite? The answer
is: "By integrating MockMvc with HtmlUnit."

HtmlUnit Integration Options

There are a number of ways to integrate MockMvc with HtmlUnit.

MockMvc and HtmlUnit: Use this option if you want to use the raw HtmlUnit libraries.
MockMvc and WebDriver: Use this option to ease development and reuse code between integration and end-to-end testing.
MockMvc and Geb: Use this option if you would like to use Groovy for testing, ease development, and reuse code between integration and end-
to-end testing.

MockMvc and HtmlUnit

This section describes how to integrate MockMvc and HtmlUnit. Use this option if you want to use the raw HtmlUnit libraries.

MockMvc and HtmlUnit Setup

First, make sure that you have included a test dependency on net.sourceforge.htmlunit:htmlunit . In order to use HtmlUnit with Apache
HttpComponents 4.5+, you will need to use HtmlUnit 2.18 or higher.

We can easily create an HtmlUnit WebClient that integrates with MockMvc using the MockMvcWebClientBuilder as follows.

@Autowired
WebApplicationContext context;

WebClient webClient;

@Before
public void setup() {
webClient = MockMvcWebClientBuilder
.webAppContextSetup(context)
.build();
}

This is a simple example of using MockMvcWebClientBuilder . For advanced usage see the section called “Advanced
MockMvcWebClientBuilder”

This will ensure that any URL referencing localhost as the server will be directed to our MockMvc instance without the need for a real HTTP
connection. Any other URL will be requested using a network connection as normal. This allows us to easily test the use of CDNs.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 286/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

MockMvc and HtmlUnit Usage

Now we can use HtmlUnit as we normally would, but without the need to deploy our application to a Servlet container. For example, we can request
the view to create a message with the following.

HtmlPage createMsgFormPage = webClient.getPage("http://localhost/messages/form");

The default context path is "" . Alternatively, we can specify the context path as illustrated in the section called “Advanced
MockMvcWebClientBuilder”.

Once we have a reference to the HtmlPage , we can then ﬁll out the form and submit it to create a message.

HtmlForm form = createMsgFormPage.getHtmlElementById("messageForm");

HtmlTextInput summaryInput = createMsgFormPage.getHtmlElementById("summary");
summaryInput.setValueAttribute("Spring Rocks");
HtmlTextArea textInput = createMsgFormPage.getHtmlElementById("text");
textInput.setText("In case you didn't know, Spring Rocks!");
HtmlSubmitInput submit = form.getOneHtmlElementByAttribute("input", "type", "submit");
HtmlPage newMessagePage = submit.click();

Finally, we can verify that a new message was created successfully. The following assertions use the AssertJ library.

assertThat(newMessagePage.getUrl().toString()).endsWith("/messages/123");
String id = newMessagePage.getHtmlElementById("id").getTextContent();
assertThat(id).isEqualTo("123");
String summary = newMessagePage.getHtmlElementById("summary").getTextContent();
assertThat(summary).isEqualTo("Spring Rocks");
String text = newMessagePage.getHtmlElementById("text").getTextContent();
assertThat(text).isEqualTo("In case you didn't know, Spring Rocks!");

This improves on our MockMvc test in a number of ways. First we no longer have to explicitly verify our form and then create a request that looks like
the form. Instead, we request the form, ﬁll it out, and submit it, thereby signiﬁcantly reducing the overhead.

Another important factor is that HtmlUnit uses the Mozilla Rhino engine to evaluate JavaScript. This means that we can test the behavior of
JavaScript within our pages as well!

Refer to the HtmlUnit documentation for additional information about using HtmlUnit.

Advanced MockMvcWebClientBuilder
In the examples so far, we have used MockMvcWebClientBuilder in the simplest way possible, by building a WebClient based on the
WebApplicationContext loaded for us by the Spring TestContext Framework. This approach is repeated here.

@Autowired
WebApplicationContext context;

WebClient webClient;

@Before
public void setup() {
webClient = MockMvcWebClientBuilder
.webAppContextSetup(context)
.build();
}

We can also specify additional conﬁguration options.

WebClient webClient;

@Before
public void setup() {
webClient = MockMvcWebClientBuilder
// demonstrates applying a MockMvcConfigurer (Spring Security)
.webAppContextSetup(context, springSecurity())
// for illustration only - defaults to ""
.contextPath("")
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 287/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
.contextPath("")
// By default MockMvc is used for localhost only;
// the following will use MockMvc for example.com and example.org as well
.useMockMvcForHosts("example.com","example.org")
.build();
}

As an alternative, we can perform the exact same setup by conﬁguring the MockMvc instance separately and supplying it to the
MockMvcWebClientBuilder as follows.

MockMvc mockMvc = MockMvcBuilders

.webAppContextSetup(context)
.apply(springSecurity())
.build();

webClient = MockMvcWebClientBuilder
.mockMvcSetup(mockMvc)
// for illustration only - defaults to ""
.contextPath("")
// By default MockMvc is used for localhost only;
// the following will use MockMvc for example.com and example.org as well
.useMockMvcForHosts("example.com","example.org")
.build();

This is more verbose, but by building the WebClient with a MockMvc instance we have the full power of MockMvc at our ﬁngertips.

For additional information on creating a MockMvc instance refer to the section called “Setup Options”.

MockMvc and WebDriver

In the previous sections, we have seen how to use MockMvc in conjunction with the raw HtmlUnit APIs. In this section, we will leverage additional
abstractions within the Selenium WebDriver to make things even easier.

Why WebDriver and MockMvc?

We can already use HtmlUnit and MockMvc , so why would we want to use WebDriver ? The Selenium WebDriver provides a very elegant API
that allows us to easily organize our code. To better understand, let’s explore an example.

Despite being a part of Selenium, WebDriver does not require a Selenium Server to run your tests.

Suppose we need to ensure that a message is created properly. The tests involve ﬁnding the HTML form input elements, ﬁlling them out, and making
various assertions.

This approach results in numerous, separate tests because we want to test error conditions as well. For example, we want to ensure that we get an
error if we ﬁll out only part of the form. If we ﬁll out the entire form, the newly created message should be displayed afterwards.

If one of the ﬁelds were named "summary", then we might have something like the following repeated in multiple places within our tests.

HtmlTextInput summaryInput = currentPage.getHtmlElementById("summary");

summaryInput.setValueAttribute(summary);

So what happens if we change the id to "smmry"? Doing so would force us to update all of our tests to incorporate this change! Of course, this
violates the DRY Principle; so we should ideally extract this code into its own method as follows.

public HtmlPage createMessage(HtmlPage currentPage, String summary, String text) {

setSummary(currentPage, summary);
// ...
}

public void setSummary(HtmlPage currentPage, String summary) {

HtmlTextInput summaryInput = currentPage.getHtmlElementById("summary");
summaryInput.setValueAttribute(summary);
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 288/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
This ensures that we do not have to update all of our tests if we change the UI.

We might even take this a step further and place this logic within an Object that represents the HtmlPage we are currently on.

public class CreateMessagePage {

final HtmlPage currentPage;

final HtmlTextInput summaryInput;

final HtmlSubmitInput submit;

public CreateMessagePage(HtmlPage currentPage) {

this.currentPage = currentPage;
this.summaryInput = currentPage.getHtmlElementById("summary");
this.submit = currentPage.getHtmlElementById("submit");
}

public <T> T createMessage(String summary, String text) throws Exception {

setSummary(summary);

HtmlPage result = submit.click();

boolean error = CreateMessagePage.at(result);

return (T) (error ? new CreateMessagePage(result) : new ViewMessagePage(result));

}

public void setSummary(String summary) throws Exception {

summaryInput.setValueAttribute(summary);
}

public static boolean at(HtmlPage page) {

return "Create Message".equals(page.getTitleText());
}
}

Formerly, this pattern is known as the Page Object Pattern. While we can certainly do this with HtmlUnit, WebDriver provides some tools that we will
explore in the following sections to make this pattern much easier to implement.

MockMvc and WebDriver Setup

To use Selenium WebDriver with the Spring MVC Test framework, make sure that your project includes a test dependency on
org.seleniumhq.selenium:selenium-htmlunit-driver .

We can easily create a Selenium WebDriver that integrates with MockMvc using the MockMvcHtmlUnitDriverBuilder as follows.

@Autowired
WebApplicationContext context;

WebDriver driver;

@Before
public void setup() {
driver = MockMvcHtmlUnitDriverBuilder
.webAppContextSetup(context)
.build();
}

This is a simple example of using MockMvcHtmlUnitDriverBuilder . For more advanced usage, refer to the section called
“Advanced MockMvcHtmlUnitDriverBuilder”

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 289/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

MockMvc and WebDriver Usage

Now we can use WebDriver as we normally would, but without the need to deploy our application to a Servlet container. For example, we can
request the view to create a message with the following.

CreateMessagePage page = CreateMessagePage.to(driver);

We can then ﬁll out the form and submit it to create a message.

ViewMessagePage viewMessagePage =
page.createMessage(ViewMessagePage.class, expectedSummary, expectedText);

This improves on the design of our HtmlUnit test by leveraging the Page Object Pattern. As we mentioned in the section called “Why WebDriver and
MockMvc?”, we can use the Page Object Pattern with HtmlUnit, but it is much easier with WebDriver. Let’s take a look at our new
CreateMessagePage implementation.

public class CreateMessagePage

extends AbstractPage {

private WebElement summary;

private WebElement text;

@FindBy(css = "input[type=submit]")
private WebElement submit;

public CreateMessagePage(WebDriver driver) {

super(driver);
}

public <T> T createMessage(Class<T> resultPage, String summary, String details) {

this.summary.sendKeys(summary);
this.text.sendKeys(details);
this.submit.click();
return PageFactory.initElements(driver, resultPage);
}

public static CreateMessagePage to(WebDriver driver) {

driver.get("http://localhost:9990/mail/messages/form");
return PageFactory.initElements(driver, CreateMessagePage.class);
}
}

The ﬁrst thing you will notice is that CreateMessagePage extends the AbstractPage . We won’t go over the details of AbstractPage ,
but in summary it contains common functionality for all of our pages. For example, if our application has a navigational bar, global error
messages, etc., this logic can be placed in a shared location.
The next thing you will notice is that we have a member variable for each of the parts of the HTML page that we are interested in. These are of
type WebElement . WebDriver 's PageFactory allows us to remove a lot of code from the HtmlUnit version of CreateMessagePage by
automatically resolving each WebElement . The PageFactory#initElements(WebDriver,Class<T>) method will automatically resolve each
WebElement by using the ﬁeld name and looking it up by the id or name of the element within the HTML page.
We can use the @FindBy annotation to override the default lookup behavior. Our example demonstrates how to use the @FindBy annotation
to look up our submit button using a css selector, input[type=submit].

Finally, we can verify that a new message was created successfully. The following assertions use the FEST assertion library.

assertThat(viewMessagePage.getMessage()).isEqualTo(expectedMessage);
assertThat(viewMessagePage.getSuccess()).isEqualTo("Successfully created a new message");

We can see that our ViewMessagePage allows us to interact with our custom domain model. For example, it exposes a method that returns a
Message object.

public Message getMessage() throws ParseException {

Message message = new Message();
message.setId(getId());
message.setCreated(getCreated());

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 290/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
message.setSummary(getSummary());
message.setText(getText());
return message;
}

We can then leverage the rich domain objects in our assertions.

Lastly, don’t forget to close the WebDriver instance when the test is complete.

@After
public void destroy() {
if (driver != null) {
driver.close();
}
}

For additional information on using WebDriver, refer to the Selenium WebDriver documentation.

Advanced MockMvcHtmlUnitDriverBuilder
In the examples so far, we have used MockMvcHtmlUnitDriverBuilder in the simplest way possible, by building a WebDriver based on the
WebApplicationContext loaded for us by the Spring TestContext Framework. This approach is repeated here.

@Autowired
WebApplicationContext context;

WebDriver driver;

@Before
public void setup() {
driver = MockMvcHtmlUnitDriverBuilder
.webAppContextSetup(context)
.build();
}

We can also specify additional conﬁguration options.

WebDriver driver;

@Before
public void setup() {
driver = MockMvcHtmlUnitDriverBuilder
// demonstrates applying a MockMvcConfigurer (Spring Security)
.webAppContextSetup(context, springSecurity())
// for illustration only - defaults to ""
.contextPath("")
// By default MockMvc is used for localhost only;
// the following will use MockMvc for example.com and example.org as well
.useMockMvcForHosts("example.com","example.org")

.build();
}

As an alternative, we can perform the exact same setup by conﬁguring the MockMvc instance separately and supplying it to the
MockMvcHtmlUnitDriverBuilder as follows.

MockMvc mockMvc = MockMvcBuilders

.webAppContextSetup(context)
.apply(springSecurity())
.build();

driver = MockMvcHtmlUnitDriverBuilder
.mockMvcSetup(mockMvc)
// for illustration only - defaults to ""
.contextPath("")
// By default MockMvc is used for localhost only;
// the following will use MockMvc for example.com and example.org as well
.useMockMvcForHosts("example.com","example.org")
.build();
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 291/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
.build();

This is more verbose, but by building the WebDriver with a MockMvc instance we have the full power of MockMvc at our ﬁngertips.

For additional information on creating a MockMvc instance refer to the section called “Setup Options”.

MockMvc and Geb

In the previous section, we saw how to use MockMvc with WebDriver . In this section, we will use Geb to make our tests even Groovy-er.

Why Geb and MockMvc?

Geb is backed by WebDriver, so it offers many of the same beneﬁts that we get from WebDriver. However, Geb makes things even easier by taking
care of some of the boilerplate code for us.

MockMvc and Geb Setup

We can easily initialize a Geb Browser with a Selenium WebDriver that uses MockMvc as follows.

def setup() {
browser.driver = MockMvcHtmlUnitDriverBuilder
.webAppContextSetup(context)
.build()
}

This is a simple example of using MockMvcHtmlUnitDriverBuilder . For more advanced usage, refer to the section called
“Advanced MockMvcHtmlUnitDriverBuilder”

MockMvc and Geb Usage

Now we can use Geb as we normally would, but without the need to deploy our application to a Servlet container. For example, we can request the
view to create a message with the following:

to CreateMessagePage

We can then ﬁll out the form and submit it to create a message.

when:
form.summary = expectedSummary
form.text = expectedMessage
submit.click(ViewMessagePage)

Any unrecognized method calls or property accesses/references that are not found will be forwarded to the current page object. This removes a lot of
the boilerplate code we needed when using WebDriver directly.

As with direct WebDriver usage, this improves on the design of our HtmlUnit test by leveraging the Page Object Pattern. As mentioned previously,
we can use the Page Object Pattern with HtmlUnit and WebDriver, but it is even easier with Geb. Let’s take a look at our new Groovy-based
CreateMessagePage implementation.

class CreateMessagePage extends Page {

static url = 'messages/form'
static at = { assert title == 'Messages : Create'; true }
static content = {
submit { $('input[type=submit]') }
form { $('form') }
errors(required:false) { $('label.error, .alert-error')?.text() }
}
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 292/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The ﬁrst thing you will notice is that our CreateMessagePage extends Page . We won’t go over the details of Page , but in summary it contains
common functionality for all of our pages. The next thing you will notice is that we deﬁne a URL in which this page can be found. This allows us to
navigate to the page as follows.

to CreateMessagePage

We also have an at closure that determines if we are at the speciﬁed page. It should return true if we are on the correct page. This is why we
can assert that we are on the correct page as follows.

then:
at CreateMessagePage
errors.contains('This field is required.')

We use an assertion in the closure, so that we can determine where things went wrong if we were at the wrong page.

Next we create a content closure that speciﬁes all the areas of interest within the page. We can use a jQuery-ish Navigator API to select the
content we are interested in.

Finally, we can verify that a new message was created successfully.

then:
at ViewMessagePage
success == 'Successfully created a new message'
id
date
summary == expectedSummary
message == expectedMessage

For further details on how to get the most out of Geb, consult The Book of Geb user’s manual.

15.6.3 Client-Side REST Tests

Client-side tests can be used to test code that internally uses the RestTemplate . The idea is to declare expected requests and to provide "stub"
responses so that you can focus on testing the code in isolation, i.e. without running a server. Here is an example:

RestTemplate restTemplate = new RestTemplate();

MockRestServiceServer mockServer = MockRestServiceServer.bindTo(restTemplate).build();

mockServer.expect(requestTo("/greeting")).andRespond(withSuccess());

// Test code that uses the above RestTemplate ...

mockServer.verify();

In the above example, MockRestServiceServer , the central class for client-side REST tests, configures the RestTemplate with a custom
ClientHttpRequestFactory that asserts actual requests against expectations and returns "stub" responses. In this case we expect a request
to "/greeting" and want to return a 200 response with "text/plain" content. We could define as additional expected requests and stub responses as
needed. When expected requests and stub responses are defined, the RestTemplate can be used in client-side code as usual. At the end of
testing mockServer.verify() can be used to verify that all expectations have been satisfied.

By default requests are expected in the order in which expectations were declared. You can set the ignoreExpectOrder option when building the
server in which case all expectations are checked (in order) to ﬁnd a match for a given request. That means requests are allowed to come in any
order. Here is an example:

server = MockRestServiceServer.bindTo(restTemplate).ignoreExpectOrder(true).build();

Even with unordered requests by default each request is allowed to execute once only. The expect method provides an overloaded variant that
accepts an ExpectedCount argument that speciﬁes a count range, e.g. once , manyTimes , max , min , between , and so on. Here is an
example:

RestTemplate restTemplate = new RestTemplate();

MockRestServiceServer mockServer = MockRestServiceServer.bindTo(restTemplate).build();

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 293/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
mockServer.expect(times(2), requestTo("/foo")).andRespond(withSuccess());
mockServer.expect(times(3), requestTo("/bar")).andRespond(withSuccess());

// ...

mockServer.verify();

Note that when ignoreExpectOrder is not set (the default), and therefore requests are expected in order of declaration, then that order only
applies to the ﬁrst of any expected request. For example if "/foo" is expected 2 times followed by "/bar" 3 times, then there should be a request to
"/foo" before there is a request to "/bar" but aside from that subsequent "/foo" and "/bar" requests can come at any time.

As an alternative to all of the above the client-side test support also provides a ClientHttpRequestFactory implementation that can be
conﬁgured into a RestTemplate to bind it to a MockMvc instance. That allows processing requests using actual server-side logic but without
running a server. Here is an example:

MockMvc mockMvc = MockMvcBuilders.webAppContextSetup(this.wac).build();

this.restTemplate = new RestTemplate(new MockMvcClientHttpRequestFactory(mockMvc));

// Test code that uses the above RestTemplate ...

mockServer.verify();

Static Imports
Just like with server-side tests, the fluent API for client-side tests requires a few static imports. Those are easy to find by searching "MockRest*".
Eclipse users should add "MockRestRequestMatchers.*" and "MockRestResponseCreators.*" as "favorite static members" in the
Eclipse preferences under Java → Editor → Content Assist → Favorites. That allows using content assist after typing the first character of the static
method name. Other IDEs (e.g. IntelliJ) may not require any additional configuration. Just check the support for code completion on static members.

Further Examples of Client-side REST Tests

Spring MVC Test’s own tests include example tests of client-side REST tests.

15.7 PetClinic Example
The PetClinic application, available on GitHub, illustrates several features of the Spring TestContext Framework in a JUnit 4 environment. Most test
functionality is included in the AbstractClinicTests , for which a partial listing is shown below:

import static org.junit.Assert.assertEquals;

// import ...

@ContextConfiguration
public abstract class AbstractClinicTests extends AbstractTransactionalJUnit4SpringContextTests {

@Autowired
protected Clinic clinic;

@Test
public void getVets() {
Collection<Vet> vets = this.clinic.getVets();
assertEquals("JDBC query must show the same number of vets",
super.countRowsInTable("VETS"), vets.size());
Vet v1 = EntityUtils.getById(vets, Vet.class, 2);
assertEquals("Leary", v1.getLastName());
assertEquals(1, v1.getNrOfSpecialties());
assertEquals("radiology", (v1.getSpecialties().get(0)).getName());
// ...
}

// ...
}

Notes:

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 294/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
This test case extends the AbstractTransactionalJUnit4SpringContextTests class, from which it inherits conﬁguration for
Dependency Injection (through the DependencyInjectionTestExecutionListener ) and transactional behavior (through the
TransactionalTestExecutionListener ).
The clinic instance variable — the application object being tested — is set by Dependency Injection through @Autowired semantics.
The getVets() method illustrates how you can use the inherited countRowsInTable() method to easily verify the number of rows in a
given table, thus verifying correct behavior of the application code being tested. This allows for stronger tests and lessens dependency on the
exact test data. For example, you can add additional rows in the database without breaking tests.
Like many integration tests that use a database, most of the tests in AbstractClinicTests depend on a minimum amount of data already in
the database before the test cases run. Alternatively, you might choose to populate the database within the test ﬁxture set up of your test cases
— again, within the same transaction as the tests.

The PetClinic application supports three data access technologies: JDBC, Hibernate, and JPA. By declaring @ContextConfiguration without
any speciﬁc resource locations, the AbstractClinicTests class will have its application context loaded from the default location,
AbstractClinicTests-context.xml , which declares a common DataSource . Subclasses specify additional context locations that must
declare a PlatformTransactionManager and a concrete implementation of Clinic .

For example, the Hibernate implementation of the PetClinic tests contains the following implementation. For this example,
HibernateClinicTests does not contain a single line of code: we only need to declare @ContextConfiguration , and the tests are
inherited from AbstractClinicTests . Because @ContextConfiguration is declared without any specific resource locations, the Spring
TestContext Framework loads an application context from all the beans defined in AbstractClinicTests-context.xml (i.e., the inherited
locations) and HibernateClinicTests-context.xml , with HibernateClinicTests-context.xml possibly overriding beans defined in
AbstractClinicTests-context.xml .

@ContextConfiguration
public class HibernateClinicTests extends AbstractClinicTests { }

In a large-scale application, the Spring configuration is often split across multiple files. Consequently, configuration locations are typically specified in
a common base class for all application-specific integration tests. Such a base class may also add useful instance variables — populated by
Dependency Injection, naturally — such as a SessionFactory in the case of an application using Hibernate.

As far as possible, you should have exactly the same Spring configuration files in your integration tests as in the deployed environment. One likely
point of difference concerns database connection pooling and transaction infrastructure. If you are deploying to a full-blown application server, you
will probably use its connection pool (available through JNDI) and JTA implementation. Thus in production you will use a
JndiObjectFactoryBean or <jee:jndi-lookup> for the DataSource and JtaTransactionManager . JNDI and JTA will not be
available in out-of-container integration tests, so you should use a combination like the Commons DBCP BasicDataSource and
DataSourceTransactionManager or HibernateTransactionManager for them. You can factor out this variant behavior into a single XML
file, having the choice between application server and a 'local' configuration separated from all other configuration, which will not vary between the
test and production environments. In addition, it is advisable to use properties files for connection settings. See the PetClinic application for an
example.

16. Further Resources
Consult the following resources for more information about testing:

JUnit: "A programmer-oriented testing framework for Java". Used by the Spring Framework in its test suite.
TestNG: A testing framework inspired by JUnit with added support for annotations, test groups, data-driven testing, distributed testing, etc.
AssertJ: "Fluent assertions for Java" including support for Java 8 lambdas, streams, etc.
Mock Objects: Article in Wikipedia.
MockObjects.com: Web site dedicated to mock objects, a technique for improving the design of code within test-driven development.
Mockito: Java mock library based on the test spy pattern.
EasyMock: Java library "that provides Mock Objects for interfaces (and objects through the class extension) by generating them on the ﬂy using
Java’s proxy mechanism." Used by the Spring Framework in its test suite.
JMock: Library that supports test-driven development of Java code with mock objects.
DbUnit: JUnit extension (also usable with Ant and Maven) targeted for database-driven projects that, among other things, puts your database
into a known state between test runs.
The Grinder: Java load testing framework.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 295/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Part V. Data Access
This part of the reference documentation is concerned with data access and the interaction between the data access layer and the business or
service layer.

Spring’s comprehensive transaction management support is covered in some detail, followed by thorough coverage of the various data access
frameworks and technologies that the Spring Framework integrates with.

Chapter 17, Transaction Management

Chapter 18, DAO support
Chapter 19, Data access with JDBC
Chapter 20, Object Relational Mapping (ORM) Data Access
Chapter 21, Marshalling XML using O/X Mappers

17. Transaction Management

17.1 Introduction to Spring Framework transaction management

Comprehensive transaction support is among the most compelling reasons to use the Spring Framework. The Spring Framework provides a
consistent abstraction for transaction management that delivers the following beneﬁts:

Consistent programming model across different transaction APIs such as Java Transaction API (JTA), JDBC, Hibernate, Java Persistence API
(JPA), and Java Data Objects (JDO).
Support for declarative transaction management.
Simpler API for programmatic transaction management than complex transaction APIs such as JTA.
Excellent integration with Spring’s data access abstractions.

The following sections describe the Spring Framework’s transaction value-adds and technologies. (The chapter also includes discussions of best
practices, application server integration, and solutions to common problems.)

Advantages of the Spring Framework’s transaction support model describes why you would use the Spring Framework’s transaction abstraction
instead of EJB Container-Managed Transactions (CMT) or choosing to drive local transactions through a proprietary API such as Hibernate.
Understanding the Spring Framework transaction abstraction outlines the core classes and describes how to conﬁgure and obtain
DataSource instances from a variety of sources.
Synchronizing resources with transactionsdescribes how the application code ensures that resources are created, reused, and cleaned up
properly.
Declarative transaction management describes support for declarative transaction management.
Programmatic transaction management covers support for programmatic (that is, explicitly coded) transaction management.
Transaction bound event describes how you could use application events within a transaction.

17.2 Advantages of the Spring Framework’s transaction support model

Traditionally, Java EE developers have had two choices for transaction management: global or local transactions, both of which have profound
limitations. Global and local transaction management is reviewed in the next two sections, followed by a discussion of how the Spring Framework’s
transaction management support addresses the limitations of the global and local transaction models.

17.2.1 Global transactions
Global transactions enable you to work with multiple transactional resources, typically relational databases and message queues. The application
server manages global transactions through the JTA, which is a cumbersome API to use (partly due to its exception model). Furthermore, a JTA
UserTransaction normally needs to be sourced from JNDI, meaning that you also need to use JNDI in order to use JTA. Obviously the use of
global transactions would limit any potential reuse of application code, as JTA is normally only available in an application server environment.

Previously, the preferred way to use global transactions was via EJB CMT (Container Managed Transaction): CMT is a form of declarative
transaction management (as distinguished from programmatic transaction management). EJB CMT removes the need for transaction-related JNDI
lookups, although of course the use of EJB itself necessitates the use of JNDI. It removes most but not all of the need to write Java code to control

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 296/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
transactions. The signiﬁcant downside is that CMT is tied to JTA and an application server environment. Also, it is only available if one chooses to
implement business logic in EJBs, or at least behind a transactional EJB facade. The negatives of EJB in general are so great that this is not an
attractive proposition, especially in the face of compelling alternatives for declarative transaction management.

17.2.2 Local transactions
Local transactions are resource-speciﬁc, such as a transaction associated with a JDBC connection. Local transactions may be easier to use, but
have signiﬁcant disadvantages: they cannot work across multiple transactional resources. For example, code that manages transactions using a
JDBC connection cannot run within a global JTA transaction. Because the application server is not involved in transaction management, it cannot
help ensure correctness across multiple resources. (It is worth noting that most applications use a single transaction resource.) Another downside is
that local transactions are invasive to the programming model.

17.2.3 Spring Framework’s consistent programming model

Spring resolves the disadvantages of global and local transactions. It enables application developers to use a consistent programming model in any
environment. You write your code once, and it can beneﬁt from different transaction management strategies in different environments. The Spring
Framework provides both declarative and programmatic transaction management. Most users prefer declarative transaction management, which is
recommended in most cases.

With programmatic transaction management, developers work with the Spring Framework transaction abstraction, which can run over any underlying
transaction infrastructure. With the preferred declarative model, developers typically write little or no code related to transaction management, and
hence do not depend on the Spring Framework transaction API, or any other transaction API.

Do you need an application server for transaction management?

The Spring Framework’s transaction management support changes traditional rules as to when an enterprise Java application requires an
application server.

In particular, you do not need an application server simply for declarative transactions through EJBs. In fact, even if your application server has
powerful JTA capabilities, you may decide that the Spring Framework’s declarative transactions offer more power and a more productive
programming model than EJB CMT.

Typically you need an application server’s JTA capability only if your application needs to handle transactions across multiple resources, which
is not a requirement for many applications. Many high-end applications use a single, highly scalable database (such as Oracle RAC) instead.
Standalone transaction managers such as Atomikos Transactions and JOTM are other options. Of course, you may need other application
server capabilities such as Java Message Service (JMS) and Java EE Connector Architecture (JCA).

The Spring Framework gives you the choice of when to scale your application to a fully loaded application server. Gone are the days when the
only alternative to using EJB CMT or JTA was to write code with local transactions such as those on JDBC connections, and face a hefty
rework if you need that code to run within global, container-managed transactions. With the Spring Framework, only some of the bean
definitions in your configuration file, rather than your code, need to change.

17.3 Understanding the Spring Framework transaction abstraction

The key to the Spring transaction abstraction is the notion of a transaction strategy. A transaction strategy is deﬁned by the
org.springframework.transaction.PlatformTransactionManager interface:

public interface PlatformTransactionManager {

TransactionStatus getTransaction(
TransactionDefinition definition) throws TransactionException;

void commit(TransactionStatus status) throws TransactionException;

void rollback(TransactionStatus status) throws TransactionException;

}

This is primarily a service provider interface (SPI), although it can be used programmatically from your application code. Because
PlatformTransactionManager is an interface, it can be easily mocked or stubbed as necessary. It is not tied to a lookup strategy such as
JNDI. PlatformTransactionManager implementations are deﬁned like any other object (or bean) in the Spring Framework IoC container. This
beneﬁt alone makes Spring Framework transactions a worthwhile abstraction even when you work with JTA. Transactional code can be tested much
more easily than if it used JTA directly.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 297/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Again in keeping with Spring’s philosophy, the TransactionException that can be thrown by any of the PlatformTransactionManager
interface’s methods is unchecked (that is, it extends the java.lang.RuntimeException class). Transaction infrastructure failures are almost
invariably fatal. In rare cases where application code can actually recover from a transaction failure, the application developer can still choose to
catch and handle TransactionException . The salient point is that developers are not forced to do so.

The getTransaction(..) method returns a TransactionStatus object, depending on a TransactionDefinition parameter. The
returned TransactionStatus might represent a new transaction, or can represent an existing transaction if a matching transaction exists in the
current call stack. The implication in this latter case is that, as with Java EE transaction contexts, a TransactionStatus is associated with a
thread of execution.

The TransactionDefinition interface speciﬁes:

Isolation: The degree to which this transaction is isolated from the work of other transactions. For example, can this transaction see uncommitted
writes from other transactions?
Propagation: Typically, all code executed within a transaction scope will run in that transaction. However, you have the option of specifying the
behavior in the event that a transactional method is executed when a transaction context already exists. For example, code can continue running
in the existing transaction (the common case); or the existing transaction can be suspended and a new transaction created. Spring offers all of
the transaction propagation options familiar from EJB CMT. To read about the semantics of transaction propagation in Spring, see
Section 17.5.7, “Transaction propagation”.
Timeout: How long this transaction runs before timing out and being rolled back automatically by the underlying transaction infrastructure.
Read-only status: A read-only transaction can be used when your code reads but does not modify data. Read-only transactions can be a useful
optimization in some cases, such as when you are using Hibernate.

These settings reﬂect standard transactional concepts. If necessary, refer to resources that discuss transaction isolation levels and other core
transaction concepts. Understanding these concepts is essential to using the Spring Framework or any transaction management solution.

The TransactionStatus interface provides a simple way for transactional code to control transaction execution and query transaction status.
The concepts should be familiar, as they are common to all transaction APIs:

public interface TransactionStatus extends SavepointManager {

boolean isNewTransaction();

boolean hasSavepoint();

void setRollbackOnly();

boolean isRollbackOnly();

void flush();

boolean isCompleted();

Regardless of whether you opt for declarative or programmatic transaction management in Spring, deﬁning the correct
PlatformTransactionManager implementation is absolutely essential. You typically deﬁne this implementation through dependency injection.

PlatformTransactionManager implementations normally require knowledge of the environment in which they work: JDBC, JTA, Hibernate, and
so on. The following examples show how you can deﬁne a local PlatformTransactionManager implementation. (This example works with plain
JDBC.)

You deﬁne a JDBC DataSource

<bean id="dataSource" class="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource" destroy-method="close">

The related PlatformTransactionManager bean deﬁnition will then have a reference to the DataSource deﬁnition. It will look like this:

<bean id="txManager" class="org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.DataSourceTransactionManager">

<property name="dataSource" ref="dataSource"/>
</bean>
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 298/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

If you use JTA in a Java EE container then you use a container DataSource , obtained through JNDI, in conjunction with Spring’s
JtaTransactionManager . This is what the JTA and JNDI lookup version would look like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<jee:jndi-lookup id="dataSource" jndi-name="jdbc/jpetstore"/>

<bean id="txManager" class="org.springframework.transaction.jta.JtaTransactionManager" />

</beans>

The JtaTransactionManager does not need to know about the DataSource , or any other speciﬁc resources, because it uses the container’s
global transaction management infrastructure.

The above definition of the dataSource bean uses the <jndi-lookup/> tag from the jee namespace. For more information on
schema-based configuration, see Chapter 41, XML Schema-based configuration, and for more information on the <jee/> tags see
the section entitled Section 41.2.3, “the jee schema”.

You can also use Hibernate local transactions easily, as shown in the following examples. In this case, you need to deﬁne a Hibernate
LocalSessionFactoryBean , which your application code will use to obtain Hibernate Session instances.

The DataSource bean deﬁnition will be similar to the local JDBC example shown previously and thus is not shown in the following example.

If the DataSource , used by any non-JTA transaction manager, is looked up via JNDI and managed by a Java EE container, then it
should be non-transactional because the Spring Framework, rather than the Java EE container, will manage the transactions.

The txManager bean in this case is of the HibernateTransactionManager type. In the same way as the
DataSourceTransactionManager needs a reference to the DataSource , the HibernateTransactionManager needs a reference to the
SessionFactory .

<bean id="sessionFactory" class="org.springframework.orm.hibernate5.LocalSessionFactoryBean">

<property name="dataSource" ref="dataSource"/>
<property name="mappingResources">
<list>
<value>org/springframework/samples/petclinic/hibernate/petclinic.hbm.xml</value>
</list>
</property>
<property name="hibernateProperties">
<value>
hibernate.dialect=${hibernate.dialect}
</value>
</property>
</bean>

<bean id="txManager" class="org.springframework.orm.hibernate5.HibernateTransactionManager">

If you are using Hibernate and Java EE container-managed JTA transactions, then you should simply use the same JtaTransactionManager as
in the previous JTA example for JDBC.

<bean id="txManager" class="org.springframework.transaction.jta.JtaTransactionManager"/>

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 299/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

If you use JTA , then your transaction manager deﬁnition will look the same regardless of what data access technology you use, be it
JDBC, Hibernate JPA or any other supported technology. This is due to the fact that JTA transactions are global transactions, which
can enlist any transactional resource.

In all these cases, application code does not need to change. You can change how transactions are managed merely by changing conﬁguration,
even if that change means moving from local to global transactions or vice versa.

17.4 Synchronizing resources with transactions

It should now be clear how you create different transaction managers, and how they are linked to related resources that need to be synchronized to
transactions (for example DataSourceTransactionManager to a JDBC DataSource , HibernateTransactionManager to a Hibernate
SessionFactory , and so forth). This section describes how the application code, directly or indirectly using a persistence API such as JDBC,
Hibernate, or JDO, ensures that these resources are created, reused, and cleaned up properly. The section also discusses how transaction
synchronization is triggered (optionally) through the relevant PlatformTransactionManager .

17.4.1 High-level synchronization approach

The preferred approach is to use Spring’s highest level template based persistence integration APIs or to use native ORM APIs with transaction-
aware factory beans or proxies for managing the native resource factories. These transaction-aware solutions internally handle resource creation
and reuse, cleanup, optional transaction synchronization of the resources, and exception mapping. Thus user data access code does not have to
address these tasks, but can be focused purely on non-boilerplate persistence logic. Generally, you use the native ORM API or take a template
approach for JDBC access by using the JdbcTemplate . These solutions are detailed in subsequent chapters of this reference documentation.

17.4.2 Low-level synchronization approach

Classes such as DataSourceUtils (for JDBC), EntityManagerFactoryUtils (for JPA), SessionFactoryUtils (for Hibernate),
PersistenceManagerFactoryUtils (for JDO), and so on exist at a lower level. When you want the application code to deal directly with the
resource types of the native persistence APIs, you use these classes to ensure that proper Spring Framework-managed instances are obtained,
transactions are (optionally) synchronized, and exceptions that occur in the process are properly mapped to a consistent API.

For example, in the case of JDBC, instead of the traditional JDBC approach of calling the getConnection() method on the DataSource , you
instead use Spring’s org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.DataSourceUtils class as follows:

Connection conn = DataSourceUtils.getConnection(dataSource);

If an existing transaction already has a connection synchronized (linked) to it, that instance is returned. Otherwise, the method call triggers the
creation of a new connection, which is (optionally) synchronized to any existing transaction, and made available for subsequent reuse in that same
transaction. As mentioned, any SQLException is wrapped in a Spring Framework CannotGetJdbcConnectionException , one of the Spring
Framework’s hierarchy of unchecked DataAccessExceptions. This approach gives you more information than can be obtained easily from the
SQLException , and ensures portability across databases, even across different persistence technologies.

This approach also works without Spring transaction management (transaction synchronization is optional), so you can use it whether or not you are
using Spring for transaction management.

Of course, once you have used Spring’s JDBC support, JPA support or Hibernate support, you will generally prefer not to use DataSourceUtils
or the other helper classes, because you will be much happier working through the Spring abstraction than directly with the relevant APIs. For
example, if you use the Spring JdbcTemplate or jdbc.object package to simplify your use of JDBC, correct connection retrieval occurs
behind the scenes and you won’t need to write any special code.

17.4.3 TransactionAwareDataSourceProxy
At the very lowest level exists the TransactionAwareDataSourceProxy class. This is a proxy for a target DataSource , which wraps the
target DataSource to add awareness of Spring-managed transactions. In this respect, it is similar to a transactional JNDI DataSource as
provided by a Java EE server.

It should almost never be necessary or desirable to use this class, except when existing code must be called and passed a standard JDBC
DataSource interface implementation. In that case, it is possible that this code is usable, but participating in Spring managed transactions. It is
preferable to write your new code by using the higher level abstractions mentioned above.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 300/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

17.5 Declarative transaction management

Most Spring Framework users choose declarative transaction management. This option has the least impact on application code, and
hence is most consistent with the ideals of a non-invasive lightweight container.

The Spring Framework’s declarative transaction management is made possible with Spring aspect-oriented programming (AOP), although, as the
transactional aspects code comes with the Spring Framework distribution and may be used in a boilerplate fashion, AOP concepts do not generally
have to be understood to make effective use of this code.

The Spring Framework’s declarative transaction management is similar to EJB CMT in that you can specify transaction behavior (or lack of it) down
to individual method level. It is possible to make a setRollbackOnly() call within a transaction context if necessary. The differences between the
two types of transaction management are:

Unlike EJB CMT, which is tied to JTA, the Spring Framework’s declarative transaction management works in any environment. It can work with
JTA transactions or local transactions using JDBC, JPA, Hibernate or JDO by simply adjusting the configuration files.
You can apply the Spring Framework declarative transaction management to any class, not merely special classes such as EJBs.
The Spring Framework offers declarative rollback rules,a feature with no EJB equivalent. Both programmatic and declarative support for rollback
rules is provided.
The Spring Framework enables you to customize transactional behavior, by using AOP. For example, you can insert custom behavior in the case
of transaction rollback. You can also add arbitrary advice, along with the transactional advice. With EJB CMT, you cannot influence the
container’s transaction management except with setRollbackOnly() .
The Spring Framework does not support propagation of transaction contexts across remote calls, as do high-end application servers. If you need
this feature, we recommend that you use EJB. However, consider carefully before using such a feature, because normally, one does not want
transactions to span remote calls.

Where is TransactionProxyFactoryBean?

Declarative transaction conﬁguration in versions of Spring 2.0 and above differs considerably from previous versions of Spring. The main
difference is that there is no longer any need to conﬁgure TransactionProxyFactoryBean beans.

The pre-Spring 2.0 configuration style is still 100% valid configuration; think of the new <tx:tags/> as simply defining
TransactionProxyFactoryBean beans on your behalf.

The concept of rollback rules is important: they enable you to specify which exceptions (and throwables) should cause automatic rollback. You
specify this declaratively, in conﬁguration, not in Java code. So, although you can still call setRollbackOnly() on the TransactionStatus
object to roll back the current transaction back, most often you can specify a rule that MyApplicationException must always result in rollback.
The signiﬁcant advantage to this option is that business objects do not depend on the transaction infrastructure. For example, they typically do not
need to import Spring transaction APIs or other Spring APIs.

Although EJB container default behavior automatically rolls back the transaction on a system exception (usually a runtime exception), EJB CMT
does not roll back the transaction automatically on anapplication exception (that is, a checked exception other than
java.rmi.RemoteException ). While the Spring default behavior for declarative transaction management follows EJB convention (roll back is
automatic only on unchecked exceptions), it is often useful to customize this behavior.

17.5.1 Understanding the Spring Framework’s declarative transaction implementation

It is not sufﬁcient to tell you simply to annotate your classes with the @Transactional annotation, add @EnableTransactionManagement to
your conﬁguration, and then expect you to understand how it all works. This section explains the inner workings of the Spring Framework’s
declarative transaction infrastructure in the event of transaction-related issues.

The most important concepts to grasp with regard to the Spring Framework’s declarative transaction support are that this support is enabled via AOP
proxies, and that the transactional advice is driven by metadata (currently XML- or annotation-based). The combination of AOP with transactional
metadata yields an AOP proxy that uses a TransactionInterceptor in conjunction with an appropriate PlatformTransactionManager
implementation to drive transactions around method invocations.

Spring AOP is covered in Chapter 11, Aspect Oriented Programming with Spring.

Conceptually, calling a method on a transactional proxy looks like this…

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 301/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

17.5.2 Example of declarative transaction implementation

Consider the following interface, and its attendant implementation. This example uses Foo and Bar classes as placeholders so that you can
concentrate on the transaction usage without focusing on a particular domain model. For the purposes of this example, the fact that the
DefaultFooService class throws UnsupportedOperationException instances in the body of each implemented method is good; it allows
you to see transactions created and then rolled back in response to the UnsupportedOperationException instance.

// the service interface that we want to make transactional

package x.y.service;

public interface FooService {

Foo getFoo(String fooName);

Foo getFoo(String fooName, String barName);

void insertFoo(Foo foo);

void updateFoo(Foo foo);

// an implementation of the above interface

package x.y.service;

public class DefaultFooService implements FooService {

public Foo getFoo(String fooName) {

throw new UnsupportedOperationException();
}

public Foo getFoo(String fooName, String barName) {

throw new UnsupportedOperationException();
}

public void insertFoo(Foo foo) {

throw new UnsupportedOperationException();
}

public void updateFoo(Foo foo) {

throw new UnsupportedOperationException();
}

Assume that the ﬁrst two methods of the FooService interface, getFoo(String) and getFoo(String, String) , must execute in the
context of a transaction with read-only semantics, and that the other methods, insertFoo(Foo) and updateFoo(Foo) , must execute in the

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 302/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
context of a transaction with read-write semantics. The following conﬁguration is explained in detail in the next few paragraphs.

http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx
http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx/spring-tx.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop
http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop/spring-aop.xsd">

<bean id="fooService" class="x.y.service.DefaultFooService"/>

<tx:advice id="txAdvice" transaction-manager="txManager">

<tx:attributes>

<tx:method name="get*" read-only="true"/>

<tx:method name="*"/>
</tx:attributes>
</tx:advice>

<aop:config>
<aop:pointcut id="fooServiceOperation" expression="execution(* x.y.service.FooService.*(..))"/>
<aop:advisor advice-ref="txAdvice" pointcut-ref="fooServiceOperation"/>
</aop:config>

</beans>

Examine the preceding configuration. You want to make a service object, the fooService bean, transactional. The transaction semantics to apply
are encapsulated in the <tx:advice/> definition. The <tx:advice/> definition reads as "… all methods on starting with 'get' are to execute
in the context of a read-only transaction, and all other methods are to execute with the default transaction semantics". The
transaction-manager attribute of the <tx:advice/> tag is set to the name of the PlatformTransactionManager bean that is going to
drive the transactions, in this case, the txManager bean.

You can omit the transaction-manager attribute in the transactional advice ( <tx:advice/> ) if the bean name of the
PlatformTransactionManager that you want to wire in has the name transactionManager . If the
PlatformTransactionManager bean that you want to wire in has any other name, then you must use the
transaction-manager attribute explicitly, as in the preceding example.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 303/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The <aop:config/> definition ensures that the transactional advice defined by the txAdvice bean executes at the appropriate points in the
program. First you define a pointcut that matches the execution of any operation defined in the FooService interface (
fooServiceOperation ). Then you associate the pointcut with the txAdvice using an advisor. The result indicates that at the execution of a
fooServiceOperation , the advice defined by txAdvice will be run.

The expression deﬁned within the <aop:pointcut/> element is an AspectJ pointcut expression; see Chapter 11, Aspect Oriented Programming
with Spring for more details on pointcut expressions in Spring.

A common requirement is to make an entire service layer transactional. The best way to do this is simply to change the pointcut expression to match
any operation in your service layer. For example:

<aop:config>
<aop:pointcut id="fooServiceMethods" expression="execution(* x.y.service.*.*(..))"/>
<aop:advisor advice-ref="txAdvice" pointcut-ref="fooServiceMethods"/>
</aop:config>

In this example it is assumed that all your service interfaces are deﬁned in the x.y.service package; see Chapter 11, Aspect
Oriented Programming with Spring for more details.

Now that we’ve analyzed the conﬁguration, you may be asking yourself, "Okay… but what does all this conﬁguration actually do?".

The above configuration will be used to create a transactional proxy around the object that is created from the fooService bean definition. The
proxy will be configured with the transactional advice, so that when an appropriate method is invoked on the proxy, a transaction is started,
suspended, marked as read-only, and so on, depending on the transaction configuration associated with that method. Consider the following
program that test drives the above configuration:

public final class Boot {

public static void main(final String[] args) throws Exception {

ApplicationContext ctx = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("context.xml", Boot.class);
FooService fooService = (FooService) ctx.getBean("fooService");
fooService.insertFoo (new Foo());
}
}

The output from running the preceding program will resemble the following. (The Log4J output and the stack trace from the
UnsupportedOperationException thrown by the insertFoo(..) method of the DefaultFooService class have been truncated for clarity.)

[AspectJInvocationContextExposingAdvisorAutoProxyCreator] - Creating implicit proxy for bean 'fooService' with 0 common interc

[JdkDynamicAopProxy] - Creating JDK dynamic proxy for [x.y.service.DefaultFooService]

[TransactionInterceptor] - Getting transaction for x.y.service.FooService.insertFoo

[DataSourceTransactionManager] - Creating new transaction with name [x.y.service.FooService.insertFoo]
[DataSourceTransactionManager] - Acquired Connection [org.apache.commons.dbcp.PoolableConnection@a53de4] for JDBC transaction

[RuleBasedTransactionAttribute] - Applying rules to determine whether transaction should rollback on java.lang.UnsupportedOper
[TransactionInterceptor] - Invoking rollback for transaction on x.y.service.FooService.insertFoo due to throwable [java.lang.U

[DataSourceTransactionManager] - Rolling back JDBC transaction on Connection [org.apache.commons.dbcp.PoolableConnection@a53de
[DataSourceTransactionManager] - Releasing JDBC Connection after transaction
[DataSourceUtils] - Returning JDBC Connection to DataSource

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException at x.y.service.DefaultFooService.insertFoo(DefaultFooServic

at $Proxy0.insertFoo(Unknown Source)
at Boot.main(Boot.java:11)

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 304/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

17.5.3 Rolling back a declarative transaction

The previous section outlined the basics of how to specify transactional settings for classes, typically service layer classes, declaratively in your
application. This section describes how you can control the rollback of transactions in a simple declarative fashion.

The recommended way to indicate to the Spring Framework’s transaction infrastructure that a transaction’s work is to be rolled back is to throw an
Exception from code that is currently executing in the context of a transaction. The Spring Framework’s transaction infrastructure code will catch
any unhandled Exception as it bubbles up the call stack, and make a determination whether to mark the transaction for rollback.

In its default conﬁguration, the Spring Framework’s transaction infrastructure code only marks a transaction for rollback in the case of runtime,
unchecked exceptions; that is, when the thrown exception is an instance or subclass of RuntimeException . ( Error s will also - by default -
result in a rollback). Checked exceptions that are thrown from a transactional method do not result in rollback in the default conﬁguration.

You can configure exactly which Exception types mark a transaction for rollback, including checked exceptions. The following XML snippet
demonstrates how you configure rollback for a checked, application-specific Exception type.

<tx:advice id="txAdvice" transaction-manager="txManager">

<tx:attributes>
<tx:method name="get*" read-only="true" rollback-for="NoProductInStockException"/>
<tx:method name="*"/>
</tx:attributes>
</tx:advice>

You can also specify 'no rollback rules', if you do not want a transaction rolled back when an exception is thrown. The following example tells the
Spring Framework’s transaction infrastructure to commit the attendant transaction even in the face of an unhandled
InstrumentNotFoundException .

<tx:advice id="txAdvice">
<tx:attributes>
<tx:method name="updateStock" no-rollback-for="InstrumentNotFoundException"/>
<tx:method name="*"/>
</tx:attributes>
</tx:advice>

When the Spring Framework’s transaction infrastructure catches an exception and is consults conﬁgured rollback rules to determine whether to mark
the transaction for rollback, the strongest matching rule wins. So in the case of the following conﬁguration, any exception other than an
InstrumentNotFoundException results in a rollback of the attendant transaction.

<tx:advice id="txAdvice">
<tx:attributes>
<tx:method name="*" rollback-for="Throwable" no-rollback-for="InstrumentNotFoundException"/>
</tx:attributes>
</tx:advice>

You can also indicate a required rollback programmatically. Although very simple, this process is quite invasive, and tightly couples your code to the
Spring Framework’s transaction infrastructure:

public void resolvePosition() {

try {
// some business logic...
} catch (NoProductInStockException ex) {
// trigger rollback programmatically
TransactionAspectSupport.currentTransactionStatus().setRollbackOnly();
}
}

You are strongly encouraged to use the declarative approach to rollback if at all possible. Programmatic rollback is available should you absolutely
need it, but its usage ﬂies in the face of achieving a clean POJO-based architecture.

17.5.4 Conﬁguring different transactional semantics for different beans

Consider the scenario where you have a number of service layer objects, and you want to apply a totally different transactional conﬁguration to each
of them. You do this by deﬁning distinct <aop:advisor/> elements with differing pointcut and advice-ref attribute values.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 305/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
As a point of comparison, first assume that all of your service layer classes are defined in a root x.y.service package. To make all beans that
are instances of classes defined in that package (or in subpackages) and that have names ending in Service have the default transactional
configuration, you would write the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<aop:config>

<aop:pointcut id="serviceOperation"
expression="execution(* x.y.service..*Service.*(..))"/>

<aop:advisor pointcut-ref="serviceOperation" advice-ref="txAdvice"/>

</aop:config>

<tx:advice id="txAdvice">
<tx:attributes>
<tx:method name="get*" read-only="true"/>
<tx:method name="*"/>
</tx:attributes>
</tx:advice>

</beans>

The following example shows how to conﬁgure two distinct beans with totally different transactional settings.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<aop:config>

<aop:pointcut id="defaultServiceOperation"
expression="execution(* x.y.service.*Service.*(..))"/>

<aop:pointcut id="noTxServiceOperation"
expression="execution(* x.y.service.ddl.DefaultDdlManager.*(..))"/>

<aop:advisor pointcut-ref="defaultServiceOperation" advice-ref="defaultTxAdvice"/>

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 306/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

<aop:advisor pointcut-ref="noTxServiceOperation" advice-ref="noTxAdvice"/>

</aop:config>

<bean id="fooService" class="x.y.service.DefaultFooService"/>

<bean id="anotherFooService" class="x.y.service.ddl.DefaultDdlManager"/>

<tx:advice id="defaultTxAdvice">
<tx:attributes>
<tx:method name="get*" read-only="true"/>
<tx:method name="*"/>
</tx:attributes>
</tx:advice>

<tx:advice id="noTxAdvice">
<tx:attributes>
<tx:method name="*" propagation="NEVER"/>
</tx:attributes>
</tx:advice>

</beans>

17.5.5 <tx:advice/> settings
This section summarizes the various transactional settings that can be speciﬁed using the <tx:advice/> tag. The default <tx:advice/>
settings are:

Propagation setting is REQUIRED.

Isolation level is DEFAULT.
Transaction is read/write.
Transaction timeout defaults to the default timeout of the underlying transaction system, or none if timeouts are not supported.
Any RuntimeException triggers rollback, and any checked Exception does not.

You can change these default settings; the various attributes of the <tx:method/> tags that are nested within <tx:advice/> and
<tx:attributes/> tags are summarized below:

Table 17.1. <tx:method/> settings

Attribute Required? Default Description

name Yes Method name(s) with which the transaction attributes are to be associated. The
wildcard (*) character can be used to associate the same transaction attribute settings
with a number of methods; for example, get* , handle* , on*Event , and so forth.

propagation No REQUIRED Transaction propagation behavior.

isolation No DEFAULT Transaction isolation level.

timeout No -1 Transaction timeout value (in seconds).

read-only No false Is this transaction read-only?

rollback-for No Exception(s) that trigger rollback; comma-delimited. For example,

com.foo.MyBusinessException,ServletException.

no-rollback-for No Exception(s) that do not trigger rollback; comma-delimited. For example,

com.foo.MyBusinessException,ServletException.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 307/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

17.5.6 Using @Transactional
In addition to the XML-based declarative approach to transaction conﬁguration, you can use an annotation-based approach. Declaring transaction
semantics directly in the Java source code puts the declarations much closer to the affected code. There is not much danger of undue coupling,
because code that is meant to be used transactionally is almost always deployed that way anyway.

The standard javax.transaction.Transactional annotation is also supported as a drop-in replacement to Spring’s own
annotation. Please refer to JTA 1.2 documentation for more details.

The ease-of-use afforded by the use of the @Transactional annotation is best illustrated with an example, which is explained in the text that
follows. Consider the following class deﬁnition:

// the service class that we want to make transactional

@Transactional
public class DefaultFooService implements FooService {

Foo getFoo(String fooName);

Foo getFoo(String fooName, String barName);

void insertFoo(Foo foo);

void updateFoo(Foo foo);

}

When the above POJO is deﬁned as a bean in a Spring IoC container, the bean instance can be made transactional by adding merely one line of
XML conﬁguration:

<?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:aop="http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop"
xmlns:tx="http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx"
xsi:schemaLocation="
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx
http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx/spring-tx.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop
http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop/spring-aop.xsd">

<bean id="fooService" class="x.y.service.DefaultFooService"/>

<tx:annotation-driven transaction-manager="txManager"/>
<bean id="txManager" class="org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.DataSourceTransactionManager">

<property name="dataSource" ref="dataSource"/>
</bean>

</beans>

You can omit the transaction-manager attribute in the <tx:annotation-driven/> tag if the bean name of the
PlatformTransactionManager that you want to wire in has the name transactionManager . If the
PlatformTransactionManager bean that you want to dependency-inject has any other name, then you have to use the
transaction-manager attribute explicitly, as in the preceding example.

The @EnableTransactionManagement annotation provides equivalent support if you are using Java based conﬁguration. Simply
add the annotation to a @Configuration class. See the javadocs for full details.
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 308/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Method visibility and @Transactional

When using proxies, you should apply the @Transactional annotation only to methods with public visibility. If you do annotate protected,
private or package-visible methods with the @Transactional annotation, no error is raised, but the annotated method does not exhibit the
conﬁgured transactional settings. Consider the use of AspectJ (see below) if you need to annotate non-public methods.

You can place the @Transactional annotation before an interface definition, a method on an interface, a class definition, or a public method on a
class. However, the mere presence of the @Transactional annotation is not enough to activate the transactional behavior. The
@Transactional annotation is simply metadata that can be consumed by some runtime infrastructure that is @Transactional -aware and that
can use the metadata to configure the appropriate beans with transactional behavior. In the preceding example, the <tx:annotation-driven/>
element switches on the transactional behavior.

Spring recommends that you only annotate concrete classes (and methods of concrete classes) with the @Transactional
annotation, as opposed to annotating interfaces. You certainly can place the @Transactional annotation on an interface (or an
interface method), but this works only as you would expect it to if you are using interface-based proxies. The fact that Java annotations
are not inherited from interfaces means that if you are using class-based proxies ( proxy-target-class="true" ) or the weaving-
based aspect ( mode="aspectj" ), then the transaction settings are not recognized by the proxying and weaving infrastructure, and
the object will not be wrapped in a transactional proxy, which would be decidedly bad.

In proxy mode (which is the default), only external method calls coming in through the proxy are intercepted. This means that self-
invocation, in effect, a method within the target object calling another method of the target object, will not lead to an actual transaction
at runtime even if the invoked method is marked with @Transactional . Also, the proxy must be fully initialized to provide the
expected behaviour so you should not rely on this feature in your initialization code, i.e. @PostConstruct .

Consider the use of AspectJ mode (see mode attribute in table below) if you expect self-invocations to be wrapped with transactions as well. In this
case, there will not be a proxy in the ﬁrst place; instead, the target class will be weaved (that is, its byte code will be modiﬁed) in order to turn
@Transactional into runtime behavior on any kind of method.

Table 17.2. Annotation driven transaction settings

XML Attribute Annotation Attribute Default Description

transaction-manager N/A (See transactionManager Name of transaction

TransactionManagementConfigurer manager to use. Only
javadocs) required if the name of the
transaction manager is not
transactionManager ,
as in the example above.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 309/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

XML Attribute Annotation Attribute Default Description

mode mode proxy The default mode "proxy"

processes annotated beans
to be proxied using Spring’s
AOP framework (following
proxy semantics, as
discussed above, applying
to method calls coming in
through the proxy only).
The alternative mode
"aspectj" instead weaves
the affected classes with
Spring’s AspectJ
transaction aspect,
modifying the target class
byte code to apply to any
kind of method call.
AspectJ weaving requires
spring-aspects.jar in the
classpath as well as load-
time weaving (or compile-
time weaving) enabled.
(See the section called
“Spring conﬁguration” for
details on how to set up
load-time weaving.)

proxy-target-class proxyTargetClass false Applies to proxy mode only.

Controls what type of
transactional proxies are
created for classes
annotated with the
@Transactional
annotation. If the
proxy-target-class
attribute is set to true ,
then class-based proxies
are created. If
proxy-target-class is
false or if the attribute is
omitted, then standard JDK
interface-based proxies are
created. (See Section 11.6,
“Proxying mechanisms” for
a detailed examination of
the different proxy types.)

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 310/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

XML Attribute Annotation Attribute Default Description

order order Ordered.LOWEST_PRECEDENCE Deﬁnes the order of the

transaction advice that is
applied to beans annotated
with @Transactional .
(For more information about
the rules related to ordering
of AOP advice, see the
section called “Advice
ordering”.) No speciﬁed
ordering means that the
AOP subsystem determines
the order of the advice.

The proxy-target-class attribute controls what type of transactional proxies are created for classes annotated with the
@Transactional annotation. If proxy-target-class is set to true , class-based proxies are created. If
proxy-target-class is false or if the attribute is omitted, standard JDK interface-based proxies are created. (See Section 11.6,
“Proxying mechanisms” for a discussion of the different proxy types.)

@EnableTransactionManagement and <tx:annotation-driven/> only looks for @Transactional on beans in the same
application context they are deﬁned in. This means that, if you put annotation driven conﬁguration in a WebApplicationContext
for a DispatcherServlet , it only checks for @Transactional beans in your controllers, and not your services. See
Section 22.2, “The DispatcherServlet” for more information.

The most derived location takes precedence when evaluating the transactional settings for a method. In the case of the following example, the
DefaultFooService class is annotated at the class level with the settings for a read-only transaction, but the @Transactional annotation on
the updateFoo(Foo) method in the same class takes precedence over the transactional settings deﬁned at the class level.

@Transactional(readOnly = true)
public class DefaultFooService implements FooService {

public Foo getFoo(String fooName) {

// do something
}

// these settings have precedence for this method

@Transactional(readOnly = false, propagation = Propagation.REQUIRES_NEW)
public void updateFoo(Foo foo) {
// do something
}
}

@Transactional settings
The @Transactional annotation is metadata that speciﬁes that an interface, class, or method must have transactional semantics; for example,
"start a brand new read-only transaction when this method is invoked, suspending any existing transaction". The default @Transactional settings
are as follows:

Propagation setting is PROPAGATION_REQUIRED.

Isolation level is ISOLATION_DEFAULT.
Transaction is read/write.
Transaction timeout defaults to the default timeout of the underlying transaction system, or to none if timeouts are not supported.
Any RuntimeException triggers rollback, and any checked Exception does not.

These default settings can be changed; the various properties of the @Transactional annotation are summarized in the following table:

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 311/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Table 17.3. @Transactional Settings

Property Type Description

value String Optional qualiﬁer specifying the transaction

manager to be used.

propagation enum: Propagation Optional propagation setting.

isolation enum: Isolation Optional isolation level.

readOnly boolean Read/write vs. read-only transaction

timeout int (in seconds granularity) Transaction timeout.

rollbackFor Array of Class objects, which must be derived Optional array of exception classes that must cause
from Throwable. rollback.

rollbackForClassName Array of class names. Classes must be derived from Optional array of names of exception classes that
Throwable. must cause rollback.

noRollbackFor Array of Class objects, which must be derived Optional array of exception classes that must not
from Throwable. cause rollback.

noRollbackForClassName Array of String class names, which must be Optional array of names of exception classes that
derived from Throwable. must not cause rollback.

Currently you cannot have explicit control over the name of a transaction, where 'name' means the transaction name that will be shown in a
transaction monitor, if applicable (for example, WebLogic’s transaction monitor), and in logging output. For declarative transactions, the transaction
name is always the fully-qualiﬁed class name + "." + method name of the transactionally-advised class. For example, if the handlePayment(..)
method of the BusinessService class started a transaction, the name of the transaction would be:
com.foo.BusinessService.handlePayment .

Multiple Transaction Managers with @Transactional

Most Spring applications only need a single transaction manager, but there may be situations where you want multiple independent transaction
managers in a single application. The value attribute of the @Transactional annotation can be used to optionally specify the identity of the
PlatformTransactionManager to be used. This can either be the bean name or the qualiﬁer value of the transaction manager bean. For
example, using the qualiﬁer notation, the following Java code

public class TransactionalService {

@Transactional("order")
public void setSomething(String name) { ... }

@Transactional("account")
public void doSomething() { ... }
}

could be combined with the following transaction manager bean declarations in the application context.

<tx:annotation-driven/>

<bean id="transactionManager1" class="org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.DataSourceTransactionManager">

...
<qualifier value="order"/>
</bean>

<bean id="transactionManager2" class="org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.DataSourceTransactionManager">

...
<qualifier value="account"/>
</bean>

In this case, the two methods on TransactionalService will run under separate transaction managers, differentiated by the "order" and
"account" qualiﬁers. The default <tx:annotation-driven> target bean name transactionManager will still be used if no speciﬁcally

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 312/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
qualiﬁed PlatformTransactionManager bean is found.

Custom shortcut annotations

If you find you are repeatedly using the same attributes with @Transactional on many different methods, then Spring’s meta-annotation support
allows you to define custom shortcut annotations for your specific use cases. For example, defining the following annotations

@Target({ElementType.METHOD, ElementType.TYPE})
@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@Transactional("order")
public @interface OrderTx {
}

@Target({ElementType.METHOD, ElementType.TYPE})
@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@Transactional("account")
public @interface AccountTx {
}

allows us to write the example from the previous section as

public class TransactionalService {

@OrderTx
public void setSomething(String name) { ... }

@AccountTx
public void doSomething() { ... }
}

Here we have used the syntax to deﬁne the transaction manager qualiﬁer, but could also have included propagation behavior, rollback rules,
timeouts etc.

17.5.7 Transaction propagation
This section describes some semantics of transaction propagation in Spring. Please note that this section is not an introduction to transaction
propagation proper; rather it details some of the semantics regarding transaction propagation in Spring.

In Spring-managed transactions, be aware of the difference between physical and logical transactions, and how the propagation setting applies to
this difference.

Required

PROPAGATION_REQUIRED

When the propagation setting is PROPAGATION_REQUIRED , a logical transaction scope is created for each method upon which the setting is
applied. Each such logical transaction scope can determine rollback-only status individually, with an outer transaction scope being logically
independent from the inner transaction scope. Of course, in case of standard PROPAGATION_REQUIRED behavior, all these scopes will be mapped

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 313/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
to the same physical transaction. So a rollback-only marker set in the inner transaction scope does affect the outer transaction’s chance to actually
commit (as you would expect it to).

However, in the case where an inner transaction scope sets the rollback-only marker, the outer transaction has not decided on the rollback itself, and
so the rollback (silently triggered by the inner transaction scope) is unexpected. A corresponding UnexpectedRollbackException is thrown at
that point. This is expected behavior so that the caller of a transaction can never be misled to assume that a commit was performed when it really
was not. So if an inner transaction (of which the outer caller is not aware) silently marks a transaction as rollback-only, the outer caller still calls
commit. The outer caller needs to receive an UnexpectedRollbackException to indicate clearly that a rollback was performed instead.

RequiresNew

PROPAGATION_REQUIRES_NEW

PROPAGATION_REQUIRES_NEW , in contrast to PROPAGATION_REQUIRED , uses a completely independent transaction for each affected
transaction scope. In that case, the underlying physical transactions are different and hence can commit or roll back independently, with an outer
transaction not affected by an inner transaction’s rollback status.

Nested
PROPAGATION_NESTED uses a single physical transaction with multiple savepoints that it can roll back to. Such partial rollbacks allow an inner
transaction scope to trigger a rollback for its scope, with the outer transaction being able to continue the physical transaction despite some
operations having been rolled back. This setting is typically mapped onto JDBC savepoints, so will only work with JDBC resource transactions. See
Spring’s DataSourceTransactionManager .

17.5.8 Advising transactional operations

Suppose you want to execute both transactional and some basic proﬁling advice. How do you effect this in the context of
<tx:annotation-driven/> ?

When you invoke the updateFoo(Foo) method, you want to see the following actions:

Conﬁgured proﬁling aspect starts up.

Transactional advice executes.
Method on the advised object executes.
Transaction commits.
Proﬁling aspect reports exact duration of the whole transactional method invocation.

This chapter is not concerned with explaining AOP in any great detail (except as it applies to transactions). See Chapter 11, Aspect
Oriented Programming with Spring for detailed coverage of the following AOP conﬁguration and AOP in general.

Here is the code for a simple proﬁling aspect discussed above. The ordering of advice is controlled through the Ordered interface. For full details
on advice ordering, see the section called “Advice ordering”. .

package x.y;

import org.aspectj.lang.ProceedingJoinPoint;
import org.springframework.util.StopWatch;
import org.springframework.core.Ordered;

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 314/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
public class SimpleProfiler implements Ordered {

private int order;

// allows us to control the ordering of advice

public int getOrder() {
return this.order;
}

public void setOrder(int order) {

this.order = order;
}

// this method is the around advice

public Object profile(ProceedingJoinPoint call) throws Throwable {
Object returnValue;
StopWatch clock = new StopWatch(getClass().getName());
try {
clock.start(call.toShortString());
returnValue = call.proceed();
} finally {
clock.stop();
System.out.println(clock.prettyPrint());
}
return returnValue;
}
}

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<bean id="fooService" class="x.y.service.DefaultFooService"/>

<tx:annotation-driven transaction-manager="txManager" order="200"/>

<aop:config>

<aop:aspect id="profilingAspect" ref="profiler">
<aop:pointcut id="serviceMethodWithReturnValue"
expression="execution(!void x.y..*Service.*(..))"/>
<aop:around method="profile" pointcut-ref="serviceMethodWithReturnValue"/>
</aop:aspect>
</aop:config>

<bean id="dataSource" class="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource" destroy-method="close">

<bean id="txManager" class="org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.DataSourceTransactionManager">

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 315/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
</bean>

</beans>

The result of the above configuration is a fooService bean that has profiling and transactional aspects applied to it in the desired order. You
configure any number of additional aspects in similar fashion.

The following example effects the same setup as above, but uses the purely XML declarative approach.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<bean id="fooService" class="x.y.service.DefaultFooService"/>

<aop:config>
<aop:pointcut id="entryPointMethod" expression="execution(* x.y..*Service.*(..))"/>

<aop:advisor advice-ref="txAdvice" pointcut-ref="entryPointMethod" order="2"/>

<aop:aspect id="profilingAspect" ref="profiler">

<aop:pointcut id="serviceMethodWithReturnValue"
expression="execution(!void x.y..*Service.*(..))"/>
<aop:around method="profile" pointcut-ref="serviceMethodWithReturnValue"/>
</aop:aspect>

</aop:config>

<tx:advice id="txAdvice" transaction-manager="txManager">

<tx:attributes>
<tx:method name="get*" read-only="true"/>
<tx:method name="*"/>
</tx:attributes>
</tx:advice>

</beans>

The result of the above configuration will be a fooService bean that has profiling and transactional aspects applied to it in that order. If you want
the profiling advice to execute after the transactional advice on the way in, and before the transactional advice on the way out, then you simply swap
the value of the profiling aspect bean’s order property so that it is higher than the transactional advice’s order value.

You conﬁgure additional aspects in similar fashion.

17.5.9 Using @Transactional with AspectJ

It is also possible to use the Spring Framework’s @Transactional support outside of a Spring container by means of an AspectJ aspect. To do
so, you ﬁrst annotate your classes (and optionally your classes' methods) with the @Transactional annotation, and then you link (weave) your
application with the org.springframework.transaction.aspectj.AnnotationTransactionAspect deﬁned in the

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 316/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
spring-aspects.jar file. The aspect must also be configured with a transaction manager. You can of course use the Spring Framework’s IoC
container to take care of dependency-injecting the aspect. The simplest way to configure the transaction management aspect is to use the
<tx:annotation-driven/> element and specify the mode attribute to aspectj as described in Section 17.5.6, “Using @Transactional”.
Because we’re focusing here on applications running outside of a Spring container, we’ll show you how to do it programmatically.

Prior to continuing, you may want to read Section 17.5.6, “Using @Transactional” and Chapter 11, Aspect Oriented Programming with
Spring respectively.

// construct an appropriate transaction manager

DataSourceTransactionManager txManager = new DataSourceTransactionManager(getDataSource());

// configure the AnnotationTransactionAspect to use it; this must be done before executing any transactional methods
AnnotationTransactionAspect.aspectOf().setTransactionManager(txManager);

When using this aspect, you must annotate the implementation class (and/or methods within that class), not the interface (if any) that
the class implements. AspectJ follows Java’s rule that annotations on interfaces are not inherited.

The @Transactional annotation on a class speciﬁes the default transaction semantics for the execution of any method in the class.

The @Transactional annotation on a method within the class overrides the default transaction semantics given by the class annotation (if
present). Any method may be annotated, regardless of visibility.

To weave your applications with the AnnotationTransactionAspect you must either build your application with AspectJ (see the AspectJ
Development Guide) or use load-time weaving. See Section 11.8.4, “Load-time weaving with AspectJ in the Spring Framework” for a discussion of
load-time weaving with AspectJ.

17.6 Programmatic transaction management

The Spring Framework provides two means of programmatic transaction management:

Using the TransactionTemplate .

Using a PlatformTransactionManager implementation directly.

The Spring team generally recommends the TransactionTemplate for programmatic transaction management. The second approach is similar
to using the JTA UserTransaction API, although exception handling is less cumbersome.

17.6.1 Using the TransactionTemplate

The TransactionTemplate adopts the same approach as other Spring templates such as the JdbcTemplate . It uses a callback approach, to
free application code from having to do the boilerplate acquisition and release of transactional resources, and results in code that is intention driven,
in that the code that is written focuses solely on what the developer wants to do.

As you will see in the examples that follow, using the TransactionTemplate absolutely couples you to Spring’s transaction
infrastructure and APIs. Whether or not programmatic transaction management is suitable for your development needs is a decision
that you will have to make yourself.

Application code that must execute in a transactional context, and that will use the TransactionTemplate explicitly, looks like the following. You,
as an application developer, write a TransactionCallback implementation (typically expressed as an anonymous inner class) that contains the
code that you need to execute in the context of a transaction. You then pass an instance of your custom TransactionCallback to the
execute(..) method exposed on the TransactionTemplate .

public class SimpleService implements Service {

// single TransactionTemplate shared amongst all methods in this instance

private final TransactionTemplate transactionTemplate;

// use constructor-injection to supply the PlatformTransactionManager

public SimpleService(PlatformTransactionManager transactionManager) {

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 317/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Assert.notNull(transactionManager, "The 'transactionManager' argument must not be null.");
this.transactionTemplate = new TransactionTemplate(transactionManager);
}

public Object someServiceMethod() {

return transactionTemplate.execute(new TransactionCallback() {
// the code in this method executes in a transactional context
public Object doInTransaction(TransactionStatus status) {
updateOperation1();
return resultOfUpdateOperation2();
}
});
}
}

If there is no return value, use the convenient TransactionCallbackWithoutResult class with an anonymous class as follows:

transactionTemplate.execute(new TransactionCallbackWithoutResult() {
protected void doInTransactionWithoutResult(TransactionStatus status) {
updateOperation1();
updateOperation2();
}
});

Code within the callback can roll the transaction back by calling the setRollbackOnly() method on the supplied TransactionStatus object:

transactionTemplate.execute(new TransactionCallbackWithoutResult() {

protected void doInTransactionWithoutResult(TransactionStatus status) {

try {
updateOperation1();
updateOperation2();
} catch (SomeBusinessExeption ex) {
status.setRollbackOnly();
}
}
});

Specifying transaction settings

You can specify transaction settings such as the propagation mode, the isolation level, the timeout, and so forth on the TransactionTemplate
either programmatically or in conﬁguration. TransactionTemplate instances by default have the default transactional settings. The following
example shows the programmatic customization of the transactional settings for a speciﬁc TransactionTemplate:

public class SimpleService implements Service {

private final TransactionTemplate transactionTemplate;

public SimpleService(PlatformTransactionManager transactionManager) {

Assert.notNull(transactionManager, "The 'transactionManager' argument must not be null.");
this.transactionTemplate = new TransactionTemplate(transactionManager);

// the transaction settings can be set here explicitly if so desired

this.transactionTemplate.setIsolationLevel(TransactionDefinition.ISOLATION_READ_UNCOMMITTED);
this.transactionTemplate.setTimeout(30); // 30 seconds
// and so forth...
}
}

The following example deﬁnes a TransactionTemplate with some custom transactional settings, using Spring XML conﬁguration. The
sharedTransactionTemplate can then be injected into as many services as are required.

<bean id="sharedTransactionTemplate"
class="org.springframework.transaction.support.TransactionTemplate">
<property name="isolationLevelName" value="ISOLATION_READ_UNCOMMITTED"/>
<property name="timeout" value="30"/>
</bean>"

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 318/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Finally, instances of the TransactionTemplate class are threadsafe, in that instances do not maintain any conversational state.
TransactionTemplate instances do however maintain conﬁguration state, so while a number of classes may share a single instance of a
TransactionTemplate , if a class needs to use a TransactionTemplate with different settings (for example, a different isolation level), then
you need to create two distinct TransactionTemplate instances.

17.6.2 Using the PlatformTransactionManager

You can also use the org.springframework.transaction.PlatformTransactionManager directly to manage your transaction. Simply
pass the implementation of the PlatformTransactionManager you are using to your bean through a bean reference. Then, using the
TransactionDefinition and TransactionStatus objects you can initiate transactions, roll back, and commit.

DefaultTransactionDefinition def = new DefaultTransactionDefinition();

// explicitly setting the transaction name is something that can only be done programmatically
def.setName("SomeTxName");
def.setPropagationBehavior(TransactionDefinition.PROPAGATION_REQUIRED);

TransactionStatus status = txManager.getTransaction(def);

try {
// execute your business logic here
}
catch (MyException ex) {
txManager.rollback(status);
throw ex;
}
txManager.commit(status);

17.7 Choosing between programmatic and declarative transaction management

Programmatic transaction management is usually a good idea only if you have a small number of transactional operations. For example, if you have
a web application that require transactions only for certain update operations, you may not want to set up transactional proxies using Spring or any
other technology. In this case, using the TransactionTemplate may be a good approach. Being able to set the transaction name explicitly is
also something that can only be done using the programmatic approach to transaction management.

On the other hand, if your application has numerous transactional operations, declarative transaction management is usually worthwhile. It keeps
transaction management out of business logic, and is not difficult to configure. When using the Spring Framework, rather than EJB CMT, the
configuration cost of declarative transaction management is greatly reduced.

17.8 Transaction bound event

As of Spring 4.2, the listener of an event can be bound to a phase of the transaction. The typical example is to handle the event when the transaction
has completed successfully: this allows events to be used with more ﬂexibility when the outcome of the current transaction actually matters to the
listener.

Registering a regular event listener is done via the @EventListener annotation. If you need to bind it to the transaction use
@TransactionalEventListener . When you do so, the listener will be bound to the commit phase of the transaction by default.

Let’s take an example to illustrate this concept. Assume that a component publish an order created event and we want to deﬁne a listener that
should only handle that event once the transaction in which it has been published as committed successfully:

@Component
public class MyComponent {

@TransactionalEventListener
public void handleOrderCreatedEvent(CreationEvent<Order> creationEvent) {
...
}
}

The TransactionalEventListener annotation exposes a phase attribute that allows to customize to which phase of the transaction the
listener should be bound to. The valid phases are BEFORE_COMMIT , AFTER_COMMIT (default), AFTER_ROLLBACK and AFTER_COMPLETION
that aggregates the transaction completion (be it a commit or a rollback).

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 319/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
If no transaction is running, the listener is not invoked at all since we can’t honor the required semantics. It is however possible to override that
behaviour by setting the fallbackExecution attribute of the annotation to true .

17.9 Application server-speciﬁc integration

Spring’s transaction abstraction generally is application server agnostic. Additionally, Spring’s JtaTransactionManager class, which can
optionally perform a JNDI lookup for the JTA UserTransaction and TransactionManager objects, autodetects the location for the latter
object, which varies by application server. Having access to the JTA TransactionManager allows for enhanced transaction semantics, in
particular supporting transaction suspension. See the JtaTransactionManager javadocs for details.

Spring’s JtaTransactionManager is the standard choice to run on Java EE application servers, and is known to work on all common servers.
Advanced functionality such as transaction suspension works on many servers as well — including GlassFish, JBoss and Geronimo — without any
special conﬁguration required. However, for fully supported transaction suspension and further advanced integration, Spring ships special adapters
for WebLogic Server and WebSphere. These adapters are discussed in the following sections.

For standard scenarios, including WebLogic Server and WebSphere, consider using the convenient <tx:jta-transaction-manager/>
configuration element. When configured, this element automatically detects the underlying server and chooses the best transaction manager
available for the platform. This means that you won’t have to configure server-specific adapter classes (as discussed in the following sections)
explicitly; rather, they are chosen automatically, with the standard JtaTransactionManager as default fallback.

17.9.1 IBM WebSphere
On WebSphere 6.1.0.9 and above, the recommended Spring JTA transaction manager to use is WebSphereUowTransactionManager . This
special adapter leverages IBM’s UOWManager API, which is available in WebSphere Application Server 6.1.0.9 and later. With this adapter, Spring-
driven transaction suspension (suspend/resume as initiated by PROPAGATION_REQUIRES_NEW ) is ofﬁcially supported by IBM.

17.9.2 Oracle WebLogic Server

On WebLogic Server 9.0 or above, you typically would use the WebLogicJtaTransactionManager instead of the stock
JtaTransactionManager class. This special WebLogic-speciﬁc subclass of the normal JtaTransactionManager supports the full power of
Spring’s transaction deﬁnitions in a WebLogic-managed transaction environment, beyond standard JTA semantics: Features include transaction
names, per-transaction isolation levels, and proper resuming of transactions in all cases.

17.10 Solutions to common problems

17.10.1 Use of the wrong transaction manager for a speciﬁc DataSource

Use the correct PlatformTransactionManager implementation based on your choice of transactional technologies and requirements. Used
properly, the Spring Framework merely provides a straightforward and portable abstraction. If you are using global transactions, you must use the
org.springframework.transaction.jta.JtaTransactionManager class (or an application server-speciﬁc subclass of it) for all your
transactional operations. Otherwise the transaction infrastructure attempts to perform local transactions on resources such as container
DataSource instances. Such local transactions do not make sense, and a good application server treats them as errors.

17.11 Further Resources
For more information about the Spring Framework’s transaction support:

Distributed transactions in Spring, with and without XA is a JavaWorld presentation in which Spring’s David Syer guides you through seven
patterns for distributed transactions in Spring applications, three of them with XA and four without.
Java Transaction Design Strategies is a book available from InfoQ that provides a well-paced introduction to transactions in Java. It also
includes side-by-side examples of how to conﬁgure and use transactions with both the Spring Framework and EJB3.

18. DAO support

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 320/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

18.1 Introduction
The Data Access Object (DAO) support in Spring is aimed at making it easy to work with data access technologies like JDBC, Hibernate, JPA or
JDO in a consistent way. This allows one to switch between the aforementioned persistence technologies fairly easily and it also allows one to code
without worrying about catching exceptions that are speciﬁc to each technology.

18.2 Consistent exception hierarchy

Spring provides a convenient translation from technology-speciﬁc exceptions like SQLException to its own exception class hierarchy with the
DataAccessException as the root exception. These exceptions wrap the original exception so there is never any risk that one might lose any
information as to what might have gone wrong.

In addition to JDBC exceptions, Spring can also wrap Hibernate-speciﬁc exceptions, converting them to a set of focused runtime exceptions (the
same is true for JDO and JPA exceptions). This allows one to handle most persistence exceptions, which are non-recoverable, only in the
appropriate layers, without having annoying boilerplate catch-and-throw blocks and exception declarations in one’s DAOs. (One can still trap and
handle exceptions anywhere one needs to though.) As mentioned above, JDBC exceptions (including database-speciﬁc dialects) are also converted
to the same hierarchy, meaning that one can perform some operations with JDBC within a consistent programming model.

The above holds true for the various template classes in Springs support for various ORM frameworks. If one uses the interceptor-based classes
then the application must care about handling HibernateExceptions and JDOExceptions itself, preferably via delegating to
SessionFactoryUtils’ `convertHibernateAccessException(..) or convertJdoAccessException() methods respectively. These
methods convert the exceptions to ones that are compatible with the exceptions in the org.springframework.dao exception hierarchy. As
JDOExceptions are unchecked, they can simply get thrown too, sacriﬁcing generic DAO abstraction in terms of exceptions though.

The exception hierarchy that Spring provides can be seen below. (Please note that the class hierarchy detailed in the image shows only a subset of
the entire DataAccessException hierarchy.)

18.3 Annotations used for conﬁguring DAO or Repository classes

The best way to guarantee that your Data Access Objects (DAOs) or repositories provide exception translation is to use the @Repository
annotation. This annotation also allows the component scanning support to find and configure your DAOs and repositories without having to provide
XML configuration entries for them.

@Repository
public class SomeMovieFinder implements MovieFinder {
// ...
}

Any DAO or repository implementation will need to access to a persistence resource, depending on the persistence technology used; for example, a
JDBC-based repository will need access to a JDBC DataSource ; a JPA-based repository will need access to an EntityManager . The easiest
way to accomplish this is to have this resource dependency injected using one of the @Autowired, , @Inject , @Resource or
@PersistenceContext annotations. Here is an example for a JPA repository:

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 321/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

@Repository
public class JpaMovieFinder implements MovieFinder {

@PersistenceContext
private EntityManager entityManager;

// ...

If you are using the classic Hibernate APIs than you can inject the SessionFactory:

@Repository
public class HibernateMovieFinder implements MovieFinder {

private SessionFactory sessionFactory;

@Autowired
public void setSessionFactory(SessionFactory sessionFactory) {
this.sessionFactory = sessionFactory;
}

// ...

Last example we will show here is for typical JDBC support. You would have the DataSource injected into an initialization method where you
would create a JdbcTemplate and other data access support classes like SimpleJdbcCall etc using this DataSource .

@Repository
public class JdbcMovieFinder implements MovieFinder {

private JdbcTemplate jdbcTemplate;

@Autowired
public void init(DataSource dataSource) {
this.jdbcTemplate = new JdbcTemplate(dataSource);
}

// ...

Please see the speciﬁc coverage of each persistence technology for details on how to conﬁgure the application context to take
advantage of these annotations.

19. Data access with JDBC

19.1 Introduction to Spring Framework JDBC

The value-add provided by the Spring Framework JDBC abstraction is perhaps best shown by the sequence of actions outlined in the table below.
The table shows what actions Spring will take care of and which actions are the responsibility of you, the application developer.

Table 19.1. Spring JDBC - who does what?

Action Spring You

Deﬁne connection parameters. X

Open the connection. X

Specify the SQL statement. X

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 322/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Action Spring You

Declare parameters and provide parameter values X

Prepare and execute the statement. X

Set up the loop to iterate through the results (if any). X

Do the work for each iteration. X

Process any exception. X

Handle transactions. X

Close the connection, statement and resultset. X

The Spring Framework takes care of all the low-level details that can make JDBC such a tedious API to develop with.

19.1.1 Choosing an approach for JDBC database access

You can choose among several approaches to form the basis for your JDBC database access. In addition to three ﬂavors of the JdbcTemplate, a
new SimpleJdbcInsert and SimplejdbcCall approach optimizes database metadata, and the RDBMS Object style takes a more object-oriented
approach similar to that of JDO Query design. Once you start using one of these approaches, you can still mix and match to include a feature from a
different approach. All approaches require a JDBC 2.0-compliant driver, and some advanced features require a JDBC 3.0 driver.

JdbcTemplate is the classic Spring JDBC approach and the most popular. This "lowest level" approach and all others use a JdbcTemplate under
the covers.
NamedParameterJdbcTemplate wraps a JdbcTemplate to provide named parameters instead of the traditional JDBC "?" placeholders. This
approach provides better documentation and ease of use when you have multiple parameters for an SQL statement.
SimpleJdbcInsert and SimpleJdbcCall optimize database metadata to limit the amount of necessary configuration. This approach simplifies
coding so that you only need to provide the name of the table or procedure and provide a map of parameters matching the column names. This
only works if the database provides adequate metadata. If the database doesn’t provide this metadata, you will have to provide explicit
configuration of the parameters.
RDBMS Objects including MappingSqlQuery, SqlUpdate and StoredProcedure requires you to create reusable and thread-safe objects during
initialization of your data access layer. This approach is modeled after JDO Query wherein you define your query string, declare parameters, and
compile the query. Once you do that, execute methods can be called multiple times with various parameter values passed in.

19.1.2 Package hierarchy
The Spring Framework’s JDBC abstraction framework consists of four different packages, namely core , datasource , object , and support .

The org.springframework.jdbc.core package contains the JdbcTemplate class and its various callback interfaces, plus a variety of
related classes. A subpackage named org.springframework.jdbc.core.simple contains the SimpleJdbcInsert and
SimpleJdbcCall classes. Another subpackage named org.springframework.jdbc.core.namedparam contains the
NamedParameterJdbcTemplate class and the related support classes. See Section 19.2, “Using the JDBC core classes to control basic JDBC
processing and error handling”, Section 19.4, “JDBC batch operations”, and Section 19.5, “Simplifying JDBC operations with the SimpleJdbc
classes”.

The org.springframework.jdbc.datasource package contains a utility class for easy DataSource access, and various simple
DataSource implementations that can be used for testing and running unmodiﬁed JDBC code outside of a Java EE container. A subpackage
named org.springfamework.jdbc.datasource.embedded provides support for creating embedded databases using Java database engines
such as HSQL, H2, and Derby. See Section 19.3, “Controlling database connections” and Section 19.8, “Embedded database support”.

The org.springframework.jdbc.object package contains classes that represent RDBMS queries, updates, and stored procedures as
thread-safe, reusable objects. See Section 19.6, “Modeling JDBC operations as Java objects”. This approach is modeled by JDO, although objects
returned by queries are naturally disconnected from the database. This higher level of JDBC abstraction depends on the lower-level abstraction in
the org.springframework.jdbc.core package.

The org.springframework.jdbc.support package provides SQLException translation functionality and some utility classes. Exceptions
thrown during JDBC processing are translated to exceptions deﬁned in the org.springframework.dao package. This means that code using
the Spring JDBC abstraction layer does not need to implement JDBC or RDBMS-speciﬁc error handling. All translated exceptions are unchecked,

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 323/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
which gives you the option of catching the exceptions from which you can recover while allowing other exceptions to be propagated to the caller. See
Section 19.2.3, “SQLExceptionTranslator”.

19.2 Using the JDBC core classes to control basic JDBC processing and error handling

19.2.1 JdbcTemplate
The JdbcTemplate class is the central class in the JDBC core package. It handles the creation and release of resources, which helps you avoid
common errors such as forgetting to close the connection. It performs the basic tasks of the core JDBC workﬂow such as statement creation and
execution, leaving application code to provide SQL and extract results. The JdbcTemplate class executes SQL queries, update statements and
stored procedure calls, performs iteration over ResultSet s and extraction of returned parameter values. It also catches JDBC exceptions and
translates them to the generic, more informative, exception hierarchy deﬁned in the org.springframework.dao package.

When you use the JdbcTemplate for your code, you only need to implement callback interfaces, giving them a clearly deﬁned contract. The
PreparedStatementCreator callback interface creates a prepared statement given a Connection provided by this class, providing SQL and
any necessary parameters. The same is true for the CallableStatementCreator interface, which creates callable statements. The
RowCallbackHandler interface extracts values from each row of a ResultSet .

The JdbcTemplate can be used within a DAO implementation through direct instantiation with a DataSource reference, or be conﬁgured in a
Spring IoC container and given to DAOs as a bean reference.

The DataSource should always be conﬁgured as a bean in the Spring IoC container. In the ﬁrst case the bean is given to the service
directly; in the second case it is given to the prepared template.

All SQL issued by this class is logged at the DEBUG level under the category corresponding to the fully qualiﬁed class name of the template instance
(typically JdbcTemplate , but it may be different if you are using a custom subclass of the JdbcTemplate class).

Examples of JdbcTemplate class usage

This section provides some examples of JdbcTemplate class usage. These examples are not an exhaustive list of all of the functionality exposed
by the JdbcTemplate ; see the attendant javadocs for that.

Querying (SELECT)
Here is a simple query for getting the number of rows in a relation:

int rowCount = this.jdbcTemplate.queryForObject("select count(*) from t_actor", Integer.class);

A simple query using a bind variable:

int countOfActorsNamedJoe = this.jdbcTemplate.queryForObject(

"select count(*) from t_actor where first_name = ?", Integer.class, "Joe");

Querying for a String :

String lastName = this.jdbcTemplate.queryForObject(

"select last_name from t_actor where id = ?",
new Object[]{1212L}, String.class);

Querying and populating a single domain object:

Actor actor = this.jdbcTemplate.queryForObject(

"select first_name, last_name from t_actor where id = ?",
new Object[]{1212L},
new RowMapper<Actor>() {
public Actor mapRow(ResultSet rs, int rowNum) throws SQLException {
Actor actor = new Actor();
actor.setFirstName(rs.getString("first_name"));
actor.setLastName(rs.getString("last_name"));
return actor;
}
});
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 324/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
});

Querying and populating a number of domain objects:

List<Actor> actors = this.jdbcTemplate.query(

"select first_name, last_name from t_actor",
new RowMapper<Actor>() {
public Actor mapRow(ResultSet rs, int rowNum) throws SQLException {
Actor actor = new Actor();
actor.setFirstName(rs.getString("first_name"));
actor.setLastName(rs.getString("last_name"));
return actor;
}
});

If the last two snippets of code actually existed in the same application, it would make sense to remove the duplication present in the two
RowMapper anonymous inner classes, and extract them out into a single class (typically a static nested class) that can then be referenced by
DAO methods as needed. For example, it may be better to write the last code snippet as follows:

public List<Actor> findAllActors() {

return this.jdbcTemplate.query( "select first_name, last_name from t_actor", new ActorMapper());
}

private static final class ActorMapper implements RowMapper<Actor> {

public Actor mapRow(ResultSet rs, int rowNum) throws SQLException {

Actor actor = new Actor();
actor.setFirstName(rs.getString("first_name"));
actor.setLastName(rs.getString("last_name"));
return actor;
}
}

Updating (INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE) with jdbcTemplate

You use the update(..) method to perform insert, update and delete operations. Parameter values are usually provided as var args or
alternatively as an object array.

this.jdbcTemplate.update(
"insert into t_actor (first_name, last_name) values (?, ?)",
"Leonor", "Watling");

this.jdbcTemplate.update(
"update t_actor set last_name = ? where id = ?",
"Banjo", 5276L);

this.jdbcTemplate.update(
"delete from actor where id = ?",
Long.valueOf(actorId));

Other jdbcTemplate operations

You can use the execute(..) method to execute any arbitrary SQL, and as such the method is often used for DDL statements. It is heavily
overloaded with variants taking callback interfaces, binding variable arrays, and so on.

this.jdbcTemplate.execute("create table mytable (id integer, name varchar(100))");

The following example invokes a simple stored procedure. More sophisticated stored procedure support is covered later.

this.jdbcTemplate.update(
"call SUPPORT.REFRESH_ACTORS_SUMMARY(?)",
Long.valueOf(unionId));

JdbcTemplate best practices

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 325/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Instances of the JdbcTemplate class are threadsafe once conﬁgured. This is important because it means that you can conﬁgure a single instance
of a JdbcTemplate and then safely inject this shared reference into multiple DAOs (or repositories). The JdbcTemplate is stateful, in that it
maintains a reference to a DataSource , but this state is not conversational state.

A common practice when using the JdbcTemplate class (and the associated NamedParameterJdbcTemplate classes) is to configure a
DataSource in your Spring configuration file, and then dependency-inject that shared DataSource bean into your DAO classes; the
JdbcTemplate is created in the setter for the DataSource . This leads to DAOs that look in part like the following:

public class JdbcCorporateEventDao implements CorporateEventDao {

private JdbcTemplate jdbcTemplate;

public void setDataSource(DataSource dataSource) {

this.jdbcTemplate = new JdbcTemplate(dataSource);
}

// JDBC-backed implementations of the methods on the CorporateEventDao follow...

}

The corresponding conﬁguration might look like this.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<bean id="corporateEventDao" class="com.example.JdbcCorporateEventDao">

<bean id="dataSource" class="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource" destroy-method="close">

<context:property-placeholder location="jdbc.properties"/>

</beans>

An alternative to explicit conﬁguration is to use component-scanning and annotation support for dependency injection. In this case you annotate the
class with @Repository (which makes it a candidate for component-scanning) and annotate the DataSource setter method with @Autowired .

@Repository
public class JdbcCorporateEventDao implements CorporateEventDao {

private JdbcTemplate jdbcTemplate;

@Autowired
public void setDataSource(DataSource dataSource) {
this.jdbcTemplate = new JdbcTemplate(dataSource);
}

// JDBC-backed implementations of the methods on the CorporateEventDao follow...

}

The corresponding XML conﬁguration ﬁle would look like the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<context:component-scan base-package="org.springframework.docs.test" />

<bean id="dataSource" class="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource" destroy-method="close">

<context:property-placeholder location="jdbc.properties"/>

</beans>

If you are using Spring’s JdbcDaoSupport class, and your various JDBC-backed DAO classes extend from it, then your sub-class inherits a
setDataSource(..) method from the JdbcDaoSupport class. You can choose whether to inherit from this class. The JdbcDaoSupport
class is provided as a convenience only.

Regardless of which of the above template initialization styles you choose to use (or not), it is seldom necessary to create a new instance of a
JdbcTemplate class each time you want to execute SQL. Once conﬁgured, a JdbcTemplate instance is threadsafe. You may want multiple
JdbcTemplate instances if your application accesses multiple databases, which requires multiple DataSources , and subsequently multiple
differently conﬁgured JdbcTemplates .

19.2.2 NamedParameterJdbcTemplate
The NamedParameterJdbcTemplate class adds support for programming JDBC statements using named parameters, as opposed to
programming JDBC statements using only classic placeholder ( '?' ) arguments. The NamedParameterJdbcTemplate class wraps a
JdbcTemplate , and delegates to the wrapped JdbcTemplate to do much of its work. This section describes only those areas of the
NamedParameterJdbcTemplate class that differ from the JdbcTemplate itself; namely, programming JDBC statements using named
parameters.

// some JDBC-backed DAO class...

private NamedParameterJdbcTemplate namedParameterJdbcTemplate;

public void setDataSource(DataSource dataSource) {

this.namedParameterJdbcTemplate = new NamedParameterJdbcTemplate(dataSource);
}

public int countOfActorsByFirstName(String firstName) {

String sql = "select count(*) from T_ACTOR where first_name = :first_name";

SqlParameterSource namedParameters = new MapSqlParameterSource("first_name", firstName);

return this.namedParameterJdbcTemplate.queryForObject(sql, namedParameters, Integer.class);

}

Notice the use of the named parameter notation in the value assigned to the sql variable, and the corresponding value that is plugged into the
namedParameters variable (of type MapSqlParameterSource ).

Alternatively, you can pass along named parameters and their corresponding values to a NamedParameterJdbcTemplate instance by using the
Map -based style.The remaining methods exposed by the NamedParameterJdbcOperations and implemented by the
NamedParameterJdbcTemplate class follow a similar pattern and are not covered here.

The following example shows the use of the Map -based style.

// some JDBC-backed DAO class...

private NamedParameterJdbcTemplate namedParameterJdbcTemplate;

public void setDataSource(DataSource dataSource) {

this.namedParameterJdbcTemplate = new NamedParameterJdbcTemplate(dataSource);
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 327/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
this.namedParameterJdbcTemplate = new NamedParameterJdbcTemplate(dataSource);
}

public int countOfActorsByFirstName(String firstName) {

String sql = "select count(*) from T_ACTOR where first_name = :first_name";

Map<String, String> namedParameters = Collections.singletonMap("first_name", firstName);

return this.namedParameterJdbcTemplate.queryForObject(sql, namedParameters, Integer.class);

}

One nice feature related to the NamedParameterJdbcTemplate (and existing in the same Java package) is the SqlParameterSource
interface. You have already seen an example of an implementation of this interface in one of the previous code snippet (the
MapSqlParameterSource class). An SqlParameterSource is a source of named parameter values to a NamedParameterJdbcTemplate .
The MapSqlParameterSource class is a very simple implementation that is simply an adapter around a java.util.Map , where the keys are
the parameter names and the values are the parameter values.

Another SqlParameterSource implementation is the BeanPropertySqlParameterSource class. This class wraps an arbitrary JavaBean
(that is, an instance of a class that adheres to the JavaBean conventions), and uses the properties of the wrapped JavaBean as the source of
named parameter values.

public class Actor {

private Long id;

private String firstName;
private String lastName;

public String getFirstName() {

return this.firstName;
}

public String getLastName() {

return this.lastName;
}

public Long getId() {

return this.id;
}

// setters omitted...

// some JDBC-backed DAO class...

private NamedParameterJdbcTemplate namedParameterJdbcTemplate;

public void setDataSource(DataSource dataSource) {

this.namedParameterJdbcTemplate = new NamedParameterJdbcTemplate(dataSource);
}

public int countOfActors(Actor exampleActor) {

// notice how the named parameters match the properties of the above 'Actor' class

String sql = "select count(*) from T_ACTOR where first_name = :firstName and last_name = :lastName";

SqlParameterSource namedParameters = new BeanPropertySqlParameterSource(exampleActor);

return this.namedParameterJdbcTemplate.queryForObject(sql, namedParameters, Integer.class);

}

Remember that the NamedParameterJdbcTemplate class wraps a classic JdbcTemplate template; if you need access to the wrapped
JdbcTemplate instance to access functionality only present in the JdbcTemplate class, you can use the getJdbcOperations() method to
access the wrapped JdbcTemplate through the JdbcOperations interface.

See also the section called “JdbcTemplate best practices” for guidelines on using the NamedParameterJdbcTemplate class in the context of an
application.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 328/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

19.2.3 SQLExceptionTranslator
SQLExceptionTranslator is an interface to be implemented by classes that can translate between SQLExceptions and Spring’s own
org.springframework.dao.DataAccessException , which is agnostic in regard to data access strategy. Implementations can be generic (for
example, using SQLState codes for JDBC) or proprietary (for example, using Oracle error codes) for greater precision.

SQLErrorCodeSQLExceptionTranslator is the implementation of SQLExceptionTranslator that is used by default. This implementation

uses specific vendor codes. It is more precise than the SQLState implementation. The error code translations are based on codes held in a
JavaBean type class called SQLErrorCodes . This class is created and populated by an SQLErrorCodesFactory which as the name suggests
is a factory for creating SQLErrorCodes based on the contents of a configuration file named sql-error-codes.xml . This file is populated with
vendor codes and based on the DatabaseProductName taken from the DatabaseMetaData . The codes for the actual database you are using
are used.

The SQLErrorCodeSQLExceptionTranslator applies matching rules in the following sequence:

The SQLErrorCodesFactory is used by default to deﬁne Error codes and custom exception translations. They are looked up in a
ﬁle named sql-error-codes.xml from the classpath and the matching SQLErrorCodes instance is located based on the
database name from the database metadata of the database in use.

Any custom translation implemented by a subclass. Normally the provided concrete SQLErrorCodeSQLExceptionTranslator is used so
this rule does not apply. It only applies if you have actually provided a subclass implementation.
Any custom implementation of the SQLExceptionTranslator interface that is provided as the customSqlExceptionTranslator
property of the SQLErrorCodes class.
The list of instances of the CustomSQLErrorCodesTranslation class, provided for the customTranslations property of the
SQLErrorCodes class, are searched for a match.
Error code matching is applied.
Use the fallback translator. SQLExceptionSubclassTranslator is the default fallback translator. If this translation is not available then the
next fallback translator is the SQLStateSQLExceptionTranslator .

You can extend SQLErrorCodeSQLExceptionTranslator:

public class CustomSQLErrorCodesTranslator extends SQLErrorCodeSQLExceptionTranslator {

protected DataAccessException customTranslate(String task, String sql, SQLException sqlex) {

if (sqlex.getErrorCode() == -12345) {
return new DeadlockLoserDataAccessException(task, sqlex);
}
return null;
}
}

In this example, the speciﬁc error code -12345 is translated and other errors are left to be translated by the default translator implementation. To
use this custom translator, it is necessary to pass it to the JdbcTemplate through the method setExceptionTranslator and to use this
JdbcTemplate for all of the data access processing where this translator is needed. Here is an example of how this custom translator can be
used:

private JdbcTemplate jdbcTemplate;

public void setDataSource(DataSource dataSource) {

// create a JdbcTemplate and set data source

this.jdbcTemplate = new JdbcTemplate();
this.jdbcTemplate.setDataSource(dataSource);

// create a custom translator and set the DataSource for the default translation lookup
CustomSQLErrorCodesTranslator tr = new CustomSQLErrorCodesTranslator();
tr.setDataSource(dataSource);
this.jdbcTemplate.setExceptionTranslator(tr);

public void updateShippingCharge(long orderId, long pct) {

// use the prepared JdbcTemplate for this update
this.jdbcTemplate.update("update orders" +
" set shipping_charge = shipping_charge * ? / 100" +
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 329/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
" set shipping_charge = shipping_charge * ? / 100" +
" where id = ?", pct, orderId);
}

The custom translator is passed a data source in order to look up the error codes in sql-error-codes.xml .

19.2.4 Executing statements
Executing an SQL statement requires very little code. You need a DataSource and a JdbcTemplate , including the convenience methods that
are provided with the JdbcTemplate . The following example shows what you need to include for a minimal but fully functional class that creates a
new table:

import javax.sql.DataSource;
import org.springframework.jdbc.core.JdbcTemplate;

public class ExecuteAStatement {

private JdbcTemplate jdbcTemplate;

public void setDataSource(DataSource dataSource) {

this.jdbcTemplate = new JdbcTemplate(dataSource);
}

public void doExecute() {

this.jdbcTemplate.execute("create table mytable (id integer, name varchar(100))");
}
}

19.2.5 Running queries
Some query methods return a single value. To retrieve a count or a speciﬁc value from one row, use queryForObject(..) . The latter converts
the returned JDBC Type to the Java class that is passed in as an argument. If the type conversion is invalid, then an
InvalidDataAccessApiUsageException is thrown. Here is an example that contains two query methods, one for an int and one that
queries for a String .

import javax.sql.DataSource;
import org.springframework.jdbc.core.JdbcTemplate;

public class RunAQuery {

private JdbcTemplate jdbcTemplate;

public void setDataSource(DataSource dataSource) {

this.jdbcTemplate = new JdbcTemplate(dataSource);
}

public int getCount() {

return this.jdbcTemplate.queryForObject("select count(*) from mytable", Integer.class);
}

public String getName() {

return this.jdbcTemplate.queryForObject("select name from mytable", String.class);
}
}

In addition to the single result query methods, several methods return a list with an entry for each row that the query returned. The most generic
method is queryForList(..) which returns a List where each entry is a Map with each entry in the map representing the column value for
that row. If you add a method to the above example to retrieve a list of all the rows, it would look like this:

private JdbcTemplate jdbcTemplate;

public void setDataSource(DataSource dataSource) {

this.jdbcTemplate = new JdbcTemplate(dataSource);
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 330/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
public List<Map<String, Object>> getList() {
return this.jdbcTemplate.queryForList("select * from mytable");
}

The list returned would look something like this:

[{name=Bob, id=1}, {name=Mary, id=2}]

19.2.6 Updating the database

The following example shows a column updated for a certain primary key. In this example, an SQL statement has placeholders for row parameters.
The parameter values can be passed in as varargs or alternatively as an array of objects. Thus primitives should be wrapped in the primitive wrapper
classes explicitly or using auto-boxing.

import javax.sql.DataSource;

import org.springframework.jdbc.core.JdbcTemplate;

public class ExecuteAnUpdate {

private JdbcTemplate jdbcTemplate;

public void setDataSource(DataSource dataSource) {

this.jdbcTemplate = new JdbcTemplate(dataSource);
}

public void setName(int id, String name) {

this.jdbcTemplate.update("update mytable set name = ? where id = ?", name, id);
}
}

19.2.7 Retrieving auto-generated keys

An update() convenience method supports the retrieval of primary keys generated by the database. This support is part of the JDBC 3.0
standard; see Chapter 13.6 of the specification for details. The method takes a PreparedStatementCreator as its first argument, and this is the
way the required insert statement is specified. The other argument is a KeyHolder , which contains the generated key on successful return from
the update. There is not a standard single way to create an appropriate PreparedStatement (which explains why the method signature is the
way it is). The following example works on Oracle but may not work on other platforms:

final String INSERT_SQL = "insert into my_test (name) values(?)";

final String name = "Rob";

KeyHolder keyHolder = new GeneratedKeyHolder();

jdbcTemplate.update(
new PreparedStatementCreator() {
public PreparedStatement createPreparedStatement(Connection connection) throws SQLException {
PreparedStatement ps = connection.prepareStatement(INSERT_SQL, new String[] {"id"});
ps.setString(1, name);
return ps;
}
},
keyHolder);

// keyHolder.getKey() now contains the generated key

19.3 Controlling database connections

19.3.1 DataSource
Spring obtains a connection to the database through a DataSource . A DataSource is part of the JDBC speciﬁcation and is a generalized
connection factory. It allows a container or a framework to hide connection pooling and transaction management issues from the application code. As
a developer, you need not know details about how to connect to the database; that is the responsibility of the administrator that sets up the

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 331/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
datasource. You most likely ﬁll both roles as you develop and test code, but you do not necessarily have to know how the production data source is
conﬁgured.

When using Spring’s JDBC layer, you obtain a data source from JNDI or you conﬁgure your own with a connection pool implementation provided by
a third party. Popular implementations are Apache Jakarta Commons DBCP and C3P0. Implementations in the Spring distribution are meant only for
testing purposes and do not provide pooling.

This section uses Spring’s DriverManagerDataSource implementation, and several additional implementations are covered later.

Only use the DriverManagerDataSource class should only be used for testing purposes since it does not provide pooling and will
perform poorly when multiple requests for a connection are made.

You obtain a connection with DriverManagerDataSource as you typically obtain a JDBC connection. Specify the fully qualiﬁed classname of the
JDBC driver so that the DriverManager can load the driver class. Next, provide a URL that varies between JDBC drivers. (Consult the
documentation for your driver for the correct value.) Then provide a username and a password to connect to the database. Here is an example of
how to conﬁgure a DriverManagerDataSource in Java code:

DriverManagerDataSource dataSource = new DriverManagerDataSource();

dataSource.setDriverClassName("org.hsqldb.jdbcDriver");
dataSource.setUrl("jdbc:hsqldb:hsql://localhost:");
dataSource.setUsername("sa");
dataSource.setPassword("");

Here is the corresponding XML conﬁguration:

<bean id="dataSource" class="org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.DriverManagerDataSource">

<context:property-placeholder location="jdbc.properties"/>

The following examples show the basic connectivity and conﬁguration for DBCP and C3P0. To learn about more options that help control the pooling
features, see the product documentation for the respective connection pooling implementations.

DBCP conﬁguration:

<bean id="dataSource" class="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource" destroy-method="close">

<context:property-placeholder location="jdbc.properties"/>

C3P0 conﬁguration:

<bean id="dataSource" class="com.mchange.v2.c3p0.ComboPooledDataSource" destroy-method="close">

<context:property-placeholder location="jdbc.properties"/>

19.3.2 DataSourceUtils
The DataSourceUtils class is a convenient and powerful helper class that provides static methods to obtain connections from JNDI and
close connections if necessary. It supports thread-bound connections with, for example, DataSourceTransactionManager .

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 332/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

19.3.3 SmartDataSource
The SmartDataSource interface should be implemented by classes that can provide a connection to a relational database. It extends the
DataSource interface to allow classes using it to query whether the connection should be closed after a given operation. This usage is efﬁcient
when you know that you will reuse a connection.

19.3.4 AbstractDataSource
AbstractDataSource is an abstract base class for Spring’s DataSource implementations that implements code that is common to all
DataSource implementations. You extend the AbstractDataSource class if you are writing your own DataSource implementation.

19.3.5 SingleConnectionDataSource
The SingleConnectionDataSource class is an implementation of the SmartDataSource interface that wraps a single Connection that is
not closed after each use. Obviously, this is not multi-threading capable.

If any client code calls close in the assumption of a pooled connection, as when using persistence tools, set the suppressClose property to
true . This setting returns a close-suppressing proxy wrapping the physical connection. Be aware that you will not be able to cast this to a native
Oracle Connection or the like anymore.

This is primarily a test class. For example, it enables easy testing of code outside an application server, in conjunction with a simple JNDI
environment. In contrast to DriverManagerDataSource , it reuses the same connection all the time, avoiding excessive creation of physical
connections.

19.3.6 DriverManagerDataSource
The DriverManagerDataSource class is an implementation of the standard DataSource interface that conﬁgures a plain JDBC driver through
bean properties, and returns a new Connection every time.

This implementation is useful for test and stand-alone environments outside of a Java EE container, either as a DataSource bean in a Spring IoC
container, or in conjunction with a simple JNDI environment. Pool-assuming Connection.close() calls will simply close the connection, so any
DataSource -aware persistence code should work. However, using JavaBean-style connection pools such as commons-dbcp is so easy, even in
a test environment, that it is almost always preferable to use such a connection pool over DriverManagerDataSource .

19.3.7 TransactionAwareDataSourceProxy
TransactionAwareDataSourceProxy is a proxy for a target DataSource , which wraps that target DataSource to add awareness of
Spring-managed transactions. In this respect, it is similar to a transactional JNDI DataSource as provided by a Java EE server.

It is rarely desirable to use this class, except when already existing code that must be called and passed a standard JDBC
DataSource interface implementation. In this case, it’s possible to still have this code be usable, and at the same time have this
code participating in Spring managed transactions. It is generally preferable to write your own new code using the higher level
abstractions for resource management, such as JdbcTemplate or DataSourceUtils .

(See the TransactionAwareDataSourceProxy javadocs for more details.)

19.3.8 DataSourceTransactionManager
The DataSourceTransactionManager class is a PlatformTransactionManager implementation for single JDBC datasources. It binds a
JDBC connection from the speciﬁed data source to the currently executing thread, potentially allowing for one thread connection per data source.

Application code is required to retrieve the JDBC connection through DataSourceUtils.getConnection(DataSource) instead of Java EE’s
standard DataSource.getConnection . It throws unchecked org.springframework.dao exceptions instead of checked SQLExceptions .
All framework classes like JdbcTemplate use this strategy implicitly. If not used with this transaction manager, the lookup strategy behaves
exactly like the common one - it can thus be used in any case.

The DataSourceTransactionManager class supports custom isolation levels, and timeouts that get applied as appropriate JDBC statement
query timeouts. To support the latter, application code must either use JdbcTemplate or call the

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 333/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
DataSourceUtils.applyTransactionTimeout(..) method for each created statement.

This implementation can be used instead of JtaTransactionManager in the single resource case, as it does not require the container to support
JTA. Switching between both is just a matter of conﬁguration, if you stick to the required connection lookup pattern. JTA does not support custom
isolation levels!

19.3.9 NativeJdbcExtractor
Sometimes you need to access vendor speciﬁc JDBC methods that differ from the standard JDBC API. This can be problematic if you are running in
an application server or with a DataSource that wraps the Connection , Statement and ResultSet objects with its own wrapper objects.
To gain access to the native objects you can conﬁgure your JdbcTemplate or OracleLobHandler with a NativeJdbcExtractor .

The NativeJdbcExtractor comes in a variety of ﬂavors to match your execution environment:

SimpleNativeJdbcExtractor
C3P0NativeJdbcExtractor
CommonsDbcpNativeJdbcExtractor
JBossNativeJdbcExtractor
WebLogicNativeJdbcExtractor
WebSphereNativeJdbcExtractor
XAPoolNativeJdbcExtractor

Usually the SimpleNativeJdbcExtractor is sufﬁcient for unwrapping a Connection object in most environments. See the javadocs for more
details.

19.4 JDBC batch operations

Most JDBC drivers provide improved performance if you batch multiple calls to the same prepared statement. By grouping updates into batches you
limit the number of round trips to the database.

19.4.1 Basic batch operations with the JdbcTemplate

You accomplish JdbcTemplate batch processing by implementing two methods of a special interface, BatchPreparedStatementSetter ,
and passing that in as the second parameter in your batchUpdate method call. Use the getBatchSize method to provide the size of the
current batch. Use the setValues method to set the values for the parameters of the prepared statement. This method will be called the number
of times that you speciﬁed in the getBatchSize call. The following example updates the actor table based on entries in a list. The entire list is
used as the batch in this example:

public class JdbcActorDao implements ActorDao {

private JdbcTemplate jdbcTemplate;

public void setDataSource(DataSource dataSource) {

this.jdbcTemplate = new JdbcTemplate(dataSource);
}

public int[] batchUpdate(final List<Actor> actors) {

int[] updateCounts = jdbcTemplate.batchUpdate("update t_actor set first_name = ?, " +
"last_name = ? where id = ?",
new BatchPreparedStatementSetter() {
public void setValues(PreparedStatement ps, int i) throws SQLException {
ps.setString(1, actors.get(i).getFirstName());
ps.setString(2, actors.get(i).getLastName());
ps.setLong(3, actors.get(i).getId().longValue());
}

public int getBatchSize() {

return actors.size();
}
});
return updateCounts;
}

// ... additional methods

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 334/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
// ... additional methods
}

If you are processing a stream of updates or reading from a ﬁle, then you might have a preferred batch size, but the last batch might not have that
number of entries. In this case you can use the InterruptibleBatchPreparedStatementSetter interface, which allows you to interrupt a
batch once the input source is exhausted. The isBatchExhausted method allows you to signal the end of the batch.

19.4.2 Batch operations with a List of objects

Both the JdbcTemplate and the NamedParameterJdbcTemplate provides an alternate way of providing the batch update. Instead of
implementing a special batch interface, you provide all parameter values in the call as a list. The framework loops over these values and uses an
internal prepared statement setter. The API varies depending on whether you use named parameters. For the named parameters you provide an
array of SqlParameterSource , one entry for each member of the batch. You can use the SqlParameterSource.createBatch method to
create this array, passing in either an array of JavaBeans or an array of Maps containing the parameter values.

This example shows a batch update using named parameters:

public class JdbcActorDao implements ActorDao {

private NamedParameterTemplate namedParameterJdbcTemplate;

public void setDataSource(DataSource dataSource) {

this.namedParameterJdbcTemplate = new NamedParameterJdbcTemplate(dataSource);
}

public int[] batchUpdate(final List<Actor> actors) {

SqlParameterSource[] batch = SqlParameterSourceUtils.createBatch(actors.toArray());
int[] updateCounts = namedParameterJdbcTemplate.batchUpdate(
"update t_actor set first_name = :firstName, last_name = :lastName where id = :id",
batch);
return updateCounts;
}

// ... additional methods

}

For an SQL statement using the classic "?" placeholders, you pass in a list containing an object array with the update values. This object array must
have one entry for each placeholder in the SQL statement, and they must be in the same order as they are deﬁned in the SQL statement.

The same example using classic JDBC "?" placeholders:

public class JdbcActorDao implements ActorDao {

private JdbcTemplate jdbcTemplate;

public void setDataSource(DataSource dataSource) {

this.jdbcTemplate = new JdbcTemplate(dataSource);
}

public int[] batchUpdate(final List<Actor> actors) {

List<Object[]> batch = new ArrayList<Object[]>();
for (Actor actor : actors) {
Object[] values = new Object[] {
actor.getFirstName(),
actor.getLastName(),
actor.getId()};
batch.add(values);
}
int[] updateCounts = jdbcTemplate.batchUpdate(
"update t_actor set first_name = ?, last_name = ? where id = ?",
batch);
return updateCounts;
}

// ... additional methods

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 335/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
All of the above batch update methods return an int array containing the number of affected rows for each batch entry. This count is reported by the
JDBC driver. If the count is not available, the JDBC driver returns a -2 value.

19.4.3 Batch operations with multiple batches

The last example of a batch update deals with batches that are so large that you want to break them up into several smaller batches. You can of
course do this with the methods mentioned above by making multiple calls to the batchUpdate method, but there is now a more convenient
method. This method takes, in addition to the SQL statement, a Collection of objects containing the parameters, the number of updates to make for
each batch and a ParameterizedPreparedStatementSetter to set the values for the parameters of the prepared statement. The framework
loops over the provided values and breaks the update calls into batches of the size speciﬁed.

This example shows a batch update using a batch size of 100:

public class JdbcActorDao implements ActorDao {

private JdbcTemplate jdbcTemplate;

public void setDataSource(DataSource dataSource) {

this.jdbcTemplate = new JdbcTemplate(dataSource);
}

public int[][] batchUpdate(final Collection<Actor> actors) {

int[][] updateCounts = jdbcTemplate.batchUpdate(
"update t_actor set first_name = ?, last_name = ? where id = ?",
actors,
100,
new ParameterizedPreparedStatementSetter<Actor>() {
public void setValues(PreparedStatement ps, Actor argument) throws SQLException {
ps.setString(1, argument.getFirstName());
ps.setString(2, argument.getLastName());
ps.setLong(3, argument.getId().longValue());
}
});
return updateCounts;
}

// ... additional methods

The batch update methods for this call returns an array of int arrays containing an array entry for each batch with an array of the number of affected
rows for each update. The top level array’s length indicates the number of batches executed and the second level array’s length indicates the
number of updates in that batch. The number of updates in each batch should be the batch size provided for all batches except for the last one that
might be less, depending on the total number of update objects provided. The update count for each update statement is the one reported by the
JDBC driver. If the count is not available, the JDBC driver returns a -2 value.

19.5 Simplifying JDBC operations with the SimpleJdbc classes

The SimpleJdbcInsert and SimpleJdbcCall classes provide a simplified configuration by taking advantage of database metadata that can
be retrieved through the JDBC driver. This means there is less to configure up front, although you can override or turn off the metadata processing if
you prefer to provide all the details in your code.

19.5.1 Inserting data using SimpleJdbcInsert

Let’s start by looking at the SimpleJdbcInsert class with the minimal amount of configuration options. You should instantiate the
SimpleJdbcInsert in the data access layer’s initialization method. For this example, the initializing method is the setDataSource method.
You do not need to subclass the SimpleJdbcInsert class; simply create a new instance and set the table name using the withTableName
method. Configuration methods for this class follow the "fluid" style that returns the instance of the SimpleJdbcInsert , which allows you to chain
all configuration methods. This example uses only one configuration method; you will see examples of multiple ones later.

public class JdbcActorDao implements ActorDao {

private JdbcTemplate jdbcTemplate;

private SimpleJdbcInsert insertActor;
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 336/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
private SimpleJdbcInsert insertActor;

public void setDataSource(DataSource dataSource) {

this.jdbcTemplate = new JdbcTemplate(dataSource);
this.insertActor = new SimpleJdbcInsert(dataSource).withTableName("t_actor");
}

public void add(Actor actor) {

Map<String, Object> parameters = new HashMap<String, Object>(3);
parameters.put("id", actor.getId());
parameters.put("first_name", actor.getFirstName());
parameters.put("last_name", actor.getLastName());
insertActor.execute(parameters);
}

// ... additional methods

}

The execute method used here takes a plain java.utils.Map as its only parameter. The important thing to note here is that the keys used for the
Map must match the column names of the table as deﬁned in the database. This is because we read the metadata in order to construct the actual
insert statement.

19.5.2 Retrieving auto-generated keys using SimpleJdbcInsert

This example uses the same insert as the preceding, but instead of passing in the id it retrieves the auto-generated key and sets it on the new Actor
object. When you create the SimpleJdbcInsert , in addition to specifying the table name, you specify the name of the generated key column with
the usingGeneratedKeyColumns method.

public class JdbcActorDao implements ActorDao {

private JdbcTemplate jdbcTemplate;

private SimpleJdbcInsert insertActor;

public void setDataSource(DataSource dataSource) {

this.jdbcTemplate = new JdbcTemplate(dataSource);
this.insertActor = new SimpleJdbcInsert(dataSource)
.withTableName("t_actor")
.usingGeneratedKeyColumns("id");
}

public void add(Actor actor) {

Map<String, Object> parameters = new HashMap<String, Object>(2);
parameters.put("first_name", actor.getFirstName());
parameters.put("last_name", actor.getLastName());
Number newId = insertActor.executeAndReturnKey(parameters);
actor.setId(newId.longValue());
}

// ... additional methods

}

The main difference when executing the insert by this second approach is that you do not add the id to the Map and you call the
executeAndReturnKey method. This returns a java.lang.Number object with which you can create an instance of the numerical type that is
used in our domain class. You cannot rely on all databases to return a speciﬁc Java class here; java.lang.Number is the base class that you can
rely on. If you have multiple auto-generated columns, or the generated values are non-numeric, then you can use a KeyHolder that is returned
from the executeAndReturnKeyHolder method.

19.5.3 Specifying columns for a SimpleJdbcInsert

You can limit the columns for an insert by specifying a list of column names with the usingColumns method:

public class JdbcActorDao implements ActorDao {

private JdbcTemplate jdbcTemplate;

private SimpleJdbcInsert insertActor;

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 337/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
public void setDataSource(DataSource dataSource) {
this.jdbcTemplate = new JdbcTemplate(dataSource);
this.insertActor = new SimpleJdbcInsert(dataSource)
.withTableName("t_actor")
.usingColumns("first_name", "last_name")
.usingGeneratedKeyColumns("id");
}

public void add(Actor actor) {

// ... additional methods

The execution of the insert is the same as if you had relied on the metadata to determine which columns to use.

19.5.4 Using SqlParameterSource to provide parameter values

Using a Map to provide parameter values works ﬁne, but it’s not the most convenient class to use. Spring provides a couple of implementations of
the SqlParameterSource interface that can be used instead.The ﬁrst one is BeanPropertySqlParameterSource , which is a very
convenient class if you have a JavaBean-compliant class that contains your values. It will use the corresponding getter method to extract the
parameter values. Here is an example:

public class JdbcActorDao implements ActorDao {

private JdbcTemplate jdbcTemplate;

private SimpleJdbcInsert insertActor;

public void setDataSource(DataSource dataSource) {

this.jdbcTemplate = new JdbcTemplate(dataSource);
this.insertActor = new SimpleJdbcInsert(dataSource)
.withTableName("t_actor")
.usingGeneratedKeyColumns("id");
}

public void add(Actor actor) {

SqlParameterSource parameters = new BeanPropertySqlParameterSource(actor);
Number newId = insertActor.executeAndReturnKey(parameters);
actor.setId(newId.longValue());
}

// ... additional methods

Another option is the MapSqlParameterSource that resembles a Map but provides a more convenient addValue method that can be chained.

public class JdbcActorDao implements ActorDao {

private JdbcTemplate jdbcTemplate;

private SimpleJdbcInsert insertActor;

public void setDataSource(DataSource dataSource) {

this.jdbcTemplate = new JdbcTemplate(dataSource);
this.insertActor = new SimpleJdbcInsert(dataSource)
.withTableName("t_actor")
.usingGeneratedKeyColumns("id");
}

public void add(Actor actor) {

SqlParameterSource parameters = new MapSqlParameterSource()

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 338/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
.addValue("first_name", actor.getFirstName())
.addValue("last_name", actor.getLastName());
Number newId = insertActor.executeAndReturnKey(parameters);
actor.setId(newId.longValue());
}

// ... additional methods

As you can see, the conﬁguration is the same; only the executing code has to change to use these alternative input classes.

19.5.5 Calling a stored procedure with SimpleJdbcCall

The SimpleJdbcCall class leverages metadata in the database to look up names of in and out parameters, so that you do not have to
declare them explicitly. You can declare parameters if you prefer to do that, or if you have parameters such as ARRAY or STRUCT that do not have
an automatic mapping to a Java class. The ﬁrst example shows a simple procedure that returns only scalar values in VARCHAR and DATE format
from a MySQL database. The example procedure reads a speciﬁed actor entry and returns first_name , last_name , and birth_date
columns in the form of out parameters.

CREATE PROCEDURE read_actor (

IN in_id INTEGER,
OUT out_first_name VARCHAR(100),
OUT out_last_name VARCHAR(100),
OUT out_birth_date DATE)
BEGIN
SELECT first_name, last_name, birth_date
INTO out_first_name, out_last_name, out_birth_date
FROM t_actor where id = in_id;
END;

The in_id parameter contains the id of the actor you are looking up. The out parameters return the data read from the table.

The SimpleJdbcCall is declared in a similar manner to the SimpleJdbcInsert . You should instantiate and configure the class in the
initialization method of your data access layer. Compared to the StoredProcedure class, you don’t have to create a subclass and you don’t have to
declare parameters that can be looked up in the database metadata. Following is an example of a SimpleJdbcCall configuration using the above
stored procedure. The only configuration option, in addition to the DataSource , is the name of the stored procedure.

public class JdbcActorDao implements ActorDao {

private JdbcTemplate jdbcTemplate;

private SimpleJdbcCall procReadActor;

public void setDataSource(DataSource dataSource) {

this.jdbcTemplate = new JdbcTemplate(dataSource);
this.procReadActor = new SimpleJdbcCall(dataSource)
.withProcedureName("read_actor");
}

public Actor readActor(Long id) {

SqlParameterSource in = new MapSqlParameterSource()
.addValue("in_id", id);
Map out = procReadActor.execute(in);
Actor actor = new Actor();
actor.setId(id);
actor.setFirstName((String) out.get("out_first_name"));
actor.setLastName((String) out.get("out_last_name"));
actor.setBirthDate((Date) out.get("out_birth_date"));
return actor;
}

// ... additional methods

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 339/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The code you write for the execution of the call involves creating an SqlParameterSource containing the IN parameter. It’s important to match
the name provided for the input value with that of the parameter name declared in the stored procedure. The case does not have to match because
you use metadata to determine how database objects should be referred to in a stored procedure. What is speciﬁed in the source for the stored
procedure is not necessarily the way it is stored in the database. Some databases transform names to all upper case while others use lower case or
use the case as speciﬁed.

The execute method takes the IN parameters and returns a Map containing any out parameters keyed by the name as speciﬁed in the stored
procedure. In this case they are out_first_name, out_last_name and out_birth_date .

The last part of the execute method creates an Actor instance to use to return the data retrieved. Again, it is important to use the names of the
out parameters as they are declared in the stored procedure. Also, the case in the names of the out parameters stored in the results map
matches that of the out parameter names in the database, which could vary between databases. To make your code more portable you should do
a case-insensitive lookup or instruct Spring to use a LinkedCaseInsensitiveMap . To do the latter, you create your own JdbcTemplate and
set the setResultsMapCaseInsensitive property to true . Then you pass this customized JdbcTemplate instance into the constructor of
your SimpleJdbcCall . Here is an example of this conﬁguration:

public class JdbcActorDao implements ActorDao {

private SimpleJdbcCall procReadActor;

public void setDataSource(DataSource dataSource) {

JdbcTemplate jdbcTemplate = new JdbcTemplate(dataSource);
jdbcTemplate.setResultsMapCaseInsensitive(true);
this.procReadActor = new SimpleJdbcCall(jdbcTemplate)
.withProcedureName("read_actor");
}

// ... additional methods

By taking this action, you avoid conﬂicts in the case used for the names of your returned out parameters.

19.5.6 Explicitly declaring parameters to use for a SimpleJdbcCall

You have seen how the parameters are deduced based on metadata, but you can declare then explicitly if you wish. You do this by creating and
conﬁguring SimpleJdbcCall with the declareParameters method, which takes a variable number of SqlParameter objects as input. See
the next section for details on how to deﬁne an SqlParameter .

Explicit declarations are necessary if the database you use is not a Spring-supported database. Currently Spring supports metadata
lookup of stored procedure calls for the following databases: Apache Derby, DB2, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, and Sybase.
We also support metadata lookup of stored functions for MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, and Oracle.

You can opt to declare one, some, or all the parameters explicitly. The parameter metadata is still used where you do not declare parameters
explicitly. To bypass all processing of metadata lookups for potential parameters and only use the declared parameters, you call the method
withoutProcedureColumnMetaDataAccess as part of the declaration. Suppose that you have two or more different call signatures declared
for a database function. In this case you call the useInParameterNames to specify the list of IN parameter names to include for a given signature.

The following example shows a fully declared procedure call, using the information from the preceding example.

public class JdbcActorDao implements ActorDao {

private SimpleJdbcCall procReadActor;

public void setDataSource(DataSource dataSource) {

JdbcTemplate jdbcTemplate = new JdbcTemplate(dataSource);
jdbcTemplate.setResultsMapCaseInsensitive(true);
this.procReadActor = new SimpleJdbcCall(jdbcTemplate)
.withProcedureName("read_actor")
.withoutProcedureColumnMetaDataAccess()
.useInParameterNames("in_id")
.declareParameters(
new SqlParameter("in_id", Types.NUMERIC),
new SqlOutParameter("out_first_name", Types.VARCHAR),
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 340/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
new SqlOutParameter("out_first_name", Types.VARCHAR),
new SqlOutParameter("out_last_name", Types.VARCHAR),
new SqlOutParameter("out_birth_date", Types.DATE)
);
}

// ... additional methods

}

The execution and end results of the two examples are the same; this one speciﬁes all details explicitly rather than relying on metadata.

19.5.7 How to deﬁne SqlParameters

To deﬁne a parameter for the SimpleJdbc classes and also for the RDBMS operations classes, covered in Section 19.6, “Modeling JDBC operations
as Java objects”, you use an SqlParameter or one of its subclasses. You typically specify the parameter name and SQL type in the constructor.
The SQL type is speciﬁed using the java.sql.Types constants. We have already seen declarations like:

new SqlParameter("in_id", Types.NUMERIC),

new SqlOutParameter("out_first_name", Types.VARCHAR),

The ﬁrst line with the SqlParameter declares an IN parameter. IN parameters can be used for both stored procedure calls and for queries using
the SqlQuery and its subclasses covered in the following section.

The second line with the SqlOutParameter declares an out parameter to be used in a stored procedure call. There is also an
SqlInOutParameter for InOut parameters, parameters that provide an IN value to the procedure and that also return a value.

Only parameters declared as SqlParameter and SqlInOutParameter will be used to provide input values. This is different from
the StoredProcedure class, which for backwards compatibility reasons allows input values to be provided for parameters declared
as SqlOutParameter .

For IN parameters, in addition to the name and the SQL type, you can specify a scale for numeric data or a type name for custom database types.
For out parameters, you can provide a RowMapper to handle mapping of rows returned from a REF cursor. Another option is to specify an
SqlReturnType that provides an opportunity to deﬁne customized handling of the return values.

19.5.8 Calling a stored function using SimpleJdbcCall

You call a stored function in almost the same way as you call a stored procedure, except that you provide a function name rather than a procedure
name. You use the withFunctionName method as part of the conﬁguration to indicate that we want to make a call to a function, and the
corresponding string for a function call is generated. A specialized execute call, executeFunction, is used to execute the function and it returns
the function return value as an object of a speciﬁed type, which means you do not have to retrieve the return value from the results map. A similar
convenience method named executeObject is also available for stored procedures that only have one out parameter. The following example is
based on a stored function named get_actor_name that returns an actor’s full name. Here is the MySQL source for this function:

CREATE FUNCTION get_actor_name (in_id INTEGER)

RETURNS VARCHAR(200) READS SQL DATA
BEGIN
DECLARE out_name VARCHAR(200);
SELECT concat(first_name, ' ', last_name)
INTO out_name
FROM t_actor where id = in_id;
RETURN out_name;
END;

To call this function we again create a SimpleJdbcCall in the initialization method.

public class JdbcActorDao implements ActorDao {

private JdbcTemplate jdbcTemplate;

private SimpleJdbcCall funcGetActorName;

public void setDataSource(DataSource dataSource) {

this.jdbcTemplate = new JdbcTemplate(dataSource);
JdbcTemplate jdbcTemplate = new JdbcTemplate(dataSource);

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 341/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
jdbcTemplate.setResultsMapCaseInsensitive(true);
this.funcGetActorName = new SimpleJdbcCall(jdbcTemplate)
.withFunctionName("get_actor_name");
}

public String getActorName(Long id) {

SqlParameterSource in = new MapSqlParameterSource()
.addValue("in_id", id);
String name = funcGetActorName.executeFunction(String.class, in);
return name;
}

// ... additional methods

The execute method used returns a String containing the return value from the function call.

19.5.9 Returning ResultSet/REF Cursor from a SimpleJdbcCall

Calling a stored procedure or function that returns a result set is a bit tricky. Some databases return result sets during the JDBC results processing
while others require an explicitly registered out parameter of a specific type. Both approaches need additional processing to loop over the result
set and process the returned rows. With the SimpleJdbcCall you use the returningResultSet method and declare a RowMapper
implementation to be used for a specific parameter. In the case where the result set is returned during the results processing, there are no names
defined, so the returned results will have to match the order in which you declare the RowMapper implementations. The name specified is still used
to store the processed list of results in the results map that is returned from the execute statement.

The next example uses a stored procedure that takes no IN parameters and returns all rows from the t_actor table. Here is the MySQL source for
this procedure:

CREATE PROCEDURE read_all_actors()

BEGIN
SELECT a.id, a.first_name, a.last_name, a.birth_date FROM t_actor a;
END;

To call this procedure you declare the RowMapper . Because the class you want to map to follows the JavaBean rules, you can use a
BeanPropertyRowMapper that is created by passing in the required class to map to in the newInstance method.

public class JdbcActorDao implements ActorDao {

private SimpleJdbcCall procReadAllActors;

public void setDataSource(DataSource dataSource) {

JdbcTemplate jdbcTemplate = new JdbcTemplate(dataSource);
jdbcTemplate.setResultsMapCaseInsensitive(true);

this.procReadAllActors = new SimpleJdbcCall(jdbcTemplate)

.withProcedureName("read_all_actors")
.returningResultSet("actors",
BeanPropertyRowMapper.newInstance(Actor.class));
}

public List getActorsList() {

Map m = procReadAllActors.execute(new HashMap<String, Object>(0));
return (List) m.get("actors");
}

// ... additional methods

The execute call passes in an empty Map because this call does not take any parameters. The list of Actors is then retrieved from the results map
and returned to the caller.

19.6 Modeling JDBC operations as Java objects

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 342/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The org.springframework.jdbc.object package contains classes that allow you to access the database in a more object-oriented manner.
As an example, you can execute queries and get the results back as a list containing business objects with the relational column data mapped to the
properties of the business object. You can also execute stored procedures and run update, delete, and insert statements.

Many Spring developers believe that the various RDBMS operation classes described below (with the exception of the
StoredProcedure class) can often be replaced with straight JdbcTemplate calls. Often it is simpler to write a DAO method that
simply calls a method on a JdbcTemplate directly (as opposed to encapsulating a query as a full-blown class).
However, if you are getting measurable value from using the RDBMS operation classes, continue using these classes.

19.6.1 SqlQuery
SqlQuery is a reusable, threadsafe class that encapsulates an SQL query. Subclasses must implement the newRowMapper(..) method to
provide a RowMapper instance that can create one object per row obtained from iterating over the ResultSet that is created during the
execution of the query. The SqlQuery class is rarely used directly because the MappingSqlQuery subclass provides a much more convenient
implementation for mapping rows to Java classes. Other implementations that extend SqlQuery are MappingSqlQueryWithParameters and
UpdatableSqlQuery .

19.6.2 MappingSqlQuery
MappingSqlQuery is a reusable query in which concrete subclasses must implement the abstract mapRow(..) method to convert each row of
the supplied ResultSet into an object of the type speciﬁed. The following example shows a custom query that maps the data from the t_actor
relation to an instance of the Actor class.

public class ActorMappingQuery extends MappingSqlQuery<Actor> {

public ActorMappingQuery(DataSource ds) {

super(ds, "select id, first_name, last_name from t_actor where id = ?");
super.declareParameter(new SqlParameter("id", Types.INTEGER));
compile();
}

@Override
protected Actor mapRow(ResultSet rs, int rowNumber) throws SQLException {
Actor actor = new Actor();
actor.setId(rs.getLong("id"));
actor.setFirstName(rs.getString("first_name"));
actor.setLastName(rs.getString("last_name"));
return actor;
}

The class extends MappingSqlQuery parameterized with the Actor type. The constructor for this customer query takes the DataSource as
the only parameter. In this constructor you call the constructor on the superclass with the DataSource and the SQL that should be executed to
retrieve the rows for this query. This SQL will be used to create a PreparedStatement so it may contain place holders for any parameters to be
passed in during execution.You must declare each parameter using the declareParameter method passing in an SqlParameter . The
SqlParameter takes a name and the JDBC type as deﬁned in java.sql.Types . After you deﬁne all parameters, you call the compile()
method so the statement can be prepared and later executed. This class is thread-safe after it is compiled, so as long as these instances are created
when the DAO is initialized they can be kept as instance variables and be reused.

private ActorMappingQuery actorMappingQuery;

@Autowired
public void setDataSource(DataSource dataSource) {
this.actorMappingQuery = new ActorMappingQuery(dataSource);
}

public Customer getCustomer(Long id) {

return actorMappingQuery.findObject(id);
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 343/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The method in this example retrieves the customer with the id that is passed in as the only parameter. Since we only want one object returned we
simply call the convenience method findObject with the id as parameter. If we had instead a query that returned a list of objects and took
additional parameters then we would use one of the execute methods that takes an array of parameter values passed in as varargs.

public List<Actor> searchForActors(int age, String namePattern) {

List<Actor> actors = actorSearchMappingQuery.execute(age, namePattern);
return actors;
}

19.6.3 SqlUpdate
The SqlUpdate class encapsulates an SQL update. Like a query, an update object is reusable, and like all RdbmsOperation classes, an update
can have parameters and is deﬁned in SQL. This class provides a number of update(..) methods analogous to the execute(..) methods of
query objects. The SQLUpdate class is concrete. It can be subclassed, for example, to add a custom update method, as in the following snippet
where it’s simply called execute . However, you don’t have to subclass the SqlUpdate class since it can easily be parameterized by setting SQL
and declaring parameters.

import java.sql.Types;

import javax.sql.DataSource;

import org.springframework.jdbc.core.SqlParameter;
import org.springframework.jdbc.object.SqlUpdate;

public class UpdateCreditRating extends SqlUpdate {

public UpdateCreditRating(DataSource ds) {

setDataSource(ds);
setSql("update customer set credit_rating = ? where id = ?");
declareParameter(new SqlParameter("creditRating", Types.NUMERIC));
declareParameter(new SqlParameter("id", Types.NUMERIC));
compile();
}

/**
* @param id for the Customer to be updated
* @param rating the new value for credit rating
* @return number of rows updated
*/
public int execute(int id, int rating) {
return update(rating, id);
}
}

19.6.4 StoredProcedure
The StoredProcedure class is a superclass for object abstractions of RDBMS stored procedures. This class is abstract , and its various
execute(..) methods have protected access, preventing use other than through a subclass that offers tighter typing.

The inherited sql property will be the name of the stored procedure in the RDBMS.

To deﬁne a parameter for the StoredProcedure class, you use an SqlParameter or one of its subclasses. You must specify the parameter
name and SQL type in the constructor like in the following code snippet. The SQL type is speciﬁed using the java.sql.Types constants.

new SqlParameter("in_id", Types.NUMERIC),

new SqlOutParameter("out_first_name", Types.VARCHAR),

The second line with the SqlOutParameter declares an out parameter to be used in the stored procedure call. There is also an
SqlInOutParameter for I nOut parameters, parameters that provide an in value to the procedure and that also return a value.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 344/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
For i n parameters, in addition to the name and the SQL type, you can specify a scale for numeric data or a type name for custom database
types. For out parameters you can provide a RowMapper to handle mapping of rows returned from a REF cursor. Another option is to specify an
SqlReturnType that enables you to deﬁne customized handling of the return values.

Here is an example of a simple DAO that uses a StoredProcedure to call a function, sysdate() ,which comes with any Oracle database. To
use the stored procedure functionality you have to create a class that extends StoredProcedure . In this example, the StoredProcedure class
is an inner class, but if you need to reuse the StoredProcedure you declare it as a top-level class. This example has no input parameters, but an
output parameter is declared as a date type using the class SqlOutParameter . The execute() method executes the procedure and extracts
the returned date from the results Map . The results Map has an entry for each declared output parameter, in this case only one, using the
parameter name as the key.

import java.sql.Types;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;

import javax.sql.DataSource;

import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.jdbc.core.SqlOutParameter;
import org.springframework.jdbc.object.StoredProcedure;

public class StoredProcedureDao {

private GetSysdateProcedure getSysdate;

@Autowired
public void init(DataSource dataSource) {
this.getSysdate = new GetSysdateProcedure(dataSource);
}

public Date getSysdate() {

return getSysdate.execute();
}

private class GetSysdateProcedure extends StoredProcedure {

private static final String SQL = "sysdate";

public GetSysdateProcedure(DataSource dataSource) {

setDataSource(dataSource);
setFunction(true);
setSql(SQL);
declareParameter(new SqlOutParameter("date", Types.DATE));
compile();
}

public Date execute() {

// the 'sysdate' sproc has no input parameters, so an empty Map is supplied...
Map<String, Object> results = execute(new HashMap<String, Object>());
Date sysdate = (Date) results.get("date");
return sysdate;
}
}

The following example of a StoredProcedure has two output parameters (in this case, Oracle REF cursors).

import oracle.jdbc.OracleTypes;
import org.springframework.jdbc.core.SqlOutParameter;
import org.springframework.jdbc.object.StoredProcedure;

import javax.sql.DataSource;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;

public class TitlesAndGenresStoredProcedure extends StoredProcedure {

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 345/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
public class TitlesAndGenresStoredProcedure extends StoredProcedure {

private static final String SPROC_NAME = "AllTitlesAndGenres";

public TitlesAndGenresStoredProcedure(DataSource dataSource) {

super(dataSource, SPROC_NAME);
declareParameter(new SqlOutParameter("titles", OracleTypes.CURSOR, new TitleMapper()));
declareParameter(new SqlOutParameter("genres", OracleTypes.CURSOR, new GenreMapper()));
compile();
}

public Map<String, Object> execute() {

// again, this sproc has no input parameters, so an empty Map is supplied
return super.execute(new HashMap<String, Object>());
}
}

Notice how the overloaded variants of the declareParameter(..) method that have been used in the TitlesAndGenresStoredProcedure
constructor are passed RowMapper implementation instances; this is a very convenient and powerful way to reuse existing functionality. The code
for the two RowMapper implementations is provided below.

The TitleMapper class maps a ResultSet to a Title domain object for each row in the supplied ResultSet :

import org.springframework.jdbc.core.RowMapper;

import java.sql.ResultSet;
import java.sql.SQLException;

import com.foo.domain.Title;

public final class TitleMapper implements RowMapper<Title> {

public Title mapRow(ResultSet rs, int rowNum) throws SQLException {

Title title = new Title();
title.setId(rs.getLong("id"));
title.setName(rs.getString("name"));
return title;
}
}

The GenreMapper class maps a ResultSet to a Genre domain object for each row in the supplied ResultSet .

import org.springframework.jdbc.core.RowMapper;

import java.sql.ResultSet;
import java.sql.SQLException;

import com.foo.domain.Genre;

public final class GenreMapper implements RowMapper<Genre> {

public Genre mapRow(ResultSet rs, int rowNum) throws SQLException {

return new Genre(rs.getString("name"));
}
}

To pass parameters to a stored procedure that has one or more input parameters in its deﬁnition in the RDBMS, you can code a strongly typed
execute(..) method that would delegate to the superclass' untyped execute(Map parameters) method (which has protected access);
for example:

import oracle.jdbc.OracleTypes;
import org.springframework.jdbc.core.SqlOutParameter;
import org.springframework.jdbc.core.SqlParameter;
import org.springframework.jdbc.object.StoredProcedure;

import javax.sql.DataSource;

import java.sql.Types;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.HashMap;
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 346/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;

public class TitlesAfterDateStoredProcedure extends StoredProcedure {

private static final String SPROC_NAME = "TitlesAfterDate";

private static final String CUTOFF_DATE_PARAM = "cutoffDate";

public TitlesAfterDateStoredProcedure(DataSource dataSource) {

super(dataSource, SPROC_NAME);
declareParameter(new SqlParameter(CUTOFF_DATE_PARAM, Types.DATE);
declareParameter(new SqlOutParameter("titles", OracleTypes.CURSOR, new TitleMapper()));
compile();
}

public Map<String, Object> execute(Date cutoffDate) {

Map<String, Object> inputs = new HashMap<String, Object>();
inputs.put(CUTOFF_DATE_PARAM, cutoffDate);
return super.execute(inputs);
}
}

19.7 Common problems with parameter and data value handling

Common problems with parameters and data values exist in the different approaches provided by the Spring Framework JDBC.

19.7.1 Providing SQL type information for parameters

Usually Spring determines the SQL type of the parameters based on the type of parameter passed in. It is possible to explicitly provide the SQL type
to be used when setting parameter values. This is sometimes necessary to correctly set NULL values.

You can provide SQL type information in several ways:

Many update and query methods of the JdbcTemplate take an additional parameter in the form of an int array. This array is used to
indicate the SQL type of the corresponding parameter using constant values from the java.sql.Types class. Provide one entry for each
parameter.
You can use the SqlParameterValue class to wrap the parameter value that needs this additional information.Create a new instance for
each value and pass in the SQL type and parameter value in the constructor. You can also provide an optional scale parameter for numeric
values.
For methods working with named parameters, use the SqlParameterSource classes BeanPropertySqlParameterSource or
MapSqlParameterSource . They both have methods for registering the SQL type for any of the named parameter values.

19.7.2 Handling BLOB and CLOB objects

You can store images, other binary data, and large chunks of text in the database. These large objects are called BLOBs (Binary Large OBject) for
binary data and CLOBs (Character Large OBject) for character data. In Spring you can handle these large objects by using the JdbcTemplate
directly and also when using the higher abstractions provided by RDBMS Objects and the SimpleJdbc classes. All of these approaches use an
implementation of the LobHandler interface for the actual management of the LOB (Large OBject) data. The LobHandler provides access to a
LobCreator class, through the getLobCreator method, used for creating new LOB objects to be inserted.

The LobCreator/LobHandler provides the following support for LOB input and output:

BLOB
byte[] — getBlobAsBytes and setBlobAsBytes
InputStream — getBlobAsBinaryStream and setBlobAsBinaryStream
CLOB
String — getClobAsString and setClobAsString
InputStream — getClobAsAsciiStream and setClobAsAsciiStream
Reader — getClobAsCharacterStream and setClobAsCharacterStream

The next example shows how to create and insert a BLOB. Later you will see how to read it back from the database.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 347/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
This example uses a JdbcTemplate and an implementation of the AbstractLobCreatingPreparedStatementCallback . It implements
one method, setValues . This method provides a LobCreator that you use to set the values for the LOB columns in your SQL insert statement.

For this example we assume that there is a variable, lobHandler , that already is set to an instance of a DefaultLobHandler . You typically set
this value through dependency injection.

final File blobIn = new File("spring2004.jpg");

final InputStream blobIs = new FileInputStream(blobIn);
final File clobIn = new File("large.txt");
final InputStream clobIs = new FileInputStream(clobIn);
final InputStreamReader clobReader = new InputStreamReader(clobIs);
jdbcTemplate.execute(
"INSERT INTO lob_table (id, a_clob, a_blob) VALUES (?, ?, ?)",
new AbstractLobCreatingPreparedStatementCallback(lobHandler) {
protected void setValues(PreparedStatement ps, LobCreator lobCreator) throws SQLException {
ps.setLong(1, 1L);
lobCreator.setClobAsCharacterStream(ps, 2, clobReader, (int)clobIn.length());
lobCreator.setBlobAsBinaryStream(ps, 3, blobIs, (int)blobIn.length());
}
}
);
blobIs.close();
clobReader.close();

Pass in the lobHandler that in this example is a plain DefaultLobHandler .

Using the method setClobAsCharacterStream , pass in the contents of the CLOB.
Using the method setBlobAsBinaryStream , pass in the contents of the BLOB.

If you invoke the setBlobAsBinaryStream , setClobAsAsciiStream , or setClobAsCharacterStream method on the

LobCreator returned from DefaultLobHandler.getLobCreator() , you can optionally specify a negative value for the
contentLength argument. If the speciﬁed content length is negative, the DefaultLobHandler will use the JDBC 4.0 variants of
the set-stream methods without a length parameter; otherwise, it will pass the speciﬁed length on to the driver.
Consult the documentation for the JDBC driver in use to verify support for streaming a LOB without providing the content length.

Now it’s time to read the LOB data from the database. Again, you use a JdbcTemplate with the same instance variable lobHandler and a
reference to a DefaultLobHandler .

List<Map<String, Object>> l = jdbcTemplate.query("select id, a_clob, a_blob from lob_table",

new RowMapper<Map<String, Object>>() {
public Map<String, Object> mapRow(ResultSet rs, int i) throws SQLException {
Map<String, Object> results = new HashMap<String, Object>();
String clobText = lobHandler.getClobAsString(rs, "a_clob");
results.put("CLOB", clobText); byte[] blobBytes = lobHandler.getBlobAsBytes(rs, "a_blob");
results.put("BLOB", blobBytes); return results; } });

Using the method getClobAsString , retrieve the contents of the CLOB.

Using the method getBlobAsBytes , retrieve the contents of the BLOB.

19.7.3 Passing in lists of values for IN clause

The SQL standard allows for selecting rows based on an expression that includes a variable list of values. A typical example would be
select * from T_ACTOR where id in (1, 2, 3) . This variable list is not directly supported for prepared statements by the JDBC
standard; you cannot declare a variable number of placeholders. You need a number of variations with the desired number of placeholders prepared,
or you need to generate the SQL string dynamically once you know how many placeholders are required. The named parameter support provided in
the NamedParameterJdbcTemplate and JdbcTemplate takes the latter approach. Pass in the values as a java.util.List of primitive
objects. This list will be used to insert the required placeholders and pass in the values during the statement execution.

Be careful when passing in many values. The JDBC standard does not guarantee that you can use more than 100 values for an in
expression list. Various databases exceed this number, but they usually have a hard limit for how many values are allowed. Oracle’s
limit is 1000.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 348/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
In addition to the primitive values in the value list, you can create a java.util.List of object arrays. This list would support multiple expressions
deﬁned for the in clause such as select * from T_ACTOR where (id, last_name) in ((1, 'Johnson'), (2, 'Harrop'\)) .
This of course requires that your database supports this syntax.

19.7.4 Handling complex types for stored procedure calls

When you call stored procedures you can sometimes use complex types speciﬁc to the database. To accommodate these types, Spring provides a
SqlReturnType for handling them when they are returned from the stored procedure call and SqlTypeValue when they are passed in as a
parameter to the stored procedure.

Here is an example of returning the value of an Oracle STRUCT object of the user declared type ITEM_TYPE . The SqlReturnType interface has
a single method named getTypeValue that must be implemented. This interface is used as part of the declaration of an SqlOutParameter .

final TestItem = new TestItem(123L, "A test item",

new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-M-d").parse("2010-12-31"));

declareParameter(new SqlOutParameter("item", OracleTypes.STRUCT, "ITEM_TYPE",

new SqlReturnType() {
public Object getTypeValue(CallableStatement cs, int colIndx, int sqlType, String typeName) throws SQLException {
STRUCT struct = (STRUCT) cs.getObject(colIndx);
Object[] attr = struct.getAttributes();
TestItem item = new TestItem();
item.setId(((Number) attr[0]).longValue());
item.setDescription((String) attr[1]);
item.setExpirationDate((java.util.Date) attr[2]);
return item;
}
}));

You use the SqlTypeValue to pass in the value of a Java object like TestItem into a stored procedure. The SqlTypeValue interface has a
single method named createTypeValue that you must implement. The active connection is passed in, and you can use it to create database-
speciﬁc objects such as StructDescriptor s, as shown in the following example, or ArrayDescriptor s.

final TestItem = new TestItem(123L, "A test item",

new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-M-d").parse("2010-12-31"));

SqlTypeValue value = new AbstractSqlTypeValue() {

protected Object createTypeValue(Connection conn, int sqlType, String typeName) throws SQLException {
StructDescriptor itemDescriptor = new StructDescriptor(typeName, conn);
Struct item = new STRUCT(itemDescriptor, conn,
new Object[] {
testItem.getId(),
testItem.getDescription(),
new java.sql.Date(testItem.getExpirationDate().getTime())
});
return item;
}
};

This SqlTypeValue can now be added to the Map containing the input parameters for the execute call of the stored procedure.

Another use for the SqlTypeValue is passing in an array of values to an Oracle stored procedure. Oracle has its own internal ARRAY class that
must be used in this case, and you can use the SqlTypeValue to create an instance of the Oracle ARRAY and populate it with values from the
Java ARRAY .

final Long[] ids = new Long[] {1L, 2L};

SqlTypeValue value = new AbstractSqlTypeValue() {

protected Object createTypeValue(Connection conn, int sqlType, String typeName) throws SQLException {
ArrayDescriptor arrayDescriptor = new ArrayDescriptor(typeName, conn);
ARRAY idArray = new ARRAY(arrayDescriptor, conn, ids);
return idArray;
}
};

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 349/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

19.8 Embedded database support

The org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.embedded package provides support for embedded Java database engines. Support for
HSQL, H2, and Derby is provided natively. You can also use an extensible API to plug in new embedded database types and DataSource
implementations.

19.8.1 Why use an embedded database?

An embedded database is useful during the development phase of a project because of its lightweight nature. Beneﬁts include ease of conﬁguration,
quick startup time, testability, and the ability to rapidly evolve SQL during development.

19.8.2 Creating an embedded database using Spring XML

If you want to expose an embedded database instance as a bean in a Spring ApplicationContext , use the embedded-database tag in the
spring-jdbc namespace:

<jdbc:embedded-database id="dataSource" generate-name="true">

<jdbc:script location="classpath:schema.sql"/>
<jdbc:script location="classpath:test-data.sql"/>
</jdbc:embedded-database>

The preceding conﬁguration creates an embedded HSQL database populated with SQL from schema.sql and test-data.sql resources in the
root of the classpath. In addition, as a best practice, the embedded database will be assigned a uniquely generated name. The embedded database
is made available to the Spring container as a bean of type javax.sql.DataSource which can then be injected into data access objects as
needed.

19.8.3 Creating an embedded database programmatically

The EmbeddedDatabaseBuilder class provides a ﬂuent API for constructing an embedded database programmatically. Use this when you need
to create an embedded database in a standalone environment or in a standalone integration test like in the following example.

EmbeddedDatabase db = new EmbeddedDatabaseBuilder()

.generateUniqueName(true)
.setType(H2)
.setScriptEncoding("UTF-8")
.ignoreFailedDrops(true)
.addScript("schema.sql")
.addScripts("user_data.sql", "country_data.sql")
.build();

// perform actions against the db (EmbeddedDatabase extends javax.sql.DataSource)

db.shutdown()

Consult the Javadoc for EmbeddedDatabaseBuilder for further details on all supported options.

The EmbeddedDatabaseBuilder can also be used to create an embedded database using Java Conﬁg like in the following example.

@Configuration
public class DataSourceConfig {

@Bean
public DataSource dataSource() {
return new EmbeddedDatabaseBuilder()
.generateUniqueName(true)
.setType(H2)
.setScriptEncoding("UTF-8")
.ignoreFailedDrops(true)
.addScript("schema.sql")
.addScripts("user_data.sql", "country_data.sql")
.build();
}
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 350/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

19.8.4 Selecting the embedded database type

Using HSQL
Spring supports HSQL 1.8.0 and above. HSQL is the default embedded database if no type is speciﬁed explicitly. To specify HSQL explicitly, set the
type attribute of the embedded-database tag to HSQL . If you are using the builder API, call the setType(EmbeddedDatabaseType)
method with EmbeddedDatabaseType.HSQL .

Using H2
Spring supports the H2 database as well. To enable H2, set the type attribute of the embedded-database tag to H2 . If you are using the
builder API, call the setType(EmbeddedDatabaseType) method with EmbeddedDatabaseType.H2 .

Using Derby
Spring also supports Apache Derby 10.5 and above. To enable Derby, set the type attribute of the embedded-database tag to DERBY . If you
are using the builder API, call the setType(EmbeddedDatabaseType) method with EmbeddedDatabaseType.DERBY .

19.8.5 Testing data access logic with an embedded database

Embedded databases provide a lightweight way to test data access code. The following is a data access integration test template that uses an
embedded database. Using a template like this can be useful for one-offs when the embedded database does not need to be reused across test
classes. However, if you wish to create an embedded database that is shared within a test suite, consider using the Spring TestContext Framework
and conﬁguring the embedded database as a bean in the Spring ApplicationContext as described in Section 19.8.2, “Creating an embedded
database using Spring XML” and Section 19.8.3, “Creating an embedded database programmatically”.

public class DataAccessIntegrationTestTemplate {

private EmbeddedDatabase db;

@Before
public void setUp() {
// creates an HSQL in-memory database populated from default scripts
// classpath:schema.sql and classpath:data.sql
db = new EmbeddedDatabaseBuilder()
.generateUniqueName(true)
.addDefaultScripts()
.build();
}

@Test
public void testDataAccess() {
JdbcTemplate template = new JdbcTemplate(db);
template.query( /* ... */ );
}

@After
public void tearDown() {
db.shutdown();
}

19.8.6 Generating unique names for embedded databases

Development teams often encounter errors with embedded databases if their test suite inadvertently attempts to recreate additional instances of the
same database. This can happen quite easily if an XML configuration file or @Configuration class is responsible for creating an embedded
database and the corresponding configuration is then reused across multiple testing scenarios within the same test suite (i.e., within the same JVM
process) –- for example, integration tests against embedded databases whose ApplicationContext configuration only differs with regard to
which bean definition profiles are active.

The root cause of such errors is the fact that Spring’s EmbeddedDatabaseFactory (used internally by both the <jdbc:embedded-database>
XML namespace element and the EmbeddedDatabaseBuilder for Java Conﬁg) will set the name of the embedded database to "testdb" if

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 351/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
not otherwise speciﬁed. For the case of <jdbc:embedded-database> , the embedded database is typically assigned a name equal to the bean’s
id (i.e., often something like "dataSource" ). Thus, subsequent attempts to create an embedded database will not result in a new database.
Instead, the same JDBC connection URL will be reused, and attempts to create a new embedded database will actually point to an existing
embedded database created from the same conﬁguration.

To address this common issue Spring Framework 4.2 provides support for generating unique names for embedded databases. To enable the use of
generated names, use one of the following options.

EmbeddedDatabaseFactory.setGenerateUniqueDatabaseName()
EmbeddedDatabaseBuilder.generateUniqueName()
<jdbc:embedded-database generate-name="true" … >

19.8.7 Extending the embedded database support

Spring JDBC embedded database support can be extended in two ways:

Implement EmbeddedDatabaseConfigurer to support a new embedded database type.

Implement DataSourceFactory to support a new DataSource implementation, such as a connection pool to manage embedded database
connections.

You are encouraged to contribute back extensions to the Spring community at jira.spring.io.

19.9 Initializing a DataSource
The org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.init package provides support for initializing an existing DataSource . The embedded
database support provides one option for creating and initializing a DataSource for an application, but sometimes you need to initialize an
instance running on a server somewhere.

19.9.1 Initializing a database using Spring XML

If you want to initialize a database and you can provide a reference to a DataSource bean, use the initialize-database tag in the
spring-jdbc namespace:

<jdbc:initialize-database data-source="dataSource">
<jdbc:script location="classpath:com/foo/sql/db-schema.sql"/>
<jdbc:script location="classpath:com/foo/sql/db-test-data.sql"/>
</jdbc:initialize-database>

The example above executes the two scripts specified against the database: the first script creates a schema, and the second populates tables with
a test data set. The script locations can also be patterns with wildcards in the usual ant style used for resources in Spring (e.g.
classpath*:/com/foo/**/sql/*-data.sql ). If a pattern is used, the scripts are executed in lexical order of their URL or filename.

The default behavior of the database initializer is to unconditionally execute the scripts provided. This will not always be what you want, for instance,
if you are executing the scripts against a database that already has test data in it. The likelihood of accidentally deleting data is reduced by following
the common pattern (as shown above) of creating the tables ﬁrst and then inserting the data — the ﬁrst step will fail if the tables already exist.

However, to gain more control over the creation and deletion of existing data, the XML namespace provides a few additional options. The ﬁrst is a
ﬂag to switch the initialization on and off. This can be set according to the environment (e.g. to pull a boolean value from system properties or an
environment bean), for example:

<jdbc:initialize-database data-source="dataSource"
enabled="#{systemProperties.INITIALIZE_DATABASE}">
<jdbc:script location="..."/>
</jdbc:initialize-database>

The second option to control what happens with existing data is to be more tolerant of failures. To this end you can control the ability of the initializer
to ignore certain errors in the SQL it executes from the scripts, for example:

<jdbc:initialize-database data-source="dataSource" ignore-failures="DROPS">

<jdbc:script location="..."/>
</jdbc:initialize-database>

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 352/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
In this example we are saying we expect that sometimes the scripts will be executed against an empty database, and there are some DROP
statements in the scripts which would therefore fail. So failed SQL DROP statements will be ignored, but other failures will cause an exception. This
is useful if your SQL dialect doesn’t support DROP … IF EXISTS (or similar) but you want to unconditionally remove all test data before re-creating
it. In that case the ﬁrst script is usually a set of DROP statements, followed by a set of CREATE statements.

The ignore-failures option can be set to NONE (the default), DROPS (ignore failed drops), or ALL (ignore all failures).

Each statement should be separated by ; or a new line if the ; character is not present at all in the script. You can control that globally or script by
script, for example:

<jdbc:initialize-database data-source="dataSource" separator="@@">

<jdbc:script location="classpath:com/foo/sql/db-schema.sql" separator=";"/>
<jdbc:script location="classpath:com/foo/sql/db-test-data-1.sql"/>
<jdbc:script location="classpath:com/foo/sql/db-test-data-2.sql"/>
</jdbc:initialize-database>

In this example, the two test-data scripts use @@ as statement separator and only the db-schema.sql uses ; . This conﬁguration speciﬁes
that the default separator is @@ and override that default for the db-schema script.

If you need more control than you get from the XML namespace, you can simply use the DataSourceInitializer directly and deﬁne it as a
component in your application.

Initialization of other components that depend on the database

A large class of applications can just use the database initializer with no further complications: those that do not use the database until after the
Spring context has started. If your application is not one of those then you might need to read the rest of this section.

The database initializer depends on a DataSource instance and executes the scripts provided in its initialization callback (analogous to an
init-method in an XML bean deﬁnition, a @PostConstruct method in a component, or the afterPropertiesSet() method in a
component that implements InitializingBean ). If other beans depend on the same data source and also use the data source in an initialization
callback, then there might be a problem because the data has not yet been initialized. A common example of this is a cache that initializes eagerly
and loads data from the database on application startup.

To get around this issue you have two options: change your cache initialization strategy to a later phase, or ensure that the database initializer is
initialized ﬁrst.

The ﬁrst option might be easy if the application is in your control, and not otherwise. Some suggestions for how to implement this include:

Make the cache initialize lazily on ﬁrst usage, which improves application startup time.
Have your cache or a separate component that initializes the cache implement Lifecycle or SmartLifecycle . When the application
context starts up a SmartLifecycle can be automatically started if its autoStartup ﬂag is set, and a Lifecycle can be started
manually by calling ConfigurableApplicationContext.start() on the enclosing context.
Use a Spring ApplicationEvent or similar custom observer mechanism to trigger the cache initialization. ContextRefreshedEvent is
always published by the context when it is ready for use (after all beans have been initialized), so that is often a useful hook (this is how the
SmartLifecycle works by default).

The second option can also be easy. Some suggestions on how to implement this include:

Rely on the default behavior of the Spring BeanFactory , which is that beans are initialized in registration order. You can easily arrange that by
adopting the common practice of a set of <import/> elements in XML conﬁguration that order your application modules, and ensure that the
database and database initialization are listed ﬁrst.
Separate the DataSource and the business components that use it, and control their startup order by putting them in separate
ApplicationContext instances (e.g. the parent context contains the DataSource , and child context contains the business components).
This structure is common in Spring web applications but can be more generally applied.

20. Object Relational Mapping (ORM) Data Access

20.1 Introduction to ORM with Spring

The Spring Framework supports integration with Hibernate, Java Persistence API (JPA) and Java Data Objects (JDO) for resource management,
data access object (DAO) implementations, and transaction strategies. For example, for Hibernate there is ﬁrst-class support with several convenient
IoC features that address many typical Hibernate integration issues. You can conﬁgure all of the supported features for O/R (object relational)
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 353/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
mapping tools through Dependency Injection. They can participate in Spring’s resource and transaction management, and they comply with Spring’s
generic transaction and DAO exception hierarchies. The recommended integration style is to code DAOs against plain Hibernate, JPA, and JDO
APIs. The older style of using Spring’s DAO templates is no longer recommended; however, coverage of this style can be found in the Section 39.1,
“Classic ORM usage” in the appendices.

Spring adds significant enhancements to the ORM layer of your choice when you create data access applications. You can leverage as much of the
integration support as you wish, and you should compare this integration effort with the cost and risk of building a similar infrastructure in-house. You
can use much of the ORM support as you would a library, regardless of technology, because everything is designed as a set of reusable JavaBeans.
ORM in a Spring IoC container facilitates configuration and deployment. Thus most examples in this section show configuration inside a Spring
container.

Beneﬁts of using the Spring Framework to create your ORM DAOs include:

Easier testing. Spring’s IoC approach makes it easy to swap the implementations and configuration locations of Hibernate SessionFactory
instances, JDBC DataSource instances, transaction managers, and mapped object implementations (if needed). This in turn makes it much
easier to test each piece of persistence-related code in isolation.
Common data access exceptions. Spring can wrap exceptions from your ORM tool, converting them from proprietary (potentially checked)
exceptions to a common runtime DataAccessException hierarchy. This feature allows you to handle most persistence exceptions, which are
non-recoverable, only in the appropriate layers, without annoying boilerplate catches, throws, and exception declarations. You can still trap and
handle exceptions as necessary. Remember that JDBC exceptions (including DB-specific dialects) are also converted to the same hierarchy,
meaning that you can perform some operations with JDBC within a consistent programming model.
General resource management. Spring application contexts can handle the location and configuration of Hibernate SessionFactory
instances, JPA EntityManagerFactory instances, JDBC DataSource instances, and other related resources. This makes these values
easy to manage and change. Spring offers efficient, easy, and safe handling of persistence resources. For example, related code that uses
Hibernate generally needs to use the same Hibernate Session to ensure efficiency and proper transaction handling. Spring makes it easy to
create and bind a Session to the current thread transparently, by exposing a current Session through the Hibernate SessionFactory .
Thus Spring solves many chronic problems of typical Hibernate usage, for any local or JTA transaction environment.
Integrated transaction management. You can wrap your ORM code with a declarative, aspect-oriented programming (AOP) style method
interceptor either through the @Transactional annotation or by explicitly configuring the transaction AOP advice in an XML configuration file.
In both cases, transaction semantics and exception handling (rollback, and so on) are handled for you. As discussed below, in Resource and
transaction management, you can also swap various transaction managers, without affecting your ORM-related code. For example, you can
swap between local transactions and JTA, with the same full services (such as declarative transactions) available in both scenarios. Additionally,
JDBC-related code can fully integrate transactionally with the code you use to do ORM. This is useful for data access that is not suitable for
ORM, such as batch processing and BLOB streaming, which still need to share common transactions with ORM operations.

For more comprehensive ORM support, including support for alternative database technologies such as MongoDB, you might want to
check out the Spring Data suite of projects. If you are a JPA user, the Getting Started Accessing Data with JPA guide from
https://spring.io provides a great introduction.

20.2 General ORM integration considerations

This section highlights considerations that apply to all ORM technologies. The Section 20.3, “Hibernate” section provides more details and also show
these features and conﬁgurations in a concrete context.

The major goal of Spring’s ORM integration is clear application layering, with any data access and transaction technology, and for loose coupling of
application objects. No more business service dependencies on the data access or transaction strategy, no more hard-coded resource lookups, no
more hard-to-replace singletons, no more custom service registries. One simple and consistent approach to wiring up application objects, keeping
them as reusable and free from container dependencies as possible. All the individual data access features are usable on their own but integrate
nicely with Spring’s application context concept, providing XML-based conﬁguration and cross-referencing of plain JavaBean instances that need not
be Spring-aware. In a typical Spring application, many important objects are JavaBeans: data access templates, data access objects, transaction
managers, business services that use the data access objects and transaction managers, web view resolvers, web controllers that use the business
services,and so on.

20.2.1 Resource and transaction management

Typical business applications are cluttered with repetitive resource management code. Many projects try to invent their own solutions, sometimes
sacriﬁcing proper handling of failures for programming convenience. Spring advocates simple solutions for proper resource handling, namely IoC
through templating in the case of JDBC and applying AOP interceptors for the ORM technologies.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 354/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The infrastructure provides proper resource handling and appropriate conversion of specific API exceptions to an unchecked infrastructure exception
hierarchy. Spring introduces a DAO exception hierarchy, applicable to any data access strategy. For direct JDBC, the JdbcTemplate class
mentioned in a previous section provides connection handling and proper conversion of SQLException to the DataAccessException
hierarchy, including translation of database-specific SQL error codes to meaningful exception classes. For ORM technologies, see the next section
for how to get the same exception translation benefits.

When it comes to transaction management, the JdbcTemplate class hooks in to the Spring transaction support and supports both JTA and JDBC
transactions, through respective Spring transaction managers. For the supported ORM technologies Spring offers Hibernate, JPA and JDO support
through the Hibernate, JPA, and JDO transaction managers as well as JTA support. For details on transaction support, see the Chapter 17,
Transaction Management chapter.

20.2.2 Exception translation
When you use Hibernate, JPA, or JDO in a DAO, you must decide how to handle the persistence technology’s native exception classes. The DAO
throws a subclass of a HibernateException , PersistenceException or JDOException depending on the technology. These exceptions
are all run-time exceptions and do not have to be declared or caught. You may also have to deal with IllegalArgumentException and
IllegalStateException . This means that callers can only treat exceptions as generally fatal, unless they want to depend on the persistence
technology’s own exception structure. Catching speciﬁc causes such as an optimistic locking failure is not possible without tying the caller to the
implementation strategy. This trade off might be acceptable to applications that are strongly ORM-based and/or do not need any special exception
treatment. However, Spring enables exception translation to be applied transparently through the @Repository annotation:

@Repository
public class ProductDaoImpl implements ProductDao {

// class body here...

<beans>

<bean id="myProductDao" class="product.ProductDaoImpl"/>

</beans>

The postprocessor automatically looks for all exception translators (implementations of the PersistenceExceptionTranslator interface) and
advises all beans marked with the @Repository annotation so that the discovered translators can intercept and apply the appropriate translation
on the thrown exceptions.

In summary: you can implement DAOs based on the plain persistence technology’s API and annotations, while still beneﬁting from Spring-managed
transactions, dependency injection, and transparent exception conversion (if desired) to Spring’s custom exception hierarchies.

20.3 Hibernate
We will start with a coverage of Hibernate 5 in a Spring environment, using it to demonstrate the approach that Spring takes towards integrating O/R
mappers. This section will cover many issues in detail and show different variations of DAO implementations and transaction demarcation. Most of
these patterns can be directly translated to all other supported ORM tools. The following sections in this chapter will then cover the other ORM
technologies, showing briefer examples there.

As of Spring 4.0, Spring requires Hibernate 3.6 or later. Note that the Hibernate team stopped supporting Hibernate 3 years ago and
even phased out support for Hibernate 4.x in late 2015. We therefore recommend Hibernate 5.0 and higher from a 2016+ perspective.

20.3.1 SessionFactory setup in a Spring container

To avoid tying application objects to hard-coded resource lookups, you can define resources such as a JDBC DataSource or a Hibernate
SessionFactory as beans in the Spring container. Application objects that need to access resources receive references to such predefined
instances through bean references, as illustrated in the DAO definition in the next section.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 355/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The following excerpt from an XML application context deﬁnition shows how to set up a JDBC DataSource and a Hibernate SessionFactory
on top of it:

<beans>

<bean id="myDataSource" class="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource" destroy-method="close">

<bean id="mySessionFactory" class="org.springframework.orm.hibernate5.LocalSessionFactoryBean">

<property name="dataSource" ref="myDataSource"/>
<property name="mappingResources">
<list>
<value>product.hbm.xml</value>
</list>
</property>
<property name="hibernateProperties">
<value>
hibernate.dialect=org.hibernate.dialect.HSQLDialect
</value>
</property>
</bean>

</beans>

Switching from a local Jakarta Commons DBCP BasicDataSource to a JNDI-located DataSource (usually managed by an application server)
is just a matter of conﬁguration:

You can also access a JNDI-located SessionFactory , using Spring’s JndiObjectFactoryBean / <jee:jndi-lookup> to retrieve and
expose it. However, that is typically not common outside of an EJB context.

20.3.2 Implementing DAOs based on plain Hibernate API

Hibernate has a feature called contextual sessions, wherein Hibernate itself manages one current Session per transaction. This is roughly
equivalent to Spring’s synchronization of one Hibernate Session per transaction. A corresponding DAO implementation resembles the following
example, based on the plain Hibernate API:

public class ProductDaoImpl implements ProductDao {

private SessionFactory sessionFactory;

public void setSessionFactory(SessionFactory sessionFactory) {

this.sessionFactory = sessionFactory;
}

public Collection loadProductsByCategory(String category) {

return this.sessionFactory.getCurrentSession()
.createQuery("from test.Product product where product.category=?")
.setParameter(0, category)
.list();
}
}

This style is similar to that of the Hibernate reference documentation and examples, except for holding the SessionFactory in an instance
variable. We strongly recommend such an instance-based setup over the old-school static HibernateUtil class from Hibernate’s
CaveatEmptor sample application. (In general, do not keep any resources in static variables unless absolutely necessary.)

The above DAO follows the dependency injection pattern: it ﬁts nicely into a Spring IoC container, just as it would if coded against Spring’s
HibernateTemplate . Of course, such a DAO can also be set up in plain Java (for example, in unit tests). Simply instantiate it and call
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 356/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
setSessionFactory(..) with the desired factory reference. As a Spring bean deﬁnition, the DAO would resemble the following:

<beans>

<bean id="myProductDao" class="product.ProductDaoImpl">

</beans>

The main advantage of this DAO style is that it depends on Hibernate API only; no import of any Spring class is required. This is of course appealing
from a non-invasiveness perspective, and will no doubt feel more natural to Hibernate developers.

However, the DAO throws plain HibernateException (which is unchecked, so does not have to be declared or caught), which means that
callers can only treat exceptions as generally fatal - unless they want to depend on Hibernate’s own exception hierarchy. Catching speciﬁc causes
such as an optimistic locking failure is not possible without tying the caller to the implementation strategy. This trade off might be acceptable to
applications that are strongly Hibernate-based and/or do not need any special exception treatment.

Fortunately, Spring’s LocalSessionFactoryBean supports Hibernate’s SessionFactory.getCurrentSession() method for any Spring
transaction strategy, returning the current Spring-managed transactional Session even with HibernateTransactionManager . Of course, the
standard behavior of that method remains the return of the current Session associated with the ongoing JTA transaction, if any. This behavior
applies regardless of whether you are using Spring’s JtaTransactionManager , EJB container managed transactions (CMTs), or JTA.

In summary: you can implement DAOs based on the plain Hibernate API, while still being able to participate in Spring-managed transactions.

20.3.3 Declarative transaction demarcation

We recommend that you use Spring’s declarative transaction support, which enables you to replace explicit transaction demarcation API calls in your
Java code with an AOP transaction interceptor. This transaction interceptor can be conﬁgured in a Spring container using either Java annotations or
XML. This declarative transaction capability allows you to keep business services free of repetitive transaction demarcation code and to focus on
adding business logic, which is the real value of your application.

Prior to continuing, you are strongly encouraged to read Section 17.5, “Declarative transaction management” if you have not done so.

You may annotate the service layer with @Transactional annotations and instruct the Spring container to ﬁnd these annotations and provide
transactional semantics for these annotated methods.

public class ProductServiceImpl implements ProductService {

private ProductDao productDao;

public void setProductDao(ProductDao productDao) {

this.productDao = productDao;
}

@Transactional
public void increasePriceOfAllProductsInCategory(final String category) {
List productsToChange = this.productDao.loadProductsByCategory(category);
// ...
}

@Transactional(readOnly = true)
public List<Product> findAllProducts() {
return this.productDao.findAllProducts();
}

All you need to set up in the container is the PlatformTransactionManager implementation as a bean as well as a "<tx:annotation-driven/>"
entry, opting into @Transactional processing at runtime.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<tx:annotation-driven/>

<bean id="myProductService" class="product.SimpleProductService">

</beans>

20.3.4 Programmatic transaction demarcation

You can demarcate transactions in a higher level of the application, on top of such lower-level data access services spanning any number of
operations. Nor do restrictions exist on the implementation of the surrounding business service; it just needs a Spring
PlatformTransactionManager . Again, the latter can come from anywhere, but preferably as a bean reference through a
setTransactionManager(..) method, just as the productDAO should be set by a setProductDao(..) method. The following snippets
show a transaction manager and a business service deﬁnition in a Spring application context, and an example for a business method
implementation:

<beans>

<bean id="myTxManager" class="org.springframework.orm.hibernate5.HibernateTransactionManager">

<bean id="myProductService" class="product.ProductServiceImpl">

</beans>

public class ProductServiceImpl implements ProductService {

private TransactionTemplate transactionTemplate;

private ProductDao productDao;

public void setTransactionManager(PlatformTransactionManager transactionManager) {

this.transactionTemplate = new TransactionTemplate(transactionManager);
}

public void setProductDao(ProductDao productDao) {

this.productDao = productDao;
}

public void increasePriceOfAllProductsInCategory(final String category) {

this.transactionTemplate.execute(new TransactionCallbackWithoutResult() {
public void doInTransactionWithoutResult(TransactionStatus status) {
List productsToChange = this.productDao.loadProductsByCategory(category);
// do the price increase...
}
});
}
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 358/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
}
}

Spring’s TransactionInterceptor allows any checked application exception to be thrown with the callback code, while
TransactionTemplate is restricted to unchecked exceptions within the callback. TransactionTemplate triggers a rollback in case of an
unchecked application exception, or if the transaction is marked rollback-only by the application (via TransactionStatus ).
TransactionInterceptor behaves the same way by default but allows conﬁgurable rollback policies per method.

20.3.5 Transaction management strategies

Both TransactionTemplate and TransactionInterceptor delegate the actual transaction handling to a
PlatformTransactionManager instance, which can be a HibernateTransactionManager (for a single Hibernate SessionFactory ,
using a ThreadLocal Session under the hood) or a JtaTransactionManager (delegating to the JTA subsystem of the container) for
Hibernate applications. You can even use a custom PlatformTransactionManager implementation. Switching from native Hibernate
transaction management to JTA, such as when facing distributed transaction requirements for certain deployments of your application, is just a
matter of conﬁguration. Simply replace the Hibernate transaction manager with Spring’s JTA transaction implementation. Both transaction
demarcation and data access code will work without changes, because they just use the generic transaction management APIs.

For distributed transactions across multiple Hibernate session factories, simply combine JtaTransactionManager as a transaction strategy with
multiple LocalSessionFactoryBean deﬁnitions. Each DAO then gets one speciﬁc SessionFactory reference passed into its corresponding
bean property. If all underlying JDBC data sources are transactional container ones, a business service can demarcate transactions across any
number of DAOs and any number of session factories without special regard, as long as it is using JtaTransactionManager as the strategy.

Both HibernateTransactionManager and JtaTransactionManager allow for proper JVM-level cache handling with Hibernate, without
container-speciﬁc transaction manager lookup or a JCA connector (if you are not using EJB to initiate transactions).

HibernateTransactionManager can export the Hibernate JDBC Connection to plain JDBC access code, for a speciﬁc DataSource . This
capability allows for high-level transaction demarcation with mixed Hibernate and JDBC data access completely without JTA, if you are accessing
only one database. HibernateTransactionManager automatically exposes the Hibernate transaction as a JDBC transaction if you have set up
the passed-in SessionFactory with a DataSource through the dataSource property of the LocalSessionFactoryBean class.
Alternatively, you can specify explicitly the DataSource for which the transactions are supposed to be exposed through the dataSource
property of the HibernateTransactionManager class.

20.3.6 Comparing container-managed and locally deﬁned resources

You can switch between a container-managed JNDI SessionFactory and a locally defined one, without having to change a single line of
application code. Whether to keep resource definitions in the container or locally within the application is mainly a matter of the transaction strategy
that you use. Compared to a Spring-defined local SessionFactory , a manually registered JNDI SessionFactory does not provide any
benefits. Deploying a SessionFactory through Hibernate’s JCA connector provides the added value of participating in the Java EE server’s
management infrastructure, but does not add actual value beyond that.

Spring’s transaction support is not bound to a container. Conﬁgured with any strategy other than JTA, transaction support also works in a stand-
alone or test environment. Especially in the typical case of single-database transactions, Spring’s single-resource local transaction support is a
lightweight and powerful alternative to JTA. When you use local EJB stateless session beans to drive transactions, you depend both on an EJB
container and JTA, even if you access only a single database, and only use stateless session beans to provide declarative transactions through
container-managed transactions. Also, direct use of JTA programmatically requires a Java EE environment as well. JTA does not involve only
container dependencies in terms of JTA itself and of JNDI DataSource instances. For non-Spring, JTA-driven Hibernate transactions, you have to
use the Hibernate JCA connector, or extra Hibernate transaction code with the TransactionManagerLookup conﬁgured for proper JVM-level
caching.

Spring-driven transactions can work as well with a locally defined Hibernate SessionFactory as they do with a local JDBC DataSource if they
are accessing a single database. Thus you only have to use Spring’s JTA transaction strategy when you have distributed transaction requirements. A
JCA connector requires container-specific deployment steps, and obviously JCA support in the first place. This configuration requires more work
than deploying a simple web application with local resource definitions and Spring-driven transactions. Also, you often need the Enterprise Edition of
your container if you are using, for example, WebLogic Express, which does not provide JCA. A Spring application with local resources and
transactions spanning one single database works in any Java EE web container (without JTA, JCA, or EJB) such as Tomcat, Resin, or even plain
Jetty. Additionally, you can easily reuse such a middle tier in desktop applications or test suites.

All things considered, if you do not use EJBs, stick with local SessionFactory setup and Spring’s HibernateTransactionManager or
JtaTransactionManager . You get all of the beneﬁts, including proper transactional JVM-level caching and distributed transactions, without the

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 359/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
inconvenience of container deployment. JNDI registration of a Hibernate SessionFactory through the JCA connector only adds value when used
in conjunction with EJBs.

20.3.7 Spurious application server warnings with Hibernate

In some JTA environments with very strict XADataSource implementations — currently only some WebLogic Server and WebSphere versions —
when Hibernate is conﬁgured without regard to the JTA PlatformTransactionManager object for that environment, it is possible for spurious
warning or exceptions to show up in the application server log. These warnings or exceptions indicate that the connection being accessed is no
longer valid, or JDBC access is no longer valid, possibly because the transaction is no longer active. As an example, here is an actual exception
from WebLogic:

java.sql.SQLException: The transaction is no longer active - status: 'Committed'. No

further JDBC access is allowed within this transaction.

You resolve this warning by simply making Hibernate aware of the JTA PlatformTransactionManager instance, to which it will synchronize
(along with Spring). You have two options for doing this:

If in your application context you are already directly obtaining the JTA PlatformTransactionManager object (presumably from JNDI
through JndiObjectFactoryBean or <jee:jndi-lookup> ) and feeding it, for example, to Spring’s JtaTransactionManager , then
the easiest way is to specify a reference to the bean defining this JTA PlatformTransactionManager instance as the value of the
jtaTransactionManager property for LocalSessionFactoryBean. Spring then makes the object available to Hibernate.
More likely you do not already have the JTA PlatformTransactionManager instance, because Spring’s JtaTransactionManager can
find it itself. Thus you need to configure Hibernate to look up JTA PlatformTransactionManager directly. You do this by configuring an
application server- specific TransactionManagerLookup class in the Hibernate configuration, as described in the Hibernate manual.

The remainder of this section describes the sequence of events that occur with and without Hibernate’s awareness of the JTA
PlatformTransactionManager .

When Hibernate is not conﬁgured with any awareness of the JTA PlatformTransactionManager , the following events occur when a JTA
transaction commits:

The JTA transaction commits.

Spring’s JtaTransactionManager is synchronized to the JTA transaction, so it is called back through an afterCompletion callback by the
JTA transaction manager.
Among other activities, this synchronization can trigger a callback by Spring to Hibernate, through Hibernate’s
afterTransactionCompletion callback (used to clear the Hibernate cache), followed by an explicit close() call on the Hibernate
Session, which causes Hibernate to attempt to close() the JDBC Connection.
In some environments, this Connection.close() call then triggers the warning or error, as the application server no longer considers the
Connection usable at all, because the transaction has already been committed.

When Hibernate is conﬁgured with awareness of the JTA PlatformTransactionManager , the following events occur when a JTA transaction
commits:

the JTA transaction is ready to commit.

Spring’s JtaTransactionManager is synchronized to the JTA transaction, so the transaction is called back through a beforeCompletion
callback by the JTA transaction manager.
Spring is aware that Hibernate itself is synchronized to the JTA transaction, and behaves differently than in the previous scenario. Assuming the
Hibernate Session needs to be closed at all, Spring will close it now.
The JTA transaction commits.
Hibernate is synchronized to the JTA transaction, so the transaction is called back through an afterCompletion callback by the JTA transaction
manager, and can properly clear its cache.

20.4 JDO
Spring supports the standard JDO 2.0 and 2.1 APIs as data access strategy, following the same style as the Hibernate support. The corresponding
integration classes reside in the org.springframework.orm.jdo package.

20.4.1 PersistenceManagerFactory setup
Spring provides a LocalPersistenceManagerFactoryBean class that allows you to deﬁne a local JDO PersistenceManagerFactory
within a Spring application context:

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 360/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
<beans>

<bean id="myPmf" class="org.springframework.orm.jdo.LocalPersistenceManagerFactoryBean">

</beans>

Alternatively, you can set up a PersistenceManagerFactory through direct instantiation of a PersistenceManagerFactory

implementation class. A JDO PersistenceManagerFactory implementation class follows the JavaBeans pattern, just like a JDBC
DataSource implementation class, which is a natural fit for a configuration that uses Spring. This setup style usually supports a Spring-defined
JDBC DataSource , passed into the connectionFactory property. For example, for the open source JDO implementation DataNucleus
(formerly JPOX) ( http://www.datanucleus.org/), this is the XML configuration of the PersistenceManagerFactory implementation:

<beans>

<bean id="dataSource" class="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource" destroy-method="close">

<bean id="myPmf" class="org.datanucleus.jdo.JDOPersistenceManagerFactory" destroy-method="close">

</beans>

You can also set up JDO PersistenceManagerFactory in the JNDI environment of a Java EE application server, usually through the JCA
connector provided by the particular JDO implementation. Spring’s standard JndiObjectFactoryBean or <jee:jndi-lookup> can be used
to retrieve and expose such a PersistenceManagerFactory . However, outside an EJB context, no real beneﬁt exists in holding the
PersistenceManagerFactory in JNDI: only choose such a setup for a good reason. See Section 20.3.6, “Comparing container-managed and
locally deﬁned resources” for a discussion; the arguments there apply to JDO as well.

20.4.2 Implementing DAOs based on the plain JDO API

DAOs can also be written directly against plain JDO API, without any Spring dependencies, by using an injected PersistenceManagerFactory .
The following is an example of a corresponding DAO implementation:

public class ProductDaoImpl implements ProductDao {

private PersistenceManagerFactory persistenceManagerFactory;

public void setPersistenceManagerFactory(PersistenceManagerFactory pmf) {

this.persistenceManagerFactory = pmf;
}

public Collection loadProductsByCategory(String category) {

PersistenceManager pm = this.persistenceManagerFactory.getPersistenceManager();
try {
Query query = pm.newQuery(Product.class, "category = pCategory");
query.declareParameters("String pCategory");
return query.execute(category);
}
finally {
pm.close();
}
}
}

<beans>

<bean id="myProductDao" class="product.ProductDaoImpl">

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 361/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
</bean>

</beans>

The main problem with such DAOs is that they always get a new PersistenceManager from the factory. To access a Spring-managed
transactional PersistenceManager , deﬁne a TransactionAwarePersistenceManagerFactoryProxy (as included in Spring) in front of
your target PersistenceManagerFactory , then passing a reference to that proxy into your DAOs as in the following example:

<beans>

<bean id="myProductDao" class="product.ProductDaoImpl">

</beans>

Your data access code will receive a transactional PersistenceManager (if any) from the
PersistenceManagerFactory.getPersistenceManager() method that it calls. The latter method call goes through the proxy, which ﬁrst
checks for a current transactional PersistenceManager before getting a new one from the factory. Any close() calls on the
PersistenceManager are ignored in case of a transactional PersistenceManager .

If your data access code always runs within an active transaction (or at least within active transaction synchronization), it is safe to omit the
PersistenceManager.close() call and thus the entire finally block, which you might do to keep your DAO implementations concise:

public class ProductDaoImpl implements ProductDao {

private PersistenceManagerFactory persistenceManagerFactory;

public void setPersistenceManagerFactory(PersistenceManagerFactory pmf) {

this.persistenceManagerFactory = pmf;
}

public Collection loadProductsByCategory(String category) {

PersistenceManager pm = this.persistenceManagerFactory.getPersistenceManager();
Query query = pm.newQuery(Product.class, "category = pCategory");
query.declareParameters("String pCategory");
return query.execute(category);
}
}

With such DAOs that rely on active transactions, it is recommended that you enforce active transactions through turning off
TransactionAwarePersistenceManagerFactoryProxy’s `allowCreate ﬂag:

<beans>

<bean id="myProductDao" class="product.ProductDaoImpl">

</beans>

The main advantage of this DAO style is that it depends on JDO API only; no import of any Spring class is required. This is of course appealing from
a non-invasiveness perspective, and might feel more natural to JDO developers.

However, the DAO throws plain JDOException (which is unchecked, so does not have to be declared or caught), which means that callers can
only treat exceptions as fatal, unless you want to depend on JDO’s own exception structure. Catching speciﬁc causes such as an optimistic locking
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 362/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
failure is not possible without tying the caller to the implementation strategy. This trade off might be acceptable to applications that are strongly JDO-
based and/or do not need any special exception treatment.

In summary, you can DAOs based on the plain JDO API, and they can still participate in Spring-managed transactions. This strategy might appeal to
you if you are already familiar with JDO. However, such DAOs throw plain JDOException , and you would have to convert explicitly to Spring’s
DataAccessException (if desired).

20.4.3 Transaction management

You are strongly encouraged to read Section 17.5, “Declarative transaction management” if you have not done so, to get a more
detailed coverage of Spring’s declarative transaction support.

To execute service operations within transactions, you can use Spring’s common declarative transaction facilities. For example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<bean id="myTxManager" class="org.springframework.orm.jdo.JdoTransactionManager">

<bean id="myProductService" class="product.ProductServiceImpl">

<tx:advice id="txAdvice" transaction-manager="txManager">

<tx:attributes>
<tx:method name="increasePrice*" propagation="REQUIRED"/>
<tx:method name="someOtherBusinessMethod" propagation="REQUIRES_NEW"/>
<tx:method name="*" propagation="SUPPORTS" read-only="true"/>
</tx:attributes>
</tx:advice>

<aop:config>
<aop:pointcut id="productServiceMethods"
expression="execution(* product.ProductService.*(..))"/>
<aop:advisor advice-ref="txAdvice" pointcut-ref="productServiceMethods"/>
</aop:config>

</beans>

JDO requires an active transaction to modify a persistent object. The non-transactional flush concept does not exist in JDO, in contrast to Hibernate.
For this reason, you need to set up the chosen JDO implementation for a specific environment. Specifically, you need to set it up explicitly for JTA
synchronization, to detect an active JTA transaction itself. This is not necessary for local transactions as performed by Spring’s
JdoTransactionManager , but it is necessary to participate in JTA transactions, whether driven by Spring’s JtaTransactionManager or by
EJB CMT and plain JTA.

JdoTransactionManager is capable of exposing a JDO transaction to JDBC access code that accesses the same JDBC DataSource ,
provided that the registered JdoDialect supports retrieval of the underlying JDBC Connection . This is the case for JDBC-based JDO 2.0
implementations by default.

20.4.4 JdoDialect

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 363/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
As an advanced feature, both LocalPersistenceManagerFactoryBean and JdoTransactionManager support a custom JdoDialect
that can be passed into the jdoDialect bean property. Using a JdoDialect implementation, you can enable advanced features supported by
Spring, usually in a vendor-speciﬁc manner:

Applying speciﬁc transaction semantics such as custom isolation level or transaction timeout
Retrieving the transactional JDBC Connection for exposure to JDBC-based DAOs
Applying query timeouts, which are automatically calculated from Spring-managed transaction timeouts
Eagerly ﬂushing a PersistenceManager, to make transactional changes visible to JDBC-based data access code
Advanced translation of JDOExceptions to Spring DataAccessExceptions

See the JdoDialect javadocs for more details on its operations and how to use them within Spring’s JDO support.

20.5 JPA
The Spring JPA, available under the org.springframework.orm.jpa package, offers comprehensive support for the Java Persistence API in a
similar manner to the integration with Hibernate or JDO, while being aware of the underlying implementation in order to provide additional features.

20.5.1 Three options for JPA setup in a Spring environment

The Spring JPA support offers three ways of setting up the JPA EntityManagerFactory that will be used by the application to obtain an entity
manager.

LocalEntityManagerFactoryBean

Only use this option in simple deployment environments such as stand-alone applications and integration tests.

The LocalEntityManagerFactoryBean creates an EntityManagerFactory suitable for simple deployment environments where the
application uses only JPA for data access. The factory bean uses the JPA PersistenceProvider autodetection mechanism (according to JPA’s
Java SE bootstrapping) and, in most cases, requires you to specify only the persistence unit name:

This form of JPA deployment is the simplest and the most limited. You cannot refer to an existing JDBC DataSource bean definition and no
support for global transactions exists. Furthermore, weaving (byte-code transformation) of persistent classes is provider-specific, often requiring a
specific JVM agent to specified on startup. This option is sufficient only for stand-alone applications and test environments, for which the JPA
specification is designed.

Obtaining an EntityManagerFactory from JNDI

Use this option when deploying to a Java EE server. Check your server’s documentation on how to deploy a custom JPA provider into
your server, allowing for a different provider than the server’s default.

Obtaining an EntityManagerFactory from JNDI (for example in a Java EE environment), is simply a matter of changing the XML conﬁguration:

This action assumes standard Java EE bootstrapping: the Java EE server autodetects persistence units (in effect, META-INF/persistence.xml
ﬁles in application jars) and persistence-unit-ref entries in the Java EE deployment descriptor (for example, web.xml ) and deﬁnes
environment naming context locations for those persistence units.

In such a scenario, the entire persistence unit deployment, including the weaving (byte-code transformation) of persistent classes, is up to the Java
EE server. The JDBC DataSource is deﬁned through a JNDI location in the META-INF/persistence.xml ﬁle; EntityManager transactions are

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 364/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
integrated with the server’s JTA subsystem. Spring merely uses the obtained EntityManagerFactory , passing it on to application objects
through dependency injection, and managing transactions for the persistence unit, typically through JtaTransactionManager .

If multiple persistence units are used in the same application, the bean names of such JNDI-retrieved persistence units should match the persistence
unit names that the application uses to refer to them, for example, in @PersistenceUnit and @PersistenceContext annotations.

LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean

Use this option for full JPA capabilities in a Spring-based application environment. This includes web containers such as Tomcat as
well as stand-alone applications and integration tests with sophisticated persistence requirements.

The LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean gives full control over EntityManagerFactory configuration and is appropriate for
environments where fine-grained customization is required. The LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean creates a
PersistenceUnitInfo instance based on the persistence.xml file, the supplied dataSourceLookup strategy, and the specified
loadTimeWeaver . It is thus possible to work with custom data sources outside of JNDI and to control the weaving process. The following example
shows a typical bean definition for a LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean :

The following example shows a typical persistence.xml ﬁle:

<persistence xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence" version="1.0">

<persistence-unit name="myUnit" transaction-type="RESOURCE_LOCAL">
<mapping-file>META-INF/orm.xml</mapping-file>
<exclude-unlisted-classes/>
</persistence-unit>
</persistence>

The <exclude-unlisted-classes/> shortcut indicates that no scanning for annotated entity classes is supposed to occur. An
explicit 'true' value speciﬁed - <exclude-unlisted-classes>true</exclude-unlisted-classes/> - also means no scan.
<exclude-unlisted-classes>false</exclude-unlisted-classes/> does trigger a scan; however, it is recommended to
simply omit the exclude-unlisted-classes element if you want entity class scanning to occur.

Using the LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean is the most powerful JPA setup option, allowing for ﬂexible local conﬁguration within
the application. It supports links to an existing JDBC DataSource , supports both local and global transactions, and so on. However, it also
imposes requirements on the runtime environment, such as the availability of a weaving-capable class loader if the persistence provider demands
byte-code transformation.

This option may conflict with the built-in JPA capabilities of a Java EE server. In a full Java EE environment, consider obtaining your
EntityManagerFactory from JNDI. Alternatively, specify a custom persistenceXmlLocation on your
LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean definition, for example, META-INF/my-persistence.xml, and only include a descriptor with that
name in your application jar files. Because the Java EE server only looks for default META-INF/persistence.xml files, it ignores such custom
persistence units and hence avoid conflicts with a Spring-driven JPA setup upfront. (This applies to Resin 3.1, for example.)

When is load-time weaving required?

Not all JPA providers require a JVM agent. Hibernate is an example of one that does not. If your provider does not require an agent or you
have other alternatives, such as applying enhancements at build time through a custom compiler or an ant task, the load-time weaver should
not be used.

The LoadTimeWeaver interface is a Spring-provided class that allows JPA ClassTransformer instances to be plugged in a speciﬁc manner,
depending whether the environment is a web container or application server. Hooking ClassTransformers through an agent typically is not

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 365/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
efﬁcient. The agents work against the entire virtual machine and inspect every class that is loaded, which is usually undesirable in a production
server environment.

Spring provides a number of LoadTimeWeaver implementations for various environments, allowing ClassTransformer instances to be applied
only per class loader and not per VM.

Refer to the section called “Spring conﬁguration” in the AOP chapter for more insight regarding the LoadTimeWeaver implementations and their
setup, either generic or customized to various platforms (such as Tomcat, WebLogic, GlassFish, Resin and JBoss).

As described in the aforementioned section, you can conﬁgure a context-wide LoadTimeWeaver using the @EnableLoadTimeWeaving
annotation of context:load-time-weaver XML element. Such a global weaver is picked up by all JPA
LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBeans automatically. This is the preferred way of setting up a load-time weaver, delivering
autodetection of the platform (WebLogic, GlassFish, Tomcat, Resin, JBoss or VM agent) and automatic propagation of the weaver to all weaver-
aware beans:

<context:load-time-weaver/>
<bean id="emf" class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean">
...
</bean>

However, if needed, one can manually specify a dedicated weaver through the loadTimeWeaver property:

<bean id="emf" class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean">

No matter how the LTW is conﬁgured, using this technique, JPA applications relying on instrumentation can run in the target platform (ex: Tomcat)
without needing an agent. This is important especially when the hosting applications rely on different JPA implementations because the JPA
transformers are applied only at class loader level and thus are isolated from each other.

Dealing with multiple persistence units

For applications that rely on multiple persistence units locations, stored in various JARS in the classpath, for example, Spring offers the
PersistenceUnitManager to act as a central repository and to avoid the persistence units discovery process, which can be expensive. The
default implementation allows multiple locations to be speciﬁed that are parsed and later retrieved through the persistence unit name. (By default,
the classpath is searched for META-INF/persistence.xml ﬁles.)

<bean id="pum" class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.persistenceunit.DefaultPersistenceUnitManager">

<property name="persistenceXmlLocations">
<list>
<value>org/springframework/orm/jpa/domain/persistence-multi.xml</value>
<value>classpath:/my/package/**/custom-persistence.xml</value>
<value>classpath*:META-INF/persistence.xml</value>
</list>
</property>
<property name="dataSources">
<map>
<entry key="localDataSource" value-ref="local-db"/>
<entry key="remoteDataSource" value-ref="remote-db"/>
</map>
</property>

<property name="defaultDataSource" ref="remoteDataSource"/>
</bean>

<bean id="emf" class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean">

<property name="persistenceUnitName" value="myCustomUnit"/>

</bean>

The default implementation allows customization of the PersistenceUnitInfo instances, before they are fed to the JPA provider, declaratively
through its properties, which affect all hosted units, or programmatically, through the PersistenceUnitPostProcessor , which allows

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 366/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
persistence unit selection. If no PersistenceUnitManager is speciﬁed, one is created and used internally by
LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean .

20.5.2 Implementing DAOs based on JPA: EntityManagerFactory and EntityManager

Although EntityManagerFactory instances are thread-safe, EntityManager instances are not. The injected JPA
EntityManager behaves like an EntityManager fetched from an application server’s JNDI environment, as deﬁned by the JPA
speciﬁcation. It delegates all calls to the current transactional EntityManager , if any; otherwise, it falls back to a newly created
EntityManager per operation, in effect making its usage thread-safe.

It is possible to write code against the plain JPA without any Spring dependencies, by using an injected EntityManagerFactory or
EntityManager . Spring can understand @PersistenceUnit and @PersistenceContext annotations both at ﬁeld and method level if a
PersistenceAnnotationBeanPostProcessor is enabled. A plain JPA DAO implementation using the @PersistenceUnit annotation might
look like this:

public class ProductDaoImpl implements ProductDao {

private EntityManagerFactory emf;

@PersistenceUnit
public void setEntityManagerFactory(EntityManagerFactory emf) {
this.emf = emf;
}

The DAO above has no dependency on Spring and still ﬁts nicely into a Spring application context. Moreover, the DAO takes advantage of
annotations to require the injection of the default EntityManagerFactory :

<beans>

<bean id="myProductDao" class="product.ProductDaoImpl"/>

</beans>

As an alternative to deﬁning a PersistenceAnnotationBeanPostProcessor explicitly, consider using the Spring

context:annotation-config XML element in your application context conﬁguration. Doing so automatically registers all Spring standard post-
processors for annotation-based conﬁguration, including CommonAnnotationBeanPostProcessor and so on.

<beans>

<context:annotation-config/>

<bean id="myProductDao" class="product.ProductDaoImpl"/>

</beans>

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 367/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The main problem with such a DAO is that it always creates a new EntityManager through the factory. You can avoid this by requesting a
transactional EntityManager (also called "shared EntityManager" because it is a shared, thread-safe proxy for the actual transactional
EntityManager) to be injected instead of the factory:

public class ProductDaoImpl implements ProductDao {

@PersistenceContext
private EntityManager em;

public Collection loadProductsByCategory(String category) {

Query query = em.createQuery("from Product as p where p.category = :category");
query.setParameter("category", category);
return query.getResultList();
}
}

The @PersistenceContext annotation has an optional attribute type , which defaults to PersistenceContextType.TRANSACTION . This
default is what you need to receive a shared EntityManager proxy. The alternative, PersistenceContextType.EXTENDED , is a completely
different affair: This results in a so-called extended EntityManager, which is not thread-safe and hence must not be used in a concurrently accessed
component such as a Spring-managed singleton bean. Extended EntityManagers are only supposed to be used in stateful components that, for
example, reside in a session, with the lifecycle of the EntityManager not tied to a current transaction but rather being completely up to the
application.

Method- and ﬁeld-level Injection

Annotations that indicate dependency injections (such as @PersistenceUnit and @PersistenceContext ) can be applied on ﬁeld or
methods inside a class, hence the expressions method-level injection and ﬁeld-level injection. Field-level annotations are concise and easier to
use while method-level allows for further processing of the injected dependency. In both cases the member visibility (public, protected, private)
does not matter.

What about class-level annotations?

On the Java EE platform, they are used for dependency declaration and not for resource injection.

The injected EntityManager is Spring-managed (aware of the ongoing transaction). It is important to note that even though the new DAO
implementation uses method level injection of an EntityManager instead of an EntityManagerFactory , no change is required in the
application context XML due to annotation usage.

The main advantage of this DAO style is that it only depends on Java Persistence API; no import of any Spring class is required. Moreover, as the
JPA annotations are understood, the injections are applied automatically by the Spring container. This is appealing from a non-invasiveness
perspective, and might feel more natural to JPA developers.

20.5.3 Spring-driven JPA transactions

You are strongly encouraged to read Section 17.5, “Declarative transaction management” if you have not done so, to get a more
detailed coverage of Spring’s declarative transaction support.

The recommended strategy for JPA is local transactions via JPA’s native transaction support. Spring’s JpaTransactionManager provides many
capabilities known from local JDBC transactions, such as transaction-speciﬁc isolation levels and resource-level read-only optimizations, against any
regular JDBC connection pool (no XA requirement).

Spring JPA also allows a conﬁgured JpaTransactionManager to expose a JPA transaction to JDBC access code that accesses the same
DataSource , provided that the registered JpaDialect supports retrieval of the underlying JDBC Connection . Out of the box, Spring provides
dialects for the EclipseLink, Hibernate and OpenJPA JPA implementations. See the next section for details on the JpaDialect mechanism.

20.5.4 JpaDialect and JpaVendorAdapter

As an advanced feature JpaTransactionManager and subclasses of AbstractEntityManagerFactoryBean support a custom
JpaDialect , to be passed into the jpaDialect bean property. A JpaDialect implementation can enable some advanced features supported
by Spring, usually in a vendor-speciﬁc manner:

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 368/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Applying speciﬁc transaction semantics such as custom isolation level or transaction timeout)
Retrieving the transactional JDBC Connection for exposure to JDBC-based DAOs)
Advanced translation of PersistenceExceptions to Spring DataAccessExceptions

This is particularly valuable for special transaction semantics and for advanced translation of exception. The default implementation used
( DefaultJpaDialect ) does not provide any special capabilities and if the above features are required, you have to specify the appropriate
dialect.

As an even broader provider adaptation facility primarily for Spring’s full-featured LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean
setup, JpaVendorAdapter combines the capabilities of JpaDialect with other provider-speciﬁc defaults. Specifying a
HibernateJpaVendorAdapter or EclipseLinkJpaVendorAdapter is the most convenient way of auto-conﬁguring an
EntityManagerFactory setup for Hibernate or EclipseLink, respectively. Note that those provider adapters are primarily designed
for use with Spring-driven transaction management, i.e. for use with JpaTransactionManager .

See the JpaDialect and JpaVendorAdapter javadocs for more details of its operations and how they are used within Spring’s JPA support.

20.5.5 Setting up JPA with JTA transaction management

As an alternative to JpaTransactionManager , Spring also allows for multi-resource transaction coordination via JTA, either in a Java EE
environment or with a standalone transaction coordinator such as Atomikos. Aside from choosing Spring’s JtaTransactionManager instead of
JpaTransactionManager , there are a few further steps to take:

The underlying JDBC connection pools need to be XA-capable and integrated with your transaction coordinator. This is usually straightforward in
a Java EE environment, simply exposing a different kind of DataSource via JNDI. Check your application server documentation for details.
Analogously, a standalone transaction coordinator usually comes with special XA-integrated DataSource implementations; again, check its
docs.
The JPA EntityManagerFactory setup needs to be configured for JTA. This is provider-specific, typically via special properties to be
specified as "jpaProperties" on LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean . In the case of Hibernate, these properties are even
version-specific; please check your Hibernate documentation for details.
Spring’s HibernateJpaVendorAdapter enforces certain Spring-oriented defaults such as the connection release mode "on-close" which
matches Hibernate’s own default in Hibernate 5.0 but not anymore in 5.1/5.2. For a JTA setup, either do not declare
HibernateJpaVendorAdapter to begin with, or turn off its prepareConnection flag. Alternatively, set Hibernate 5.2’s
"hibernate.connection.handling_mode" property to "DELAYED_ACQUISITION_AND_RELEASE_AFTER_STATEMENT" to restore Hibernate’s
own default. See Section 20.3.7, “Spurious application server warnings with Hibernate” for a related note about WebLogic.
Alternatively, consider obtaining the EntityManagerFactory from your application server itself, i.e. via a JNDI lookup instead of a locally
declared LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean . A server-provided EntityManagerFactory might require special definitions
in your server configuration, making the deployment less portable, but will be set up for the server’s JTA environment out of the box.

21. Marshalling XML using O/X Mappers

21.1 Introduction
In this chapter, we will describe Spring’s Object/XML Mapping support. Object/XML Mapping, or O/X mapping for short, is the act of converting an
XML document to and from an object. This conversion process is also known as XML Marshalling, or XML Serialization. This chapter uses these
terms interchangeably.

Within the ﬁeld of O/X mapping, a marshaller is responsible for serializing an object (graph) to XML. In similar fashion, an unmarshaller deserializes
the XML to an object graph. This XML can take the form of a DOM document, an input or output stream, or a SAX handler.

Some of the beneﬁts of using Spring for your O/X mapping needs are:

21.1.1 Ease of configuration
Spring’s bean factory makes it easy to configure marshallers, without needing to construct JAXB context, JiBX binding factories, etc. The marshallers
can be configured as any other bean in your application context. Additionally, XML Schema-based configuration is available for a number of
marshallers, making the configuration even simpler.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 369/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

21.1.2 Consistent Interfaces
Spring’s O/X mapping operates through two global interfaces: the Marshaller and Unmarshaller interface. These abstractions allow you to
switch O/X mapping frameworks with relative ease, with little or no changes required on the classes that do the marshalling. This approach has the
additional beneﬁt of making it possible to do XML marshalling with a mix-and-match approach (e.g. some marshalling performed using JAXB, other
using XMLBeans) in a non-intrusive fashion, leveraging the strength of each technology.

21.1.3 Consistent Exception Hierarchy

Spring provides a conversion from exceptions from the underlying O/X mapping tool to its own exception hierarchy with the
XmlMappingException as the root exception. As can be expected, these runtime exceptions wrap the original exception so no information is lost.

21.2 Marshaller and Unmarshaller

As stated in the introduction, a marshaller serializes an object to XML, and an unmarshaller deserializes XML stream to an object. In this section, we
will describe the two Spring interfaces used for this purpose.

21.2.1 Marshaller
Spring abstracts all marshalling operations behind the org.springframework.oxm.Marshaller interface, the main method of which is shown
below.

public interface Marshaller {

/**
* Marshal the object graph with the given root into the provided Result.
*/
void marshal(Object graph, Result result) throws XmlMappingException, IOException;
}

The Marshaller interface has one main method, which marshals the given object to a given javax.xml.transform.Result . Result is a
tagging interface that basically represents an XML output abstraction: concrete implementations wrap various XML representations, as indicated in
the table below.

Result implementation Wraps XML representation

DOMResult org.w3c.dom.Node

SAXResult org.xml.sax.ContentHandler

StreamResult java.io.File , java.io.OutputStream , or java.io.Writer

Although the marshal() method accepts a plain object as its ﬁrst parameter, most Marshaller implementations cannot handle
arbitrary objects. Instead, an object class must be mapped in a mapping ﬁle, marked with an annotation, registered with the marshaller,
or have a common base class. Refer to the further sections in this chapter to determine how your O/X technology of choice manages
this.

21.2.2 Unmarshaller
Similar to the Marshaller , there is the org.springframework.oxm.Unmarshaller interface.

public interface Unmarshaller {

/**
* Unmarshal the given provided Source into an object graph.
*/
Object unmarshal(Source source) throws XmlMappingException, IOException;
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 370/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
This interface also has one method, which reads from the given javax.xml.transform.Source (an XML input abstraction), and returns the
object read. As with Result, Source is a tagging interface that has three concrete implementations. Each wraps a different XML representation, as
indicated in the table below.

Source implementation Wraps XML representation

DOMSource org.w3c.dom.Node

SAXSource org.xml.sax.InputSource , and org.xml.sax.XMLReader

StreamSource java.io.File , java.io.InputStream , or java.io.Reader

Even though there are two separate marshalling interfaces ( Marshaller and Unmarshaller ), all implementations found in Spring-WS
implement both in one class. This means that you can wire up one marshaller class and refer to it both as a marshaller and an unmarshaller in your
applicationContext.xml .

21.2.3 XmlMappingException
Spring converts exceptions from the underlying O/X mapping tool to its own exception hierarchy with the XmlMappingException as the root
exception. As can be expected, these runtime exceptions wrap the original exception so no information will be lost.

Additionally, the MarshallingFailureException and UnmarshallingFailureException provide a distinction between marshalling and
unmarshalling operations, even though the underlying O/X mapping tool does not do so.

The O/X Mapping exception hierarchy is shown in the following ﬁgure:

O/X Mapping exception hierarchy

21.3 Using Marshaller and Unmarshaller

Spring’s OXM can be used for a wide variety of situations. In the following example, we will use it to marshal the settings of a Spring-managed
application as an XML ﬁle. We will use a simple JavaBean to represent the settings:

public class Settings {

private boolean fooEnabled;

public boolean isFooEnabled() {

return fooEnabled;
}

public void setFooEnabled(boolean fooEnabled) {

this.fooEnabled = fooEnabled;
}
}

The application class uses this bean to store its settings. Besides a main method, the class has two methods: saveSettings() saves the settings
bean to a ﬁle named settings.xml , and loadSettings() loads these settings again. A main() method constructs a Spring application
context, and calls these two methods.

import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import javax.xml.transform.stream.StreamResult;
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 371/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
import javax.xml.transform.stream.StreamResult;
import javax.xml.transform.stream.StreamSource;

import org.springframework.context.ApplicationContext;
import org.springframework.context.support.ClassPathXmlApplicationContext;
import org.springframework.oxm.Marshaller;
import org.springframework.oxm.Unmarshaller;

public class Application {

private static final String FILE_NAME = "settings.xml";

private Settings settings = new Settings();
private Marshaller marshaller;
private Unmarshaller unmarshaller;

public void setMarshaller(Marshaller marshaller) {

this.marshaller = marshaller;
}

public void setUnmarshaller(Unmarshaller unmarshaller) {

this.unmarshaller = unmarshaller;
}

public void saveSettings() throws IOException {

FileOutputStream os = null;
try {
os = new FileOutputStream(FILE_NAME);
this.marshaller.marshal(settings, new StreamResult(os));
} finally {
if (os != null) {
os.close();
}
}
}

public void loadSettings() throws IOException {

FileInputStream is = null;
try {
is = new FileInputStream(FILE_NAME);
this.settings = (Settings) this.unmarshaller.unmarshal(new StreamSource(is));
} finally {
if (is != null) {
is.close();
}
}
}

public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {

ApplicationContext appContext =
new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("applicationContext.xml");
Application application = (Application) appContext.getBean("application");
application.saveSettings();
application.loadSettings();
}
}

The Application requires both a marshaller and unmarshaller property to be set. We can do so using the following
applicationContext.xml :

This application context uses Castor, but we could have used any of the other marshaller instances described later in this chapter. Note that Castor
does not require any further conﬁguration by default, so the bean deﬁnition is rather simple. Also note that the CastorMarshaller implements
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 372/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
both Marshaller and Unmarshaller , so we can refer to the castorMarshaller bean in both the marshaller and unmarshaller
property of the application.

This sample application produces the following settings.xml ﬁle:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

21.4 XML Schema-based Conﬁguration

Marshallers could be configured more concisely using tags from the OXM namespace. To make these tags available, the appropriate schema has to
be referenced first in the preamble of the XML configuration file. Note the 'oxm' related text below:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

Currently, the following tags are available:

jaxb2-marshaller
xmlbeans-marshaller
castor-marshaller
jibx-marshaller

Each tag will be explained in its respective marshaller’s section. As an example though, here is how the conﬁguration of a JAXB2 marshaller might
look like:

<oxm:jaxb2-marshaller id="marshaller" contextPath="org.springframework.ws.samples.airline.schema"/>

21.5 JAXB
The JAXB binding compiler translates a W3C XML Schema into one or more Java classes, a jaxb.properties ﬁle, and possibly some resource
ﬁles. JAXB also offers a way to generate a schema from annotated Java classes.

Spring supports the JAXB 2.0 API as XML marshalling strategies, following the Marshaller and Unmarshaller interfaces described in
Section 21.2, “Marshaller and Unmarshaller”. The corresponding integration classes reside in the org.springframework.oxm.jaxb package.

21.5.1 Jaxb2Marshaller
The Jaxb2Marshaller class implements both the Spring Marshaller and Unmarshaller interface. It requires a context path to operate,
which you can set using the contextPath property. The context path is a list of colon (:) separated Java package names that contain schema
derived classes. It also offers a classesToBeBound property, which allows you to set an array of classes to be supported by the marshaller.
Schema validation is performed by specifying one or more schema resource to the bean, like so:

<beans>
<bean id="jaxb2Marshaller" class="org.springframework.oxm.jaxb.Jaxb2Marshaller">
<property name="classesToBeBound">
<list>
<value>org.springframework.oxm.jaxb.Flight</value>
<value>org.springframework.oxm.jaxb.Flights</value>
</list>
</property>
<property name="schema" value="classpath:org/springframework/oxm/schema.xsd"/>
</bean>

...

</beans>

XML Schema-based Conﬁguration

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 373/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The jaxb2-marshaller tag conﬁgures a org.springframework.oxm.jaxb.Jaxb2Marshaller . Here is an example:

<oxm:jaxb2-marshaller id="marshaller" contextPath="org.springframework.ws.samples.airline.schema"/>

Alternatively, the list of classes to bind can be provided to the marshaller via the class-to-be-bound child tag:

<oxm:jaxb2-marshaller id="marshaller">
<oxm:class-to-be-bound name="org.springframework.ws.samples.airline.schema.Airport"/>
<oxm:class-to-be-bound name="org.springframework.ws.samples.airline.schema.Flight"/>
...
</oxm:jaxb2-marshaller>

Available attributes are:

Attribute Description Required

id the id of the marshaller no

contextPath the JAXB Context path no

21.6 Castor
Castor XML mapping is an open source XML binding framework. It allows you to transform the data contained in a java object model into/from an
XML document. By default, it does not require any further conﬁguration, though a mapping ﬁle can be used to have more control over the behavior of
Castor.

For more information on Castor, refer to the Castor web site. The Spring integration classes reside in the org.springframework.oxm.castor
package.

21.6.1 CastorMarshaller
As with JAXB, the CastorMarshaller implements both the Marshaller and Unmarshaller interface. It can be wired up as follows:

21.6.2 Mapping
Although it is possible to rely on Castor’s default marshalling behavior, it might be necessary to have more control over it. This can be accomplished
using a Castor mapping ﬁle. For more information, refer to Castor XML Mapping.

The mapping can be set using the mappingLocation resource property, indicated below with a classpath resource.

XML Schema-based Conﬁguration

The castor-marshaller tag conﬁgures a org.springframework.oxm.castor.CastorMarshaller . Here is an example:

<oxm:castor-marshaller id="marshaller" mapping-location="classpath:org/springframework/oxm/castor/mapping.xml"/>

The marshaller instance can be conﬁgured in two ways, by specifying either the location of a mapping ﬁle (through the mapping-location
property), or by identifying Java POJOs (through the target-class or target-package properties) for which there exist corresponding XML
descriptor classes. The latter way is usually used in conjunction with XML code generation from XML schemas.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 374/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Available attributes are:

Attribute Description Required

id the id of the marshaller no

encoding the encoding to use for unmarshalling from XML no

target-class a Java class name for a POJO for which an XML class descriptor is available (as generated through no
code generation)

target-package a Java package name that identiﬁes a package that contains POJOs and their corresponding Castor no
XML descriptor classes (as generated through code generation from XML schemas)

mapping-location location of a Castor XML mapping ﬁle no

21.7 XMLBeans
XMLBeans is an XML binding tool that has full XML Schema support, and offers full XML Infoset ﬁdelity. It takes a different approach to that of most
other O/X mapping frameworks, in that all classes that are generated from an XML Schema are all derived from XmlObject , and contain XML
binding information in them.

For more information on XMLBeans, refer to the XMLBeans web site . The Spring-WS integration classes reside in the
org.springframework.oxm.xmlbeans package.

21.7.1 XmlBeansMarshaller
The XmlBeansMarshaller implements both the Marshaller and Unmarshaller interfaces. It can be conﬁgured as follows:

<beans>

<bean id="xmlBeansMarshaller" class="org.springframework.oxm.xmlbeans.XmlBeansMarshaller" />

...

</beans>

Note that the XmlBeansMarshaller can only marshal objects of type XmlObject , and not every java.lang.Object .

XML Schema-based Conﬁguration

The xmlbeans-marshaller tag conﬁgures a org.springframework.oxm.xmlbeans.XmlBeansMarshaller . Here is an example:

<oxm:xmlbeans-marshaller id="marshaller"/>

Available attributes are:

Attribute Description Required

id the id of the marshaller no

options the bean name of the XmlOptions that is to be used for this marshaller. Typically a XmlOptionsFactoryBean no
deﬁnition

21.8 JiBX
The JiBX framework offers a solution similar to that which JDO provides for ORM: a binding definition defines the rules for how your Java objects are
converted to or from XML. After preparing the binding and compiling the classes, a JiBX binding compiler enhances the class files, and adds code to

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 375/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
handle converting instances of the classes from or to XML.

For more information on JiBX, refer to the JiBX web site. The Spring integration classes reside in the org.springframework.oxm.jibx
package.

21.8.1 JibxMarshaller
The JibxMarshaller class implements both the Marshaller and Unmarshaller interface. To operate, it requires the name of the class to
marshal in, which you can set using the targetClass property. Optionally, you can set the binding name using the bindingName property. In
the next sample, we bind the Flights class:

<beans>
<bean id="jibxFlightsMarshaller" class="org.springframework.oxm.jibx.JibxMarshaller">
<property name="targetClass">org.springframework.oxm.jibx.Flights</property>
</bean>
...
</beans>

A JibxMarshaller is conﬁgured for a single class. If you want to marshal multiple classes, you have to conﬁgure multiple JibxMarshaller s
with different targetClass property values.

XML Schema-based Conﬁguration

The jibx-marshaller tag conﬁgures a org.springframework.oxm.jibx.JibxMarshaller . Here is an example:

<oxm:jibx-marshaller id="marshaller" target-class="org.springframework.ws.samples.airline.schema.Flight"/>

Available attributes are:

Attribute Description Required

id the id of the marshaller no

target-class the target class for this marshaller yes

bindingName the binding name used by this marshaller no

21.9 XStream
XStream is a simple library to serialize objects to XML and back again. It does not require any mapping, and generates clean XML.

For more information on XStream, refer to the XStream web site. The Spring integration classes reside in the
org.springframework.oxm.xstream package.

21.9.1 XStreamMarshaller
The XStreamMarshaller does not require any conﬁguration, and can be conﬁgured in an application context directly. To further customize the
XML, you can set analias map, which consists of string aliases mapped to classes:

<beans>
<bean id="xstreamMarshaller" class="org.springframework.oxm.xstream.XStreamMarshaller">
<property name="aliases">
<props>
<prop key="Flight">org.springframework.oxm.xstream.Flight</prop>
</props>
</property>
</bean>
...
</beans>

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 376/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
By default, XStream allows for arbitrary classes to be unmarshalled, which can lead to unsafe Java serialization effects. As such, it is
not recommended to use the XStreamMarshaller to unmarshal XML from external sources (i.e. the Web), as this can result in
security vulnerabilities.
If you choose to use the XStreamMarshaller to unmarshal XML from an external source, set the supportedClasses property
on the XStreamMarshaller , like as follows:
<bean id="xstreamMarshaller" class="org.springframework.oxm.xstream.XStreamMarshaller">
<property name="supportedClasses" value="org.springframework.oxm.xstream.Flight"/>
...
</bean>
This will make sure that only the registered classes are eligible for unmarshalling.
Additionally, you can register custom converters to make sure that only your supported classes can be unmarshalled. You might want
to add a CatchAllConverter as the last converter in the list, in addition to converters that explicitly support the domain classes that
should be supported. As a result, default XStream converters with lower priorities and possible security vulnerabilities do not get
invoked.

Note that XStream is an XML serialization library, not a data binding library. Therefore, it has limited namespace support. As such, it is
rather unsuitable for usage within Web services.

Part VI. The Web
This part of the reference documentation covers Spring Framework’s support for the presentation tier (and speciﬁcally web-based presentation tiers)
including support for WebSocket-style messaging in web applications.

Spring Framework’s own web framework, Spring Web MVC, is covered in the ﬁrst couple of chapters. Subsequent chapters are concerned with
Spring Framework’s integration with other web technologies, such as JSF.

Following that is coverage of Spring Framework’s MVC portlet framework.

The section then concludes with comprehensive coverage of the Spring Framework Chapter 26, WebSocket Support (including Section 26.4,
“STOMP Over WebSocket Messaging Architecture”).

Chapter 22, Web MVC framework

Chapter 23, View technologies
Chapter 24, Integrating with other web frameworks
Chapter 25, Portlet MVC Framework
Chapter 26, WebSocket Support

22. Web MVC framework

22.1 Introduction to Spring Web MVC framework

The Spring Web model-view-controller (MVC) framework is designed around a DispatcherServlet that dispatches requests to handlers, with
configurable handler mappings, view resolution, locale, time zone and theme resolution as well as support for uploading files. The default handler is
based on the @Controller and @RequestMapping annotations, offering a wide range of flexible handling methods. With the introduction of
Spring 3.0, the @Controller mechanism also allows you to create RESTful Web sites and applications, through the @PathVariable annotation
and other features.

"Open for extension…" A key design principle in Spring Web MVC and in Spring in general is the "Open for extension, closed for modiﬁcation"
principle.

Some methods in the core classes of Spring Web MVC are marked final . As a developer you cannot override these methods to supply your
own behavior. This has not been done arbitrarily, but speciﬁcally with this principle in mind.

For an explanation of this principle, refer to Expert Spring Web MVC and Web Flow by Seth Ladd and others; speciﬁcally see the section "A
Look At Design," on page 117 of the ﬁrst edition. Alternatively, see

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 377/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Bob Martin, The Open-Closed Principle (PDF)

You cannot add advice to ﬁnal methods when you use Spring MVC. For example, you cannot add advice to the
AbstractController.setSynchronizeOnSession() method. Refer to Section 11.6.1, “Understanding AOP proxies” for more
information on AOP proxies and why you cannot add advice to ﬁnal methods.

In Spring Web MVC you can use any object as a command or form-backing object; you do not need to implement a framework-speciﬁc interface or
base class. Spring’s data binding is highly ﬂexible: for example, it treats type mismatches as validation errors that can be evaluated by the
application, not as system errors. Thus you do not need to duplicate your business objects' properties as simple, untyped strings in your form objects
simply to handle invalid submissions, or to convert the Strings properly. Instead, it is often preferable to bind directly to your business objects.

Spring’s view resolution is extremely flexible. A Controller is typically responsible for preparing a model Map with data and selecting a view
name but it can also write directly to the response stream and complete the request. View name resolution is highly configurable through file
extension or Accept header content type negotiation, through bean names, a properties file, or even a custom ViewResolver implementation. The
model (the M in MVC) is a Map interface, which allows for the complete abstraction of the view technology. You can integrate directly with template
based rendering technologies such as JSP, Velocity and Freemarker, or directly generate XML, JSON, Atom, and many other types of content. The
model Map is simply transformed into an appropriate format, such as JSP request attributes, a Velocity template model.

22.1.1 Features of Spring Web MVC

Spring Web Flow

Spring Web Flow (SWF) aims to be the best solution for the management of web application page ﬂow.

SWF integrates with existing frameworks like Spring MVC and JSF, in both Servlet and Portlet environments. If you have a business process
(or processes) that would beneﬁt from a conversational model as opposed to a purely request model, then SWF may be the solution.

SWF allows you to capture logical page ﬂows as self-contained modules that are reusable in different situations, and as such is ideal for
building web application modules that guide the user through controlled navigations that drive business processes.

For more information about SWF, consult the Spring Web Flow website.

Spring’s web module includes many unique web support features:

Clear separation of roles. Each role — controller, validator, command object, form object, model object, DispatcherServlet , handler
mapping, view resolver, and so on — can be fulfilled by a specialized object.
Powerful and straightforward configuration of both framework and application classes as JavaBeans. This configuration capability includes easy
referencing across contexts, such as from web controllers to business objects and validators.
Adaptability, non-intrusiveness, and flexibility. Define any controller method signature you need, possibly using one of the parameter annotations
(such as @RequestParam, @RequestHeader, @PathVariable, and more) for a given scenario.
Reusable business code, no need for duplication. Use existing business objects as command or form objects instead of mirroring them to extend
a particular framework base class.
Customizable binding and validation. Type mismatches as application-level validation errors that keep the offending value, localized date and
number binding, and so on instead of String-only form objects with manual parsing and conversion to business objects.
Customizable handler mapping and view resolution. Handler mapping and view resolution strategies range from simple URL-based
configuration, to sophisticated, purpose-built resolution strategies. Spring is more flexible than web MVC frameworks that mandate a particular
technique.
Flexible model transfer. Model transfer with a name/value Map supports easy integration with any view technology.
Customizable locale, time zone and theme resolution, support for JSPs with or without Spring tag library, support for JSTL, support for Velocity
without the need for extra bridges, and so on.
A simple yet powerful JSP tag library known as the Spring tag library that provides support for features such as data binding and themes. The
custom tags allow for maximum flexibility in terms of markup code. For information on the tag library descriptor, see the appendix entitled
Chapter 43, spring JSP Tag Library
A JSP form tag library, introduced in Spring 2.0, that makes writing forms in JSP pages much easier. For information on the tag library descriptor,
see the appendix entitled Chapter 44, spring-form JSP Tag Library
Beans whose lifecycle is scoped to the current HTTP request or HTTP Session . This is not a specific feature of Spring MVC itself, but rather
of the WebApplicationContext container(s) that Spring MVC uses. These bean scopes are described in Section 7.5.4, “Request, session,
global session, application, and WebSocket scopes”

22.1.2 Pluggability of other MVC implementations

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 378/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Non-Spring MVC implementations are preferable for some projects. Many teams expect to leverage their existing investment in skills and tools, for
example with JSF.

If you do not want to use Spring’s Web MVC, but intend to leverage other solutions that Spring offers, you can integrate the web MVC framework of
your choice with Spring easily. Simply start up a Spring root application context through its ContextLoaderListener , and access it through its
ServletContext attribute (or Spring’s respective helper method) from within any action object. No "plug-ins" are involved, so no dedicated
integration is necessary. From the web layer’s point of view, you simply use Spring as a library, with the root application context instance as the entry
point.

Your registered beans and Spring’s services can be at your ﬁngertips even without Spring’s Web MVC. Spring does not compete with other web
frameworks in this scenario. It simply addresses the many areas that the pure web MVC frameworks do not, from bean conﬁguration to data access
and transaction handling. So you can enrich your application with a Spring middle tier and/or data access tier, even if you just want to use, for
example, the transaction abstraction with JDBC or Hibernate.

22.2 The DispatcherServlet
Spring’s web MVC framework is, like many other web MVC frameworks, request-driven, designed around a central Servlet that dispatches requests
to controllers and offers other functionality that facilitates the development of web applications. Spring’s DispatcherServlet however, does more
than just that. It is completely integrated with the Spring IoC container and as such allows you to use every other feature that Spring has.

The request processing workﬂow of the Spring Web MVC DispatcherServlet is illustrated in the following diagram. The pattern-savvy reader
will recognize that the DispatcherServlet is an expression of the "Front Controller" design pattern (this is a pattern that Spring Web MVC
shares with many other leading web frameworks).

Figure 22.1. The request processing workﬂow in Spring Web MVC (high level)

The DispatcherServlet is an actual Servlet (it inherits from the HttpServlet base class), and as such is declared in your web
application. You need to map requests that you want the DispatcherServlet to handle, by using a URL mapping. Here is a standard Java EE
Servlet conﬁguration in a Servlet 3.0+ environment:

public class MyWebApplicationInitializer implements WebApplicationInitializer {

@Override
public void onStartup(ServletContext container) {
ServletRegistration.Dynamic registration = container.addServlet("example", new DispatcherServlet());
registration.setLoadOnStartup(1);
registration.addMapping("/example/*");
}

}
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 379/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

In the preceding example, all requests starting with /example will be handled by the DispatcherServlet instance named example .

WebApplicationInitializer is an interface provided by Spring MVC that ensures your code-based conﬁguration is detected and automatically
used to initialize any Servlet 3 container. An abstract base class implementation of this interface named
AbstractAnnotationConfigDispatcherServletInitializer makes it even easier to register the DispatcherServlet by simply
specifying its servlet mapping and listing conﬁguration classes - it’s even the recommended way to set up your Spring MVC application. See Code-
based Servlet container initialization for more details.

The DispatcherServlet is an actual Servlet (it inherits from the HttpServlet base class), and as such is declared in the web.xml of
your web application. You need to map requests that you want the DispatcherServlet to handle, by using a URL mapping in the same
web.xml ﬁle. This is standard Java EE Servlet conﬁguration; the following example shows such a DispatcherServlet declaration and
mapping:

Below is the web.xml equivalent of the above code based example:

<web-app>
<servlet>
<servlet-name>example</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
<load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>

<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>example</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/example/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

</web-app>

As detailed in Section 7.15, “Additional Capabilities of the ApplicationContext”, ApplicationContext instances in Spring can be scoped. In the
Web MVC framework, each DispatcherServlet has its own WebApplicationContext , which inherits all the beans already defined in the
root WebApplicationContext . The root WebApplicationContext should contain all the infrastructure beans that should be shared between
your other contexts and Servlet instances. These inherited beans can be overridden in the servlet-specific scope, and you can define new scope-
specific beans local to a given Servlet instance.

Figure 22.2. Typical context hierarchy in Spring Web MVC

Upon initialization of a DispatcherServlet , Spring MVC looks for a file named [servlet-name]-servlet.xml in the WEB-INF directory of your web
application and creates the beans defined there, overriding the definitions of any beans defined with the same name in the global scope.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 380/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Consider the following DispatcherServlet Servlet conﬁguration (in the web.xml ﬁle):

<web-app>
<servlet>
<servlet-name>golfing</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
<load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>golfing</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/golfing/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
</web-app>

With the above Servlet configuration in place, you will need to have a file called /WEB-INF/golfing-servlet.xml in your application; this file
will contain all of your Spring Web MVC-specific components (beans). You can change the exact location of this configuration file through a Servlet
initialization parameter (see below for details).

It is also possible to have just one root context for single DispatcherServlet scenarios.

Figure 22.3. Single root context in Spring Web MVC

This can be conﬁgured by setting an empty contextConﬁgLocation servlet init parameter, as shown below:

<web-app>
<context-param>
<param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
<param-value>/WEB-INF/root-context.xml</param-value>
</context-param>
<servlet>
<servlet-name>dispatcher</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
<init-param>
<param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
<param-value></param-value>
</init-param>
<load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>dispatcher</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
<listener>
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 381/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
<listener>
<listener-class>org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener</listener-class>
</listener>
</web-app>

The WebApplicationContext is an extension of the plain ApplicationContext that has some extra features necessary for web
applications. It differs from a normal ApplicationContext in that it is capable of resolving themes (see Section 22.9, “Using themes”), and that it
knows which Servlet it is associated with (by having a link to the ServletContext ). The WebApplicationContext is bound in the
ServletContext , and by using static methods on the RequestContextUtils class you can always look up the WebApplicationContext
if you need access to it.

Note that we can achieve the same with java-based conﬁgurations:

public class GolfingWebAppInitializer extends AbstractAnnotationConfigDispatcherServletInitializer {

@Override
protected Class<?>[] getRootConfigClasses() {
// GolfingAppConfig defines beans that would be in root-context.xml
return new Class[] { GolfingAppConfig.class };
}

@Override
protected Class<?>[] getServletConfigClasses() {
// GolfingWebConfig defines beans that would be in golfing-servlet.xml
return new Class[] { GolfingWebConfig.class };
}

@Override
protected String[] getServletMappings() {
return new String[] { "/golfing/*" };
}

22.2.1 Special Bean Types In the WebApplicationContext

The Spring DispatcherServlet uses special beans to process requests and render the appropriate views. These beans are part of Spring MVC.
You can choose which special beans to use by simply conﬁguring one or more of them in the WebApplicationContext . However, you don’t
need to do that initially since Spring MVC maintains a list of default beans to use if you don’t conﬁgure any. More on that in the next section. First see
the table below listing the special bean types the DispatcherServlet relies on.

Table 22.1. Special bean types in the WebApplicationContext

Bean type Explanation

HandlerMapping Maps incoming requests to handlers and a list of pre- and post-processors (handler interceptors) based on
some criteria the details of which vary by HandlerMapping implementation. The most popular
implementation supports annotated controllers but other implementations exists as well.

HandlerAdapter Helps the DispatcherServlet to invoke a handler mapped to a request regardless of the handler is
actually invoked. For example, invoking an annotated controller requires resolving various annotations. Thus
the main purpose of a HandlerAdapter is to shield the DispatcherServlet from such details.

HandlerExceptionResolver Maps exceptions to views also allowing for more complex exception handling code.

ViewResolver Resolves logical String-based view names to actual View types.

LocaleResolver & Resolves the locale a client is using and possibly their time zone, in order to be able to offer internationalized
LocaleContextResolver views

ThemeResolver Resolves themes your web application can use, for example, to offer personalized layouts

MultipartResolver Parses multi-part requests for example to support processing ﬁle uploads from HTML forms.

FlashMapManager Stores and retrieves the "input" and the "output" FlashMap that can be used to pass attributes from one
request to another, usually across a redirect.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 382/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

22.2.2 Default DispatcherServlet Conﬁguration

As mentioned in the previous section for each special bean the DispatcherServlet maintains a list of implementations to use by default. This
information is kept in the ﬁle DispatcherServlet.properties in the package org.springframework.web.servlet .

All special beans have some reasonable defaults of their own. Sooner or later though you’ll need to customize one or more of the properties these
beans provide. For example it’s quite common to conﬁgure an InternalResourceViewResolver settings its prefix property to the parent
location of view ﬁles.

Regardless of the details, the important concept to understand here is that once you conﬁgure a special bean such as an
InternalResourceViewResolver in your WebApplicationContext , you effectively override the list of default implementations that would
have been used otherwise for that special bean type. For example if you conﬁgure an InternalResourceViewResolver , the default list of
ViewResolver implementations is ignored.

In Section 22.16, “Configuring Spring MVC” you’ll learn about other options for configuring Spring MVC including MVC Java config and the MVC
XML namespace both of which provide a simple starting point and assume little knowledge of how Spring MVC works. Regardless of how you
choose to configure your application, the concepts explained in this section are fundamental should be of help to you.

22.2.3 DispatcherServlet Processing Sequence

After you set up a DispatcherServlet , and a request comes in for that speciﬁc DispatcherServlet , the DispatcherServlet starts
processing the request as follows:

The WebApplicationContext is searched for and bound in the request as an attribute that the controller and other elements in the process
can use. It is bound by default under the key DispatcherServlet.WEB_APPLICATION_CONTEXT_ATTRIBUTE .
The locale resolver is bound to the request to enable elements in the process to resolve the locale to use when processing the request
(rendering the view, preparing data, and so on). If you do not need locale resolving, you do not need it.
The theme resolver is bound to the request to let elements such as views determine which theme to use. If you do not use themes, you can
ignore it.
If you specify a multipart file resolver, the request is inspected for multiparts; if multiparts are found, the request is wrapped in a
MultipartHttpServletRequest for further processing by other elements in the process. See Section 22.10, “Spring’s multipart (file
upload) support” for further information about multipart handling.
An appropriate handler is searched for. If a handler is found, the execution chain associated with the handler (preprocessors, postprocessors,
and controllers) is executed in order to prepare a model or rendering.
If a model is returned, the view is rendered. If no model is returned, (may be due to a preprocessor or postprocessor intercepting the request,
perhaps for security reasons), no view is rendered, because the request could already have been fulfilled.

Handler exception resolvers that are declared in the WebApplicationContext pick up exceptions that are thrown during processing of the
request. Using these exception resolvers allows you to deﬁne custom behaviors to address exceptions.

The Spring DispatcherServlet also supports the return of the last-modification-date, as specified by the Servlet API. The process of
determining the last modification date for a specific request is straightforward: the DispatcherServlet looks up an appropriate handler mapping
and tests whether the handler that is found implements the LastModified interface. If so, the value of the long getLastModified(request)
method of the LastModified interface is returned to the client.

You can customize individual DispatcherServlet instances by adding Servlet initialization parameters ( init-param elements) to the Servlet
declaration in the web.xml ﬁle. See the following table for the list of supported parameters.

Table 22.2. DispatcherServlet initialization parameters

Parameter Explanation

contextClass Class that implements WebApplicationContext , which instantiates the context used by this Servlet. By
default, the XmlWebApplicationContext is used.

contextConfigLocation String that is passed to the context instance (speciﬁed by contextClass ) to indicate where context(s)
can be found. The string consists potentially of multiple strings (using a comma as a delimiter) to support
multiple contexts. In case of multiple context locations with beans that are deﬁned twice, the latest location
takes precedence.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 383/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Parameter Explanation

namespace Namespace of the WebApplicationContext . Defaults to [servlet-name]-servlet .

22.3 Implementing Controllers
Controllers provide access to the application behavior that you typically deﬁne through a service interface. Controllers interpret user input and
transform it into a model that is represented to the user by the view. Spring implements a controller in a very abstract way, which enables you to
create a wide variety of controllers.

Spring 2.5 introduced an annotation-based programming model for MVC controllers that uses annotations such as @RequestMapping ,
@RequestParam , @ModelAttribute , and so on. This annotation support is available for both Servlet MVC and Portlet MVC. Controllers
implemented in this style do not have to extend specific base classes or implement specific interfaces. Furthermore, they do not usually have direct
dependencies on Servlet or Portlet APIs, although you can easily configure access to Servlet or Portlet facilities.

Available in the spring-projects Org on Github, a number of web applications leverage the annotation support described in this section
including MvcShowcase, MvcAjax, MvcBasic, PetClinic, PetCare, and others.

@Controller
public class HelloWorldController {

@RequestMapping("/helloWorld")
public String helloWorld(Model model) {
model.addAttribute("message", "Hello World!");
return "helloWorld";
}
}

As you can see, the @Controller and @RequestMapping annotations allow ﬂexible method names and signatures. In this particular example
the method accepts a Model and returns a view name as a String , but various other method parameters and return values can be used as
explained later in this section. @Controller and @RequestMapping and a number of other annotations form the basis for the Spring MVC
implementation. This section documents these annotations and how they are most commonly used in a Servlet environment.

22.3.1 Deﬁning a controller with @Controller

The @Controller annotation indicates that a particular class serves the role of a controller. Spring does not require you to extend any controller
base class or reference the Servlet API. However, you can still reference Servlet-speciﬁc features if you need to.

The @Controller annotation acts as a stereotype for the annotated class, indicating its role. The dispatcher scans such annotated classes for
mapped methods and detects @RequestMapping annotations (see the next section).

You can define annotated controller beans explicitly, using a standard Spring bean definition in the dispatcher’s context. However, the
@Controller stereotype also allows for autodetection, aligned with Spring general support for detecting component classes in the classpath and
auto-registering bean definitions for them.

To enable autodetection of such annotated controllers, you add component scanning to your conﬁguration. Use the spring-context schema as shown
in the following XML snippet:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<context:component-scan base-package="org.springframework.samples.petclinic.web"/>

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 384/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

</beans>

22.3.2 Mapping Requests With @RequestMapping

You use the @RequestMapping annotation to map URLs such as /appointments onto an entire class or a particular handler method. Typically
the class-level annotation maps a speciﬁc request path (or path pattern) onto a form controller, with additional method-level annotations narrowing
the primary mapping for a speciﬁc HTTP method request method ("GET", "POST", etc.) or an HTTP request parameter condition.

The following example from the Petcare sample shows a controller in a Spring MVC application that uses this annotation:

@Controller
@RequestMapping("/appointments")
public class AppointmentsController {

private final AppointmentBook appointmentBook;

@Autowired
public AppointmentsController(AppointmentBook appointmentBook) {
this.appointmentBook = appointmentBook;
}

@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.GET)
public Map<String, Appointment> get() {
return appointmentBook.getAppointmentsForToday();
}

@RequestMapping(path = "/{day}", method = RequestMethod.GET)

public Map<String, Appointment> getForDay(@PathVariable @DateTimeFormat(iso=ISO.DATE) Date day, Model model) {
return appointmentBook.getAppointmentsForDay(day);
}

@RequestMapping(path = "/new", method = RequestMethod.GET)

public AppointmentForm getNewForm() {
return new AppointmentForm();
}

@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.POST)
public String add(@Valid AppointmentForm appointment, BindingResult result) {
if (result.hasErrors()) {
return "appointments/new";
}
appointmentBook.addAppointment(appointment);
return "redirect:/appointments";
}
}

In the above example, @RequestMapping is used in a number of places. The first usage is on the type (class) level, which indicates that all
handler methods in this controller are relative to the /appointments path. The get() method has a further @RequestMapping refinement: it
only accepts GET requests, meaning that an HTTP GET for /appointments invokes this method. The add() has a similar refinement, and the
getNewForm() combines the definition of HTTP method and path into one, so that GET requests for appointments/new are handled by that
method.

The getForDay() method shows another usage of @RequestMapping : URI templates. (See the section called “URI Template Patterns”).

A @RequestMapping on the class level is not required. Without it, all paths are simply absolute, and not relative. The following example from the
PetClinic sample application shows a multi-action controller using @RequestMapping :

@Controller
public class ClinicController {

private final Clinic clinic;

@Autowired
public ClinicController(Clinic clinic) {

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 385/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
this.clinic = clinic;
}

@RequestMapping("/")
public void welcomeHandler() {
}

@RequestMapping("/vets")
public ModelMap vetsHandler() {
return new ModelMap(this.clinic.getVets());
}

The above example does not specify GET vs. PUT , POST , and so forth, because @RequestMapping maps all HTTP methods by default. Use
@RequestMapping(method=GET) or @GetMapping to narrow the mapping.

Composed @RequestMapping Variants

Spring Framework 4.3 introduces the following method-level composed variants of the @RequestMapping annotation that help to simplify
mappings for common HTTP methods and better express the semantics of the annotated handler method. For example, a @GetMapping can be
read as a GET @RequestMapping .

@GetMapping
@PostMapping
@PutMapping
@DeleteMapping
@PatchMapping

The following example shows a modiﬁed version of the AppointmentsController from the previous section that has been simpliﬁed with
composed @RequestMapping annotations.

@Controller
@RequestMapping("/appointments")
public class AppointmentsController {

private final AppointmentBook appointmentBook;

@Autowired
public AppointmentsController(AppointmentBook appointmentBook) {
this.appointmentBook = appointmentBook;
}

@GetMapping
public Map<String, Appointment> get() {
return appointmentBook.getAppointmentsForToday();
}

@GetMapping("/{day}")
public Map<String, Appointment> getForDay(@PathVariable @DateTimeFormat(iso=ISO.DATE) Date day, Model model) {
return appointmentBook.getAppointmentsForDay(day);
}

@GetMapping("/new")
public AppointmentForm getNewForm() {
return new AppointmentForm();
}

@PostMapping
public String add(@Valid AppointmentForm appointment, BindingResult result) {
if (result.hasErrors()) {
return "appointments/new";
}
appointmentBook.addAppointment(appointment);
return "redirect:/appointments";
}
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 386/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

@Controller and AOP Proxying

In some cases a controller may need to be decorated with an AOP proxy at runtime. One example is if you choose to have @Transactional
annotations directly on the controller. When this is the case, for controllers speciﬁcally, we recommend using class-based proxying. This is typically
the default choice with controllers. However if a controller must implement an interface that is not a Spring Context callback (e.g.
InitializingBean , *Aware , etc), you may need to explicitly conﬁgure class-based proxying. For example with
<tx:annotation-driven/> , change to <tx:annotation-driven proxy-target-class="true"/> .

New Support Classes for @RequestMapping methods in Spring MVC 3.1

Spring 3.1 introduced a new set of support classes for @RequestMapping methods called RequestMappingHandlerMapping and
RequestMappingHandlerAdapter respectively. They are recommended for use and even required to take advantage of new features in Spring
MVC 3.1 and going forward. The new support classes are enabled by default by the MVC namespace and the MVC Java conﬁg but must be
conﬁgured explicitly if using neither. This section describes a few important differences between the old and the new support classes.

Prior to Spring 3.1, type and method-level request mappings were examined in two separate stages — a controller was selected ﬁrst by the
DefaultAnnotationHandlerMapping and the actual method to invoke was narrowed down second by the
AnnotationMethodHandlerAdapter .

With the new support classes in Spring 3.1, the RequestMappingHandlerMapping is the only place where a decision is made about which
method should process the request. Think of controller methods as a collection of unique endpoints with mappings for each method derived from
type and method-level @RequestMapping information.

This enables some new possibilities. For once a HandlerInterceptor or a HandlerExceptionResolver can now expect the Object-based
handler to be a HandlerMethod , which allows them to examine the exact method, its parameters and associated annotations. The processing for
a URL no longer needs to be split across different controllers.

There are also several things no longer possible:

Select a controller ﬁrst with a SimpleUrlHandlerMapping or BeanNameUrlHandlerMapping and then narrow the method based on
@RequestMapping annotations.
Rely on method names as a fall-back mechanism to disambiguate between two @RequestMapping methods that don’t have an explicit path
mapping URL path but otherwise match equally, e.g. by HTTP method. In the new support classes @RequestMapping methods have to be
mapped uniquely.
Have a single default method (without an explicit path mapping) with which requests are processed if no other controller method matches more
concretely. In the new support classes if a matching method is not found a 404 error is raised.

The above features are still supported with the existing support classes. However to take advantage of new Spring MVC 3.1 features you’ll need to
use the new support classes.

URI Template Patterns

URI templates can be used for convenient access to selected parts of a URL in a @RequestMapping method.

A URI Template is a URI-like string, containing one or more variable names. When you substitute values for these variables, the template becomes a
URI. The proposed RFC for URI Templates deﬁnes how a URI is parameterized. For example, the URI Template
http://www.example.com/users/{userId} contains the variable userId. Assigning the value fred to the variable yields
http://www.example.com/users/fred .

In Spring MVC you can use the @PathVariable annotation on a method argument to bind it to the value of a URI template variable:

@GetMapping("/owners/{ownerId}")
public String findOwner(@PathVariable String ownerId, Model model) {
Owner owner = ownerService.findOwner(ownerId);
model.addAttribute("owner", owner);
return "displayOwner";
}

The URI Template " /owners/{ownerId}`" specifies the variable name `ownerId . When the controller handles this request, the
value of ownerId is set to the value found in the appropriate part of the URI. For example, when a request comes in for /owners/fred , the
value of ownerId is fred .

To process the @PathVariable annotation, Spring MVC needs to ﬁnd the matching URI template variable by name. You can specify it

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 387/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
in the annotation:
@GetMapping("/owners/{ownerId}")
public String findOwner(@PathVariable("ownerId") String theOwner, Model model) {
// implementation omitted
}
Or if the URI template variable name matches the method argument name you can omit that detail. As long as your code is compiled
with debugging information or the -parameters compiler ﬂag on Java 8, Spring MVC will match the method argument name to the
URI template variable name:
@GetMapping("/owners/{ownerId}")
public String findOwner(@PathVariable String ownerId, Model model) {
// implementation omitted
}

A method can have any number of @PathVariable annotations:

@GetMapping("/owners/{ownerId}/pets/{petId}")
public String findPet(@PathVariable String ownerId, @PathVariable String petId, Model model) {
Owner owner = ownerService.findOwner(ownerId);
Pet pet = owner.getPet(petId);
model.addAttribute("pet", pet);
return "displayPet";
}

When a @PathVariable annotation is used on a Map<String, String> argument, the map is populated with all URI template variables.

A URI template can be assembled from type and method level @RequestMapping annotations. As a result the findPet() method can be invoked
with a URL such as /owners/42/pets/21 .

@Controller
@RequestMapping("/owners/{ownerId}")
public class RelativePathUriTemplateController {

@RequestMapping("/pets/{petId}")
public void findPet(@PathVariable String ownerId, @PathVariable String petId, Model model) {
// implementation omitted
}

A @PathVariable argument can be of any simple type such as int , long , Date , etc. Spring automatically converts to the appropriate type or
throws a TypeMismatchException if it fails to do so. You can also register support for parsing additional data types. See the section called
“Method Parameters And Type Conversion” and the section called “Customizing WebDataBinder initialization”.

URI Template Patterns with Regular Expressions

Sometimes you need more precision in deﬁning URI template variables. Consider the URL "/spring-web/spring-web-3.0.5.jar" . How do
you break it down into multiple parts?

The @RequestMapping annotation supports the use of regular expressions in URI template variables. The syntax is {varName:regex} where
the ﬁrst part deﬁnes the variable name and the second - the regular expression. For example:

@RequestMapping("/spring-web/{symbolicName:[a-z-]+}-{version:\\d\\.\\d\\.\\d}{extension:\\.[a-z]+}")
public void handle(@PathVariable String version, @PathVariable String extension) {
// ...
}

Path Patterns
In addition to URI templates, the @RequestMapping annotation and all composed @RequestMapping variants also support Ant-style path
patterns (for example, /myPath/*.do ). A combination of URI template variables and Ant-style globs is also supported (e.g.
/owners/*/pets/{petId} ).

Path Pattern Comparison

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 388/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
When a URL matches multiple patterns, a sort is used to ﬁnd the most speciﬁc match.

A pattern with a lower count of URI variables and wild cards is considered more speciﬁc. For example /hotels/{hotel}/* has 1 URI variable
and 1 wild card and is considered more speciﬁc than /hotels/{hotel}/** which as 1 URI variable and 2 wild cards.

If two patterns have the same count, the one that is longer is considered more speciﬁc. For example /foo/bar* is longer and considered more
speciﬁc than /foo/* .

When two patterns have the same count and length, the pattern with fewer wild cards is considered more speciﬁc. For example
/hotels/{hotel} is more speciﬁc than /hotels/* .

There are also some additional special rules:

The default mapping pattern /** is less specific than any other pattern. For example /api/{a}/{b}/{c} is more specific.
A prefix pattern such as /public/** is less specific than any other pattern that doesn’t contain double wildcards. For example
/public/path3/{a}/{b}/{c} is more specific.

For the full details see AntPatternComparator in AntPathMatcher . Note that the PathMatcher can be customized (see Section 22.16.11,
“Path Matching” in the section on conﬁguring Spring MVC).

Path Patterns with Placeholders

Patterns in @RequestMapping annotations support ${…} placeholders against local properties and/or system properties and environment
variables. This may be useful in cases where the path a controller is mapped to may need to be customized through conﬁguration. For more
information on placeholders, see the javadocs of the PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer class.

Sufﬁx Pattern Matching

By default Spring MVC performs ".*" sufﬁx pattern matching so that a controller mapped to /person is also implicitly mapped to /person.* .
This makes it easy to request different representations of a resource through the URL path (e.g. /person.pdf , /person.xml ).

Suffix pattern matching can be turned off or restricted to a set of path extensions explicitly registered for content negotiation purposes. This is
generally recommended to minimize ambiguity with common request mappings such as /person/{id} where a dot might not represent a file
extension, e.g. /person/[email protected] vs /person/[email protected] . Furthermore as explained in the note below suffix pattern
matching as well as content negotiation may be used in some circumstances to attempt malicious attacks and there are good reasons to restrict
them meaningfully.

See Section 22.16.11, “Path Matching” for suffix pattern matching configuration and also Section 22.16.6, “Content Negotiation” for content
negotiation configuration.

Sufﬁx Pattern Matching and RFD

Reflected file download (RFD) attack was first described in a paper by Trustwave in 2014. The attack is similar to XSS in that it relies on input (e.g.
query parameter, URI variable) being reflected in the response. However instead of inserting JavaScript into HTML, an RFD attack relies on the
browser switching to perform a download and treating the response as an executable script if double-clicked based on the file extension (e.g. .bat,
.cmd).

In Spring MVC @ResponseBody and ResponseEntity methods are at risk because they can render different content types which clients can
request including via URL path extensions. Note however that neither disabling sufﬁx pattern matching nor disabling the use of path extensions for
content negotiation purposes alone are effective at preventing RFD attacks.

For comprehensive protection against RFD, prior to rendering the response body Spring MVC adds a
Content-Disposition:inline;filename=f.txt header to suggest a fixed and safe download file filename. This is done only if the URL
path contains a file extension that is neither whitelisted nor explicitly registered for content negotiation purposes. However it may potentially have
side effects when URLs are typed directly into a browser.

Many common path extensions are whitelisted by default. Furthermore REST API calls are typically not meant to be used as URLs directly in
browsers. Nevertheless applications that use custom HttpMessageConverter implementations can explicitly register ﬁle extensions for content
negotiation and the Content-Disposition header will not be added for such extensions. See Section 22.16.6, “Content Negotiation”.

This was originally introduced as part of work for CVE-2015-5211. Below are additional recommendations from the report:
Encode rather than escape JSON responses. This is also an OWASP XSS recommendation. For an example of how to do that
with Spring see spring-jackson-owasp.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 389/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Configure suffix pattern matching to be turned off or restricted to explicitly registered suffixes only.
Configure content negotiation with the properties "useJaf" and "ignoreUnknownPathExtensions" set to false which would result in a
406 response for URLs with unknown extensions. Note however that this may not be an option if URLs are naturally expected to
have a dot towards the end.
Add X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff header to responses. Spring Security 4 does this by default.

Matrix Variables
The URI specification RFC 3986 defines the possibility of including name-value pairs within path segments. There is no specific term used in the
spec. The general "URI path parameters" could be applied although the more unique "Matrix URIs", originating from an old post by Tim Berners-Lee,
is also frequently used and fairly well known. Within Spring MVC these are referred to as matrix variables.

Matrix variables can appear in any path segment, each matrix variable separated with a ";" (semicolon). For example:
"/cars;color=red;year=2012" . Multiple values may be either "," (comma) separated "color=red,green,blue" or the variable name
may be repeated "color=red;color=green;color=blue" .

If a URL is expected to contain matrix variables, the request mapping pattern must represent them with a URI template. This ensures the request
can be matched correctly regardless of whether matrix variables are present or not and in what order they are provided.

Below is an example of extracting the matrix variable "q":

// GET /pets/42;q=11;r=22

@GetMapping("/pets/{petId}")
public void findPet(@PathVariable String petId, @MatrixVariable int q) {

// petId == 42
// q == 11

Since all path segments may contain matrix variables, in some cases you need to be more speciﬁc to identify where the variable is expected to be:

// GET /owners/42;q=11/pets/21;q=22

@GetMapping("/owners/{ownerId}/pets/{petId}")
public void findPet(
@MatrixVariable(name="q", pathVar="ownerId") int q1,
@MatrixVariable(name="q", pathVar="petId") int q2) {

// q1 == 11
// q2 == 22

A matrix variable may be deﬁned as optional and a default value speciﬁed:

// GET /pets/42

@GetMapping("/pets/{petId}")
public void findPet(@MatrixVariable(required=false, defaultValue="1") int q) {

// q == 1

All matrix variables may be obtained in a Map:

// GET /owners/42;q=11;r=12/pets/21;q=22;s=23

@GetMapping("/owners/{ownerId}/pets/{petId}")
public void findPet(
@MatrixVariable MultiValueMap<String, String> matrixVars,
@MatrixVariable(pathVar="petId"") MultiValueMap<String, String> petMatrixVars) {

// matrixVars: ["q" : [11,22], "r" : 12, "s" : 23]

// petMatrixVars: ["q" : 11, "s" : 23]
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 390/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
// petMatrixVars: ["q" : 11, "s" : 23]

Note that to enable the use of matrix variables, you must set the removeSemicolonContent property of RequestMappingHandlerMapping
to false . By default it is set to true .

The MVC Java config and the MVC namespace both provide options for enabling the use of matrix variables.
If you are using Java config, The Advanced Customizations with MVC Java Config section describes how the
RequestMappingHandlerMapping can be customized.
In the MVC namespace, the <mvc:annotation-driven> element has an enable-matrix-variables attribute that should be
set to true . By default it is set to false .
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:mvc="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc
http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc.xsd">

<mvc:annotation-driven enable-matrix-variables="true"/>

</beans>

Consumable Media Types

You can narrow the primary mapping by specifying a list of consumable media types. The request will be matched only if the Content-Type
request header matches the speciﬁed media type. For example:

@PostMapping(path = "/pets", consumes = "application/json")

public void addPet(@RequestBody Pet pet, Model model) {
// implementation omitted
}

Consumable media type expressions can also be negated as in !text/plain to match to all requests other than those with Content-Type of
text/plain . Also consider using constants provided in MediaType such as APPLICATION_JSON_VALUE and
APPLICATION_JSON_UTF8_VALUE .

The consumes condition is supported on the type and on the method level. Unlike most other conditions, when used at the type level,
method-level consumable types override rather than extend type-level consumable types.

Producible Media Types

You can narrow the primary mapping by specifying a list of producible media types. The request will be matched only if the Accept request header
matches one of these values. Furthermore, use of the produces condition ensures the actual content type used to generate the response respects
the media types speciﬁed in the produces condition. For example:

@GetMapping(path = "/pets/{petId}", produces = MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON_UTF8_VALUE)

@ResponseBody
public Pet getPet(@PathVariable String petId, Model model) {
// implementation omitted
}

Be aware that the media type speciﬁed in the produces condition can also optionally specify a character set. For example, in the code
snippet above we specify the same media type than the default one conﬁgured in MappingJackson2HttpMessageConverter ,
including the UTF-8 charset.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 391/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Just like with consumes, producible media type expressions can be negated as in !text/plain to match to all requests other than those with an
Accept header value of text/plain . Also consider using constants provided in MediaType such as APPLICATION_JSON_VALUE and
APPLICATION_JSON_UTF8_VALUE .

The produces condition is supported on the type and on the method level. Unlike most other conditions, when used at the type level,
method-level producible types override rather than extend type-level producible types.

Request Parameters and Header Values

You can narrow request matching through request parameter conditions such as "myParam" , "!myParam" , or "myParam=myValue" . The ﬁrst
two test for request parameter presence/absence and the third for a speciﬁc parameter value. Here is an example with a request parameter value
condition:

@Controller
@RequestMapping("/owners/{ownerId}")
public class RelativePathUriTemplateController {

@GetMapping(path = "/pets/{petId}", params = "myParam=myValue")

public void findPet(@PathVariable String ownerId, @PathVariable String petId, Model model) {
// implementation omitted
}

The same can be done to test for request header presence/absence or to match based on a speciﬁc request header value:

@Controller
@RequestMapping("/owners/{ownerId}")
public class RelativePathUriTemplateController {

@GetMapping(path = "/pets", headers = "myHeader=myValue")

public void findPet(@PathVariable String ownerId, @PathVariable String petId, Model model) {
// implementation omitted
}

Although you can match to Content-Type and Accept header values using media type wild cards (for example "content-type=text/*" will
match to "text/plain" and "text/html"), it is recommended to use the consumes and produces conditions respectively instead. They are
intended speciﬁcally for that purpose.

HTTP HEAD and HTTP OPTIONS

@RequestMapping methods mapped to "GET" are also implicitly mapped to "HEAD", i.e. there is no need to have "HEAD" explicitly declared. An
HTTP HEAD request is processed as if it were an HTTP GET except instead of writing the body only the number of bytes are counted and the
"Content-Length" header set.

@RequestMapping methods have built-in support for HTTP OPTIONS. By default an HTTP OPTIONS request is handled by setting the "Allow"
response header to the HTTP methods explicitly declared on all @RequestMapping methods with matching URL patterns. When no HTTP
methods are explicitly declared the "Allow" header is set to "GET,HEAD,POST,PUT,PATCH,DELETE,OPTIONS". Ideally always declare the HTTP
method(s) that an @RequestMapping method is intended to handle, or alternatively use one of the dedicated composed @RequestMapping
variants (see the section called “Composed @RequestMapping Variants”).

Although not necessary an @RequestMapping method can be mapped to and handle either HTTP HEAD or HTTP OPTIONS, or both.

22.3.3 Deﬁning @RequestMapping handler methods

@RequestMapping handler methods can have very ﬂexible signatures. The supported method arguments and return values are described in the
following section. Most arguments can be used in arbitrary order with the only exception being BindingResult arguments. This is described in
the next section.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 392/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Spring 3.1 introduced a new set of support classes for @RequestMapping methods called RequestMappingHandlerMapping
and RequestMappingHandlerAdapter respectively. They are recommended for use and even required to take advantage of new
features in Spring MVC 3.1 and going forward. The new support classes are enabled by default from the MVC namespace and with
use of the MVC Java conﬁg but must be conﬁgured explicitly if using neither.

Supported method argument types

The following are the supported method arguments:

Request or response objects (Servlet API). Choose any speciﬁc request or response type, for example ServletRequest or
HttpServletRequest .
Session object (Servlet API): of type HttpSession . An argument of this type enforces the presence of a corresponding session. As a
consequence, such an argument is never null .

Session access may not be thread-safe, in particular in a Servlet environment. Consider setting the
RequestMappingHandlerAdapter 's "synchronizeOnSession" ﬂag to "true" if multiple requests are allowed to access a session
concurrently.

org.springframework.web.context.request.WebRequest or
org.springframework.web.context.request.NativeWebRequest . Allows for generic request parameter access as well as
request/session attribute access, without ties to the native Servlet/Portlet API.
java.util.Locale for the current request locale, determined by the most specific locale resolver available, in effect, the configured
LocaleResolver / LocaleContextResolver in an MVC environment.
java.util.TimeZone (Java 6+) / java.time.ZoneId (on Java 8) for the time zone associated with the current request, as determined by
a LocaleContextResolver .
java.io.InputStream / java.io.Reader for access to the request’s content. This value is the raw InputStream/Reader as exposed by
the Servlet API.
java.io.OutputStream / java.io.Writer for generating the response’s content. This value is the raw OutputStream/Writer as exposed
by the Servlet API.
org.springframework.http.HttpMethod for the HTTP request method.
java.security.Principal containing the currently authenticated user.
@PathVariable annotated parameters for access to URI template variables. See the section called “URI Template Patterns”.
@MatrixVariable annotated parameters for access to name-value pairs located in URI path segments. See the section called “Matrix
Variables”.
@RequestParam annotated parameters for access to specific Servlet request parameters. Parameter values are converted to the declared
method argument type. See the section called “Binding request parameters to method parameters with @RequestParam”.
@RequestHeader annotated parameters for access to specific Servlet request HTTP headers. Parameter values are converted to the
declared method argument type. See the section called “Mapping request header attributes with the @RequestHeader annotation”.
@RequestBody annotated parameters for access to the HTTP request body. Parameter values are converted to the declared method
argument type using HttpMessageConverter s. See the section called “Mapping the request body with the @RequestBody annotation”.
@RequestPart annotated parameters for access to the content of a "multipart/form-data" request part. See Section 22.10.5, “Handling a file
upload request from programmatic clients” and Section 22.10, “Spring’s multipart (file upload) support”.
@SessionAttribute annotated parameters for access to existing, permanent session attributes (e.g. user authentication object) as opposed
to model attributes temporarily stored in the session as part of a controller workflow via @SessionAttributes .
@RequestAttribute annotated parameters for access to request attributes.
HttpEntity<?> parameters for access to the Servlet request HTTP headers and contents. The request stream will be converted to the entity
body using HttpMessageConverter s. See the section called “Using HttpEntity”.
java.util.Map / org.springframework.ui.Model / org.springframework.ui.ModelMap for enriching the implicit model that is
exposed to the web view.
org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.support.RedirectAttributes to specify the exact set of attributes to use in case of a
redirect and also to add flash attributes (attributes stored temporarily on the server-side to make them available to the request after the redirect).
See the section called “Passing Data To the Redirect Target” and Section 22.6, “Using flash attributes”.
Command or form objects to bind request parameters to bean properties (via setters) or directly to fields, with customizable type conversion,
depending on @InitBinder methods and/or the HandlerAdapter configuration. See the webBindingInitializer property on
RequestMappingHandlerAdapter . Such command objects along with their validation results will be exposed as model attributes by default,
using the command class name - e.g. model attribute "orderAddress" for a command object of type "some.package.OrderAddress". The
ModelAttribute annotation can be used on a method argument to customize the model attribute name used.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 393/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
org.springframework.validation.Errors / org.springframework.validation.BindingResult validation results for a
preceding command or form object (the immediately preceding method argument).
org.springframework.web.bind.support.SessionStatus status handle for marking form processing as complete, which triggers the
cleanup of session attributes that have been indicated by the @SessionAttributes annotation at the handler type level.
org.springframework.web.util.UriComponentsBuilder a builder for preparing a URL relative to the current request’s host, port,
scheme, context path, and the literal part of the servlet mapping.

The Errors or BindingResult parameters have to follow the model object that is being bound immediately as the method signature might have
more than one model object and Spring will create a separate BindingResult instance for each of them so the following sample won’t work:

Invalid ordering of BindingResult and @ModelAttribute.

@PostMapping
public String processSubmit(@ModelAttribute("pet") Pet pet, Model model, BindingResult result) { ... }

Note, that there is a Model parameter in between Pet and BindingResult . To get this working you have to reorder the parameters as follows:

@PostMapping
public String processSubmit(@ModelAttribute("pet") Pet pet, BindingResult result, Model model) { ... }

JDK 1.8’s java.util.Optional is supported as a method parameter type with annotations that have a required attribute (e.g.
@RequestParam , @RequestHeader , etc. The use of java.util.Optional in those cases is equivalent to having
required=false .

Supported method return types

The following are the supported return types:

A ModelAndView object, with the model implicitly enriched with command objects and the results of @ModelAttribute annotated reference
data accessor methods.
A Model object, with the view name implicitly determined through a RequestToViewNameTranslator and the model implicitly enriched
with command objects and the results of @ModelAttribute annotated reference data accessor methods.
A Map object for exposing a model, with the view name implicitly determined through a RequestToViewNameTranslator and the model
implicitly enriched with command objects and the results of @ModelAttribute annotated reference data accessor methods.
A View object, with the model implicitly determined through command objects and @ModelAttribute annotated reference data accessor
methods. The handler method may also programmatically enrich the model by declaring a Model argument (see above).
A String value that is interpreted as the logical view name, with the model implicitly determined through command objects and
@ModelAttribute annotated reference data accessor methods. The handler method may also programmatically enrich the model by
declaring a Model argument (see above).
void if the method handles the response itself (by writing the response content directly, declaring an argument of type ServletResponse /
HttpServletResponse for that purpose) or if the view name is supposed to be implicitly determined through a
RequestToViewNameTranslator (not declaring a response argument in the handler method signature).
If the method is annotated with @ResponseBody , the return type is written to the response HTTP body. The return value will be converted to
the declared method argument type using HttpMessageConverter s. See the section called “Mapping the response body with the
@ResponseBody annotation”.
An HttpEntity<?> or ResponseEntity<?> object to provide access to the Servlet response HTTP headers and contents. The entity body
will be converted to the response stream using HttpMessageConverter s. See the section called “Using HttpEntity”.
An HttpHeaders object to return a response with no body.
A Callable<?> can be returned when the application wants to produce the return value asynchronously in a thread managed by Spring MVC.
A DeferredResult<?> can be returned when the application wants to produce the return value from a thread of its own choosing.
A ListenableFuture<?> or CompletableFuture<?> / CompletionStage<?> can be returned when the application wants to produce
the value from a thread pool submission.
A ResponseBodyEmitter can be returned to write multiple objects to the response asynchronously; also supported as the body within a
ResponseEntity .
An SseEmitter can be returned to write Server-Sent Events to the response asynchronously; also supported as the body within a
ResponseEntity .
A StreamingResponseBody can be returned to write to the response OutputStream asynchronously; also supported as the body within a
ResponseEntity .

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 394/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Any other return type is considered to be a single model attribute to be exposed to the view, using the attribute name speciﬁed through
@ModelAttribute at the method level (or the default attribute name based on the return type class name). The model is implicitly enriched
with command objects and the results of @ModelAttribute annotated reference data accessor methods.

Binding request parameters to method parameters with @RequestParam

Use the @RequestParam annotation to bind request parameters to a method parameter in your controller.

The following code snippet shows the usage:

@Controller
@RequestMapping("/pets")
@SessionAttributes("pet")
public class EditPetForm {

// ...

@GetMapping
public String setupForm(@RequestParam("petId") int petId, ModelMap model) {
Pet pet = this.clinic.loadPet(petId);
model.addAttribute("pet", pet);
return "petForm";
}

// ...

Parameters using this annotation are required by default, but you can specify that a parameter is optional by setting @RequestParam 's
required attribute to false (e.g., @RequestParam(name="id", required=false) ).

Type conversion is applied automatically if the target method parameter type is not String . See the section called “Method Parameters And Type
Conversion”.

When an @RequestParam annotation is used on a Map<String, String> or MultiValueMap<String, String> argument, the map is
populated with all request parameters.

Mapping the request body with the @RequestBody annotation

The @RequestBody method parameter annotation indicates that a method parameter should be bound to the value of the HTTP request body. For
example:

@PutMapping("/something")
public void handle(@RequestBody String body, Writer writer) throws IOException {
writer.write(body);
}

You convert the request body to the method argument by using an HttpMessageConverter . HttpMessageConverter is responsible for
converting from the HTTP request message to an object and converting from an object to the HTTP response body. The
RequestMappingHandlerAdapter supports the @RequestBody annotation with the following default HttpMessageConverters :

ByteArrayHttpMessageConverter converts byte arrays.

StringHttpMessageConverter converts strings.
FormHttpMessageConverter converts form data to/from a MultiValueMap<String, String>.
SourceHttpMessageConverter converts to/from a javax.xml.transform.Source.

For more information on these converters, see Message Converters. Also note that if using the MVC namespace or the MVC Java conﬁg, a wider
range of message converters are registered by default. See Section 22.16.1, “Enabling the MVC Java Conﬁg or the MVC XML Namespace” for more
information.

If you intend to read and write XML, you will need to configure the MarshallingHttpMessageConverter with a specific Marshaller and an
Unmarshaller implementation from the org.springframework.oxm package. The example below shows how to do that directly in your
configuration but if your application is configured through the MVC namespace or the MVC Java config see Section 22.16.1, “Enabling the MVC
Java Config or the MVC XML Namespace” instead.

<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.RequestMappingHandlerAdapter">
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 395/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.RequestMappingHandlerAdapter">
<property name="messageConverters">
<util:list id="beanList">
<ref bean="stringHttpMessageConverter"/>
<ref bean="marshallingHttpMessageConverter"/>
</util:list>
</property
</bean>

<bean id="castorMarshaller" class="org.springframework.oxm.castor.CastorMarshaller"/>

An @RequestBody method parameter can be annotated with @Valid , in which case it will be validated using the configured Validator
instance. When using the MVC namespace or the MVC Java config, a JSR-303 validator is configured automatically assuming a JSR-303
implementation is available on the classpath.

Just like with @ModelAttribute parameters, an Errors argument can be used to examine the errors. If such an argument is not declared, a
MethodArgumentNotValidException will be raised. The exception is handled in the DefaultHandlerExceptionResolver , which sends
a 400 error back to the client.

Also see Section 22.16.1, “Enabling the MVC Java Config or the MVC XML Namespace” for information on configuring message
converters and a validator through the MVC namespace or the MVC Java config.

Mapping the response body with the @ResponseBody annotation

The @ResponseBody annotation is similar to @RequestBody . This annotation can be placed on a method and indicates that the return type
should be written straight to the HTTP response body (and not placed in a Model, or interpreted as a view name). For example:

@GetMapping("/something")
@ResponseBody
public String helloWorld() {
return "Hello World";
}

The above example will result in the text Hello World being written to the HTTP response stream.

As with @RequestBody , Spring converts the returned object to a response body by using an HttpMessageConverter . For more information on
these converters, see the previous section and Message Converters.

Creating REST Controllers with the @RestController annotation

It’s a very common use case to have Controllers implement a REST API, thus serving only JSON, XML or custom MediaType content. For
convenience, instead of annotating all your @RequestMapping methods with @ResponseBody , you can annotate your controller Class with
@RestController .

@RestController is a stereotype annotation that combines @ResponseBody and @Controller . More than that, it gives more meaning to
your Controller and also may carry additional semantics in future releases of the framework.

As with regular @Controller s, a @RestController may be assisted by @ControllerAdvice or @RestControllerAdvice beans. See
the the section called “Advising controllers with @ControllerAdvice and @RestControllerAdvice” section for more details.

Using HttpEntity
The HttpEntity is similar to @RequestBody and @ResponseBody . Besides getting access to the request and response body, HttpEntity
(and the response-speciﬁc subclass ResponseEntity ) also allows access to the request and response headers, like so:

@RequestMapping("/something")
public ResponseEntity<String> handle(HttpEntity<byte[]> requestEntity) throws UnsupportedEncodingException {
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 396/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
public ResponseEntity<String> handle(HttpEntity<byte[]> requestEntity) throws UnsupportedEncodingException {
String requestHeader = requestEntity.getHeaders().getFirst("MyRequestHeader"));
byte[] requestBody = requestEntity.getBody();

// do something with request header and body

HttpHeaders responseHeaders = new HttpHeaders();

responseHeaders.set("MyResponseHeader", "MyValue");
return new ResponseEntity<String>("Hello World", responseHeaders, HttpStatus.CREATED);
}

The above example gets the value of the MyRequestHeader request header, and reads the body as a byte array. It adds the
MyResponseHeader to the response, writes Hello World to the response stream, and sets the response status code to 201 (Created).

As with @RequestBody and @ResponseBody , Spring uses HttpMessageConverter to convert from and to the request and response
streams. For more information on these converters, see the previous section and Message Converters.

Using @ModelAttribute on a method

The @ModelAttribute annotation can be used on methods or on method arguments. This section explains its usage on methods while the next
section explains its usage on method arguments.

An @ModelAttribute on a method indicates the purpose of that method is to add one or more model attributes. Such methods support the same
argument types as @RequestMapping methods but cannot be mapped directly to requests. Instead @ModelAttribute methods in a controller
are invoked before @RequestMapping methods, within the same controller. A couple of examples:

// Add one attribute

// The return value of the method is added to the model under the name "account"
// You can customize the name via @ModelAttribute("myAccount")

@ModelAttribute
public Account addAccount(@RequestParam String number) {
return accountManager.findAccount(number);
}

// Add multiple attributes

@ModelAttribute
public void populateModel(@RequestParam String number, Model model) {
model.addAttribute(accountManager.findAccount(number));
// add more ...
}

@ModelAttribute methods are used to populate the model with commonly needed attributes for example to ﬁll a drop-down with states or with
pet types, or to retrieve a command object like Account in order to use it to represent the data on an HTML form. The latter case is further discussed
in the next section.

Note the two styles of @ModelAttribute methods. In the ﬁrst, the method adds an attribute implicitly by returning it. In the second, the method
accepts a Model and adds any number of model attributes to it. You can choose between the two styles depending on your needs.

A controller can have any number of @ModelAttribute methods. All such methods are invoked before @RequestMapping methods of the
same controller.

@ModelAttribute methods can also be deﬁned in an @ControllerAdvice -annotated class and such methods apply to many controllers. See
the the section called “Advising controllers with @ControllerAdvice and @RestControllerAdvice” section for more details.

What happens when a model attribute name is not explicitly speciﬁed? In such cases a default name is assigned to the model attribute
based on its type. For example if the method returns an object of type Account , the default name used is "account". You can change
that through the value of the @ModelAttribute annotation. If adding attributes directly to the Model , use the appropriate
overloaded addAttribute(..) method - i.e., with or without an attribute name.

The @ModelAttribute annotation can be used on @RequestMapping methods as well. In that case the return value of the
@RequestMapping method is interpreted as a model attribute rather than as a view name. The view name is then derived based on view name
conventions instead, much like for methods returning void — see Section 22.13.3, “The View - RequestToViewNameTranslator”.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 397/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Using @ModelAttribute on a method argument

As explained in the previous section @ModelAttribute can be used on methods or on method arguments. This section explains its usage on
method arguments.

An @ModelAttribute on a method argument indicates the argument should be retrieved from the model. If not present in the model, the
argument should be instantiated first and then added to the model. Once present in the model, the argument’s fields should be populated from all
request parameters that have matching names. This is known as data binding in Spring MVC, a very useful mechanism that saves you from having
to parse each form field individually.

@PostMapping("/owners/{ownerId}/pets/{petId}/edit")
public String processSubmit(@ModelAttribute Pet pet) { }

Given the above example where can the Pet instance come from? There are several options:

It may already be in the model due to use of @SessionAttributes — see the section called “Using @SessionAttributes to store model
attributes in the HTTP session between requests”.
It may already be in the model due to an @ModelAttribute method in the same controller — as explained in the previous section.
It may be retrieved based on a URI template variable and type converter (explained in more detail below).
It may be instantiated using its default constructor.

An @ModelAttribute method is a common way to retrieve an attribute from the database, which may optionally be stored between requests
through the use of @SessionAttributes . In some cases it may be convenient to retrieve the attribute by using an URI template variable and a
type converter. Here is an example:

@PutMapping("/accounts/{account}")
public String save(@ModelAttribute("account") Account account) {
// ...
}

In this example the name of the model attribute (i.e. "account") matches the name of a URI template variable. If you register
Converter<String, Account> that can turn the String account value into an Account instance, then the above example will work without
the need for an @ModelAttribute method.

The next step is data binding. The WebDataBinder class matches request parameter names — including query string parameters and form fields
— to model attribute fields by name. Matching fields are populated after type conversion (from String to the target field type) has been applied where
necessary. Data binding and validation are covered in Chapter 9, Validation, Data Binding, and Type Conversion. Customizing the data binding
process for a controller level is covered in the section called “Customizing WebDataBinder initialization”.

As a result of data binding there may be errors such as missing required ﬁelds or type conversion errors. To check for such errors add a
BindingResult argument immediately following the @ModelAttribute argument:

@PostMapping("/owners/{ownerId}/pets/{petId}/edit")
public String processSubmit(@ModelAttribute("pet") Pet pet, BindingResult result) {

if (result.hasErrors()) {
return "petForm";
}

// ...

With a BindingResult you can check if errors were found in which case it’s common to render the same form where the errors can be shown
with the help of Spring’s <errors> form tag.

Note that in some cases it may be useful to gain access to an attribute in the model without data binding. For such cases you may inject the Model
into the controller or alternatively use the binding ﬂag on the annotation:

@ModelAttribute
public AccountForm setUpForm() {
return new AccountForm();
}

@ModelAttribute
public Account findAccount(@PathVariable String accountId) {

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 398/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
return accountRepository.findOne(accountId);
}

@PostMapping("update")
public String update(@Valid AccountUpdateForm form, BindingResult result,
@ModelAttribute(binding=false) Account account) {

// ...
}

In addition to data binding you can also invoke validation using your own custom validator passing the same BindingResult that was used to
record data binding errors. That allows for data binding and validation errors to be accumulated in one place and subsequently reported back to the
user:

@PostMapping("/owners/{ownerId}/pets/{petId}/edit")
public String processSubmit(@ModelAttribute("pet") Pet pet, BindingResult result) {

new PetValidator().validate(pet, result);

if (result.hasErrors()) {
return "petForm";
}

// ...

Or you can have validation invoked automatically by adding the JSR-303 @Valid annotation:

@PostMapping("/owners/{ownerId}/pets/{petId}/edit")
public String processSubmit(@Valid @ModelAttribute("pet") Pet pet, BindingResult result) {

if (result.hasErrors()) {
return "petForm";
}

// ...

See Section 9.8, “Spring Validation” and Chapter 9, Validation, Data Binding, and Type Conversion for details on how to conﬁgure and use validation.

Using @SessionAttributes to store model attributes in the HTTP session between requests
The type-level @SessionAttributes annotation declares session attributes used by a speciﬁc handler. This will typically list the names of model
attributes or types of model attributes which should be transparently stored in the session or some conversational storage, serving as form-backing
beans between subsequent requests.

The following code snippet shows the usage of this annotation, specifying the model attribute name:

@Controller
@RequestMapping("/editPet.do")
@SessionAttributes("pet")
public class EditPetForm {
// ...
}

Using @SessionAttribute to access pre-existing global session attributes

If you need access to pre-existing session attributes that are managed globally, i.e. outside the controller (e.g. by a ﬁlter), and may or may not be
present use the @SessionAttribute annotation on a method parameter:

@RequestMapping("/")
public String handle(@SessionAttribute User user) {
// ...
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 399/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
For use cases that require adding or removing session attributes consider injecting
org.springframework.web.context.request.WebRequest or javax.servlet.http.HttpSession into the controller method.

For temporary storage of model attributes in the session as part of a controller workﬂow consider using SessionAttributes as described in the
section called “Using @SessionAttributes to store model attributes in the HTTP session between requests”.

Using @RequestAttribute to access request attributes

Similar to @SessionAttribute the @RequestAttribute annotation can be used to access pre-existing request attributes created by a ﬁlter or
interceptor:

@RequestMapping("/")
public String handle(@RequestAttribute Client client) {
// ...
}

Working with "application/x-www-form-urlencoded" data

The previous sections covered use of @ModelAttribute to support form submission requests from browser clients. The same annotation is
recommended for use with requests from non-browser clients as well. However there is one notable difference when it comes to working with HTTP
PUT requests. Browsers can submit form data via HTTP GET or HTTP POST. Non-browser clients can also submit forms via HTTP PUT. This
presents a challenge because the Servlet speciﬁcation requires the ServletRequest.getParameter*() family of methods to support form ﬁeld
access only for HTTP POST, not for HTTP PUT.

To support HTTP PUT and PATCH requests, the spring-web module provides the ﬁlter HttpPutFormContentFilter , which can be
conﬁgured in web.xml :

<filter>
<filter-name>httpPutFormFilter</filter-name>
<filter-class>org.springframework.web.filter.HttpPutFormContentFilter</filter-class>
</filter>

<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>httpPutFormFilter</filter-name>
<servlet-name>dispatcherServlet</servlet-name>
</filter-mapping>

<servlet>
<servlet-name>dispatcherServlet</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
</servlet>

The above ﬁlter intercepts HTTP PUT and PATCH requests with content type application/x-www-form-urlencoded , reads the form data
from the body of the request, and wraps the ServletRequest in order to make the form data available through the
ServletRequest.getParameter*() family of methods.

As HttpPutFormContentFilter consumes the body of the request, it should not be conﬁgured for PUT or PATCH URLs that rely
on other converters for application/x-www-form-urlencoded . This includes
@RequestBody MultiValueMap<String, String> and HttpEntity<MultiValueMap<String, String>> .

Mapping cookie values with the @CookieValue annotation

The @CookieValue annotation allows a method parameter to be bound to the value of an HTTP cookie.

Let us consider that the following cookie has been received with an http request:

JSESSIONID=415A4AC178C59DACE0B2C9CA727CDD84

The following code sample demonstrates how to get the value of the JSESSIONID cookie:

@RequestMapping("/displayHeaderInfo.do")
public void displayHeaderInfo(@CookieValue("JSESSIONID") String cookie) {
//...
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 400/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Type conversion is applied automatically if the target method parameter type is not String . See the section called “Method Parameters And Type
Conversion”.

This annotation is supported for annotated handler methods in Servlet and Portlet environments.

Mapping request header attributes with the @RequestHeader annotation

The @RequestHeader annotation allows a method parameter to be bound to a request header.

Here is a sample request header:

Host localhost:8080
Accept text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9
Accept-Language fr,en-gb;q=0.7,en;q=0.3
Accept-Encoding gzip,deflate
Accept-Charset ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7
Keep-Alive 300

The following code sample demonstrates how to get the value of the Accept-Encoding and Keep-Alive headers:

@RequestMapping("/displayHeaderInfo.do")
public void displayHeaderInfo(@RequestHeader("Accept-Encoding") String encoding,
@RequestHeader("Keep-Alive") long keepAlive) {
//...
}

Type conversion is applied automatically if the method parameter is not String . See the section called “Method Parameters And Type
Conversion”.

When an @RequestHeader annotation is used on a Map<String, String> , MultiValueMap<String, String> , or HttpHeaders

argument, the map is populated with all header values.

Built-in support is available for converting a comma-separated string into an array/collection of strings or other types known to the type
conversion system. For example a method parameter annotated with @RequestHeader("Accept") may be of type String but
also String[] or List<String> .

This annotation is supported for annotated handler methods in Servlet and Portlet environments.

Method Parameters And Type Conversion

String-based values extracted from the request including request parameters, path variables, request headers, and cookie values may need to be
converted to the target type of the method parameter or ﬁeld (e.g., binding a request parameter to a ﬁeld in an @ModelAttribute parameter)
they’re bound to. If the target type is not String , Spring automatically converts to the appropriate type. All simple types such as int, long, Date, etc.
are supported. You can further customize the conversion process through a WebDataBinder (see the section called “Customizing WebDataBinder
initialization”) or by registering Formatters with the FormattingConversionService (see Section 9.6, “Spring Field Formatting”).

Customizing WebDataBinder initialization

To customize request parameter binding with PropertyEditors through Spring’s WebDataBinder , you can use @InitBinder -annotated methods
within your controller, @InitBinder methods within an @ControllerAdvice class, or provide a custom WebBindingInitializer . See the
the section called “Advising controllers with @ControllerAdvice and @RestControllerAdvice” section for more details.

Customizing data binding with @InitBinder

Annotating controller methods with @InitBinder allows you to conﬁgure web data binding directly within your controller class. @InitBinder
identiﬁes methods that initialize the WebDataBinder that will be used to populate command and form object arguments of annotated handler
methods.

Such init-binder methods support all arguments that @RequestMapping methods support, except for command/form objects and corresponding
validation result objects. Init-binder methods must not have a return value. Thus, they are usually declared as void . Typical arguments include
WebDataBinder in combination with WebRequest or java.util.Locale , allowing code to register context-speciﬁc editors.

The following example demonstrates the use of @InitBinder to conﬁgure a CustomDateEditor for all java.util.Date form properties.

@Controller
public class MyFormController {

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 401/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

@InitBinder
protected void initBinder(WebDataBinder binder) {
SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
dateFormat.setLenient(false);
binder.registerCustomEditor(Date.class, new CustomDateEditor(dateFormat, false));
}

// ...
}

Alternatively, as of Spring 4.2, consider using addCustomFormatter to specify Formatter implementations instead of PropertyEditor
instances. This is particularly useful if you happen to have a Formatter -based setup in a shared FormattingConversionService as well,
with the same approach to be reused for controller-speciﬁc tweaking of the binding rules.

@Controller
public class MyFormController {

@InitBinder
protected void initBinder(WebDataBinder binder) {
binder.addCustomFormatter(new DateFormatter("yyyy-MM-dd"));
}

// ...
}

Conﬁguring a custom WebBindingInitializer

To externalize data binding initialization, you can provide a custom implementation of the WebBindingInitializer interface, which you then
enable by supplying a custom bean conﬁguration for an AnnotationMethodHandlerAdapter , thus overriding the default conﬁguration.

The following example from the PetClinic application shows a conﬁguration using a custom implementation of the WebBindingInitializer
interface, org.springframework.samples.petclinic.web.ClinicBindingInitializer , which conﬁgures PropertyEditors required by
several of the PetClinic controllers.

@InitBinder methods can also be deﬁned in an @ControllerAdvice -annotated class in which case they apply to matching controllers. This
provides an alternative to using a WebBindingInitializer . See the the section called “Advising controllers with @ControllerAdvice and
@RestControllerAdvice” section for more details.

Advising controllers with @ControllerAdvice and @RestControllerAdvice

The @ControllerAdvice annotation is a component annotation allowing implementation classes to be auto-detected through classpath
scanning. It is automatically enabled when using the MVC namespace or the MVC Java conﬁg.

Classes annotated with @ControllerAdvice can contain @ExceptionHandler , @InitBinder , and @ModelAttribute annotated
methods, and these methods will apply to @RequestMapping methods across all controller hierarchies as opposed to the controller hierarchy
within which they are declared.

@RestControllerAdvice is an alternative where @ExceptionHandler methods assume @ResponseBody semantics by default.

Both @ControllerAdvice and @RestControllerAdvice can target a subset of controllers:

// Target all Controllers annotated with @RestController

@ControllerAdvice(annotations = RestController.class)
public class AnnotationAdvice {}

// Target all Controllers within specific packages

@ControllerAdvice("org.example.controllers")
public class BasePackageAdvice {}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 402/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
// Target all Controllers assignable to specific classes
@ControllerAdvice(assignableTypes = {ControllerInterface.class, AbstractController.class})
public class AssignableTypesAdvice {}

Check out the @ControllerAdvice documentation for more details.

Jackson Serialization View Support

It can sometimes be useful to ﬁlter contextually the object that will be serialized to the HTTP response body. In order to provide such capability,
Spring MVC has built-in support for rendering with Jackson’s Serialization Views.

To use it with an @ResponseBody controller method or controller methods that return ResponseEntity , simply add the @JsonView annotation
with a class argument specifying the view class or interface to be used:

@RestController
public class UserController {

@GetMapping("/user")
@JsonView(User.WithoutPasswordView.class)
public User getUser() {
return new User("eric", "7!jd#h23");
}
}

public class User {

public interface WithoutPasswordView {};

public interface WithPasswordView extends WithoutPasswordView {};

private String username;

private String password;

public User() {
}

public User(String username, String password) {

this.username = username;
this.password = password;
}

@JsonView(WithoutPasswordView.class)
public String getUsername() {
return this.username;
}

@JsonView(WithPasswordView.class)
public String getPassword() {
return this.password;
}
}

Note that despite @JsonView allowing for more than one class to be speciﬁed, the use on a controller method is only supported with
exactly one class argument. Consider the use of a composite interface if you need to enable multiple views.

For controllers relying on view resolution, simply add the serialization view class to the model:

@Controller
public class UserController extends AbstractController {

@GetMapping("/user")
public String getUser(Model model) {
model.addAttribute("user", new User("eric", "7!jd#h23"));
model.addAttribute(JsonView.class.getName(), User.WithoutPasswordView.class);
return "userView";
}
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 403/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Jackson JSONP Support

In order to enable JSONP support for @ResponseBody and ResponseEntity methods, declare an @ControllerAdvice bean that extends
AbstractJsonpResponseBodyAdvice as shown below where the constructor argument indicates the JSONP query parameter name(s):

@ControllerAdvice
public class JsonpAdvice extends AbstractJsonpResponseBodyAdvice {

public JsonpAdvice() {
super("callback");
}
}

For controllers relying on view resolution, JSONP is automatically enabled when the request has a query parameter named jsonp or callback .
Those names can be customized through jsonpParameterNames property.

22.3.4 Asynchronous Request Processing

Spring MVC 3.2 introduced Servlet 3 based asynchronous request processing. Instead of returning a value, as usual, a controller method can now
return a java.util.concurrent.Callable and produce the return value from a Spring MVC managed thread. Meanwhile the main Servlet
container thread is exited and released and allowed to process other requests. Spring MVC invokes the Callable in a separate thread with the
help of a TaskExecutor and when the Callable returns, the request is dispatched back to the Servlet container to resume processing using
the value returned by the Callable . Here is an example of such a controller method:

@PostMapping
public Callable<String> processUpload(final MultipartFile file) {

return new Callable<String>() {

public String call() throws Exception {
// ...
return "someView";
}
};

Another option is for the controller method to return an instance of DeferredResult . In this case the return value will also be produced from any
thread, i.e. one that is not managed by Spring MVC. For example the result may be produced in response to some external event such as a JMS
message, a scheduled task, and so on. Here is an example of such a controller method:

@RequestMapping("/quotes")
@ResponseBody
public DeferredResult<String> quotes() {
DeferredResult<String> deferredResult = new DeferredResult<String>();
// Save the deferredResult somewhere..
return deferredResult;
}

// In some other thread...

deferredResult.setResult(data);

This may be difﬁcult to understand without any knowledge of the Servlet 3.0 asynchronous request processing features. It would certainly help to
read up on that. Here are a few basic facts about the underlying mechanism:

A ServletRequest can be put in asynchronous mode by calling request.startAsync() . The main effect of doing so is that the Servlet,
as well as any Filters, can exit but the response will remain open to allow processing to complete later.
The call to request.startAsync() returns AsyncContext which can be used for further control over async processing. For example it
provides the method dispatch , that is similar to a forward from the Servlet API except it allows an application to resume request processing
on a Servlet container thread.
The ServletRequest provides access to the current DispatcherType that can be used to distinguish between processing the initial
request, an async dispatch, a forward, and other dispatcher types.

With the above in mind, the following is the sequence of events for async request processing with a Callable :

Controller returns a Callable .

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 404/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Spring MVC starts asynchronous processing and submits the Callable to a TaskExecutor for processing in a separate thread.
The DispatcherServlet and all Filter’s exit the Servlet container thread but the response remains open.
The Callable produces a result and Spring MVC dispatches the request back to the Servlet container to resume processing.
The DispatcherServlet is invoked again and processing resumes with the asynchronously produced result from the Callable .

The sequence for DeferredResult is very similar except it’s up to the application to produce the asynchronous result from any thread:

Controller returns a DeferredResult and saves it in some in-memory queue or list where it can be accessed.
Spring MVC starts async processing.
The DispatcherServlet and all conﬁgured Filter’s exit the request processing thread but the response remains open.
The application sets the DeferredResult from some thread and Spring MVC dispatches the request back to the Servlet container.
The DispatcherServlet is invoked again and processing resumes with the asynchronously produced result.

For further background on the motivation for async request processing and when or why to use it please read this blog post series.

Exception Handling for Async Requests

What happens if a Callable returned from a controller method raises an Exception while being executed? The short answer is the same as what
happens when a controller method raises an exception. It goes through the regular exception handling mechanism. The longer explanation is that
when a Callable raises an Exception Spring MVC dispatches to the Servlet container with the Exception as the result and that leads to
resume request processing with the Exception instead of a controller method return value. When using a DeferredResult you have a choice
whether to call setResult or setErrorResult with an Exception instance.

Intercepting Async Requests

A HandlerInterceptor can also implement AsyncHandlerInterceptor in order to implement the
afterConcurrentHandlingStarted callback, which is called instead of postHandle and afterCompletion when asynchronous
processing starts.

A HandlerInterceptor can also register a CallableProcessingInterceptor or a DeferredResultProcessingInterceptor in

order to integrate more deeply with the lifecycle of an asynchronous request and for example handle a timeout event. See the Javadoc of
AsyncHandlerInterceptor for more details.

The DeferredResult type also provides methods such as onTimeout(Runnable) and onCompletion(Runnable) . See the Javadoc of
DeferredResult for more details.

When using a Callable you can wrap it with an instance of WebAsyncTask which also provides registration methods for timeout and
completion.

HTTP Streaming
A controller method can use DeferredResult and Callable to produce its return value asynchronously and that can be used to implement
techniques such as long polling where the server can push an event to the client as soon as possible.

What if you wanted to push multiple events on a single HTTP response? This is a technique related to "Long Polling" that is known as "HTTP
Streaming". Spring MVC makes this possible through the ResponseBodyEmitter return value type which can be used to send multiple Objects,
instead of one as is normally the case with @ResponseBody , where each Object sent is written to the response with an
HttpMessageConverter .

Here is an example of that:

@RequestMapping("/events")
public ResponseBodyEmitter handle() {
ResponseBodyEmitter emitter = new ResponseBodyEmitter();
// Save the emitter somewhere..
return emitter;
}

// In some other thread

emitter.send("Hello once");

// and again later on

emitter.send("Hello again");

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 405/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
// and done at some point
emitter.complete();

Note that ResponseBodyEmitter can also be used as the body in a ResponseEntity in order to customize the status and headers of the
response.

HTTP Streaming With Server-Sent Events

SseEmitter is a sub-class of ResponseBodyEmitter providing support for Server-Sent Events. Server-sent events is a just another variation
on the same "HTTP Streaming" technique except events pushed from the server are formatted according to the W3C Server-Sent Events
speciﬁcation.

Server-Sent Events can be used for their intended purpose, that is to push events from the server to clients. It is quite easy to do in Spring MVC and
requires simply returning a value of type SseEmitter .

Note however that Internet Explorer does not support Server-Sent Events and that for more advanced web application messaging scenarios such as
online games, collaboration, ﬁnancial applicatinos, and others it’s better to consider Spring’s WebSocket support that includes SockJS-style
WebSocket emulation falling back to a very wide range of browsers (including Internet Explorer) and also higher-level messaging patterns for
interacting with clients through a publish-subscribe model within a more messaging-centric architecture. For further background on this see the
following blog post.

HTTP Streaming Directly To The OutputStream

ResponseBodyEmitter allows sending events by writing Objects to the response through an HttpMessageConverter . This is probably the
most common case, for example when writing JSON data. However sometimes it is useful to bypass message conversion and write directly to the
response OutputStream for example for a ﬁle download. This can be done with the help of the StreamingResponseBody return value type.

Here is an example of that:

@RequestMapping("/download")
public StreamingResponseBody handle() {
return new StreamingResponseBody() {
@Override
public void writeTo(OutputStream outputStream) throws IOException {
// write...
}
};
}

Note that StreamingResponseBody can also be used as the body in a ResponseEntity in order to customize the status and headers of the
response.

Conﬁguring Asynchronous Request Processing

Servlet Container Conﬁguration

For applications conﬁgured with a web.xml be sure to update to version 3.0:

<web-app xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee
http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_0.xsd"
version="3.0">

...

</web-app>

Asynchronous support must be enabled on the DispatcherServlet through the <async-supported>true</async-supported> sub-
element in web.xml . Additionally any Filter that participates in asyncrequest processing must be configured to support the ASYNC dispatcher
type. It should be safe to enable the ASYNC dispatcher type for all filters provided with the Spring Framework since they usually extend
OncePerRequestFilter and that has runtime checks for whether the filter needs to be involved in async dispatches or not.

Below is some example web.xml conﬁguration:

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 406/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
<web-app xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="
http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee
http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_0.xsd"
version="3.0">

<filter>
<filter-name>Spring OpenEntityManagerInViewFilter</filter-name>
<filter-class>org.springframework.~.OpenEntityManagerInViewFilter</filter-class>
<async-supported>true</async-supported>
</filter>

<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>Spring OpenEntityManagerInViewFilter</filter-name>
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
<dispatcher>REQUEST</dispatcher>
<dispatcher>ASYNC</dispatcher>
</filter-mapping>

</web-app>

If using Servlet 3, Java based configuration for example via WebApplicationInitializer , you’ll also need to set the "asyncSupported" flag as
well as the ASYNC dispatcher type just like with web.xml . To simplify all this configuration, consider extending
AbstractDispatcherServletInitializer , or better AbstractAnnotationConfigDispatcherServletInitializer which
automatically set those options and make it very easy to register Filter instances.

Spring MVC Conﬁguration

The MVC Java conﬁg and the MVC namespace provide options for conﬁguring asynchronous request processing. WebMvcConfigurer has the
method configureAsyncSupport while <mvc:annotation-driven> has an <async-support> sub-element.

Those allow you to configure the default timeout value to use for async requests, which if not set depends on the underlying Servlet container (e.g.
10 seconds on Tomcat). You can also configure an AsyncTaskExecutor to use for executing Callable instances returned from controller
methods. It is highly recommended to configure this property since by default Spring MVC uses SimpleAsyncTaskExecutor . The MVC Java
config and the MVC namespace also allow you to register CallableProcessingInterceptor and
DeferredResultProcessingInterceptor instances.

If you need to override the default timeout value for a speciﬁc DeferredResult , you can do so by using the appropriate class constructor.
Similarly, for a Callable , you can wrap it in a WebAsyncTask and use the appropriate class constructor to customize the timeout value. The
class constructor of WebAsyncTask also allows providing an AsyncTaskExecutor .

22.3.5 Testing Controllers
The spring-test module offers ﬁrst class support for testing annotated controllers. See Section 15.6, “Spring MVC Test Framework”.

22.4 Handler mappings
In previous versions of Spring, users were required to deﬁne one or more HandlerMapping beans in the web application context to map incoming
web requests to appropriate handlers. With the introduction of annotated controllers, you generally don’t need to do that because the
RequestMappingHandlerMapping automatically looks for @RequestMapping annotations on all @Controller beans. However, do keep in
mind that all HandlerMapping classes extending from AbstractHandlerMapping have the following properties that you can use to customize
their behavior:

interceptors List of interceptors to use. HandlerInterceptor s are discussed in Section 22.4.1, “Intercepting requests with a
HandlerInterceptor”.
defaultHandler Default handler to use, when this handler mapping does not result in a matching handler.
order Based on the value of the order property (see the org.springframework.core.Ordered interface), Spring sorts all handler
mappings available in the context and applies the ﬁrst matching handler.
alwaysUseFullPath If true , Spring uses the full path within the current Servlet context to ﬁnd an appropriate handler. If false (the
default), the path within the current Servlet mapping is used. For example, if a Servlet is mapped using /testing/* and the

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 407/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
alwaysUseFullPath property is set to true, /testing/viewPage.html is used, whereas if the property is set to false,
/viewPage.html is used.
urlDecode Defaults to true , as of Spring 2.5. If you prefer to compare encoded paths, set this ﬂag to false . However, the
HttpServletRequest always exposes the Servlet path in decoded form. Be aware that the Servlet path will not match when compared with
encoded paths.

The following example shows how to conﬁgure an interceptor:

22.4.1 Intercepting requests with a HandlerInterceptor

Spring’s handler mapping mechanism includes handler interceptors, which are useful when you want to apply speciﬁc functionality to certain
requests, for example, checking for a principal.

Interceptors located in the handler mapping must implement HandlerInterceptor from the org.springframework.web.servlet package.
This interface defines three methods: preHandle(..) is called before the actual handler is executed; postHandle(..) is called after the
handler is executed; and afterCompletion(..) is called after the complete request has finished. These three methods should provide enough
flexibility to do all kinds of preprocessing and postprocessing.

The preHandle(..) method returns a boolean value. You can use this method to break or continue the processing of the execution chain. When
this method returns true , the handler execution chain will continue; when it returns false, the DispatcherServlet assumes the interceptor
itself has taken care of requests (and, for example, rendered an appropriate view) and does not continue executing the other interceptors and the
actual handler in the execution chain.

Interceptors can be conﬁgured using the interceptors property, which is present on all HandlerMapping classes extending from
AbstractHandlerMapping . This is shown in the example below:

package samples;

public class TimeBasedAccessInterceptor extends HandlerInterceptorAdapter {

private int openingTime;

private int closingTime;

public void setOpeningTime(int openingTime) {

this.openingTime = openingTime;
}

public void setClosingTime(int closingTime) {

this.closingTime = closingTime;
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 408/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

public boolean preHandle(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response,

Object handler) throws Exception {
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
int hour = cal.get(HOUR_OF_DAY);
if (openingTime <= hour && hour < closingTime) {
return true;
}
response.sendRedirect("http://host.com/outsideOfficeHours.html");
return false;
}
}

Any request handled by this mapping is intercepted by the TimeBasedAccessInterceptor . If the current time is outside office hours, the user is
redirected to a static HTML file that says, for example, you can only access the website during office hours.

When using the RequestMappingHandlerMapping the actual handler is an instance of HandlerMethod which identiﬁes the
speciﬁc controller method that will be invoked.

As you can see, the Spring adapter class HandlerInterceptorAdapter makes it easier to extend the HandlerInterceptor interface.

In the example above, the configured interceptor will apply to all requests handled with annotated controller methods. If you want to
narrow down the URL paths to which an interceptor applies, you can use the MVC namespace or the MVC Java config, or declare
bean instances of type MappedInterceptor to do that. See Section 22.16.1, “Enabling the MVC Java Config or the MVC XML
Namespace”.

Note that the postHandle method of HandlerInterceptor is not always ideally suited for use with @ResponseBody and
ResponseEntity methods. In such cases an HttpMessageConverter writes to and commits the response before postHandle is called
which makes it impossible to change the response, for example to add a header. Instead an application can implement ResponseBodyAdvice
and either declare it as an @ControllerAdvice bean or conﬁgure it directly on RequestMappingHandlerAdapter .

22.5 Resolving views
All MVC frameworks for web applications provide a way to address views. Spring provides view resolvers, which enable you to render models in a
browser without tying you to a speciﬁc view technology. Out of the box, Spring enables you to use JSPs, Velocity templates and XSLT views, for
example. See Chapter 23, View technologies for a discussion of how to integrate and use a number of disparate view technologies.

The two interfaces that are important to the way Spring handles views are ViewResolver and View . The ViewResolver provides a mapping
between view names and actual views. The View interface addresses the preparation of the request and hands the request over to one of the view
technologies.

22.5.1 Resolving views with the ViewResolver interface

As discussed in Section 22.3, “Implementing Controllers”, all handler methods in the Spring Web MVC controllers must resolve to a logical view
name, either explicitly (e.g., by returning a String , View , or ModelAndView ) or implicitly (i.e., based on conventions). Views in Spring are
addressed by a logical view name and are resolved by a view resolver. Spring comes with quite a few view resolvers. This table lists most of them; a
couple of examples follow.

Table 22.3. View resolvers

ViewResolver Description

AbstractCachingViewResolver Abstract view resolver that caches views. Often views need preparation before they can be
used; extending this view resolver provides caching.

XmlViewResolver Implementation of ViewResolver that accepts a configuration file written in XML with the
same DTD as Spring’s XML bean factories. The default configuration file is
/WEB-INF/views.xml .

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 409/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

ViewResolver Description

ResourceBundleViewResolver Implementation of ViewResolver that uses bean deﬁnitions in a ResourceBundle ,

specified by the bundle base name. Typically you define the bundle in a properties file, located
in the classpath. The default file name is views.properties .

UrlBasedViewResolver Simple implementation of the ViewResolver interface that effects the direct resolution of
logical view names to URLs, without an explicit mapping deﬁnition. This is appropriate if your
logical names match the names of your view resources in a straightforward manner, without the
need for arbitrary mappings.

InternalResourceViewResolver Convenient subclass of UrlBasedViewResolver that supports InternalResourceView

(in effect, Servlets and JSPs) and subclasses such as JstlView and TilesView . You can
specify the view class for all views generated by this resolver by using setViewClass(..) .
See the UrlBasedViewResolver javadocs for details.

VelocityViewResolver / Convenient subclass of UrlBasedViewResolver that supports VelocityView (in effect,

FreeMarkerViewResolver Velocity templates) or FreeMarkerView ,respectively, and custom subclasses of them.

ContentNegotiatingViewResolver Implementation of the ViewResolver interface that resolves a view based on the request ﬁle
name or Accept header. See Section 22.5.4, “ContentNegotiatingViewResolver”.

As an example, with JSP as a view technology, you can use the UrlBasedViewResolver . This view resolver translates a view name to a URL
and hands the request over to the RequestDispatcher to render the view.

When returning test as a logical view name, this view resolver forwards the request to the RequestDispatcher that will send the request to
/WEB-INF/jsp/test.jsp .

When you combine different view technologies in a web application, you can use the ResourceBundleViewResolver :

The ResourceBundleViewResolver inspects the ResourceBundle identiﬁed by the basename, and for each view it is supposed to resolve, it
uses the value of the property [viewname].(class) as the view class and the value of the property [viewname].url as the view url.
Examples can be found in the next chapter which covers view technologies. As you can see, you can identify a parent view, from which all views in
the properties ﬁle "extend". This way you can specify a default view class, for example.

Subclasses of AbstractCachingViewResolver cache view instances that they resolve. Caching improves performance of certain
view technologies. It’s possible to turn off the cache by setting the cache property to false . Furthermore, if you must refresh a
certain view at runtime (for example when a Velocity template is modiﬁed), you can use the
removeFromCache(String viewName, Locale loc) method.

22.5.2 Chaining ViewResolvers
Spring supports multiple view resolvers. Thus you can chain resolvers and, for example, override speciﬁc views in certain circumstances. You chain
view resolvers by adding more than one resolver to your application context and, if necessary, by setting the order property to specify ordering.
Remember, the higher the order property, the later the view resolver is positioned in the chain.

In the following example, the chain of view resolvers consists of two resolvers, an InternalResourceViewResolver , which is always
automatically positioned as the last resolver in the chain, and an XmlViewResolver for specifying Excel views. Excel views are not supported by
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 410/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
the InternalResourceViewResolver .

<bean id="jspViewResolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver">

<bean id="excelViewResolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.XmlViewResolver">

If a speciﬁc view resolver does not result in a view, Spring examines the context for other view resolvers. If additional view resolvers exist, Spring
continues to inspect them until a view is resolved. If no view resolver returns a view, Spring throws a ServletException .

The contract of a view resolver specifies that a view resolver can return null to indicate the view could not be found. Not all view resolvers do this,
however, because in some cases, the resolver simply cannot detect whether or not the view exists. For example, the
InternalResourceViewResolver uses the RequestDispatcher internally, and dispatching is the only way to figure out if a JSP exists, but
this action can only execute once. The same holds for the VelocityViewResolver and some others. Check the javadocs of the specific view
resolver to see whether it reports non-existing views. Thus, putting an InternalResourceViewResolver in the chain in a place other than the
last results in the chain not being fully inspected, because the InternalResourceViewResolver will always return a view!

22.5.3 Redirecting to Views
As mentioned previously, a controller typically returns a logical view name, which a view resolver resolves to a particular view technology. For view
technologies such as JSPs that are processed through the Servlet or JSP engine, this resolution is usually handled through the combination of
InternalResourceViewResolver and InternalResourceView , which issues an internal forward or include via the Servlet API’s
RequestDispatcher.forward(..) method or RequestDispatcher.include() method. For other view technologies, such as Velocity,
XSLT, and so on, the view itself writes the content directly to the response stream.

It is sometimes desirable to issue an HTTP redirect back to the client, before the view is rendered. This is desirable, for example, when one
controller has been called with POST data, and the response is actually a delegation to another controller (for example on a successful form
submission). In this case, a normal internal forward will mean that the other controller will also see the same POST data, which is potentially
problematic if it can confuse it with other expected data. Another reason to perform a redirect before displaying the result is to eliminate the
possibility of the user submitting the form data multiple times. In this scenario, the browser will first send an initial POST ; it will then receive a
response to redirect to a different URL; and finally the browser will perform a subsequent GET for the URL named in the redirect response. Thus,
from the perspective of the browser, the current page does not reflect the result of a POST but rather of a GET . The end effect is that there is no
way the user can accidentally re- POST the same data by performing a refresh. The refresh forces a GET of the result page, not a resend of the
initial POST data.

RedirectView
One way to force a redirect as the result of a controller response is for the controller to create and return an instance of Spring’s RedirectView . In
this case, DispatcherServlet does not use the normal view resolution mechanism. Rather because it has been given the (redirect) view
already, the DispatcherServlet simply instructs the view to do its work. The RedirectView in turn calls
HttpServletResponse.sendRedirect() to send an HTTP redirect to the client browser.

If you use RedirectView and the view is created by the controller itself, it is recommended that you configure the redirect URL to be injected into
the controller so that it is not baked into the controller but configured in the context along with the view names. The the section called “The redirect:
prefix” facilitates this decoupling.

Passing Data To the Redirect Target

By default all model attributes are considered to be exposed as URI template variables in the redirect URL. Of the remaining attributes those that are
primitive types or collections/arrays of primitive types are automatically appended as query parameters.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 411/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Appending primitive type attributes as query parameters may be the desired result if a model instance was prepared speciﬁcally for the redirect.
However, in annotated controllers the model may contain additional attributes added for rendering purposes (e.g. drop-down ﬁeld values). To avoid
the possibility of having such attributes appear in the URL, an @RequestMapping method can declare an argument of type
RedirectAttributes and use it to specify the exact attributes to make available to RedirectView . If the method does redirect, the content of
RedirectAttributes is used. Otherwise the content of the model is used.

The RequestMappingHandlerAdapter provides a flag called "ignoreDefaultModelOnRedirect" that can be used to indicate the content
of the default Model should never be used if a controller method redirects. Instead the controller method should declare an attribute of type
RedirectAttributes or if it doesn’t do so no attributes should be passed on to RedirectView . Both the MVC namespace and the MVC Java
config keep this flag set to false in order to maintain backwards compatibility. However, for new applications we recommend setting it to true

Note that URI template variables from the present request are automatically made available when expanding a redirect URL and do not need to be
added explicitly neither through Model nor RedirectAttributes . For example:

@PostMapping("/files/{path}")
public String upload(...) {
// ...
return "redirect:files/{path}";
}

Another way of passing data to the redirect target is via Flash Attributes. Unlike other redirect attributes, ﬂash attributes are saved in the HTTP
session (and hence do not appear in the URL). See Section 22.6, “Using ﬂash attributes” for more information.

The redirect: preﬁx

While the use of RedirectView works ﬁne, if the controller itself creates the RedirectView , there is no avoiding the fact that the controller is
aware that a redirection is happening. This is really suboptimal and couples things too tightly. The controller should not really care about how the
response gets handled. In general it should operate only in terms of view names that have been injected into it.

The special redirect: preﬁx allows you to accomplish this. If a view name is returned that has the preﬁx redirect: , the
UrlBasedViewResolver (and all subclasses) will recognize this as a special indication that a redirect is needed. The rest of the view name will
be treated as the redirect URL.

The net effect is the same as if the controller had returned a RedirectView , but now the controller itself can simply operate in terms of logical
view names. A logical view name such as redirect:/myapp/some/resource will redirect relative to the current Servlet context, while a name
such as redirect:http://myhost.com/some/arbitrary/path will redirect to an absolute URL.

Note that the controller handler is annotated with the @ResponseStatus , the annotation value takes precedence over the response status set by
RedirectView .

The forward: preﬁx

It is also possible to use a special forward: prefix for view names that are ultimately resolved by UrlBasedViewResolver and subclasses.
This creates an InternalResourceView (which ultimately does a RequestDispatcher.forward() ) around the rest of the view name,
which is considered a URL. Therefore, this prefix is not useful with InternalResourceViewResolver and InternalResourceView (for
JSPs for example). But the prefix can be helpful when you are primarily using another view technology, but still want to force a forward of a resource
to be handled by the Servlet/JSP engine. (Note that you may also chain multiple view resolvers, instead.)

As with the redirect: preﬁx, if the view name with the forward: preﬁx is injected into the controller, the controller does not detect that anything
special is happening in terms of handling the response.

22.5.4 ContentNegotiatingViewResolver
The ContentNegotiatingViewResolver does not resolve views itself but rather delegates to other view resolvers, selecting the view that
resembles the representation requested by the client. Two strategies exist for a client to request a representation from the server:

Use a distinct URI for each resource, typically by using a different ﬁle extension in the URI. For example, the URI
http://www.example.com/users/fred.pdf requests a PDF representation of the user fred, and
http://www.example.com/users/fred.xml requests an XML representation.
Use the same URI for the client to locate the resource, but set the Accept HTTP request header to list the media types that it understands. For
example, an HTTP request for http://www.example.com/users/fred with an Accept header set to application/pdf requests a

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 412/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
PDF representation of the user fred, while http://www.example.com/users/fred with an Accept header set to text/xml requests
an XML representation. This strategy is known as content negotiation.

One issue with the Accept header is that it is impossible to set it in a web browser within HTML. For example, in Firefox, it is ﬁxed to:
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
For this reason it is common to see the use of a distinct URI for each representation when developing browser based web applications.

To support multiple representations of a resource, Spring provides the ContentNegotiatingViewResolver to resolve a view based on the ﬁle
extension or Accept header of the HTTP request. ContentNegotiatingViewResolver does not perform the view resolution itself but instead
delegates to a list of view resolvers that you specify through the bean property ViewResolvers .

The ContentNegotiatingViewResolver selects an appropriate View to handle the request by comparing the request media type(s) with the
media type (also known as Content-Type ) supported by the View associated with each of its ViewResolvers . The ﬁrst View in the list that
has a compatible Content-Type returns the representation to the client. If a compatible view cannot be supplied by the ViewResolver chain,
then the list of views speciﬁed through the DefaultViews property will be consulted. This latter option is appropriate for singleton Views that can
render an appropriate representation of the current resource regardless of the logical view name. The Accept header may include wild cards, for
example text/* , in which case a View whose Content-Type was text/xml is a compatible match.

To support custom resolution of a view based on a ﬁle extension, use a ContentNegotiationManager : see Section 22.16.6, “Content
Negotiation”.

Here is an example conﬁguration of a ContentNegotiatingViewResolver :

<bean id="content" class="com.foo.samples.rest.SampleContentAtomView"/>

The InternalResourceViewResolver handles the translation of view names and JSP pages, while the BeanNameViewResolver returns a
view based on the name of a bean. (See "Resolving views with the ViewResolver interface" for more details on how Spring looks up and instantiates
a view.) In this example, the content bean is a class that inherits from AbstractAtomFeedView , which returns an Atom RSS feed. For more
information on creating an Atom Feed representation, see the section Atom Views.

In the above configuration, if a request is made with an .html extension, the view resolver looks for a view that matches the text/html media
type. The InternalResourceViewResolver provides the matching view for text/html . If the request is made with the file extension .atom ,
the view resolver looks for a view that matches the application/atom+xml media type. This view is provided by the
BeanNameViewResolver that maps to the SampleContentAtomView if the view name returned is content . If the request is made with the
file extension .json , the MappingJackson2JsonView instance from the DefaultViews list will be selected regardless of the view name.
Alternatively, client requests can be made without a file extension but with the Accept header set to the preferred media-type, and the same
resolution of request to views would occur.

If `ContentNegotiatingViewResolver’s list of ViewResolvers is not conﬁgured explicitly, it automatically uses any ViewResolvers deﬁned
in the application context.

The corresponding controller code that returns an Atom RSS feed for a URI of the form http://localhost/content.atom or
http://localhost/content with an Accept header of application/atom+xml is shown below.

@Controller
public class ContentController {
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 413/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
public class ContentController {

private List<SampleContent> contentList = new ArrayList<SampleContent>();

@GetMapping("/content")
public ModelAndView getContent() {
ModelAndView mav = new ModelAndView();
mav.setViewName("content");
mav.addObject("sampleContentList", contentList);
return mav;
}

22.6 Using ﬂash attributes

Flash attributes provide a way for one request to store attributes intended for use in another. This is most commonly needed when redirecting — for
example, the Post/Redirect/Get pattern. Flash attributes are saved temporarily before the redirect (typically in the session) to be made available to
the request after the redirect and removed immediately.

Spring MVC has two main abstractions in support of ﬂash attributes. FlashMap is used to hold ﬂash attributes while FlashMapManager is used
to store, retrieve, and manage FlashMap instances.

Flash attribute support is always "on" and does not need to enabled explicitly although if not used, it never causes HTTP session creation. On each
request there is an "input" FlashMap with attributes passed from a previous request (if any) and an "output" FlashMap with attributes to save for
a subsequent request. Both FlashMap instances are accessible from anywhere in Spring MVC through static methods in
RequestContextUtils .

Annotated controllers typically do not need to work with FlashMap directly. Instead an @RequestMapping method can accept an argument of
type RedirectAttributes and use it to add ﬂash attributes for a redirect scenario. Flash attributes added via RedirectAttributes are
automatically propagated to the "output" FlashMap. Similarly, after the redirect, attributes from the "input" FlashMap are automatically added to the
Model of the controller serving the target URL.

Matching requests to ﬂash attributes

The concept of flash attributes exists in many other Web frameworks and has proven to be exposed sometimes to concurrency issues. This is
because by definition flash attributes are to be stored until the next request. However the very "next" request may not be the intended recipient
but another asynchronous request (e.g. polling or resource requests) in which case the flash attributes are removed too early.

To reduce the possibility of such issues, RedirectView automatically "stamps" FlashMap instances with the path and query parameters of
the target redirect URL. In turn the default FlashMapManager matches that information to incoming requests when looking up the "input"
FlashMap .

This does not eliminate the possibility of a concurrency issue entirely but nevertheless reduces it greatly with information that is already
available in the redirect URL. Therefore the use of ﬂash attributes is recommended mainly for redirect scenarios .

22.7 Building URIs
Spring MVC provides a mechanism for building and encoding a URI using UriComponentsBuilder and UriComponents .

For example you can expand and encode a URI template string:

UriComponents uriComponents = UriComponentsBuilder.fromUriString(

"http://example.com/hotels/{hotel}/bookings/{booking}").build();

URI uri = uriComponents.expand("42", "21").encode().toUri();

Note that UriComponents is immutable and the expand() and encode() operations return new instances if necessary.

You can also expand and encode using individual URI components:

UriComponents uriComponents = UriComponentsBuilder.newInstance()

.scheme("http").host("example.com").path("/hotels/{hotel}/bookings/{booking}").build()
.expand("42", "21")
.encode();
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 414/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

In a Servlet environment the ServletUriComponentsBuilder sub-class provides static factory methods to copy available URL information from
a Servlet requests:

HttpServletRequest request = ...

// Re-use host, scheme, port, path and query string

// Replace the "accountId" query param

ServletUriComponentsBuilder ucb = ServletUriComponentsBuilder.fromRequest(request)

.replaceQueryParam("accountId", "{id}").build()
.expand("123")
.encode();

Alternatively, you may choose to copy a subset of the available information up to and including the context path:

// Re-use host, port and context path

// Append "/accounts" to the path

ServletUriComponentsBuilder ucb = ServletUriComponentsBuilder.fromContextPath(request)

.path("/accounts").build()

Or in cases where the DispatcherServlet is mapped by name (e.g. /main/* ), you can also have the literal part of the servlet mapping
included:

// Re-use host, port, context path

// Append the literal part of the servlet mapping to the path
// Append "/accounts" to the path

ServletUriComponentsBuilder ucb = ServletUriComponentsBuilder.fromServletMapping(request)

.path("/accounts").build()

22.7.1 Building URIs to Controllers and methods

Spring MVC also provides a mechanism for building links to controller methods. For example, given:

@Controller
@RequestMapping("/hotels/{hotel}")
public class BookingController {

@GetMapping("/bookings/{booking}")
public String getBooking(@PathVariable Long booking) {

// ...
}
}

You can prepare a link by referring to the method by name:

UriComponents uriComponents = MvcUriComponentsBuilder

.fromMethodName(BookingController.class, "getBooking", 21).buildAndExpand(42);

URI uri = uriComponents.encode().toUri();

In the above example we provided actual method argument values, in this case the long value 21, to be used as a path variable and inserted into the
URL. Furthermore, we provided the value 42 in order to ﬁll in any remaining URI variables such as the "hotel" variable inherited from the type-level
request mapping. If the method had more arguments you can supply null for arguments not needed for the URL. In general only @PathVariable
and @RequestParam arguments are relevant for constructing the URL.

There are additional ways to use MvcUriComponentsBuilder . For example you can use a technique akin to mock testing through proxies to
avoid referring to the controller method by name (the example assumes static import of MvcUriComponentsBuilder.on ):

UriComponents uriComponents = MvcUriComponentsBuilder

.fromMethodCall(on(BookingController.class).getBooking(21)).buildAndExpand(42);

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 415/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
URI uri = uriComponents.encode().toUri();

The above examples use static methods in MvcUriComponentsBuilder . Internally they rely on ServletUriComponentsBuilder to prepare
a base URL from the scheme, host, port, context path and servlet path of the current request. This works well in most cases, however sometimes it
may be insufficient. For example you may be outside the context of a request (e.g. a batch process that prepares links) or perhaps you need to insert
a path prefix (e.g. a locale prefix that was removed from the request path and needs to be re-inserted into links).

For such cases you can use the static "fromXxx" overloaded methods that accept a UriComponentsBuilder to use base URL. Or you can create
an instance of MvcUriComponentsBuilder with a base URL and then use the instance-based "withXxx" methods. For example:

UriComponentsBuilder base = ServletUriComponentsBuilder.fromCurrentContextPath().path("/en");

MvcUriComponentsBuilder builder = MvcUriComponentsBuilder.relativeTo(base);
builder.withMethodCall(on(BookingController.class).getBooking(21)).buildAndExpand(42);

URI uri = uriComponents.encode().toUri();

22.7.2 Working with "Forwarded" and "X-Forwarded-*" Headers

As a request goes through proxies such as load balancers the host, port, and scheme may change presenting a challenge for applications that need
to create links to resources since the links should reﬂect the host, port, and scheme of the original request as seen from a client perspective.

RFC 7239 deﬁnes the "Forwarded" HTTP header for proxies to use to provide information about the original request. There are also other non-
standard headers in use such as "X-Forwarded-Host", "X-Forwarded-Port", and "X-Forwarded-Proto".

Both ServletUriComponentsBuilder and MvcUriComponentsBuilder detect, extract, and use information from the "Forwarded" header,
or from "X-Forwarded-Host", "X-Forwarded-Port", and "X-Forwarded-Proto" if "Forwarded" is not present, so that the resulting links reﬂect the original
request.

The ForwardedHeaderFilter provides an alternative to do the same once and globally for the entire application. The ﬁlter wraps the request in
order to overlay host, port, and scheme information and also "hides" any forwarded headers for subsequent processing.

Note that there are security considerations when using forwarded headers as explained in Section 8 of RFC 7239. At the application level it is
difficult to determine whether forwarded headers can be trusted or not. This is why the network upstream should be configured correctly to filter out
untrusted forwarded headers from the outside.

Applications that don’t have a proxy and don’t need to use forwarded headers can conﬁgure the ForwardedHeaderFilter to remove and ignore
such headers.

22.7.3 Building URIs to Controllers and methods from views

You can also build links to annotated controllers from views such as JSP, Thymeleaf, FreeMarker. This can be done using the fromMappingName
method in MvcUriComponentsBuilder which refers to mappings by name.

Every @RequestMapping is assigned a default name based on the capital letters of the class and the full method name. For example, the method
getFoo in class FooController is assigned the name "FC#getFoo". This strategy can be replaced or customized by creating an instance of
HandlerMethodMappingNamingStrategy and plugging it into your RequestMappingHandlerMapping . The default strategy
implementation also looks at the name attribute on @RequestMapping and uses that if present. That means if the default mapping name assigned
conﬂicts with another (e.g. overloaded methods) you can assign a name explicitly on the @RequestMapping .

The assigned request mapping names are logged at TRACE level on startup.

The Spring JSP tag library provides a function called mvcUrl that can be used to prepare links to controller methods based on this mechanism.

For example given:

@RequestMapping("/people/{id}/addresses")
public class PersonAddressController {

@RequestMapping("/{country}")
public HttpEntity getAddress(@PathVariable String country) { ... }
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 416/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
You can prepare a link from a JSP as follows:

<%@ taglib uri="http://www.springframework.org/tags" prefix="s" %>

...
<a href="${s:mvcUrl('PAC#getAddress').arg(0,'US').buildAndExpand('123')}">Get Address</a>

The above example relies on the mvcUrl JSP function declared in the Spring tag library (i.e. META-INF/spring.tld). For more advanced cases (e.g.
a custom base URL as explained in the previous section), it is easy to define your own function, or use a custom tag file, in order to use a specific
instance of MvcUriComponentsBuilder with a custom base URL.

22.8 Using locales
Most parts of Spring’s architecture support internationalization, just as the Spring web MVC framework does. DispatcherServlet enables you to
automatically resolve messages using the client’s locale. This is done with LocaleResolver objects.

When a request comes in, the DispatcherServlet looks for a locale resolver, and if it ﬁnds one it tries to use it to set the locale. Using the
RequestContext.getLocale() method, you can always retrieve the locale that was resolved by the locale resolver.

In addition to automatic locale resolution, you can also attach an interceptor to the handler mapping (see Section 22.4.1, “Intercepting requests with
a HandlerInterceptor” for more information on handler mapping interceptors) to change the locale under speciﬁc circumstances, for example, based
on a parameter in the request.

Locale resolvers and interceptors are deﬁned in the org.springframework.web.servlet.i18n package and are conﬁgured in your
application context in the normal way. Here is a selection of the locale resolvers included in Spring.

22.8.1 Obtaining Time Zone Information

In addition to obtaining the client’s locale, it is often useful to know their time zone. The LocaleContextResolver interface offers an extension to
LocaleResolver that allows resolvers to provide a richer LocaleContext , which may include time zone information.

When available, the user’s TimeZone can be obtained using the RequestContext.getTimeZone() method. Time zone information will
automatically be used by Date/Time Converter and Formatter objects registered with Spring’s ConversionService .

22.8.2 AcceptHeaderLocaleResolver
This locale resolver inspects the accept-language header in the request that was sent by the client (e.g., a web browser). Usually this header
ﬁeld contains the locale of the client’s operating system. Note that this resolver does not support time zone information.

22.8.3 CookieLocaleResolver
This locale resolver inspects a Cookie that might exist on the client to see if a Locale or TimeZone is specified. If so, it uses the specified
details. Using the properties of this locale resolver, you can specify the name of the cookie as well as the maximum age. Find below an example of
defining a CookieLocaleResolver .

<bean id="localeResolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.i18n.CookieLocaleResolver">

<property name="cookieName" value="clientlanguage"/>

<property name="cookieMaxAge" value="100000"/>

</bean>

Table 22.4. CookieLocaleResolver properties

Property Default Description

cookieName classname + The name of the cookie

LOCALE

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 417/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Property Default Description

cookieMaxAge Servlet The maximum time a cookie will stay persistent on the client. If -1 is speciﬁed, the cookie will not be
container persisted; it will only be available until the client shuts down their browser.
default

cookiePath / Limits the visibility of the cookie to a certain part of your site. When cookiePath is speciﬁed, the cookie will
only be visible to that path and the paths below it.

22.8.4 SessionLocaleResolver
The SessionLocaleResolver allows you to retrieve Locale and TimeZone from the session that might be associated with the user’s
request. In contrast to CookieLocaleResolver , this strategy stores locally chosen locale settings in the Servlet container’s HttpSession . As a
consequence, those settings are just temporary for each session and therefore lost when each session terminates.

Note that there is no direct relationship with external session management mechanisms such as the Spring Session project. This
SessionLocaleResolver will simply evaluate and modify corresponding HttpSession attributes against the current
HttpServletRequest .

22.8.5 LocaleChangeInterceptor
You can enable changing of locales by adding the LocaleChangeInterceptor to one of the handler mappings (see Section 22.4, “Handler
mappings”). It will detect a parameter in the request and change the locale. It calls setLocale() on the LocaleResolver that also exists in the
context. The following example shows that calls to all *.view resources containing a parameter named siteLanguage will now change the
locale. So, for example, a request for the following URL, http://www.sf.net/home.view?siteLanguage=nl will change the site language to
Dutch.

<bean id="urlMapping"
class="org.springframework.web.servlet.handler.SimpleUrlHandlerMapping">
<property name="interceptors">
<list>
<ref bean="localeChangeInterceptor"/>
</list>
</property>
<property name="mappings">
<value>/**/*.view=someController</value>
</property>
</bean>

22.9 Using themes

22.9.1 Overview of themes
You can apply Spring Web MVC framework themes to set the overall look-and-feel of your application, thereby enhancing user experience. A theme
is a collection of static resources, typically style sheets and images, that affect the visual style of the application.

22.9.2 Deﬁning themes
To use themes in your web application, you must set up an implementation of the org.springframework.ui.context.ThemeSource
interface. The WebApplicationContext interface extends ThemeSource but delegates its responsibilities to a dedicated implementation. By

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 418/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
default the delegate will be an org.springframework.ui.context.support.ResourceBundleThemeSource implementation that loads
properties files from the root of the classpath. To use a custom ThemeSource implementation or to configure the base name prefix of the
ResourceBundleThemeSource , you can register a bean in the application context with the reserved name themeSource . The web application
context automatically detects a bean with that name and uses it.

When using the ResourceBundleThemeSource , a theme is defined in a simple properties file. The properties file lists the resources that make up
the theme. Here is an example:

styleSheet=/themes/cool/style.css
background=/themes/cool/img/coolBg.jpg

The keys of the properties are the names that refer to the themed elements from view code. For a JSP, you typically do this using the
spring:theme custom tag, which is very similar to the spring:message tag. The following JSP fragment uses the theme deﬁned in the
previous example to customize the look and feel:

<%@ taglib prefix="spring" uri="http://www.springframework.org/tags"%>

By default, the ResourceBundleThemeSource uses an empty base name prefix. As a result, the properties files are loaded from the root of the
classpath. Thus you would put the cool.properties theme definition in a directory at the root of the classpath, for example, in
/WEB-INF/classes . The ResourceBundleThemeSource uses the standard Java resource bundle loading mechanism, allowing for full
internationalization of themes. For example, we could have a /WEB-INF/classes/cool_nl.properties that references a special background
image with Dutch text on it.

22.9.3 Theme resolvers
After you deﬁne themes, as in the preceding section, you decide which theme to use. The DispatcherServlet will look for a bean named
themeResolver to ﬁnd out which ThemeResolver implementation to use. A theme resolver works in much the same way as a
LocaleResolver . It detects the theme to use for a particular request and can also alter the request’s theme. The following theme resolvers are
provided by Spring:

Table 22.5. ThemeResolver implementations

Class Description

FixedThemeResolver Selects a ﬁxed theme, set using the defaultThemeName property.

SessionThemeResolver The theme is maintained in the user’s HTTP session. It only needs to be set once for each session, but is not
persisted between sessions.

CookieThemeResolver The selected theme is stored in a cookie on the client.

Spring also provides a ThemeChangeInterceptor that allows theme changes on every request with a simple request parameter.

22.10 Spring’s multipart (ﬁle upload) support

22.10.1 Introduction
Spring’s built-in multipart support handles ﬁle uploads in web applications. You enable this multipart support with pluggable MultipartResolver
objects, deﬁned in the org.springframework.web.multipart package. Spring provides one MultipartResolver implementation for use
with Commons FileUpload and another for use with Servlet 3.0 multipart request parsing.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 419/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
By default, Spring does no multipart handling, because some developers want to handle multiparts themselves. You enable Spring multipart handling
by adding a multipart resolver to the web application’s context. Each request is inspected to see if it contains a multipart. If no multipart is found, the
request continues as expected. If a multipart is found in the request, the MultipartResolver that has been declared in your context is used.
After that, the multipart attribute in your request is treated like any other attribute.

22.10.2 Using a MultipartResolver with Commons FileUpload

The following example shows how to use the CommonsMultipartResolver :

<property name="maxUploadSize" value="100000"/>

</bean>

Of course you also need to put the appropriate jars in your classpath for the multipart resolver to work. In the case of the
CommonsMultipartResolver , you need to use commons-fileupload.jar .

When the Spring DispatcherServlet detects a multi-part request, it activates the resolver that has been declared in your context and hands
over the request. The resolver then wraps the current HttpServletRequest into a MultipartHttpServletRequest that supports multipart
ﬁle uploads. Using the MultipartHttpServletRequest , you can get information about the multiparts contained by this request and actually get
access to the multipart ﬁles themselves in your controllers.

22.10.3 Using a MultipartResolver with Servlet 3.0

In order to use Servlet 3.0 based multipart parsing, you need to mark the DispatcherServlet with a "multipart-config" section in
web.xml , or with a javax.servlet.MultipartConfigElement in programmatic Servlet registration, or in case of a custom Servlet class
possibly with a javax.servlet.annotation.MultipartConfig annotation on your Servlet class. Conﬁguration settings such as maximum
sizes or storage locations need to be applied at that Servlet registration level as Servlet 3.0 does not allow for those settings to be done from the
MultipartResolver.

Once Servlet 3.0 multipart parsing has been enabled in one of the above mentioned ways you can add the
StandardServletMultipartResolver to your Spring conﬁguration:

22.10.4 Handling a ﬁle upload in a form

After the MultipartResolver completes its job, the request is processed like any other. First, create a form with a ﬁle input that will allow the
user to upload a form. The encoding attribute ( enctype="multipart/form-data" ) lets the browser know how to encode the form as multipart
request:

<html>
<head>
<title>Upload a file please</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Please upload a file</h1>
<form method="post" action="/form" enctype="multipart/form-data">
<input type="text" name="name"/>
<input type="file" name="file"/>
<input type="submit"/>
</form>
</body>
</html>

The next step is to create a controller that handles the ﬁle upload. This controller is very similar to a normal annotated @Controller , except that
we use MultipartHttpServletRequest or MultipartFile in the method parameters:

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 420/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

@Controller
public class FileUploadController {

@PostMapping("/form")
public String handleFormUpload(@RequestParam("name") String name,
@RequestParam("file") MultipartFile file) {

if (!file.isEmpty()) {
byte[] bytes = file.getBytes();
// store the bytes somewhere
return "redirect:uploadSuccess";
}

return "redirect:uploadFailure";
}

Note how the @RequestParam method parameters map to the input elements declared in the form. In this example, nothing is done with the
byte[] , but in practice you can save it in a database, store it on the ﬁle system, and so on.

When using Servlet 3.0 multipart parsing you can also use javax.servlet.http.Part for the method parameter:

@Controller
public class FileUploadController {

@PostMapping("/form")
public String handleFormUpload(@RequestParam("name") String name,
@RequestParam("file") Part file) {

InputStream inputStream = file.getInputStream();

// store bytes from uploaded file somewhere

return "redirect:uploadSuccess";
}

22.10.5 Handling a ﬁle upload request from programmatic clients

Multipart requests can also be submitted from non-browser clients in a RESTful service scenario. All of the above examples and configuration apply
here as well. However, unlike browsers that typically submit files and simple form fields, a programmatic client can also send more complex data of a
specific content type — for example a multipart request with a file and second part with JSON formatted data:

POST /someUrl
Content-Type: multipart/mixed
--edt7Tfrdusa7r3lNQc79vXuhIIMlatb7PQg7Vp
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="meta-data"
Content-Type: application/json; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
{
"name": "value"
}
--edt7Tfrdusa7r3lNQc79vXuhIIMlatb7PQg7Vp
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="file-data"; filename="file.properties"
Content-Type: text/xml
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
... File Data ...

You could access the part named "meta-data" with a @RequestParam("meta-data") String metadata controller method argument.
However, you would probably prefer to accept a strongly typed object initialized from the JSON formatted data in the body of the request part, very
similar to the way @RequestBody converts the body of a non-multipart request to a target object with the help of an HttpMessageConverter .

You can use the @RequestPart annotation instead of the @RequestParam annotation for this purpose. It allows you to have the content of a
speciﬁc multipart passed through an HttpMessageConverter taking into consideration the 'Content-Type' header of the multipart:

@PostMapping("/someUrl")
public String onSubmit(@RequestPart("meta-data") MetaData metadata,
@RequestPart("file-data") MultipartFile file) {

// ...

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 421/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Notice how MultipartFile method arguments can be accessed with @RequestParam or with @RequestPart interchangeably. However, the
@RequestPart("meta-data") MetaData method argument in this case is read as JSON content based on its 'Content-Type' header and
converted with the help of the MappingJackson2HttpMessageConverter .

22.11 Handling exceptions

22.11.1 HandlerExceptionResolver
Spring HandlerExceptionResolver implementations deal with unexpected exceptions that occur during controller execution. A
HandlerExceptionResolver somewhat resembles the exception mappings you can define in the web application descriptor web.xml .
However, they provide a more flexible way to do so. For example they provide information about which handler was executing when the exception
was thrown. Furthermore, a programmatic way of handling exceptions gives you more options for responding appropriately before the request is
forwarded to another URL (the same end result as when you use the Servlet specific exception mappings).

Besides implementing the HandlerExceptionResolver interface, which is only a matter of implementing the
resolveException(Exception, Handler) method and returning a ModelAndView , you may also use the provided
SimpleMappingExceptionResolver or create @ExceptionHandler methods. The SimpleMappingExceptionResolver enables you to
take the class name of any exception that might be thrown and map it to a view name. This is functionally equivalent to the exception mapping
feature from the Servlet API, but it is also possible to implement more finely grained mappings of exceptions from different handlers. The
@ExceptionHandler annotation on the other hand can be used on methods that should be invoked to handle an exception. Such methods may
be defined locally within an @Controller or may apply to many @Controller classes when defined within an @ControllerAdvice class.
The following sections explain this in more detail.

22.11.2 @ExceptionHandler
The HandlerExceptionResolver interface and the SimpleMappingExceptionResolver implementations allow you to map Exceptions to
speciﬁc views declaratively along with some optional Java logic before forwarding to those views. However, in some cases, especially when relying
on @ResponseBody methods rather than on view resolution, it may be more convenient to directly set the status of the response and optionally
write error content to the body of the response.

You can do that with @ExceptionHandler methods. When declared within a controller such methods apply to exceptions raised by
@RequestMapping methods of that controller (or any of its sub-classes). You can also declare an @ExceptionHandler method within an
@ControllerAdvice class in which case it handles exceptions from @RequestMapping methods from many controllers. Below is an example
of a controller-local @ExceptionHandler method:

@Controller
public class SimpleController {

// @RequestMapping methods omitted ...

@ExceptionHandler(IOException.class)
public ResponseEntity<String> handleIOException(IOException ex) {
// prepare responseEntity
return responseEntity;
}

The @ExceptionHandler value can be set to an array of Exception types. If an exception is thrown that matches one of the types in the list, then
the method annotated with the matching @ExceptionHandler will be invoked. If the annotation value is not set then the exception types listed as
method arguments are used.

Much like standard controller methods annotated with a @RequestMapping annotation, the method arguments and return values of
@ExceptionHandler methods can be ﬂexible. For example, the HttpServletRequest can be accessed in Servlet environments and the
PortletRequest in Portlet environments. The return type can be a String , which is interpreted as a view name, a ModelAndView object, a
ResponseEntity , or you can also add the @ResponseBody to have the method return value converted with message converters and written to
the response stream.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 422/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

22.11.3 Handling Standard Spring MVC Exceptions

Spring MVC may raise a number of exceptions while processing a request. The SimpleMappingExceptionResolver can easily map any
exception to a default error view as needed. However, when working with clients that interpret responses in an automated way you will want to set
speciﬁc status code on the response. Depending on the exception raised the status code may indicate a client error (4xx) or a server error (5xx).

The DefaultHandlerExceptionResolver translates Spring MVC exceptions to specific error status codes. It is registered by default with the
MVC namespace, the MVC Java config, and also by the DispatcherServlet (i.e. when not using the MVC namespace or Java config). Listed
below are some of the exceptions handled by this resolver and the corresponding status codes:

Exception HTTP Status Code

BindException 400 (Bad Request)

ConversionNotSupportedException 500 (Internal Server Error)

HttpMediaTypeNotAcceptableException 406 (Not Acceptable)

HttpMediaTypeNotSupportedException 415 (Unsupported Media Type)

HttpMessageNotReadableException 400 (Bad Request)

HttpMessageNotWritableException 500 (Internal Server Error)

HttpRequestMethodNotSupportedException 405 (Method Not Allowed)

MethodArgumentNotValidException 400 (Bad Request)

MissingPathVariableException 500 (Internal Server Error)

MissingServletRequestParameterException 400 (Bad Request)

MissingServletRequestPartException 400 (Bad Request)

NoHandlerFoundException 404 (Not Found)

NoSuchRequestHandlingMethodException 404 (Not Found)

TypeMismatchException 400 (Bad Request)

The DefaultHandlerExceptionResolver works transparently by setting the status of the response. However, it stops short of writing any error
content to the body of the response while your application may need to add developer-friendly content to every error response for example when
providing a REST API. You can prepare a ModelAndView and render error content through view resolution — i.e. by conﬁguring a
ContentNegotiatingViewResolver , MappingJackson2JsonView , and so on. However, you may prefer to use @ExceptionHandler
methods instead.

If you prefer to write error content via @ExceptionHandler methods you can extend ResponseEntityExceptionHandler instead. This is a
convenient base for @ControllerAdvice classes providing an @ExceptionHandler method to handle standard Spring MVC exceptions and
return ResponseEntity . That allows you to customize the response and write error content with message converters. See the
ResponseEntityExceptionHandler javadocs for more details.

22.11.4 Annotating Business Exceptions With @ResponseStatus

A business exception can be annotated with @ResponseStatus . When the exception is raised, the ResponseStatusExceptionResolver
handles it by setting the status of the response accordingly. By default the DispatcherServlet registers the
ResponseStatusExceptionResolver and it is available for use.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 423/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

22.11.5 Customizing the Default Servlet Container Error Page

When the status of the response is set to an error status code and the body of the response is empty, Servlet containers commonly render an HTML
formatted error page. To customize the default error page of the container, you can declare an <error-page> element in web.xml . Up until
Servlet 3, that element had to be mapped to a speciﬁc status code or exception type. Starting with Servlet 3 an error page does not need to be
mapped, which effectively means the speciﬁed location customizes the default Servlet container error page.

<error-page>
<location>/error</location>
</error-page>

Note that the actual location for the error page can be a JSP page or some other URL within the container including one handled through an
@Controller method:

When writing error information, the status code and the error message set on the HttpServletResponse can be accessed through request
attributes in a controller:

@Controller
public class ErrorController {

@RequestMapping(path = "/error", produces = MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON_UTF8_VALUE)

@ResponseBody
public Map<String, Object> handle(HttpServletRequest request) {

Map<String, Object> map = new HashMap<String, Object>();

map.put("status", request.getAttribute("javax.servlet.error.status_code"));
map.put("reason", request.getAttribute("javax.servlet.error.message"));

return map;
}

or in a JSP:

<%@ page contentType="application/json" pageEncoding="UTF-8"%>

{
status:<%=request.getAttribute("javax.servlet.error.status_code") %>,
reason:<%=request.getAttribute("javax.servlet.error.message") %>
}

22.12 Web Security
The Spring Security project provides features to protect web applications from malicious exploits. Check out the reference documentation in the
sections on "CSRF protection", "Security Response Headers", and also "Spring MVC Integration". Note that using Spring Security to secure the
application is not necessarily required for all features. For example CSRF protection can be added simply by adding the CsrfFilter and
CsrfRequestDataValueProcessor to your conﬁguration. See the Spring MVC Showcase for an example.

Another option is to use a framework dedicated to Web Security. HDIV is one such framework and integrates with Spring MVC.

22.13 Convention over conﬁguration support

For a lot of projects, sticking to established conventions and having reasonable defaults is just what they (the projects) need, and Spring Web MVC
now has explicit support for convention over conﬁguration. What this means is that if you establish a set of naming conventions and suchlike, you
can substantially cut down on the amount of conﬁguration that is required to set up handler mappings, view resolvers, ModelAndView instances,
etc. This is a great boon with regards to rapid prototyping, and can also lend a degree of (always good-to-have) consistency across a codebase
should you choose to move forward with it into production.

Convention-over-conﬁguration support addresses the three core areas of MVC: models, views, and controllers.

22.13.1 The Controller ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 424/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping class is a HandlerMapping implementation that uses a convention to determine the mapping
between request URLs and the Controller instances that are to handle those requests.

Consider the following simple Controller implementation. Take special notice of the name of the class.

public class ViewShoppingCartController implements Controller {

public ModelAndView handleRequest(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) {

// the implementation is not hugely important for this example...
}

Here is a snippet from the corresponding Spring Web MVC conﬁguration ﬁle:

<bean id="viewShoppingCart" class="x.y.z.ViewShoppingCartController">

</bean>

The ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping finds all of the various handler (or Controller ) beans defined in its application context and
strips Controller off the name to define its handler mappings. Thus, ViewShoppingCartController maps to the /viewshoppingcart*
request URL.

Let’s look at some more examples so that the central idea becomes immediately familiar. (Notice all lowercase in the URLs, in contrast to camel-
cased Controller class names.)

WelcomeController maps to the /welcome* request URL

HomeController maps to the /home* request URL
IndexController maps to the /index* request URL
RegisterController maps to the /register* request URL

In the case of MultiActionController handler classes, the mappings generated are slightly more complex. The Controller names in the
following examples are assumed to be MultiActionController implementations:

AdminController maps to the /admin/* request URL

CatalogController maps to the /catalog/* request URL

If you follow the convention of naming your Controller implementations as xxxController , the ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping
saves you the tedium of deﬁning and maintaining a potentially looooong SimpleUrlHandlerMapping (or suchlike).

The ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping class extends the AbstractHandlerMapping base class so you can deﬁne
HandlerInterceptor instances and everything else just as you would with many other HandlerMapping implementations.

22.13.2 The Model ModelMap (ModelAndView)

The ModelMap class is essentially a gloriﬁed Map that can make adding objects that are to be displayed in (or on) a View adhere to a common
naming convention. Consider the following Controller implementation; notice that objects are added to the ModelAndView without any
associated name speciﬁed.

public class DisplayShoppingCartController implements Controller {

public ModelAndView handleRequest(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) {

List cartItems = // get a List of CartItem objects

User user = // get the User doing the shopping

ModelAndView mav = new ModelAndView("displayShoppingCart"); <-- the logical view name

mav.addObject(cartItems); <-- look ma, no name, just the object

mav.addObject(user); <-- and again ma!

return mav;
}
}
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 425/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
}

The ModelAndView class uses a ModelMap class that is a custom Map implementation that automatically generates a key for an object when
an object is added to it. The strategy for determining the name for an added object is, in the case of a scalar object such as User , to use the short
class name of the object’s class. The following examples are names that are generated for scalar objects put into a ModelMap instance.

An x.y.User instance added will have the name user generated.

An x.y.Registration instance added will have the name registration generated.
An x.y.Foo instance added will have the name foo generated.
A java.util.HashMap instance added will have the name hashMap generated. You probably want to be explicit about the name in this
case because hashMap is less than intuitive.
Adding null will result in an IllegalArgumentException being thrown. If the object (or objects) that you are adding could be null , then
you will also want to be explicit about the name.

What, no automatic pluralization?

Spring Web MVC’s convention-over-conﬁguration support does not support automatic pluralization. That is, you cannot add a List of
Person objects to a ModelAndView and have the generated name be people .

This decision was made after some debate, with the "Principle of Least Surprise" winning out in the end.

The strategy for generating a name after adding a Set or a List is to peek into the collection, take the short class name of the ﬁrst object in the
collection, and use that with List appended to the name. The same applies to arrays although with arrays it is not necessary to peek into the array
contents. A few examples will make the semantics of name generation for collections clearer:

An x.y.User[] array with zero or more x.y.User elements added will have the name userList generated.
An x.y.Foo[] array with zero or more x.y.User elements added will have the name fooList generated.
A java.util.ArrayList with one or more x.y.User elements added will have the name userList generated.
A java.util.HashSet with one or more x.y.Foo elements added will have the name fooList generated.
An empty java.util.ArrayList will not be added at all (in effect, the addObject(..) call will essentially be a no-op).

22.13.3 The View - RequestToViewNameTranslator

The RequestToViewNameTranslator interface determines a logical View name when no such logical view name is explicitly supplied. It has
just one implementation, the DefaultRequestToViewNameTranslator class.

The DefaultRequestToViewNameTranslator maps request URLs to logical view names, as with this example:

public class RegistrationController implements Controller {

public ModelAndView handleRequest(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) {

// process the request...
ModelAndView mav = new ModelAndView();
// add data as necessary to the model...
return mav;
// notice that no View or logical view name has been set
}

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<bean id="viewNameTranslator"
class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.DefaultRequestToViewNameTranslator"/>

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 426/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.support.ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping"/>

<bean id="viewResolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver">

</beans>

Notice how in the implementation of the handleRequest(..) method no View or logical view name is ever set on the ModelAndView that is
returned. The DefaultRequestToViewNameTranslator is tasked with generating a logical view name from the URL of the request. In the case
of the above RegistrationController , which is used in conjunction with the ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping , a request URL of
http://localhost/registration.html results in a logical view name of registration being generated by the
DefaultRequestToViewNameTranslator . This logical view name is then resolved into the /WEB-INF/jsp/registration.jsp view by
the InternalResourceViewResolver bean.

You do not need to deﬁne a DefaultRequestToViewNameTranslator bean explicitly. If you like the default settings of the
DefaultRequestToViewNameTranslator , you can rely on the Spring Web MVC DispatcherServlet to instantiate an
instance of this class if one is not explicitly conﬁgured.

Of course, if you need to change the default settings, then you do need to conﬁgure your own DefaultRequestToViewNameTranslator bean
explicitly. Consult the comprehensive DefaultRequestToViewNameTranslator javadocs for details on the various properties that can be
conﬁgured.

22.14 HTTP caching support

A good HTTP caching strategy can signiﬁcantly improve the performance of a web application and the experience of its clients. The
'Cache-Control' HTTP response header is mostly responsible for this, along with conditional headers such as 'Last-Modified' and
'ETag' .

The 'Cache-Control' HTTP response header advises private caches (e.g. browsers) and public caches (e.g. proxies) on how they can cache
HTTP responses for further reuse.

An ETag (entity tag) is an HTTP response header returned by an HTTP/1.1 compliant web server used to determine change in content at a given
URL. It can be considered to be the more sophisticated successor to the Last-Modified header. When a server returns a representation with an
ETag header, the client can use this header in subsequent GETs, in an If-None-Match header. If the content has not changed, the server returns
304: Not Modified .

This section describes the different choices available to conﬁgure HTTP caching in a Spring Web MVC application.

22.14.1 Cache-Control HTTP header

Spring Web MVC supports many use cases and ways to conﬁgure "Cache-Control" headers for an application. While RFC 7234 Section 5.2.2
completely describes that header and its possible directives, there are several ways to address the most common cases.

Spring Web MVC uses a conﬁguration convention in several of its APIs: setCachePeriod(int seconds) :

A -1 value won’t generate a 'Cache-Control' response header.

A 0 value will prevent caching using the 'Cache-Control: no-store' directive.
An n > 0 value will cache the given response for n seconds using the 'Cache-Control: max-age=n' directive.

The CacheControl builder class simply describes the available "Cache-Control" directives and makes it easier to build your own HTTP caching
strategy. Once built, a CacheControl instance can then be accepted as an argument in several Spring Web MVC APIs.

// Cache for an hour - "Cache-Control: max-age=3600"

CacheControl ccCacheOneHour = CacheControl.maxAge(1, TimeUnit.HOURS);

// Prevent caching - "Cache-Control: no-store"

CacheControl ccNoStore = CacheControl.noStore();

// Cache for ten days in public and private caches,

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 427/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
// public caches should not transform the response
// "Cache-Control: max-age=864000, public, no-transform"
CacheControl ccCustom = CacheControl.maxAge(10, TimeUnit.DAYS)
.noTransform().cachePublic();

22.14.2 HTTP caching support for static resources

Static resources should be served with appropriate 'Cache-Control' and conditional headers for optimal performance. Configuring a
ResourceHttpRequestHandler for serving static resources not only natively writes 'Last-Modified' headers by reading a file’s metadata,
but also 'Cache-Control' headers if properly configured.

You can set the cachePeriod attribute on a ResourceHttpRequestHandler or use a CacheControl instance, which supports more
speciﬁc directives:

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

@Override
public void addResourceHandlers(ResourceHandlerRegistry registry) {
registry.addResourceHandler("/resources/**")
.addResourceLocations("/public-resources/")
.setCacheControl(CacheControl.maxAge(1, TimeUnit.HOURS).cachePublic());
}

And in XML:

<mvc:resources mapping="/resources/**" location="/public-resources/">

<mvc:cache-control max-age="3600" cache-public="true"/>
</mvc:resources>

22.14.3 Support for the Cache-Control, ETag and Last-Modified response headers in Controllers
Controllers can support 'Cache-Control' , 'ETag' , and/or 'If-Modified-Since' HTTP requests; this is indeed recommended if a
'Cache-Control' header is to be set on the response. This involves calculating a lastModified long and/or an Etag value for a given request,
comparing it against the 'If-Modified-Since' request header value, and potentially returning a response with status code 304 (Not Modified).

As described in the section called “Using HttpEntity”, controllers can interact with the request/response using HttpEntity types. Controllers
returning ResponseEntity can include HTTP caching information in responses like this:

@GetMapping("/book/{id}")
public ResponseEntity<Book> showBook(@PathVariable Long id) {

Book book = findBook(id);

String version = book.getVersion();

return ResponseEntity
.ok()
.cacheControl(CacheControl.maxAge(30, TimeUnit.DAYS))
.eTag(version) // lastModified is also available
.body(book);
}

Doing this will not only include 'ETag' and 'Cache-Control' headers in the response, it will also convert the response to an
HTTP 304 Not Modified response with an empty body if the conditional headers sent by the client match the caching information set by the
Controller.

An @RequestMapping method may also wish to support the same behavior. This can be achieved as follows:

@RequestMapping
public String myHandleMethod(WebRequest webRequest, Model model) {

long lastModified = // 1. application-specific calculation

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 428/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

if (request.checkNotModified(lastModified)) {
// 2. shortcut exit - no further processing necessary
return null;
}

// 3. or otherwise further request processing, actually preparing content

model.addAttribute(...);
return "myViewName";
}

There are two key elements here: calling request.checkNotModified(lastModified) and returning null . The former sets the appropriate
response status and headers before it returns true . The latter, in combination with the former, causes Spring MVC to do no further processing of
the request.

Note that there are 3 variants for this:

request.checkNotModified(lastModified) compares lastModiﬁed with the 'If-Modified-Since' or

'If-Unmodified-Since' request header
request.checkNotModified(eTag) compares eTag with the 'If-None-Match' request header
request.checkNotModified(eTag, lastModified) does both, meaning that both conditions should be valid

When receiving conditional 'GET' / 'HEAD' requests, checkNotModified will check that the resource has not been modified and if so, it will
result in a HTTP 304 Not Modified response. In case of conditional 'POST' / 'PUT' / 'DELETE' requests, checkNotModified will check
that the resource has not been modified and if it has been, it will result in a HTTP 409 Precondition Failed response to prevent concurrent
modifications.

22.14.4 Shallow ETag support

Support for ETags is provided by the Servlet filter ShallowEtagHeaderFilter . It is a plain Servlet Filter, and thus can be used in combination
with any web framework. The ShallowEtagHeaderFilter filter creates so-called shallow ETags (as opposed to deep ETags, more about that
later).The filter caches the content of the rendered JSP (or other content), generates an MD5 hash over that, and returns that as an ETag header in
the response. The next time a client sends a request for the same resource, it uses that hash as the If-None-Match value. The filter detects this,
renders the view again, and compares the two hashes. If they are equal, a 304 is returned.

Note that this strategy saves network bandwidth but not CPU, as the full response must be computed for each request. Other strategies at the
controller level (described above) can save network bandwidth and avoid computation.

This filter has a writeWeakETag parameter that configures the filter to write Weak ETags, like this:
W/"02a2d595e6ed9a0b24f027f2b63b134d6" , as defined in RFC 7232 Section 2.3.

You conﬁgure the ShallowEtagHeaderFilter in web.xml :

<filter>
<filter-name>etagFilter</filter-name>
<filter-class>org.springframework.web.filter.ShallowEtagHeaderFilter</filter-class>

</filter>

<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>etagFilter</filter-name>
<servlet-name>petclinic</servlet-name>
</filter-mapping>

Or in Servlet 3.0+ environments,

public class MyWebAppInitializer extends AbstractDispatcherServletInitializer {

// ...

@Override
protected Filter[] getServletFilters() {
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 429/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
protected Filter[] getServletFilters() {
return new Filter[] { new ShallowEtagHeaderFilter() };
}

See Section 22.15, “Code-based Servlet container initialization” for more details.

22.15 Code-based Servlet container initialization

In a Servlet 3.0+ environment, you have the option of conﬁguring the Servlet container programmatically as an alternative or in combination with a
web.xml ﬁle. Below is an example of registering a DispatcherServlet :

import org.springframework.web.WebApplicationInitializer;

public class MyWebApplicationInitializer implements WebApplicationInitializer {

@Override
public void onStartup(ServletContext container) {
XmlWebApplicationContext appContext = new XmlWebApplicationContext();
appContext.setConfigLocation("/WEB-INF/spring/dispatcher-config.xml");

ServletRegistration.Dynamic registration = container.addServlet("dispatcher", new DispatcherServlet(appContext));

registration.setLoadOnStartup(1);
registration.addMapping("/");
}

WebApplicationInitializer is an interface provided by Spring MVC that ensures your implementation is detected and automatically used to
initialize any Servlet 3 container. An abstract base class implementation of WebApplicationInitializer named
AbstractDispatcherServletInitializer makes it even easier to register the DispatcherServlet by simply overriding methods to
specify the servlet mapping and the location of the DispatcherServlet conﬁguration.

This is recommended for applications that use Java-based Spring conﬁguration:

public class MyWebAppInitializer extends AbstractAnnotationConfigDispatcherServletInitializer {

@Override
protected Class<?>[] getRootConfigClasses() {
return null;
}

@Override
protected Class<?>[] getServletConfigClasses() {
return new Class[] { MyWebConfig.class };
}

@Override
protected String[] getServletMappings() {
return new String[] { "/" };
}

If using XML-based Spring conﬁguration, you should extend directly from AbstractDispatcherServletInitializer :

public class MyWebAppInitializer extends AbstractDispatcherServletInitializer {

@Override
protected WebApplicationContext createRootApplicationContext() {
return null;
}

@Override
protected WebApplicationContext createServletApplicationContext() {
XmlWebApplicationContext cxt = new XmlWebApplicationContext();
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 430/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
XmlWebApplicationContext cxt = new XmlWebApplicationContext();
cxt.setConfigLocation("/WEB-INF/spring/dispatcher-config.xml");
return cxt;
}

@Override
protected String[] getServletMappings() {
return new String[] { "/" };
}

AbstractDispatcherServletInitializer also provides a convenient way to add Filter instances and have them automatically mapped
to the DispatcherServlet :

public class MyWebAppInitializer extends AbstractDispatcherServletInitializer {

// ...

@Override
protected Filter[] getServletFilters() {
return new Filter[] { new HiddenHttpMethodFilter(), new CharacterEncodingFilter() };
}

Each ﬁlter is added with a default name based on its concrete type and automatically mapped to the DispatcherServlet .

The isAsyncSupported protected method of AbstractDispatcherServletInitializer provides a single place to enable async support
on the DispatcherServlet and all ﬁlters mapped to it. By default this ﬂag is set to true .

Finally, if you need to further customize the DispatcherServlet itself, you can override the createDispatcherServlet method.

22.16 Conﬁguring Spring MVC

Section 22.2.1, “Special Bean Types In the WebApplicationContext” and Section 22.2.2, “Default DispatcherServlet Configuration” explained about
Spring MVC’s special beans and the default implementations used by the DispatcherServlet . In this section you’ll learn about two additional
ways of configuring Spring MVC. Namely the MVC Java config and the MVC XML namespace.

The MVC Java config and the MVC namespace provide similar default configuration that overrides the DispatcherServlet defaults. The goal is
to spare most applications from having to create the same configuration and also to provide higher-level constructs for configuring Spring MVC that
serve as a simple starting point and require little or no prior knowledge of the underlying configuration.

You can choose either the MVC Java config or the MVC namespace depending on your preference. Also as you will see further below, with the MVC
Java config it is easier to see the underlying configuration as well as to make fine-grained customizations directly to the created Spring MVC beans.
But let’s start from the beginning.

22.16.1 Enabling the MVC Java Conﬁg or the MVC XML Namespace

To enable MVC Java conﬁg add the annotation @EnableWebMvc to one of your @Configuration classes:

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
public class WebConfig {

To achieve the same in XML use the mvc:annotation-driven element in your DispatcherServlet context (or in your root context if you have no
DispatcherServlet context deﬁned):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 431/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc
http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc.xsd">

<mvc:annotation-driven/>

</beans>

The above registers a RequestMappingHandlerMapping , a RequestMappingHandlerAdapter , and an

ExceptionHandlerExceptionResolver (among others) in support of processing requests with annotated controller methods using annotations
such as @RequestMapping , @ExceptionHandler , and others.

It also enables the following:

1. Spring 3 style type conversion through a ConversionService instance in addition to the JavaBeans PropertyEditors used for Data Binding.
2. Support for formatting Number ﬁelds using the @NumberFormat annotation through the ConversionService .
3. Support for formatting Date , Calendar , Long , and Joda Time ﬁelds using the @DateTimeFormat annotation.
4. Support for validating @Controller inputs with @Valid , if a JSR-303 Provider is present on the classpath.
5. HttpMessageConverter support for @RequestBody method parameters and @ResponseBody method return values from
@RequestMapping or @ExceptionHandler methods.
This is the complete list of HttpMessageConverters set up by mvc:annotation-driven:
a. ByteArrayHttpMessageConverter converts byte arrays.
b. StringHttpMessageConverter converts strings.
c. ResourceHttpMessageConverter converts to/from org.springframework.core.io.Resource for all media types.
d. SourceHttpMessageConverter converts to/from a javax.xml.transform.Source .
e. FormHttpMessageConverter converts form data to/from a MultiValueMap<String, String> .
f. Jaxb2RootElementHttpMessageConverter converts Java objects to/from XML — added if JAXB2 is present and Jackson 2 XML
extension is not present on the classpath.
g. MappingJackson2HttpMessageConverter converts to/from JSON — added if Jackson 2 is present on the classpath.
h. MappingJackson2XmlHttpMessageConverter converts to/from XML — added if Jackson 2 XML extension is present on the classpath.
i. AtomFeedHttpMessageConverter converts Atom feeds — added if Rome is present on the classpath.
j. RssChannelHttpMessageConverter converts RSS feeds — added if Rome is present on the classpath.

See Section 22.16.12, “Message Converters” for more information about how to customize these default converters.

Jackson JSON and XML converters are created using ObjectMapper instances created by Jackson2ObjectMapperBuilder in
order to provide a better default conﬁguration.
This builder customizes Jackson’s default properties with the following ones:
1. DeserializationFeature.FAIL_ON_UNKNOWN_PROPERTIES is disabled.
2. MapperFeature.DEFAULT_VIEW_INCLUSION is disabled.
It also automatically registers the following well-known modules if they are detected on the classpath:
1. jackson-datatype-jdk7: support for Java 7 types like java.nio.file.Path .
2. jackson-datatype-joda: support for Joda-Time types.
3. jackson-datatype-jsr310: support for Java 8 Date & Time API types.
4. jackson-datatype-jdk8: support for other Java 8 types like Optional .

22.16.2 Customizing the Provided Conﬁguration

To customize the default conﬁguration in Java you simply implement the WebMvcConfigurer interface or more likely extend the class
WebMvcConfigurerAdapter and override the methods you need:

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

// Override configuration methods...

To customize the default conﬁguration of <mvc:annotation-driven/> check what attributes and sub-elements it supports. You can view the
Spring MVC XML schema or use the code completion feature of your IDE to discover what attributes and sub-elements are available.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 432/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

22.16.3 Conversion and Formatting

By default formatters for Number and Date types are installed, including support for the @NumberFormat and @DateTimeFormat annotations.
Full support for the Joda Time formatting library is also installed if Joda Time is present on the classpath. To register custom formatters and
converters, override the addFormatters method:

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

@Override
public void addFormatters(FormatterRegistry registry) {
// Add formatters and/or converters
}

In the MVC namespace the same defaults apply when <mvc:annotation-driven> is added. To register custom formatters and converters
simply supply a ConversionService :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<mvc:annotation-driven conversion-service="conversionService"/>

</beans>

See Section 9.6.4, “FormatterRegistrar SPI” and the FormattingConversionServiceFactoryBean for more information on
when to use FormatterRegistrars.

22.16.4 Validation
Spring provides a Validator interface that can be used for validation in all layers of an application. In Spring MVC you can conﬁgure it for use as a
global Validator instance, to be used whenever an @Valid or @Validated controller method argument is encountered, and/or as a local
Validator within a controller through an @InitBinder method. Global and local validator instances can be combined to provide composite
validation.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 433/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Spring also supports JSR-303/JSR-349 Bean Validation via LocalValidatorFactoryBean which adapts the Spring
org.springframework.validation.Validator interface to the Bean Validation javax.validation.Validator contract. This class can
be plugged into Spring MVC as a global validator as described next.

By default use of @EnableWebMvc or <mvc:annotation-driven> automatically registers Bean Validation support in Spring MVC through the
LocalValidatorFactoryBean when a Bean Validation provider such as Hibernate Validator is detected on the classpath.

Sometimes it’s convenient to have a LocalValidatorFactoryBean injected into a controller or another class. The easiest way to
do that is to declare your own @Bean and also mark it with @Primary in order to avoid a conflict with the one provided with the MVC
Java config.
If you prefer to use the one from the MVC Java config, you’ll need to override the mvcValidator method from
WebMvcConfigurationSupport and declare the method to explicitly return LocalValidatorFactory rather than
Validator . See Section 22.16.13, “Advanced Customizations with MVC Java Config” for information on how to switch to extend the
provided configuration.

Alternatively you can conﬁgure your own global Validator instance:

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

@Override
public Validator getValidator(); {
// return "global" validator
}

and in XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<mvc:annotation-driven validator="globalValidator"/>

</beans>

To combine global with local validation, simply add one or more local validator(s):

@Controller
public class MyController {

@InitBinder
protected void initBinder(WebDataBinder binder) {
binder.addValidators(new FooValidator());
}

With this minimal conﬁguration any time an @Valid or @Validated method argument is encountered, it will be validated by the conﬁgured
validators. Any validation violations will automatically be exposed as errors in the BindingResult accessible as a method argument and also
renderable in Spring MVC HTML views.

22.16.5 Interceptors

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 434/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
You can conﬁgure HandlerInterceptors or WebRequestInterceptors to be applied to all incoming requests or restricted to speciﬁc URL
path patterns.

An example of registering interceptors in Java:

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

@Override
public void addInterceptors(InterceptorRegistry registry) {
registry.addInterceptor(new LocaleInterceptor());
registry.addInterceptor(new ThemeInterceptor()).addPathPatterns("/**").excludePathPatterns("/admin/**");
registry.addInterceptor(new SecurityInterceptor()).addPathPatterns("/secure/*");
}

And in XML use the <mvc:interceptors> element:

<mvc:interceptors>
<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.i18n.LocaleChangeInterceptor"/>
<mvc:interceptor>
<mvc:mapping path="/**"/>
<mvc:exclude-mapping path="/admin/**"/>
<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.theme.ThemeChangeInterceptor"/>
</mvc:interceptor>
<mvc:interceptor>
<mvc:mapping path="/secure/*"/>
<bean class="org.example.SecurityInterceptor"/>
</mvc:interceptor>
</mvc:interceptors>

22.16.6 Content Negotiation
You can configure how Spring MVC determines the requested media types from the request. The available options are to check the URL path for a
file extension, check the "Accept" header, a specific query parameter, or to fall back on a default content type when nothing is requested. By default
the path extension in the request URI is checked first and the "Accept" header is checked second.

The MVC Java conﬁg and the MVC namespace register json , xml , rss , atom by default if corresponding dependencies are on the classpath.
Additional path extension-to-media type mappings may also be registered explicitly and that also has the effect of whitelisting them as safe
extensions for the purpose of RFD attack detection (see the section called “Sufﬁx Pattern Matching and RFD” for more detail).

Below is an example of customizing content negotiation options through the MVC Java conﬁg:

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

@Override
public void configureContentNegotiation(ContentNegotiationConfigurer configurer) {
configurer.mediaType("json", MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON);
}
}

In the MVC namespace, the <mvc:annotation-driven> element has a content-negotiation-manager attribute, which expects a
ContentNegotiationManager that in turn can be created with a ContentNegotiationManagerFactoryBean :

<mvc:annotation-driven content-negotiation-manager="contentNegotiationManager"/>

<bean id="contentNegotiationManager" class="org.springframework.web.accept.ContentNegotiationManagerFactoryBean">

<property name="mediaTypes">
<value>
json=application/json
xml=application/xml
</value>
</property>
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 435/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
</bean>

If not using the MVC Java conﬁg or the MVC namespace, you’ll need to create an instance of ContentNegotiationManager and use it to
conﬁgure RequestMappingHandlerMapping for request mapping purposes, and RequestMappingHandlerAdapter and
ExceptionHandlerExceptionResolver for content negotiation purposes.

Note that ContentNegotiatingViewResolver now can also be conﬁgured with a ContentNegotiationManager , so you can use one
shared instance throughout Spring MVC.

In more advanced cases, it may be useful to conﬁgure multiple ContentNegotiationManager instances that in turn may contain custom
ContentNegotiationStrategy implementations. For example you could conﬁgure ExceptionHandlerExceptionResolver with a
ContentNegotiationManager that always resolves the requested media type to "application/json" . Or you may want to plug a custom
strategy that has some logic to select a default content type (e.g. either XML or JSON) if no content types were requested.

22.16.7 View Controllers
This is a shortcut for deﬁning a ParameterizableViewController that immediately forwards to a view when invoked. Use it in static cases
when there is no Java controller logic to execute before the view generates the response.

An example of forwarding a request for "/" to a view called "home" in Java:

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

@Override
public void addViewControllers(ViewControllerRegistry registry) {
registry.addViewController("/").setViewName("home");
}

And the same in XML use the <mvc:view-controller> element:

<mvc:view-controller path="/" view-name="home"/>

22.16.8 View Resolvers
The MVC conﬁg simpliﬁes the registration of view resolvers.

The following is a Java conﬁg example that conﬁgures content negotiation view resolution using FreeMarker HTML templates and Jackson as a
default View for JSON rendering:

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

@Override
public void configureViewResolvers(ViewResolverRegistry registry) {
registry.enableContentNegotiation(new MappingJackson2JsonView());
registry.jsp();
}

And the same in XML:

<mvc:view-resolvers>
<mvc:content-negotiation>
<mvc:default-views>
<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.json.MappingJackson2JsonView"/>
</mvc:default-views>
</mvc:content-negotiation>
<mvc:jsp/>
</mvc:view-resolvers>

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 436/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Note however that FreeMarker, Velocity, Tiles, Groovy Markup and script templates also require conﬁguration of the underlying view technology.

The MVC namespace provides dedicated elements. For example with FreeMarker:

<mvc:freemarker-configurer>
<mvc:template-loader-path location="/freemarker"/>
</mvc:freemarker-configurer>

In Java conﬁg simply add the respective "Conﬁgurer" bean:

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

@Override
public void configureViewResolvers(ViewResolverRegistry registry) {
registry.enableContentNegotiation(new MappingJackson2JsonView());
registry.freeMarker().cache(false);
}

@Bean
public FreeMarkerConfigurer freeMarkerConfigurer() {
FreeMarkerConfigurer configurer = new FreeMarkerConfigurer();
configurer.setTemplateLoaderPath("/WEB-INF/");
return configurer;
}

22.16.9 Serving of Resources
This option allows static resource requests following a particular URL pattern to be served by a ResourceHttpRequestHandler from any of a
list of Resource locations. This provides a convenient way to serve static resources from locations other than the web application root, including
locations on the classpath. The cache-period property may be used to set far future expiration headers (1 year is the recommendation of
optimization tools such as Page Speed and YSlow) so that they will be more efﬁciently utilized by the client. The handler also properly evaluates the
Last-Modified header (if present) so that a 304 status code will be returned as appropriate, avoiding unnecessary overhead for resources that
are already cached by the client. For example, to serve resource requests with a URL pattern of /resources/** from a public-resources
directory within the web application root you would use:

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

@Override
public void addResourceHandlers(ResourceHandlerRegistry registry) {
registry.addResourceHandler("/resources/**").addResourceLocations("/public-resources/");
}

And the same in XML:

<mvc:resources mapping="/resources/**" location="/public-resources/"/>

To serve these resources with a 1-year future expiration to ensure maximum use of the browser cache and a reduction in HTTP requests made by
the browser:

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 437/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

@Override
public void addResourceHandlers(ResourceHandlerRegistry registry) {
registry.addResourceHandler("/resources/**").addResourceLocations("/public-resources/").setCachePeriod(31556926
}

And in XML:

<mvc:resources mapping="/resources/**" location="/public-resources/" cache-period="31556926"/>

For more details, see HTTP caching support for static resources.

The mapping attribute must be an Ant pattern that can be used by SimpleUrlHandlerMapping , and the location attribute must specify one
or more valid resource directory locations. Multiple resource locations may be specified using a comma-separated list of values. The locations
specified will be checked in the specified order for the presence of the resource for any given request. For example, to enable the serving of
resources from both the web application root and from a known path of /META-INF/public-web-resources/ in any jar on the classpath use:

@EnableWebMvc
@Configuration
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

@Override
public void addResourceHandlers(ResourceHandlerRegistry registry) {
registry.addResourceHandler("/resources/**")
.addResourceLocations("/", "classpath:/META-INF/public-web-resources/");
}

And in XML:

<mvc:resources mapping="/resources/**" location="/, classpath:/META-INF/public-web-resources/"/>

When serving resources that may change when a new version of the application is deployed it is recommended that you incorporate a version string
into the mapping pattern used to request the resources so that you may force clients to request the newly deployed version of your application’s
resources. Support for versioned URLs is built into the framework and can be enabled by conﬁguring a resource chain on the resource handler. The
chain consists of one more ResourceResolver instances followed by one or more ResourceTransformer instances. Together they can
provide arbitrary resolution and transformation of resources.

The built-in VersionResourceResolver can be conﬁgured with different strategies. For example a FixedVersionStrategy can use a
property, a date, or other as the version. A ContentVersionStrategy uses an MD5 hash computed from the content of the resource (known as
"ﬁngerprinting" URLs). Note that the VersionResourceResolver will automatically use the resolved version strings as HTTP ETag header
values when serving resources.

ContentVersionStrategy is a good default choice to use except in cases where it cannot be used (e.g. with JavaScript module loaders). You
can conﬁgure different version strategies against different patterns as shown below. Keep in mind also that computing content-based versions is
expensive and therefore resource chain caching should be enabled in production.

Java conﬁg example;

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

@Override
public void addResourceHandlers(ResourceHandlerRegistry registry) {
registry.addResourceHandler("/resources/**")
.addResourceLocations("/public-resources/")
.resourceChain(true).addResolver(
new VersionResourceResolver().addContentVersionStrategy("/**"));
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 438/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

XML example:

<mvc:resources mapping="/resources/**" location="/public-resources/">

<mvc:resource-chain>
<mvc:resource-cache/>
<mvc:resolvers>
<mvc:version-resolver>
<mvc:content-version-strategy patterns="/**"/>
</mvc:version-resolver>
</mvc:resolvers>
</mvc:resource-chain>
</mvc:resources>

In order for the above to work the application must also render URLs with versions. The easiest way to do that is to conﬁgure the
ResourceUrlEncodingFilter which wraps the response and overrides its encodeURL method. This will work in JSPs, FreeMarker, Velocity,
and any other view technology that calls the response encodeURL method. Alternatively, an application can also inject and use directly the
ResourceUrlProvider bean, which is automatically declared with the MVC Java conﬁg and the MVC namespace.

Webjars are also supported with WebJarsResourceResolver , which is automatically registered when the
"org.webjars:webjars-locator" library is on classpath. This resolver allows the resource chain to resolve version agnostic libraries from
HTTP GET requests "GET /jquery/jquery.min.js" will return resource "/jquery/1.2.0/jquery.min.js" . It also works by rewriting
resource URLs in templates <script src="/jquery/jquery.min.js"/> → <script src="/jquery/1.2.0/jquery.min.js"/> .

22.16.10 Falling Back On the "Default" Servlet To Serve Resources

This allows for mapping the DispatcherServlet to "/" (thus overriding the mapping of the container’s default Servlet), while still allowing static
resource requests to be handled by the container’s default Servlet. It conﬁgures a DefaultServletHttpRequestHandler with a URL mapping
of "/**" and the lowest priority relative to other URL mappings.

This handler will forward all requests to the default Servlet. Therefore it is important that it remains last in the order of all other URL
HandlerMappings . That will be the case if you use <mvc:annotation-driven> or alternatively if you are setting up your own customized
HandlerMapping instance be sure to set its order property to a value lower than that of the DefaultServletHttpRequestHandler , which
is Integer.MAX_VALUE .

To enable the feature using the default setup use:

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

@Override
public void configureDefaultServletHandling(DefaultServletHandlerConfigurer configurer) {
configurer.enable();
}

Or in XML:

<mvc:default-servlet-handler/>

The caveat to overriding the "/" Servlet mapping is that the RequestDispatcher for the default Servlet must be retrieved by name rather than by
path. The DefaultServletHttpRequestHandler will attempt to auto-detect the default Servlet for the container at startup time, using a list of
known names for most of the major Servlet containers (including Tomcat, Jetty, GlassFish, JBoss, Resin, WebLogic, and WebSphere). If the default
Servlet has been custom conﬁgured with a different name, or if a different Servlet container is being used where the default Servlet name is
unknown, then the default Servlet’s name must be explicitly provided as in the following example:

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

@Override
public void configureDefaultServletHandling(DefaultServletHandlerConfigurer configurer) {
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 439/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
configurer.enable("myCustomDefaultServlet");
}

Or in XML:

<mvc:default-servlet-handler default-servlet-name="myCustomDefaultServlet"/>

22.16.11 Path Matching
This allows customizing various settings related to URL mapping and path matching. For details on the individual options check out the
PathMatchConﬁgurer API.

Below is an example in Java conﬁg:

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

@Override
public void configurePathMatch(PathMatchConfigurer configurer) {
configurer
.setUseSuffixPatternMatch(true)
.setUseTrailingSlashMatch(false)
.setUseRegisteredSuffixPatternMatch(true)
.setPathMatcher(antPathMatcher())
.setUrlPathHelper(urlPathHelper());
}

@Bean
public UrlPathHelper urlPathHelper() {
//...
}

@Bean
public PathMatcher antPathMatcher() {
//...
}

And the same in XML, use the <mvc:path-matching> element:

<mvc:annotation-driven>
<mvc:path-matching
suffix-pattern="true"
trailing-slash="false"
registered-suffixes-only="true"
path-helper="pathHelper"
path-matcher="pathMatcher"/>
</mvc:annotation-driven>

<bean id="pathHelper" class="org.example.app.MyPathHelper"/>

22.16.12 Message Converters
Customization of HttpMessageConverter can be achieved in Java conﬁg by overriding configureMessageConverters() if you want to
replace the default converters created by Spring MVC, or by overriding extendMessageConverters() if you just want to customize them or add
additional converters to the default ones.

Below is an example that adds Jackson JSON and XML converters with a customized ObjectMapper instead of default ones:

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
public class WebConfiguration extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 440/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
public class WebConfiguration extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

@Override
public void configureMessageConverters(List<HttpMessageConverter<?>> converters) {
Jackson2ObjectMapperBuilder builder = new Jackson2ObjectMapperBuilder()
.indentOutput(true)
.dateFormat(new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd"))
.modulesToInstall(new ParameterNamesModule());
converters.add(new MappingJackson2HttpMessageConverter(builder.build()));
converters.add(new MappingJackson2XmlHttpMessageConverter(builder.xml().build()));
}

In this example, Jackson2ObjectMapperBuilder is used to create a common conﬁguration for both

MappingJackson2HttpMessageConverter and MappingJackson2XmlHttpMessageConverter with indentation enabled, a customized
date format and the registration of jackson-module-parameter-names that adds support for accessing parameter names (feature added in Java 8).

Enabling indentation with Jackson XML support requires woodstox-core-asl dependency in addition to
jackson-dataformat-xml one.

Other interesting Jackson modules are available:

1. jackson-datatype-money: support for javax.money types (unofﬁcial module)

2. jackson-datatype-hibernate: support for Hibernate speciﬁc types and properties (including lazy-loading aspects)

It is also possible to do the same in XML:

<mvc:annotation-driven>
<mvc:message-converters>
<bean class="org.springframework.http.converter.json.MappingJackson2HttpMessageConverter">
<property name="objectMapper" ref="objectMapper"/>
</bean>
<bean class="org.springframework.http.converter.xml.MappingJackson2XmlHttpMessageConverter">
<property name="objectMapper" ref="xmlMapper"/>
</bean>
</mvc:message-converters>
</mvc:annotation-driven>

<bean id="objectMapper" class="org.springframework.http.converter.json.Jackson2ObjectMapperFactoryBean"

p:indentOutput="true"
p:simpleDateFormat="yyyy-MM-dd"
p:modulesToInstall="com.fasterxml.jackson.module.paramnames.ParameterNamesModule"/>

<bean id="xmlMapper" parent="objectMapper" p:createXmlMapper="true"/>

22.16.13 Advanced Customizations with MVC Java Conﬁg

As you can see from the above examples, MVC Java config and the MVC namespace provide higher level constructs that do not require deep
knowledge of the underlying beans created for you. Instead it helps you to focus on your application needs. However, at some point you may need
more fine-grained control or you may simply wish to understand the underlying configuration.

The first step towards more fine-grained control is to see the underlying beans created for you. In MVC Java config you can see the javadocs and
the @Bean methods in WebMvcConfigurationSupport . The configuration in this class is automatically imported through the @EnableWebMvc
annotation. In fact if you open @EnableWebMvc you can see the @Import statement.

The next step towards more ﬁne-grained control is to customize a property on one of the beans created in WebMvcConfigurationSupport or
perhaps to provide your own instance. This requires two things — remove the @EnableWebMvc annotation in order to prevent the import and then
extend from DelegatingWebMvcConfiguration , a subclass of WebMvcConfigurationSupport . Here is an example:

@Configuration
public class WebConfig extends DelegatingWebMvcConfiguration {

@Override
public void addInterceptors(InterceptorRegistry registry){
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 441/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
// ...
}

@Override
@Bean
public RequestMappingHandlerAdapter requestMappingHandlerAdapter() {
// Create or let "super" create the adapter
// Then customize one of its properties
}

An application should have only one conﬁguration extending DelegatingWebMvcConfiguration or a single @EnableWebMvc
annotated class, since they both register the same underlying beans.
Modifying beans in this way does not prevent you from using any of the higher-level constructs shown earlier in this section.
WebMvcConfigurerAdapter subclasses and WebMvcConfigurer implementations are still being used.

22.16.14 Advanced Customizations with the MVC Namespace

Fine-grained control over the conﬁguration created for you is a bit harder with the MVC namespace.

If you do need to do that, rather than replicating the conﬁguration it provides, consider conﬁguring a BeanPostProcessor that detects the bean
you want to customize by type and then modifying its properties as necessary. For example:

@Component
public class MyPostProcessor implements BeanPostProcessor {

public Object postProcessBeforeInitialization(Object bean, String name) throws BeansException {

if (bean instanceof RequestMappingHandlerAdapter) {
// Modify properties of the adapter
}
}

Note that MyPostProcessor needs to be included in an <component scan/> in order for it to be detected or if you prefer you can declare it
explicitly with an XML bean declaration.

23. View technologies

23.1 Introduction
One of the areas in which Spring excels is in the separation of view technologies from the rest of the MVC framework. For example, deciding to use
Groovy Markup Templates or Thymeleaf in place of an existing JSP is primarily a matter of conﬁguration. This chapter covers the major view
technologies that work with Spring and touches brieﬂy on how to add new ones. This chapter assumes you are already familiar with Section 22.5,
“Resolving views” which covers the basics of how views in general are coupled to the MVC framework.

23.2 Thymeleaf
Thymeleaf is a good example of a view technology ﬁtting perfectly in the MVC framework. Support for this integration is not provided by the Spring
team but by the Thymeleaf team itself.

Conﬁguring Thymeleaf for Spring usually requires a few beans deﬁned, like a ServletContextTemplateResolver , a
SpringTemplateEngine and a ThymeleafViewResolver . Please refer to the Thymeleaf+Spring documentation section for more details.

23.3 Groovy Markup Templates

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 442/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The Groovy Markup Template Engine is another view technology, supported by Spring. This template engine is a template engine primarily aimed at
generating XML-like markup (XML, XHTML, HTML5, …), but that can be used to generate any text based content.

This requires Groovy 2.3.1+ on the classpath.

23.3.1 Conﬁguration
Conﬁguring the Groovy Markup Template Engine is quite easy:

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

@Override
public void configureViewResolvers(ViewResolverRegistry registry) {
registry.groovy();
}

@Bean
public GroovyMarkupConfigurer groovyMarkupConfigurer() {
GroovyMarkupConfigurer configurer = new GroovyMarkupConfigurer();
configurer.setResourceLoaderPath("/WEB-INF/");
return configurer;
}
}

The XML counterpart using the MVC namespace is:

<mvc:annotation-driven/>

<mvc:view-resolvers>
<mvc:groovy/>
</mvc:view-resolvers>

<mvc:groovy-configurer resource-loader-path="/WEB-INF/"/>

23.3.2 Example
Unlike traditional template engines, this one relies on a DSL that uses the builder syntax. Here is a sample template for an HTML page:

yieldUnescaped '<!DOCTYPE html>'

html(lang:'en') {
head {
meta('http-equiv':'"Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"')
title('My page')
}
body {
p('This is an example of HTML contents')
}
}

23.4 Velocity & FreeMarker

Velocity and FreeMarker are two templating languages that can be used as view technologies within Spring MVC applications. The languages are
quite similar and serve similar needs and so are considered together in this section. For semantic and syntactic differences between the two
languages, see the FreeMarker web site.

As of Spring Framework 4.3, Velocity support has been deprecated due to six years without active maintenance of the Apache Velocity
project. We recommend Spring’s FreeMarker support instead, or Thymeleaf which comes with Spring support itself.

23.4.1 Dependencies

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 443/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Your web application will need to include velocity-1.x.x.jar or freemarker-2.x.jar in order to work with Velocity or FreeMarker
respectively and commons-collections.jar is required for Velocity. Typically they are included in the WEB-INF/lib folder where they are
guaranteed to be found by a Java EE server and added to the classpath for your application. It is of course assumed that you already have the
spring-webmvc.jar in your 'WEB-INF/lib' directory too! If you make use of Spring’s 'dateToolAttribute' or 'numberToolAttribute' in your
Velocity views, you will also need to include the velocity-tools-generic-1.x.jar

23.4.2 Context configuration
A suitable configuration is initialized by adding the relevant configurer bean definition to your '*-servlet.xml' as shown below:

<bean id="velocityConfig" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.velocity.VelocityConfigurer">
<property name="resourceLoaderPath" value="/WEB-INF/velocity/"/>
</bean>

<bean id="viewResolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.velocity.VelocityViewResolver">
<property name="cache" value="true"/>
<property name="prefix" value=""/>
<property name="suffix" value=".vm"/>
</bean>

<bean id="viewResolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.freemarker.FreeMarkerViewResolver">
<property name="cache" value="true"/>
<property name="prefix" value=""/>
<property name="suffix" value=".ftl"/>
</bean>

For non web-apps add a VelocityConfigurationFactoryBean or a FreeMarkerConfigurationFactoryBean to your

application context deﬁnition ﬁle.

23.4.3 Creating templates
Your templates need to be stored in the directory speciﬁed by the *Configurer bean shown above. This document does not cover details of
creating templates for the two languages - please see their relevant websites for information. If you use the view resolvers highlighted, then the
logical view names relate to the template ﬁle names in similar fashion to InternalResourceViewResolver for JSP’s. So if your controller
returns a ModelAndView object containing a view name of "welcome" then the resolvers will look for the /WEB-INF/freemarker/welcome.ftl
or /WEB-INF/velocity/welcome.vm template as appropriate.

23.4.4 Advanced configuration
The basic configurations highlighted above will be suitable for most application requirements, however additional configuration options are available
for when unusual or advanced requirements dictate.

velocity.properties

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 444/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
This file is completely optional, but if specified, contains the values that are passed to the Velocity runtime in order to configure velocity itself. Only
required for advanced configurations, if you need this file, specify its location on the VelocityConfigurer bean definition above.

<bean id="velocityConfig" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.velocity.VelocityConfigurer">

Alternatively, you can specify velocity properties directly in the bean definition for the Velocity config bean by replacing the "configLocation" property
with the following inline properties.

<bean id="velocityConfig" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.velocity.VelocityConfigurer">

<property name="velocityProperties">
<props>
<prop key="resource.loader">file</prop>
<prop key="file.resource.loader.class">
org.apache.velocity.runtime.resource.loader.FileResourceLoader
</prop>
<prop key="file.resource.loader.path">${webapp.root}/WEB-INF/velocity</prop>
<prop key="file.resource.loader.cache">false</prop>
</props>
</property>
</bean>

Refer to the API documentation for Spring configuration of Velocity, or the Velocity documentation for examples and definitions of the
'velocity.properties' file itself.

FreeMarker
FreeMarker 'Settings' and 'SharedVariables' can be passed directly to the FreeMarker Configuration object managed by Spring by setting the
appropriate bean properties on the FreeMarkerConfigurer bean. The freemarkerSettings property requires a
java.util.Properties object and the freemarkerVariables property requires a java.util.Map .

<bean id="freemarkerConfig" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.freemarker.FreeMarkerConfigurer">

<bean id="fmXmlEscape" class="freemarker.template.utility.XmlEscape"/>

See the FreeMarker documentation for details of settings and variables as they apply to the Configuration object.

23.4.5 Bind support and form handling

Spring provides a tag library for use in JSP’s that contains (amongst other things) a <spring:bind/> tag. This tag primarily enables forms to
display values from form backing objects and to show the results of failed validations from a Validator in the web or business tier. From version
1.1, Spring now has support for the same functionality in both Velocity and FreeMarker, with additional convenience macros for generating form input
elements themselves.

The bind macros

A standard set of macros are maintained within the spring-webmvc.jar ﬁle for both languages, so they are always available to a suitably
conﬁgured application.

Some of the macros defined in the Spring libraries are considered internal (private) but no such scoping exists in the macro definitions making all
macros visible to calling code and user templates. The following sections concentrate only on the macros you need to be directly calling from within
your templates. If you wish to view the macro code directly, the files are called spring.vm / spring.ftl and are in the packages
org.springframework.web.servlet.view.velocity or org.springframework.web.servlet.view.freemarker respectively.

Simple binding

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 445/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
In your HTML forms (vm / ftl templates) which act as a form view for a Spring MVC controller, you can use code similar to the following to bind to field
values and display error messages for each input field in similar fashion to the JSP equivalent. Example code is shown below for the
personFormV / personFormF views configured earlier:

<html>
...
<form action="" method="POST">
Name:
#springBind("myModelObject.name")
<input type="text"
name="${status.expression}"
value="$!status.value"/><br>
#foreach($error in $status.errorMessages) <b>$error</b> <br> #end
<br>
...
<input type="submit" value="submit"/>
</form>
...
</html>

<!-- freemarker macros have to be imported into a namespace. We strongly

recommend sticking to 'spring' -->
<#import "/spring.ftl" as spring/>
<html>
...
<form action="" method="POST">
Name:
<@spring.bind "myModelObject.name"/>
<input type="text"
name="${spring.status.expression}"
value="${spring.status.value?html}"/><br>
<#list spring.status.errorMessages as error> <b>${error}</b> <br> </#list>
<br>
...
<input type="submit" value="submit"/>
</form>
...
</html>

#springBind / <@spring.bind> requires a 'path' argument which consists of the name of your command object (it will be 'command' unless
you changed it in your FormController properties) followed by a period and the name of the field on the command object you wish to bind to. Nested
fields can be used too such as "command.address.street". The bind macro assumes the default HTML escaping behavior specified by the
ServletContext parameter defaultHtmlEscape in web.xml

The optional form of the macro called #springBindEscaped / <@spring.bindEscaped> takes a second argument and explicitly speciﬁes
whether HTML escaping should be used in the status error messages or values. Set to true or false as required. Additional form handling macros
simplify the use of HTML escaping and these macros should be used wherever possible. They are explained in the next section.

Form input generation macros

Additional convenience macros for both languages simplify both binding and form generation (including validation error display). It is never
necessary to use these macros to generate form input ﬁelds, and they can be mixed and matched with simple HTML or calls direct to the spring bind
macros highlighted previously.

The following table of available macros show the VTL and FTL deﬁnitions and the parameter list that each takes.

Table 23.1. Table of macro deﬁnitions

macro VTL deﬁnition FTL deﬁnition

message (output a string from a resource bundle based on the code #springMessage($code) <@spring.message code/>
parameter)

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 446/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

macro VTL deﬁnition FTL deﬁnition

messageText (output a string from a resource bundle based on the #springMessageText($code $text) <@spring.messageText code,
code parameter, falling back to the value of the default parameter) text/>

url (preﬁx a relative URL with the application’s context root) #springUrl($relativeUrl) <@spring.url relativeUrl/>

formInput (standard input ﬁeld for gathering user input) #springFormInput($path <@spring.formInput path,
$attributes) attributes, ﬁeldType/>

formHiddenInput * (hidden input ﬁeld for submitting non-user input) #springFormHiddenInput($path <@spring.formHiddenInput
$attributes) path, attributes/>

formPasswordInput * (standard input ﬁeld for gathering passwords. #springFormPasswordInput($path <@spring.formPasswordInput

Note that no value will ever be populated in ﬁelds of this type) $attributes) path, attributes/>

formTextarea (large text ﬁeld for gathering long, freeform text input) #springFormTextarea($path <@spring.formTextarea path,
$attributes) attributes/>

formSingleSelect (drop down box of options allowing a single #springFormSingleSelect( $path <@spring.formSingleSelect
required value to be selected) $options $attributes) path, options, attributes/>

formMultiSelect (a list box of options allowing the user to select 0 or #springFormMultiSelect($path <@spring.formMultiSelect path,
more values) $options $attributes) options, attributes/>

formRadioButtons (a set of radio buttons allowing a single selection #springFormRadioButtons($path <@spring.formRadioButtons

to be made from the available choices) $options $separator $attributes) path, options separator,
attributes/>

formCheckboxes (a set of checkboxes allowing 0 or more values to #springFormCheckboxes($path <@spring.formCheckboxes

be selected) $options $separator $attributes) path, options, separator,
attributes/>

formCheckbox (a single checkbox) #springFormCheckbox($path <@spring.formCheckbox path,

$attributes) attributes/>

showErrors (simplify display of validation errors for the bound ﬁeld) #springShowErrors($separator <@spring.showErrors
$classOrStyle) separator, classOrStyle/>

In FTL (FreeMarker), these two macros are not actually required as you can use the normal formInput macro, specifying '
hidden’ or ' `password’ as the value for the `fieldType parameter.

The parameters to any of the above macros have consistent meanings:

path: the name of the ﬁeld to bind to (ie "command.name")

options: a Map of all the available values that can be selected from in the input ﬁeld. The keys to the map represent the values that will be
POSTed back from the form and bound to the command object. Map objects stored against the keys are the labels displayed on the form to the
user and may be different from the corresponding values posted back by the form. Usually such a map is supplied as reference data by the
controller. Any Map implementation can be used depending on required behavior. For strictly sorted maps, a SortedMap such as a TreeMap
with a suitable Comparator may be used and for arbitrary Maps that should return values in insertion order, use a LinkedHashMap or a
LinkedMap from commons-collections.
separator: where multiple options are available as discreet elements (radio buttons or checkboxes), the sequence of characters used to separate
each one in the list (ie "<br>").
attributes: an additional string of arbitrary tags or text to be included within the HTML tag itself. This string is echoed literally by the macro. For
example, in a textarea ﬁeld you may supply attributes as 'rows="5" cols="60"' or you could pass style information such as 'style="border:1px
solid silver"'.
classOrStyle: for the showErrors macro, the name of the CSS class that the span tag wrapping each error will use. If no information is supplied
(or the value is empty) then the errors will be wrapped in <b></b> tags.

Examples of the macros are outlined below some in FTL and some in VTL. Where usage differences exist between the two languages, they are
explained in the notes.

Input Fields

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 447/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

...
Name:
#springFormInput("command.name" "")<br>
#springShowErrors("<br>" "")<br>

The formInput macro takes the path parameter (command.name) and an additional attributes parameter which is empty in the example above. The
macro, along with all other form generation macros, performs an implicit spring bind on the path parameter. The binding remains valid until a new
bind occurs so the showErrors macro doesn’t need to pass the path parameter again - it simply operates on whichever ﬁeld a bind was last created
for.

The showErrors macro takes a separator parameter (the characters that will be used to separate multiple errors on a given ﬁeld) and also accepts a
second parameter, this time a class name or style attribute. Note that FreeMarker is able to specify default values for the attributes parameter, unlike
Velocity, and the two macro calls above could be expressed as follows in FTL:

<@spring.formInput "command.name"/>
<@spring.showErrors "<br>"/>

Output is shown below of the form fragment generating the name ﬁeld, and displaying a validation error after the form was submitted with no value in
the ﬁeld. Validation occurs through Spring’s Validation framework.

The generated HTML looks like this:

Name:
<input type="text" name="name" value="">
<br>
<b>required</b>
<br>
<br>

The formTextarea macro works the same way as the formInput macro and accepts the same parameter list. Commonly, the second parameter
(attributes) will be used to pass style information or rows and cols attributes for the textarea.

Selection Fields
Four selection ﬁeld macros can be used to generate common UI value selection inputs in your HTML forms.

formSingleSelect
formMultiSelect
formRadioButtons
formCheckboxes

Each of the four macros accepts a Map of options containing the value for the form ﬁeld, and the label corresponding to that value. The value and
the label can be the same.

An example of radio buttons in FTL is below. The form backing object speciﬁes a default value of 'London' for this ﬁeld and so no validation is
necessary. When the form is rendered, the entire list of cities to choose from is supplied as reference data in the model under the name 'cityMap'.

...
Town:
<@spring.formRadioButtons "command.address.town", cityMap, ""/><br><br>

This renders a line of radio buttons, one for each value in cityMap using the separator "". No additional attributes are supplied (the last parameter
to the macro is missing). The cityMap uses the same String for each key-value pair in the map. The map’s keys are what the form actually submits
as POSTed request parameters, map values are the labels that the user sees. In the example above, given a list of three well known cities and a
default value in the form backing object, the HTML would be

Town:
<input type="radio" name="address.town" value="London">London</input>
<input type="radio" name="address.town" value="Paris" checked="checked">Paris</input>
<input type="radio" name="address.town" value="New York">New York</input>

If your application expects to handle cities by internal codes for example, the map of codes would be created with suitable keys like the example
below.

protected Map referenceData(HttpServletRequest request) throws Exception {

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 448/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
protected Map referenceData(HttpServletRequest request) throws Exception {
Map cityMap = new LinkedHashMap();
cityMap.put("LDN", "London");
cityMap.put("PRS", "Paris");
cityMap.put("NYC", "New York");

Map m = new HashMap();

m.put("cityMap", cityMap);
return m;
}

The code would now produce output where the radio values are the relevant codes but the user still sees the more user friendly city names.

Town:
<input type="radio" name="address.town" value="LDN">London</input>
<input type="radio" name="address.town" value="PRS" checked="checked">Paris</input>
<input type="radio" name="address.town" value="NYC">New York</input>

HTML escaping and XHTML compliance

Default usage of the form macros above will result in HTML tags that are HTML 4.01 compliant and that use the default value for HTML escaping
deﬁned in your web.xml as used by Spring’s bind support. In order to make the tags XHTML compliant or to override the default HTML escaping
value, you can specify two variables in your template (or in your model where they will be visible to your templates). The advantage of specifying
them in the templates is that they can be changed to different values later in the template processing to provide different behavior for different ﬁelds
in your form.

To switch to XHTML compliance for your tags, specify a value of 'true' for a model/context variable named xhtmlCompliant:

# for Velocity..
#set($springXhtmlCompliant = true)

<-- for FreeMarker -->

<#assign xhtmlCompliant = true in spring>

Any tags generated by the Spring macros will now be XHTML compliant after processing this directive.

In similar fashion, HTML escaping can be speciﬁed per ﬁeld:

<#-- until this point, default HTML escaping is used -->

<#assign htmlEscape = true in spring>

<#-- next field will use HTML escaping -->
<@spring.formInput "command.name"/>

<#assign htmlEscape = false in spring>

<#-- all future fields will be bound with HTML escaping off -->

23.5 JSP & JSTL

Spring provides a couple of out-of-the-box solutions for JSP and JSTL views. Using JSP or JSTL is done using a normal view resolver deﬁned in the
WebApplicationContext . Furthermore, of course you need to write some JSPs that will actually render the view.

Setting up your application to use JSTL is a common source of error, mainly caused by confusion over the different servlet spec., JSP
and JSTL version numbers, what they mean and how to declare the taglibs correctly. The article How to Reference and Use JSTL in
your Web Application provides a useful guide to the common pitfalls and how to avoid them. Note that as of Spring 3.0, the minimum
supported servlet version is 2.4 (JSP 2.0 and JSTL 1.1), which reduces the scope for confusion somewhat.

23.5.1 View resolvers
Just as with any other view technology you’re integrating with Spring, for JSPs you’ll need a view resolver that will resolve your views. The most
commonly used view resolvers when developing with JSPs are the InternalResourceViewResolver and the
ResourceBundleViewResolver . Both are declared in the WebApplicationContext :

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 449/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

# And a sample properties file is uses (views.properties in WEB-INF/classes):

welcome.(class)=org.springframework.web.servlet.view.JstlView
welcome.url=/WEB-INF/jsp/welcome.jsp

productList.(class)=org.springframework.web.servlet.view.JstlView
productList.url=/WEB-INF/jsp/productlist.jsp

As you can see, the ResourceBundleViewResolver needs a properties ﬁle deﬁning the view names mapped to 1) a class and 2) a URL. With a
ResourceBundleViewResolver you can mix different types of views using only one resolver.

<bean id="viewResolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver">

The InternalResourceBundleViewResolver can be conﬁgured for using JSPs as described above. As a best practice, we strongly
encourage placing your JSP ﬁles in a directory under the 'WEB-INF' directory, so there can be no direct access by clients.

23.5.2 'Plain-old' JSPs versus JSTL

When using the Java Standard Tag Library you must use a special view class, the JstlView , as JSTL needs some preparation before things such
as the I18N features will work.

23.5.3 Additional tags facilitating development

Spring provides data binding of request parameters to command objects as described in earlier chapters. To facilitate the development of JSP pages
in combination with those data binding features, Spring provides a few tags that make things even easier. All Spring tags haveHTML escaping
features to enable or disable escaping of characters.

The tag library descriptor (TLD) is included in the spring-webmvc.jar . Further information about the individual tags can be found in the appendix
entitled ???.

23.5.4 Using Spring’s form tag library

As of version 2.0, Spring provides a comprehensive set of data binding-aware tags for handling form elements when using JSP and Spring Web
MVC. Each tag provides support for the set of attributes of its corresponding HTML tag counterpart, making the tags familiar and intuitive to use. The
tag-generated HTML is HTML 4.01/XHTML 1.0 compliant.

Unlike other form/input tag libraries, Spring’s form tag library is integrated with Spring Web MVC, giving the tags access to the command object and
reference data your controller deals with. As you will see in the following examples, the form tags make JSPs easier to develop, read and maintain.

Let’s go through the form tags and look at an example of how each tag is used. We have included generated HTML snippets where certain tags
require further commentary.

Conﬁguration
The form tag library comes bundled in spring-webmvc.jar . The library descriptor is called spring-form.tld .

To use the tags from this library, add the following directive to the top of your JSP page:

<%@ taglib prefix="form" uri="http://www.springframework.org/tags/form" %>

where form is the tag name preﬁx you want to use for the tags from this library.

The form tag

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 450/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
This tag renders an HTML 'form' tag and exposes a binding path to inner tags for binding. It puts the command object in the PageContext so that
the command object can be accessed by inner tags. All the other tags in this library are nested tags of the form tag.

Let’s assume we have a domain object called User . It is a JavaBean with properties such as firstName and lastName . We will use it as the
form backing object of our form controller which returns form.jsp . Below is an example of what form.jsp would look like:

<form:form>
<table>
<tr>
<td>First Name:</td>
<td><form:input path="firstName"/></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Last Name:</td>
<td><form:input path="lastName"/></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2">
<input type="submit" value="Save Changes"/>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</form:form>

The firstName and lastName values are retrieved from the command object placed in the PageContext by the page controller. Keep reading
to see more complex examples of how inner tags are used with the form tag.

The generated HTML looks like a standard form:

<form method="POST">
<table>
<tr>
<td>First Name:</td>
<td><input name="firstName" type="text" value="Harry"/></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Last Name:</td>
<td><input name="lastName" type="text" value="Potter"/></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2">
<input type="submit" value="Save Changes"/>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</form>

The preceding JSP assumes that the variable name of the form backing object is 'command' . If you have put the form backing object into the
model under another name (deﬁnitely a best practice), then you can bind the form to the named variable like so:

<form:form modelAttribute="user">
<table>
<tr>
<td>First Name:</td>
<td><form:input path="firstName"/></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Last Name:</td>
<td><form:input path="lastName"/></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2">
<input type="submit" value="Save Changes"/>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</form:form>

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 451/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The input tag
This tag renders an HTML 'input' tag using the bound value and type='text' by default. For an example of this tag, see the section called “The form
tag”. Starting with Spring 3.1 you can use other types such HTML5-speciﬁc types like 'email', 'tel', 'date', and others.

The checkbox tag

This tag renders an HTML 'input' tag with type 'checkbox'.

Let’s assume our User has preferences such as newsletter subscription and a list of hobbies. Below is an example of the Preferences class:

public class Preferences {

private boolean receiveNewsletter;

private String[] interests;
private String favouriteWord;

public boolean isReceiveNewsletter() {

return receiveNewsletter;
}

public void setReceiveNewsletter(boolean receiveNewsletter) {

this.receiveNewsletter = receiveNewsletter;
}

public String[] getInterests() {

return interests;
}

public void setInterests(String[] interests) {

this.interests = interests;
}

public String getFavouriteWord() {

return favouriteWord;
}

public void setFavouriteWord(String favouriteWord) {

this.favouriteWord = favouriteWord;
}
}

The form.jsp would look like:

<form:form>
<table>
<tr>
<td>Subscribe to newsletter?:</td>
<%-- Approach 1: Property is of type java.lang.Boolean --%>
<td><form:checkbox path="preferences.receiveNewsletter"/></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>Interests:</td>
<%-- Approach 2: Property is of an array or of type java.util.Collection --%>
<td>
Quidditch: <form:checkbox path="preferences.interests" value="Quidditch"/>
Herbology: <form:checkbox path="preferences.interests" value="Herbology"/>
Defence Against the Dark Arts: <form:checkbox path="preferences.interests" value="Defence Against the Dark Art
</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>Favourite Word:</td>
<%-- Approach 3: Property is of type java.lang.Object --%>
<td>
Magic: <form:checkbox path="preferences.favouriteWord" value="Magic"/>
</td>
</tr>

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 452/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
</table>
</form:form>

There are 3 approaches to the checkbox tag which should meet all your checkbox needs.

Approach One - When the bound value is of type java.lang.Boolean , the input(checkbox) is marked as 'checked' if the bound value is
true . The value attribute corresponds to the resolved value of the setValue(Object) value property.
Approach Two - When the bound value is of type array or java.util.Collection , the input(checkbox) is marked as 'checked' if the
conﬁgured setValue(Object) value is present in the bound Collection .
Approach Three - For any other bound value type, the input(checkbox) is marked as 'checked' if the conﬁgured setValue(Object) is
equal to the bound value.

Note that regardless of the approach, the same HTML structure is generated. Below is an HTML snippet of some checkboxes:

<tr>
<td>Interests:</td>
<td>
Quidditch: <input name="preferences.interests" type="checkbox" value="Quidditch"/>
<input type="hidden" value="1" name="_preferences.interests"/>
Herbology: <input name="preferences.interests" type="checkbox" value="Herbology"/>
<input type="hidden" value="1" name="_preferences.interests"/>
Defence Against the Dark Arts: <input name="preferences.interests" type="checkbox" value="Defence Against the Dark Art
<input type="hidden" value="1" name="_preferences.interests"/>
</td>
</tr>

What you might not expect to see is the additional hidden field after each checkbox. When a checkbox in an HTML page is not checked, its value will
not be sent to the server as part of the HTTP request parameters once the form is submitted, so we need a workaround for this quirk in HTML in
order for Spring form data binding to work. The checkbox tag follows the existing Spring convention of including a hidden parameter prefixed by an
underscore ("_") for each checkbox. By doing this, you are effectively telling Spring that "the checkbox was visible in the form and I want my object to
which the form data will be bound to reflect the state of the checkbox no matter what".

The checkboxes tag

This tag renders multiple HTML 'input' tags with type 'checkbox'.

Building on the example from the previous checkbox tag section. Sometimes you prefer not to have to list all the possible hobbies in your JSP
page. You would rather provide a list at runtime of the available options and pass that in to the tag. That is the purpose of the checkboxes tag. You
pass in an Array , a List or a Map containing the available options in the "items" property. Typically the bound property is a collection so it can
hold multiple values selected by the user. Below is an example of the JSP using this tag:

<form:form>
<table>
<tr>
<td>Interests:</td>
<td>
<%-- Property is of an array or of type java.util.Collection --%>
<form:checkboxes path="preferences.interests" items="${interestList}"/>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</form:form>

This example assumes that the "interestList" is a List available as a model attribute containing strings of the values to be selected from. In the
case where you use a Map, the map entry key will be used as the value and the map entry’s value will be used as the label to be displayed. You can
also use a custom object where you can provide the property names for the value using "itemValue" and the label using "itemLabel".

The radiobutton tag

This tag renders an HTML 'input' tag with type 'radio'.

A typical usage pattern will involve multiple tag instances bound to the same property but with different values.

<tr>
<td>Sex:</td>
<td>
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 453/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Male: <form:radiobutton path="sex" value="M"/> <br/>
Female: <form:radiobutton path="sex" value="F"/>
</td>
</tr>

The radiobuttons tag

This tag renders multiple HTML 'input' tags with type 'radio'.

Just like the checkboxes tag above, you might want to pass in the available options as a runtime variable. For this usage you would use the
radiobuttons tag. You pass in an Array , a List or a Map containing the available options in the "items" property. In the case where you use
a Map, the map entry key will be used as the value and the map entry’s value will be used as the label to be displayed. You can also use a custom
object where you can provide the property names for the value using "itemValue" and the label using "itemLabel".

The password tag

This tag renders an HTML 'input' tag with type 'password' using the bound value.

<tr>
<td>Password:</td>
<td>
<form:password path="password"/>
</td>
</tr>

Please note that by default, the password value is not shown. If you do want the password value to be shown, then set the value of the
'showPassword' attribute to true, like so.

<tr>
<td>Password:</td>
<td>
<form:password path="password" value="^76525bvHGq" showPassword="true"/>
</td>
</tr>

The select tag

This tag renders an HTML 'select' element. It supports data binding to the selected option as well as the use of nested option and options
tags.

Let’s assume a User has a list of skills.

<tr>
<td>Skills:</td>
<td><form:select path="skills" items="${skills}"/></td>
</tr>

If the User’s skill were in Herbology, the HTML source of the 'Skills' row would look like:

<tr>
<td>Skills:</td>
<td>
<select name="skills" multiple="true">
<option value="Potions">Potions</option>
<option value="Herbology" selected="selected">Herbology</option>
<option value="Quidditch">Quidditch</option>
</select>
</td>
</tr>

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 454/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

The option tag

This tag renders an HTML 'option'. It sets 'selected' as appropriate based on the bound value.

<tr>
<td>House:</td>
<td>
<form:select path="house">
<form:option value="Gryffindor"/>
<form:option value="Hufflepuff"/>
<form:option value="Ravenclaw"/>
<form:option value="Slytherin"/>
</form:select>
</td>
</tr>

If the User’s house was in Gryfﬁndor, the HTML source of the 'House' row would look like:

<tr>
<td>House:</td>
<td>
<select name="house">
<option value="Gryffindor" selected="selected">Gryffindor</option>
<option value="Hufflepuff">Hufflepuff</option>
<option value="Ravenclaw">Ravenclaw</option>
<option value="Slytherin">Slytherin</option>
</select>
</td>
</tr>

The options tag

This tag renders a list of HTML 'option' tags. It sets the 'selected' attribute as appropriate based on the bound value.

<tr>
<td>Country:</td>
<td>
<form:select path="country">
<form:option value="-" label="--Please Select"/>
<form:options items="${countryList}" itemValue="code" itemLabel="name"/>
</form:select>
</td>
</tr>

If the User lived in the UK, the HTML source of the 'Country' row would look like:

<tr>
<td>Country:</td>
<td>
<select name="country">
<option value="-">--Please Select</option>
<option value="AT">Austria</option>

<option value="UK" selected="selected">United Kingdom</option>

<option value="US">United States</option>
</select>
</td>
</tr>

As the example shows, the combined usage of an option tag with the options tag generates the same standard HTML, but allows you to
explicitly specify a value in the JSP that is for display only (where it belongs) such as the default string in the example: "-- Please Select".

The items attribute is typically populated with a collection or array of item objects. itemValue and itemLabel simply refer to bean properties
of those item objects, if specified; otherwise, the item objects themselves will be stringified. Alternatively, you may specify a Map of items, in which
case the map keys are interpreted as option values and the map values correspond to option labels. If itemValue and/or itemLabel happen to
be specified as well, the item value property will apply to the map key and the item label property will apply to the map value.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 455/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

The textarea tag

This tag renders an HTML 'textarea'.

<tr>
<td>Notes:</td>
<td><form:textarea path="notes" rows="3" cols="20"/></td>
<td><form:errors path="notes"/></td>
</tr>

The hidden tag

This tag renders an HTML 'input' tag with type 'hidden' using the bound value. To submit an unbound hidden value, use the HTML input tag with
type 'hidden'.

<form:hidden path="house"/>

If we choose to submit the 'house' value as a hidden one, the HTML would look like:

<input name="house" type="hidden" value="Gryffindor"/>

The errors tag

This tag renders ﬁeld errors in an HTML 'span' tag. It provides access to the errors created in your controller or those that were created by any
validators associated with your controller.

Let’s assume we want to display all error messages for the firstName and lastName ﬁelds once we submit the form. We have a validator for
instances of the User class called UserValidator .

public class UserValidator implements Validator {

public boolean supports(Class candidate) {

return User.class.isAssignableFrom(candidate);
}

public void validate(Object obj, Errors errors) {

ValidationUtils.rejectIfEmptyOrWhitespace(errors, "firstName", "required", "Field is required.");
ValidationUtils.rejectIfEmptyOrWhitespace(errors, "lastName", "required", "Field is required.");
}
}

The form.jsp would look like:

<form:form>
<table>
<tr>
<td>First Name:</td>
<td><form:input path="firstName"/></td>
<%-- Show errors for firstName field --%>
<td><form:errors path="firstName"/></td>
</tr>

If we submit a form with empty values in the firstName and lastName ﬁelds, this is what the HTML would look like:
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 456/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

<form method="POST">
<table>
<tr>
<td>First Name:</td>
<td><input name="firstName" type="text" value=""/></td>
<%-- Associated errors to firstName field displayed --%>
<td><span name="firstName.errors">Field is required.</span></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>Last Name:</td>
<td><input name="lastName" type="text" value=""/></td>
<%-- Associated errors to lastName field displayed --%>
<td><span name="lastName.errors">Field is required.</span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="3">
<input type="submit" value="Save Changes"/>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</form>

What if we want to display the entire list of errors for a given page? The example below shows that the errors tag also supports some basic
wildcarding functionality.

path="*" - displays all errors

path="lastName" - displays all errors associated with the lastName ﬁeld
if path is omitted - object errors only are displayed

The example below will display a list of errors at the top of the page, followed by field-specific errors next to the fields:

<form:form>
<form:errors path="*" cssClass="errorBox"/>
<table>
<tr>
<td>First Name:</td>
<td><form:input path="firstName"/></td>
<td><form:errors path="firstName"/></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Last Name:</td>
<td><form:input path="lastName"/></td>
<td><form:errors path="lastName"/></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="3">
<input type="submit" value="Save Changes"/>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</form:form>

The HTML would look like:

<form method="POST">
<span name="*.errors" class="errorBox">Field is required.<br/>Field is required.</span>
<table>
<tr>
<td>First Name:</td>
<td><input name="firstName" type="text" value=""/></td>
<td><span name="firstName.errors">Field is required.</span></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>Last Name:</td>
<td><input name="lastName" type="text" value=""/></td>
<td><span name="lastName.errors">Field is required.</span></td>
</tr>
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 457/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="3">
<input type="submit" value="Save Changes"/>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</form>

HTTP Method Conversion

A key principle of REST is the use of the Uniform Interface. This means that all resources (URLs) can be manipulated using the same four HTTP
methods: GET, PUT, POST, and DELETE. For each method, the HTTP specification defines the exact semantics. For instance, a GET should always
be a safe operation, meaning that is has no side effects, and a PUT or DELETE should be idempotent, meaning that you can repeat these
operations over and over again, but the end result should be the same. While HTTP defines these four methods, HTML only supports two: GET and
POST. Fortunately, there are two possible workarounds: you can either use JavaScript to do your PUT or DELETE, or simply do a POST with the
'real' method as an additional parameter (modeled as a hidden input field in an HTML form). This latter trick is what Spring’s
HiddenHttpMethodFilter does. This filter is a plain Servlet Filter and therefore it can be used in combination with any web framework (not just
Spring MVC). Simply add this filter to your web.xml, and a POST with a hidden _method parameter will be converted into the corresponding HTTP
method request.

To support HTTP method conversion the Spring MVC form tag was updated to support setting the HTTP method. For example, the following snippet
taken from the updated Petclinic sample

<form:form method="delete">
<p class="submit"><input type="submit" value="Delete Pet"/></p>
</form:form>

This will actually perform an HTTP POST, with the 'real' DELETE method hidden behind a request parameter, to be picked up by the
HiddenHttpMethodFilter , as deﬁned in web.xml:

<filter>
<filter-name>httpMethodFilter</filter-name>
<filter-class>org.springframework.web.filter.HiddenHttpMethodFilter</filter-class>
</filter>

<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>httpMethodFilter</filter-name>
<servlet-name>petclinic</servlet-name>
</filter-mapping>

The corresponding @Controller method is shown below:

@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.DELETE)
public String deletePet(@PathVariable int ownerId, @PathVariable int petId) {
this.clinic.deletePet(petId);
return "redirect:/owners/" + ownerId;
}

HTML5 Tags
Starting with Spring 3, the Spring form tag library allows entering dynamic attributes, which means you can enter any HTML5 speciﬁc attributes.

In Spring 3.1, the form input tag supports entering a type attribute other than 'text'. This is intended to allow rendering new HTML5 speciﬁc input
types such as 'email', 'date', 'range', and others. Note that entering type='text' is not required since 'text' is the default type.

23.6 Script templates
It is possible to integrate any templating library running on top of a JSR-223 script engine in web applications using Spring. The following describes
in a broad way how to do this. The script engine must implement both ScriptEngine and Invocable interfaces.

It has been tested with:

Handlebars running on Nashorn

Mustache running on Nashorn
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 458/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
React running on Nashorn
EJS running on Nashorn
ERB running on JRuby
String templates running on Jython

23.6.1 Dependencies
To be able to use script templates integration, you need to have available in your classpath the script engine:

Nashorn Javascript engine is provided builtin with Java 8+. Using the latest update release available is highly recommended.
Rhino Javascript engine is provided builtin with Java 6 and Java 7. Please notice that using Rhino is not recommended since it does not support
running most template engines.
JRuby dependency should be added in order to get Ruby support.
Jython dependency should be added in order to get Python support.

You should also need to add dependencies for your script based template engine. For example, for Javascript you can use WebJars to add
Maven/Gradle dependencies in order to make your javascript libraries available in the classpath.

23.6.2 How to integrate script based templating

To be able to use script templates, you have to configure it in order to specify various parameters like the script engine to use, the script files to load
and what function should be called to render the templates. This is done thanks to a ScriptTemplateConfigurer bean and optional script files.

For example, in order to render Mustache templates thanks to the Nashorn Javascript engine provided with Java 8+, you should declare the
following conﬁguration:

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
public class MustacheConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

@Override
public void configureViewResolvers(ViewResolverRegistry registry) {
registry.scriptTemplate();
}

@Bean
public ScriptTemplateConfigurer configurer() {
ScriptTemplateConfigurer configurer = new ScriptTemplateConfigurer();
configurer.setEngineName("nashorn");
configurer.setScripts("mustache.js");
configurer.setRenderObject("Mustache");
configurer.setRenderFunction("render");
return configurer;
}
}

The XML counterpart using MVC namespace is:

<mvc:annotation-driven/>

<mvc:view-resolvers>
<mvc:script-template/>
</mvc:view-resolvers>

<mvc:script-template-configurer engine-name="nashorn" render-object="Mustache" render-function="render">

<mvc:script location="mustache.js"/>
</mvc:script-template-configurer>

The controller is exactly what you should expect:

@Controller
public class SampleController {

@RequestMapping
public ModelAndView test() {
ModelAndView mav = new ModelAndView();
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 459/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
ModelAndView mav = new ModelAndView();
mav.addObject("title", "Sample title").addObject("body", "Sample body");
mav.setViewName("template.html");
return mav;
}
}

And the Mustache template is:

<html>
<head>
<title>{{title}}</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>{{body}}</p>
</body>
</html>

The render function is called with the following parameters:

String template : the template content

Map model : the view model
String url : the template url (since 4.2.2)

Mustache.render() is natively compatible with this signature, so you can call it directly.

If your templating technology requires some customization, you may provide a script that implements a custom render function. For example,
Handlerbars needs to compile templates before using them, and requires a polyﬁll in order to emulate some browser facilities not available in the
server-side script engine.

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
public class MustacheConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

@Override
public void configureViewResolvers(ViewResolverRegistry registry) {
registry.scriptTemplate();
}

@Bean
public ScriptTemplateConfigurer configurer() {
ScriptTemplateConfigurer configurer = new ScriptTemplateConfigurer();
configurer.setEngineName("nashorn");
configurer.setScripts("polyfill.js", "handlebars.js", "render.js");
configurer.setRenderFunction("render");
configurer.setSharedEngine(false);
return configurer;
}
}

Setting the sharedEngine property to false is required when using non thread-safe script engines with templating libraries not
designed for concurrency, like Handlebars or React running on Nashorn for example. In that case, Java 8u60 or greater is required due
to this bug.

polyfill.js only deﬁnes the window object needed by Handlebars to run properly:

var window = {};

This basic render.js implementation compiles the template before using it. A production ready implementation should also store and reused
cached templates / pre-compiled templates. This can be done on the script side, as well as any customization you need (managing template engine
conﬁguration for example).

function render(template, model) {

var compiledTemplate = Handlebars.compile(template);
return compiledTemplate(model);
}
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 460/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Check out Spring script templates unit tests (java, resources) for more conﬁguration examples.

23.7 XML Marshalling View

The MarshallingView uses an XML Marshaller deﬁned in the org.springframework.oxm package to render the response content as
XML. The object to be marshalled can be set explicitly using MarhsallingView’s `modelKey bean property. Alternatively, the view will iterate
over all model properties and marshal the ﬁrst type that is supported by the Marshaller . For more information on the functionality in the
org.springframework.oxm package refer to the chapter Marshalling XML using O/X Mappers.

23.8 Tiles
It is possible to integrate Tiles - just as any other view technology - in web applications using Spring. The following describes in a broad way how to
do this.

This section focuses on Spring’s support for Tiles v3 in the org.springframework.web.servlet.view.tiles3 package.

23.8.1 Dependencies
To be able to use Tiles, you have to add a dependency on Tiles version 3.0.1 or higher and its transitive dependencies to your project.

23.8.2 How to integrate Tiles

To be able to use Tiles, you have to configure it using files containing definitions (for basic information on definitions and other Tiles concepts, please
have a look at http://tiles.apache.org). In Spring this is done using the TilesConfigurer . Have a look at the following piece of example
ApplicationContext configuration:

<bean id="tilesConfigurer" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.tiles3.TilesConfigurer">

<property name="definitions">
<list>
<value>/WEB-INF/defs/general.xml</value>
<value>/WEB-INF/defs/widgets.xml</value>
<value>/WEB-INF/defs/administrator.xml</value>
<value>/WEB-INF/defs/customer.xml</value>
<value>/WEB-INF/defs/templates.xml</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>

As you can see, there are five files containing definitions, which are all located in the 'WEB-INF/defs' directory. At initialization of the
WebApplicationContext , the files will be loaded and the definitions factory will be initialized. After that has been done, the Tiles includes in the
definition files can be used as views within your Spring web application. To be able to use the views you have to have a ViewResolver just as
with any other view technology used with Spring. Below you can find two possibilities, the UrlBasedViewResolver and the
ResourceBundleViewResolver .

You can specify locale speciﬁc Tiles deﬁnitions by adding an underscore and then the locale. For example:

<bean id="tilesConfigurer" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.tiles3.TilesConfigurer">

<property name="definitions">
<list>
<value>/WEB-INF/defs/tiles.xml</value>
<value>/WEB-INF/defs/tiles_fr_FR.xml</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>

With this conﬁguration, tiles_fr_FR.xml will be used for requests with the fr_FR locale, and tiles.xml will be used by default.

Since underscores are used to indicate locales, it is recommended to avoid using them otherwise in the ﬁle names for Tiles deﬁnitions.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 461/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

UrlBasedViewResolver
The UrlBasedViewResolver instantiates the given viewClass for each view it has to resolve.

<bean id="viewResolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.UrlBasedViewResolver">

ResourceBundleViewResolver
The ResourceBundleViewResolver has to be provided with a property ﬁle containing viewnames and viewclasses the resolver can use:

<bean id="viewResolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.ResourceBundleViewResolver">

...
welcomeView.(class)=org.springframework.web.servlet.view.tiles3.TilesView
welcomeView.url=welcome (this is the name of a Tiles definition)

vetsView.(class)=org.springframework.web.servlet.view.tiles3.TilesView
vetsView.url=vetsView (again, this is the name of a Tiles definition)

findOwnersForm.(class)=org.springframework.web.servlet.view.JstlView
findOwnersForm.url=/WEB-INF/jsp/findOwners.jsp
...

As you can see, when using the ResourceBundleViewResolver , you can easily mix different view technologies.

Note that the TilesView class supports JSTL (the JSP Standard Tag Library) out of the box.

SimpleSpringPreparerFactory and SpringBeanPreparerFactory

As an advanced feature, Spring also supports two special Tiles PreparerFactory implementations. Check out the Tiles documentation for details
on how to use ViewPreparer references in your Tiles deﬁnition ﬁles.

Specify SimpleSpringPreparerFactory to autowire ViewPreparer instances based on specified preparer classes, applying Spring’s container
callbacks as well as applying configured Spring BeanPostProcessors. If Spring’s context-wide annotation-config has been activated, annotations in
ViewPreparer classes will be automatically detected and applied. Note that this expects preparer classes in the Tiles definition files, just like the
default PreparerFactory does.

Specify SpringBeanPreparerFactory to operate on specified preparer names instead of classes, obtaining the corresponding Spring bean
from the DispatcherServlet’s application context. The full bean creation process will be in the control of the Spring application context in this case,
allowing for the use of explicit dependency injection configuration, scoped beans etc. Note that you need to define one Spring bean definition per
preparer name (as used in your Tiles definitions).

<bean id="tilesConfigurer" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.tiles3.TilesConfigurer">

</bean>

23.9 XSLT

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 462/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
XSLT is a transformation language for XML and is popular as a view technology within web applications. XSLT can be a good choice as a view
technology if your application naturally deals with XML, or if your model can easily be converted to XML. The following section shows how to produce
an XML document as model data and have it transformed with XSLT in a Spring Web MVC application.

23.9.1 My First Words

This example is a trivial Spring application that creates a list of words in the Controller and adds them to the model map. The map is returned
along with the view name of our XSLT view. See Section 22.3, “Implementing Controllers” for details of Spring Web MVC’s Controller interface.
The XSLT Controller will turn the list of words into a simple XML document ready for transformation.

Bean definitions
Configuration is standard for a simple Spring application. The MVC configuration has to define a XsltViewResolver bean and regular MVC
annotation configuration.

@EnableWebMvc
@ComponentScan
@Configuration
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

@Bean
public XsltViewResolver xsltViewResolver() {
XsltViewResolver viewResolver = new XsltViewResolver();
viewResolver.setPrefix("/WEB-INF/xsl/");
viewResolver.setSuffix(".xslt");
return viewResolver;
}

And we need a Controller that encapsulates our word generation logic.

Standard MVC controller code

The controller logic is encapsulated in a @Controller class, with the handler method being deﬁned like so…

@Controller
public class XsltController {

@RequestMapping("/")
public String home(Model model) throws Exception {

Document document = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance().newDocumentBuilder().newDocument();

Element root = document.createElement("wordList");

List<String> words = Arrays.asList("Hello", "Spring", "Framework");

for (String word : words) {
Element wordNode = document.createElement("word");
Text textNode = document.createTextNode(word);
wordNode.appendChild(textNode);
root.appendChild(wordNode);
}

model.addAttribute("wordList", root);
return "home";
}

So far we’ve only created a DOM document and added it to the Model map. Note that you can also load an XML ﬁle as a Resource and use it
instead of a custom DOM document.

Of course, there are software packages available that will automatically 'domify' an object graph, but within Spring, you have complete ﬂexibility to
create the DOM from your model in any way you choose. This prevents the transformation of XML playing too great a part in the structure of your
model data which is a danger when using tools to manage the domiﬁcation process.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 463/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Next, XsltViewResolver will resolve the "home" XSLT template ﬁle and merge the DOM document into it to generate our view.

Document transformation
Finally, the XsltViewResolver will resolve the "home" XSLT template file and merge the DOM document into it to generate our view. As shown in
the XsltViewResolver configuration, XSLT templates live in the war file in the 'WEB-INF/xsl' directory and end with a "xslt" file
extension.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">

<xsl:output method="html" omit-xml-declaration="yes"/>

<xsl:template match="/">
<html>
<head><title>Hello!</title></head>
<body>
<h1>My First Words</h1>
<ul>
<xsl:apply-templates/>
</ul>
</body>
</html>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="word">
<li><xsl:value-of select="."/></li>
</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

This is rendered as:

<html>
<head>
<META http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<title>Hello!</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>My First Words</h1>
<ul>
<li>Hello</li>
<li>Spring</li>
<li>Framework</li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>

23.10 Document views (PDF/Excel)

23.10.1 Introduction
Returning an HTML page isn’t always the best way for the user to view the model output, and Spring makes it simple to generate a PDF document or
an Excel spreadsheet dynamically from the model data. The document is the view and will be streamed from the server with the correct content type
to (hopefully) enable the client PC to run their spreadsheet or PDF viewer application in response.

In order to use Excel views, you need to add the 'poi' library to your classpath, and for PDF generation, the iText library.

23.10.2 Conﬁguration and setup

Document based views are handled in an almost identical fashion to XSLT views, and the following sections build upon the previous one by
demonstrating how the same controller used in the XSLT example is invoked to render the same model as both a PDF document and an Excel
spreadsheet (which can also be viewed or manipulated in Open Ofﬁce).

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 464/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Document view deﬁnitions

First, let’s amend the views.properties file (or xml equivalent) and add a simple view definition for both document types. The entire file now looks like
this with the XSLT view shown from earlier:

home.(class)=xslt.HomePage
home.stylesheetLocation=/WEB-INF/xsl/home.xslt
home.root=words
xl.(class)=excel.HomePage
pdf.(class)=pdf.HomePage

If you want to start with a template spreadsheet or a ﬁllable PDF form to add your model data to, specify the location as the 'url' property in the view
deﬁnition

Controller code
The controller code we’ll use remains exactly the same from the XSLT example earlier other than to change the name of the view to use. Of course,
you could be clever and have this selected based on a URL parameter or some other logic - proof that Spring really is very good at decoupling the
views from the controllers!

Subclassing for Excel views

Exactly as we did for the XSLT example, we’ll subclass suitable abstract classes in order to implement custom behavior in generating our output
documents. For Excel, this involves writing a subclass of org.springframework.web.servlet.view.document.AbstractExcelView (for
Excel ﬁles generated by POI) or org.springframework.web.servlet.view.document.AbstractJExcelView (for JExcelApi-generated
Excel ﬁles) and implementing the buildExcelDocument() method.

Here’s the complete listing for our POI Excel view which displays the word list from the model map in consecutive rows of the ﬁrst column of a new
spreadsheet:

package excel;

// imports omitted for brevity

public class HomePage extends AbstractExcelView {

protected void buildExcelDocument(Map model, HSSFWorkbook wb, HttpServletRequest req,

HttpServletResponse resp) throws Exception {

HSSFSheet sheet;
HSSFRow sheetRow;
HSSFCell cell;

// Go to the first sheet

// getSheetAt: only if wb is created from an existing document
// sheet = wb.getSheetAt(0);
sheet = wb.createSheet("Spring");
sheet.setDefaultColumnWidth((short) 12);

// write a text at A1
cell = getCell(sheet, 0, 0);
setText(cell, "Spring-Excel test");

List words = (List) model.get("wordList");

for (int i=0; i < words.size(); i++) {
cell = getCell(sheet, 2+i, 0);
setText(cell, (String) words.get(i));
}

And the following is a view generating the same Excel ﬁle, now using JExcelApi:

package excel;

// imports omitted for brevity

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 465/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
public class HomePage extends AbstractJExcelView {

protected void buildExcelDocument(Map model, WritableWorkbook wb,

HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws Exception {

WritableSheet sheet = wb.createSheet("Spring", 0);

sheet.addCell(new Label(0, 0, "Spring-Excel test"));

List words = (List) model.get("wordList");

for (int i = 0; i < words.size(); i++) {
sheet.addCell(new Label(2+i, 0, (String) words.get(i)));
}
}
}

Note the differences between the APIs. We’ve found that the JExcelApi is somewhat more intuitive, and furthermore, JExcelApi has slightly better
image-handling capabilities. There have been memory problems with large Excel ﬁles when using JExcelApi however.

If you now amend the controller such that it returns xl as the name of the view ( return new ModelAndView("xl", map); ) and run your
application again, you should ﬁnd that the Excel spreadsheet is created and downloaded automatically when you request the same page as before.

Subclassing for PDF views

The PDF version of the word list is even simpler. This time, the class extends
org.springframework.web.servlet.view.document.AbstractPdfView and implements the buildPdfDocument() method as
follows:

package pdf;

// imports omitted for brevity

public class PDFPage extends AbstractPdfView {

protected void buildPdfDocument(Map model, Document doc, PdfWriter writer,

HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse resp) throws Exception {
List words = (List) model.get("wordList");
for (int i=0; i<words.size(); i++) {
doc.add( new Paragraph((String) words.get(i)));
}
}

Once again, amend the controller to return the pdf view with return new ModelAndView("pdf", map); , and reload the URL in your
application. This time a PDF document should appear listing each of the words in the model map.

23.11 JasperReports
JasperReports ( http://jasperreports.sourceforge.net) is a powerful open-source reporting engine that supports the creation of report designs using
an easily understood XML ﬁle format. JasperReports is capable of rendering reports in four different formats: CSV, Excel, HTML and PDF.

23.11.1 Dependencies
Your application will need to include the latest release of JasperReports, which at the time of writing was 0.6.1. JasperReports itself depends on the
following projects:

BeanShell
Commons BeanUtils
Commons Collections
Commons Digester
Commons Logging
iText
POI

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 466/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
JasperReports also requires a JAXP compliant XML parser.

23.11.2 Configuration
To configure JasperReports views in your Spring container configuration you need to define a ViewResolver to map view names to the
appropriate view class depending on which format you want your report rendered in.

Conﬁguring the ViewResolver

Typically, you will use the ResourceBundleViewResolver to map view names to view classes and ﬁles in a properties ﬁle.

<bean id="viewResolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.ResourceBundleViewResolver">

Here we’ve conﬁgured an instance of the ResourceBundleViewResolver class that will look for view mappings in the resource bundle with base
name views . (The content of this ﬁle is described in the next section.)

Conﬁguring the Views

The Spring Framework contains ﬁve different View implementations for JasperReports, four of which correspond to one of the four output formats
supported by JasperReports, and one that allows for the format to be determined at runtime:

Table 23.2. JasperReports View classes

Class Name Render Format

JasperReportsCsvView CSV

JasperReportsHtmlView HTML

JasperReportsPdfView PDF

JasperReportsXlsView Microsoft Excel

JasperReportsMultiFormatView The view is decided upon at runtime

Mapping one of these classes to a view name and a report ﬁle is a matter of adding the appropriate entries in the resource bundle conﬁgured in the
previous section as shown here:

simpleReport.(class)=org.springframework.web.servlet.view.jasperreports.JasperReportsPdfView
simpleReport.url=/WEB-INF/reports/DataSourceReport.jasper

Here you can see that the view with name simpleReport is mapped to the JasperReportsPdfView class, causing the output of this report to
be rendered in PDF format. The url property of the view is set to the location of the underlying report ﬁle.

About Report Files

JasperReports has two distinct types of report file: the design file, which has a .jrxml extension, and the compiled report file, which has a
.jasper extension. Typically, you use the JasperReports Ant task to compile your .jrxml design file into a .jasper file before deploying it into
your application. With the Spring Framework you can map either of these files to your report file and the framework will take care of compiling the
.jrxml file on the fly for you. You should note that after a .jrxml file is compiled by the Spring Framework, the compiled report is cached for the
lifetime of the application. Thus, to make changes to the file you will need to restart your application.

Using JasperReportsMultiFormatView
The JasperReportsMultiFormatView allows for the report format to be speciﬁed at runtime. The actual rendering of the report is delegated to
one of the other JasperReports view classes - the JasperReportsMultiFormatView class simply adds a wrapper layer that allows for the exact
implementation to be speciﬁed at runtime.

The JasperReportsMultiFormatView class introduces two concepts: the format key and the discriminator key. The
JasperReportsMultiFormatView class uses the mapping key to look up the actual view implementation class, and it uses the format key to

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 467/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
lookup up the mapping key. From a coding perspective you add an entry to your model with the format key as the key and the mapping key as the
value, for example:

public ModelAndView handleSimpleReportMulti(HttpServletRequest request,

HttpServletResponse response) throws Exception {

String uri = request.getRequestURI();

String format = uri.substring(uri.lastIndexOf(".") + 1);

Map model = getModel();

model.put("format", format);

return new ModelAndView("simpleReportMulti", model);

In this example, the mapping key is determined from the extension of the request URI and is added to the model under the default format key:
format . If you wish to use a different format key then you can conﬁgure this using the formatKey property of the
JasperReportsMultiFormatView class.

By default the following mapping key mappings are conﬁgured in JasperReportsMultiFormatView :

Table 23.3. JasperReportsMultiFormatView Default Mapping Key Mappings

Mapping Key View Class

csv JasperReportsCsvView

html JasperReportsHtmlView

pdf JasperReportsPdfView

xls JasperReportsXlsView

So in the example above a request to URI /foo/myReport.pdf would be mapped to the JasperReportsPdfView class. You can override the
mapping key to view class mappings using the formatMappings property of JasperReportsMultiFormatView .

23.11.3 Populating the ModelAndView

In order to render your report correctly in the format you have chosen, you must supply Spring with all of the data needed to populate your report.
For JasperReports this means you must pass in all report parameters along with the report datasource. Report parameters are simple name/value
pairs and can be added to the Map for your model as you would add any name/value pair.

When adding the datasource to the model you have two approaches to choose from. The ﬁrst approach is to add an instance of JRDataSource or
a Collection type to the model Map under any arbitrary key. Spring will then locate this object in the model and treat it as the report datasource.
For example, you may populate your model like so:

private Map getModel() {

Map model = new HashMap();
Collection beanData = getBeanData();
model.put("myBeanData", beanData);
return model;
}

The second approach is to add the instance of JRDataSource or Collection under a speciﬁc key and then conﬁgure this key using the
reportDataKey property of the view class. In both cases Spring will wrap instances of Collection in a JRBeanCollectionDataSource
instance. For example:

private Map getModel() {

Map model = new HashMap();
Collection beanData = getBeanData();
Collection someData = getSomeData();
model.put("myBeanData", beanData);

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 468/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
model.put("someData", someData);
return model;
}

Here you can see that two Collection instances are being added to the model. To ensure that the correct one is used, we simply modify our view
conﬁguration as appropriate:

simpleReport.(class)=org.springframework.web.servlet.view.jasperreports.JasperReportsPdfView
simpleReport.url=/WEB-INF/reports/DataSourceReport.jasper
simpleReport.reportDataKey=myBeanData

Be aware that when using the ﬁrst approach, Spring will use the ﬁrst instance of JRDataSource or Collection that it encounters. If you need to
place multiple instances of JRDataSource or Collection into the model you need to use the second approach.

23.11.4 Working with Sub-Reports

JasperReports provides support for embedded sub-reports within your master report files. There are a wide variety of mechanisms for including sub-
reports in your report files. The easiest way is to hard code the report path and the SQL query for the sub report into your design files. The drawback
of this approach is obvious: the values are hard-coded into your report files reducing reusability and making it harder to modify and update report
designs. To overcome this you can configure sub-reports declaratively, and you can include additional data for these sub-reports directly from your
controllers.

Conﬁguring Sub-Report Files

To control which sub-report files are included in a master report using Spring, your report file must be configured to accept sub-reports from an
external source. To do this you declare a parameter in your report file like so:

<parameter name="ProductsSubReport" class="net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JasperReport"/>

Then, you deﬁne your sub-report to use this sub-report parameter:

This defines a master report file that expects the sub-report to be passed in as an instance of
net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JasperReports under the parameter ProductsSubReport . When configuring your Jasper view class,
you can instruct Spring to load a report file and pass it into the JasperReports engine as a sub-report using the subReportUrls property:

Here, the key of the Map corresponds to the name of the sub-report parameter in the report design file, and the entry is the URL of the report file.
Spring will load this report file, compiling it if necessary, and pass it into the JasperReports engine under the given key.

Conﬁguring Sub-Report Data Sources

This step is entirely optional when using Spring to configure your sub-reports. If you wish, you can still configure the data source for your sub-reports
using static queries. However, if you want Spring to convert data returned in your ModelAndView into instances of JRDataSource then you need
to specify which of the parameters in your ModelAndView Spring should convert. To do this, configure the list of parameter names using the
subReportDataKeys property of your chosen view class:

<property name="subReportDataKeys" value="SubReportData"/>

Here, the key you supply must correspond to both the key used in your ModelAndView and the key used in your report design ﬁle.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 469/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

23.11.5 Conﬁguring Exporter Parameters

If you have special requirements for exporter configuration — perhaps you want a specific page size for your PDF report — you can configure these
exporter parameters declaratively in your Spring configuration file using the exporterParameters property of the view class. The
exporterParameters property is typed as a Map . In your configuration the key of an entry should be the fully-qualified name of a static field that
contains the exporter parameter definition, and the value of an entry should be the value you want to assign to the parameter. An example of this is
shown below:

<bean id="htmlReport" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.jasperreports.JasperReportsHtmlView">

<property name="url" value="/WEB-INF/reports/simpleReport.jrxml"/>
<property name="exporterParameters">
<map>
<entry key="net.sf.jasperreports.engine.export.JRHtmlExporterParameter.HTML_FOOTER">
<value>Footer by Spring!
</td><td width="50%">&nbsp; </td></tr>
</table></body></html>
</value>
</entry>
</map>
</property>
</bean>

Here you can see that the JasperReportsHtmlView is conﬁgured with an exporter parameter for
net.sf.jasperreports.engine.export.JRHtmlExporterParameter.HTML_FOOTER which will output a footer in the resulting HTML.

23.12 Feed Views
Both AbstractAtomFeedView and AbstractRssFeedView inherit from the base class AbstractFeedView and are used to provide Atom
and RSS Feed views respectfully. They are based on java.net’s ROME project and are located in the package
org.springframework.web.servlet.view.feed .

AbstractAtomFeedView requires you to implement the buildFeedEntries() method and optionally override the buildFeedMetadata()
method (the default implementation is empty), as shown below.

public class SampleContentAtomView extends AbstractAtomFeedView {

@Override
protected void buildFeedMetadata(Map<String, Object> model,
Feed feed, HttpServletRequest request) {
// implementation omitted
}

@Override
protected List<Entry> buildFeedEntries(Map<String, Object> model,
HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws Exception {
// implementation omitted
}

Similar requirements apply for implementing AbstractRssFeedView , as shown below.

public class SampleContentAtomView extends AbstractRssFeedView {

@Override
protected void buildFeedMetadata(Map<String, Object> model,
Channel feed, HttpServletRequest request) {
// implementation omitted
}

@Override
protected List<Item> buildFeedItems(Map<String, Object> model,
HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws Exception {
// implementation omitted
}

}
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 470/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
}

The buildFeedItems() and buildFeedEntires() methods pass in the HTTP request in case you need to access the Locale. The HTTP
response is passed in only for the setting of cookies or other HTTP headers. The feed will automatically be written to the response object after the
method returns.

For an example of creating an Atom view please refer to Alef Arendsen’s Spring Team Blog entry.

23.13 JSON Mapping View

The MappingJackson2JsonView uses the Jackson library’s ObjectMapper to render the response content as JSON. By default, the entire
contents of the model map (with the exception of framework-specific classes) will be encoded as JSON. For cases where the contents of the map
need to be filtered, users may specify a specific set of model attributes to encode via the RenderedAttributes property. The
extractValueFromSingleKeyModel property may also be used to have the value in single-key models extracted and serialized directly rather
than as a map of model attributes.

JSON mapping can be customized as needed through the use of Jackson’s provided annotations. When further control is needed, a custom
ObjectMapper can be injected through the ObjectMapper property for cases where custom JSON serializers/deserializers need to be provided
for speciﬁc types.

JSONP is supported and automatically enabled when the request has a query parameter named jsonp or callback . The JSONP query
parameter name(s) could be customized through the jsonpParameterNames property.

23.14 XML Mapping View

The MappingJackson2XmlView uses the Jackson XML extension's XmlMapper to render the response content as XML. If the model contains
multiples entries, the object to be serialized should be set explicitly using the modelKey bean property. If the model contains a single entry, it will be
serialized automatically.

XML mapping can be customized as needed through the use of JAXB or Jackson’s provided annotations. When further control is needed, a custom
XmlMapper can be injected through the ObjectMapper property for cases where custom XML serializers/deserializers need to be provided for
speciﬁc types.

24. Integrating with other web frameworks

24.1 Introduction

Spring Web Flow

Spring Web Flow (SWF) aims to be the best solution for the management of web application page ﬂow.

For more information about SWF, consult the Spring Web Flow website.

This chapter details Spring’s integration with third party web frameworks, such as JSF.

One of the core value propositions of the Spring Framework is that of enabling choice. In a general sense, Spring does not force one to use or buy
into any particular architecture, technology, or methodology (although it certainly recommends some over others). This freedom to pick and choose
the architecture, technology, or methodology that is most relevant to a developer and their development team is arguably most evident in the web
area, where Spring provides its own web framework (Spring MVC), while at the same time providing integration with a number of popular third party
web frameworks. This allows one to continue to leverage any and all of the skills one may have acquired in a particular web framework such as JSF,
while at the same time being able to enjoy the benefits afforded by Spring in other areas such as data access, declarative transaction management,
and flexible configuration and application assembly.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 471/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Having dispensed with the woolly sales patter (c.f. the previous paragraph), the remainder of this chapter will concentrate upon the meaty details of
integrating your favorite web framework with Spring. One thing that is often commented upon by developers coming to Java from other languages is
the seeming super-abundance of web frameworks available in Java. There are indeed a great number of web frameworks in the Java space; in fact
there are far too many to cover with any semblance of detail in a single chapter. This chapter thus picks four of the more popular web frameworks in
Java, starting with the Spring conﬁguration that is common to all of the supported web frameworks, and then detailing the speciﬁc integration options
for each supported web framework.

Please note that this chapter does not attempt to explain how to use any of the supported web frameworks. For example, if you want to
use JSF for the presentation layer of your web application, the assumption is that you are already familiar with JSF itself. If you need
further details about any of the supported web frameworks themselves, please do consult Section 24.6, “Further Resources” at the end
of this chapter.

24.2 Common configuration
Before diving into the integration specifics of each supported web framework, let us first take a look at the Spring configuration that is not specific to
any one web framework. (This section is equally applicable to Spring’s own web framework, Spring MVC.)

One of the concepts (for want of a better word) espoused by (Spring’s) lightweight application model is that of a layered architecture. Remember that
in a 'classic' layered architecture, the web layer is but one of many layers; it serves as one of the entry points into a server side application and it
delegates to service objects (facades) defined in a service layer to satisfy business specific (and presentation-technology agnostic) use cases. In
Spring, these service objects, any other business-specific objects, data access objects, etc. exist in a distinct 'business context', which contains no
web or presentation layer objects (presentation objects such as Spring MVC controllers are typically configured in a distinct 'presentation context').
This section details how one configures a Spring container (a WebApplicationContext ) that contains all of the 'business beans' in one’s
application.

On to specifics: all that one need do is to declare a ContextLoaderListener in the standard Java EE servlet web.xml file of one’s web
application, and add a contextConfigLocation <context-param/> section (in the same file) that defines which set of Spring XML configuration
files to load.

Find below the <listener/> conﬁguration:

<listener>
<listener-class>org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener</listener-class>
</listener>

Find below the <context-param/> conﬁguration:

<context-param>
<param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
<param-value>/WEB-INF/applicationContext*.xml</param-value>
</context-param>

If you don’t specify the contextConfigLocation context parameter, the ContextLoaderListener will look for a file called
/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml to load. Once the context files are loaded, Spring creates a WebApplicationContext object based
on the bean definitions and stores it in the ServletContext of the web application.

All Java web frameworks are built on top of the Servlet API, and so one can use the following code snippet to get access to this 'business context'
ApplicationContext created by the ContextLoaderListener .

WebApplicationContext ctx = WebApplicationContextUtils.getWebApplicationContext(servletContext);

The WebApplicationContextUtils class is for convenience, so you don’t have to remember the name of the ServletContext attribute. Its
getWebApplicationContext() method will return null if an object doesn’t exist under the
WebApplicationContext.ROOT_WEB_APPLICATION_CONTEXT_ATTRIBUTE key. Rather than risk getting NullPointerExceptions in
your application, it’s better to use the getRequiredWebApplicationContext() method. This method throws an exception when the
ApplicationContext is missing.

Once you have a reference to the WebApplicationContext , you can retrieve beans by their name or type. Most developers retrieve beans by
name and then cast them to one of their implemented interfaces.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 472/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Fortunately, most of the frameworks in this section have simpler ways of looking up beans. Not only do they make it easy to get beans from a Spring
container, but they also allow you to use dependency injection on their controllers. Each web framework section has more detail on its speciﬁc
integration strategies.

24.3 JavaServer Faces 1.2

JavaServer Faces (JSF) is the JCP’s standard component-based, event-driven web user interface framework. As of Java EE 5, it is an ofﬁcial part of
the Java EE umbrella.

For a popular JSF runtime as well as for popular JSF component libraries, check out the Apache MyFaces project. The MyFaces project also
provides common JSF extensions such as MyFaces Orchestra: a Spring-based JSF extension that provides rich conversation scope support.

Spring Web Flow 2.0 provides rich JSF support through its newly established Spring Faces module, both for JSF-centric usage (as
described in this section) and for Spring-centric usage (using JSF views within a Spring MVC dispatcher). Check out the Spring Web
Flow website for details!

The key element in Spring’s JSF integration is the JSF ELResolver mechanism.

24.3.1 SpringBeanFacesELResolver (JSF 1.2+)

SpringBeanFacesELResolver is a JSF 1.2 compliant ELResolver implementation, integrating with the standard Uniﬁed EL as used by JSF
1.2 and JSP 2.1. Like SpringBeanVariableResolver , it delegates to the Spring’s 'business context' WebApplicationContext ﬁrst, then to
the default resolver of the underlying JSF implementation.

Configuration-wise, simply define SpringBeanFacesELResolver in your JSF 1.2 faces-context.xml file:

<faces-config>
<application>
<el-resolver>org.springframework.web.jsf.el.SpringBeanFacesELResolver</el-resolver>
...
</application>
</faces-config>

24.3.2 FacesContextUtils
A custom VariableResolver works well when mapping one’s properties to beans in faces-conﬁg.xml, but at times one may need to grab a bean
explicitly. The FacesContextUtils class makes this easy. It is similar to WebApplicationContextUtils , except that it takes a
FacesContext parameter rather than a ServletContext parameter.

ApplicationContext ctx = FacesContextUtils.getWebApplicationContext(FacesContext.getCurrentInstance());

24.4 Apache Struts 2.x

Invented by Craig McClanahan, Struts is an open source project hosted by the Apache Software Foundation. At the time, it greatly simpliﬁed the
JSP/Servlet programming paradigm and won over many developers who were using proprietary frameworks. It simpliﬁed the programming model, it
was open source (and thus free as in beer), and it had a large community, which allowed the project to grow and become popular among Java web
developers.

Check out the Struts Spring Plugin for the built-in Spring integration shipped with Struts.

24.5 Tapestry 5.x
From the Tapestry homepage:

Tapestry is a "Component oriented framework for creating dynamic, robust, highly scalable web applications in Java."

While Spring has its own powerful web layer, there are a number of unique advantages to building an enterprise Java application using a
combination of Tapestry for the web user interface and the Spring container for the lower layers.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 473/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
For more information, check out Tapestry’s dedicated integration module for Spring.

24.6 Further Resources
Find below links to further resources about the various web frameworks described in this chapter.

The JSF homepage

The Struts homepage
The Tapestry homepage

25. Portlet MVC Framework

25.1 Introduction

JSR-286 The Java Portlet Speciﬁcation

For more general information about portlet development, please review the JSR-286 Speciﬁcation itself.

In addition to supporting conventional (servlet-based) Web development, Spring also supports JSR-286 Portlet development. As much as possible,
the Portlet MVC framework is a mirror image of the Web MVC framework, and also uses the same underlying view abstractions and integration
technology. So, be sure to review the chapters entitled Chapter 22, Web MVC framework and Chapter 23, View technologies before continuing with
this chapter.

Bear in mind that while the concepts of Spring MVC are the same in Spring Portlet MVC, there are some notable differences created
by the unique workﬂow of JSR-286 portlets.

The main way in which portlet workﬂow differs from servlet workﬂow is that the request to the portlet can have two distinct phases: the action phase
and the render phase. The action phase is executed only once and is where any 'backend' changes or actions occur, such as making changes in a
database. The render phase then produces what is displayed to the user each time the display is refreshed. The critical point here is that for a single
overall request, the action phase is executed only once, but the render phase may be executed multiple times. This provides (and requires) a clean
separation between the activities that modify the persistent state of your system and the activities that generate what is displayed to the user.

Spring Web Flow

Spring Web Flow (SWF) aims to be the best solution for the management of web application page ﬂow.

For more information about SWF, consult the Spring Web Flow website.

The dual phases of portlet requests are one of the real strengths of the JSR-286 speciﬁcation. For example, dynamic search results can be updated
routinely on the display without the user explicitly rerunning the search. Most other portlet MVC frameworks attempt to completely hide the two
phases from the developer and make it look as much like traditional servlet development as possible - we think this approach removes one of the
main beneﬁts of using portlets. So, the separation of the two phases is preserved throughout the Spring Portlet MVC framework. The primary
manifestation of this approach is that where the servlet version of the MVC classes will have one method that deals with the request, the portlet
version of the MVC classes will have two methods that deal with the request: one for the action phase and one for the render phase. For example,
where the servlet version of AbstractController has the handleRequestInternal(..) method, the portlet version of
AbstractController has handleActionRequestInternal(..) and handleRenderRequestInternal(..) methods.

The framework is designed around a DispatcherPortlet that dispatches requests to handlers, with conﬁgurable handler mappings and view
resolution, just as the DispatcherServlet in the web framework does. File upload is also supported in the same way.

Locale resolution and theme resolution are not supported in Portlet MVC - these areas are in the purview of the portal/portlet container and are not
appropriate at the Spring level. However, all mechanisms in Spring that depend on the locale (such as internationalization of messages) will still

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 474/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
function properly because DispatcherPortlet exposes the current locale in the same way as DispatcherServlet .

25.1.1 Controllers - The C in MVC

The default handler is still a very simple Controller interface, offering just two methods:

void handleActionRequest(request,response)
ModelAndView handleRenderRequest(request,response)

The framework also includes most of the same controller implementation hierarchy, such as AbstractController , SimpleFormController ,
and so on. Data binding, command object usage, model handling, and view resolution are all the same as in the servlet framework.

25.1.2 Views - The V in MVC

All the view rendering capabilities of the servlet framework are used directly via a special bridge servlet named ViewRendererServlet . By using
this servlet, the portlet request is converted into a servlet request and the view can be rendered using the entire normal servlet infrastructure. This
means all the existing renderers, such as JSP, Velocity, etc., can still be used within the portlet.

25.1.3 Web-scoped beans
Spring Portlet MVC supports beans whose lifecycle is scoped to the current HTTP request or HTTP Session (both normal and global). This is not
a speciﬁc feature of Spring Portlet MVC itself, but rather of the WebApplicationContext container(s) that Spring Portlet MVC uses. These bean
scopes are described in detail in Section 7.5.4, “Request, session, global session, application, and WebSocket scopes”

25.2 The DispatcherPortlet
Portlet MVC is a request-driven web MVC framework, designed around a portlet that dispatches requests to controllers and offers other functionality
facilitating the development of portlet applications. Spring’s DispatcherPortlet however, does more than just that. It is completely integrated
with the Spring ApplicationContext and allows you to use every other feature Spring has.

Like ordinary portlets, the DispatcherPortlet is declared in the portlet.xml ﬁle of your web application:

<portlet>
<portlet-name>sample</portlet-name>
<portlet-class>org.springframework.web.portlet.DispatcherPortlet</portlet-class>
<supports>
<mime-type>text/html</mime-type>
<portlet-mode>view</portlet-mode>
</supports>
<portlet-info>
<title>Sample Portlet</title>
</portlet-info>
</portlet>

The DispatcherPortlet now needs to be conﬁgured.

In the Portlet MVC framework, each DispatcherPortlet has its own WebApplicationContext , which inherits all the beans already defined
in the Root WebApplicationContext . These inherited beans can be overridden in the portlet-specific scope, and new scope-specific beans can
be defined local to a given portlet instance.

The framework will, on initialization of a DispatcherPortlet , look for a file named [portlet-name]-portlet.xml in the WEB-INF
directory of your web application and create the beans defined there (overriding the definitions of any beans defined with the same name in the
global scope).

The conﬁg location used by the DispatcherPortlet can be modiﬁed through a portlet initialization parameter (see below for details).

The Spring DispatcherPortlet has a few special beans it uses, in order to be able to process requests and render the appropriate views.
These beans are included in the Spring framework and can be configured in the WebApplicationContext , just as any other bean would be
configured. Each of those beans is described in more detail below. Right now, we’ll just mention them, just to let you know they exist and to enable
us to go on talking about the DispatcherPortlet . For most of the beans, defaults are provided so you don’t have to worry about configuring
them.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 475/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Table 25.1. Special beans in the WebApplicationContext

Expression Explanation

handler (Section 25.5, “Handler mappings”) a list of pre- and post-processors and controllers that will be executed if they match
mapping(s) certain criteria (for instance a matching portlet mode speciﬁed with the controller)

controller(s) (Section 25.4, “Controllers”) the beans providing the actual functionality (or at least, access to the functionality) as part of
the MVC triad

view resolver (Section 25.6, “Views and resolving them”) capable of resolving view names to view deﬁnitions

multipart (Section 25.7, “Multipart (ﬁle upload) support”) offers functionality to process ﬁle uploads from HTML forms
resolver

handler (Section 25.8, “Handling exceptions”) offers functionality to map exceptions to views or implement other more complex
exception exception handling code
resolver

When a DispatcherPortlet is setup for use and a request comes in for that speciﬁc DispatcherPortlet , it starts processing the request.
The list below describes the complete process a request goes through if handled by a DispatcherPortlet :

1. The locale returned by PortletRequest.getLocale() is bound to the request to let elements in the process resolve the locale to use when
processing the request (rendering the view, preparing data, etc.).
2. If a multipart resolver is specified and this is an ActionRequest , the request is inspected for multiparts and if they are found, it is wrapped in
a MultipartActionRequest for further processing by other elements in the process. (See Section 25.7, “Multipart (file upload) support” for
further information about multipart handling).
3. An appropriate handler is searched for. If a handler is found, the execution chain associated with the handler (pre-processors, post-processors,
controllers) will be executed in order to prepare a model.
4. If a model is returned, the view is rendered, using the view resolver that has been configured with the WebApplicationContext . If no model
is returned (which could be due to a pre- or post-processor intercepting the request, for example, for security reasons), no view is rendered,
since the request could already have been fulfilled.

Exceptions that are thrown during processing of the request get picked up by any of the handler exception resolvers that are declared in the
WebApplicationContext . Using these exception resolvers you can deﬁne custom behavior in case such exceptions get thrown.

You can customize Spring’s DispatcherPortlet by adding context parameters in the portlet.xml ﬁle or portlet init-parameters. The
possibilities are listed below.

Table 25.2. DispatcherPortlet initialization parameters

Parameter Explanation

contextClass Class that implements WebApplicationContext , which will be used to instantiate the context used by
this portlet. If this parameter isn’t speciﬁed, the XmlPortletApplicationContext will be used.

contextConfigLocation String which is passed to the context instance (speciﬁed by contextClass ) to indicate where context(s)
can be found. The String is potentially split up into multiple Strings (using a comma as a delimiter) to
support multiple contexts (in case of multiple context locations, for beans that are deﬁned twice, the latest
takes precedence).

namespace The namespace of the WebApplicationContext . Defaults to [portlet-name]-portlet .

viewRendererUrl The URL at which DispatcherPortlet can access an instance of ViewRendererServlet (see
Section 25.3, “The ViewRendererServlet”).

25.3 The ViewRendererServlet

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 476/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The rendering process in Portlet MVC is a bit more complex than in Web MVC. In order to reuse all the view technologies from Spring Web MVC, we
must convert the PortletRequest / PortletResponse to HttpServletRequest / HttpServletResponse and then call the render
method of the View . To do this, DispatcherPortlet uses a special servlet that exists for just this purpose: the ViewRendererServlet .

In order for DispatcherPortlet rendering to work, you must declare an instance of the ViewRendererServlet in the web.xml ﬁle for your
web application as follows:

<servlet>
<servlet-name>ViewRendererServlet</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.ViewRendererServlet</servlet-class>
</servlet>

<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>ViewRendererServlet</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/WEB-INF/servlet/view</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

To perform the actual rendering, DispatcherPortlet does the following:

1. Binds the WebApplicationContext to the request as an attribute under the same WEB_APPLICATION_CONTEXT_ATTRIBUTE key that
DispatcherServlet uses.
2. Binds the Model and View objects to the request to make them available to the ViewRendererServlet .
3. Constructs a PortletRequestDispatcher and performs an include using the /WEB- INF/servlet/view URL that is mapped to the
ViewRendererServlet .

The ViewRendererServlet is then able to call the render method on the View with the appropriate arguments.

The actual URL for the ViewRendererServlet can be changed using DispatcherPortlet’s `viewRendererUrl conﬁguration parameter.

25.4 Controllers
The controllers in Portlet MVC are very similar to the Web MVC Controllers, and porting code from one to the other should be simple.

The basis for the Portlet MVC controller architecture is the org.springframework.web.portlet.mvc.Controller interface, which is listed
below.

public interface Controller {

/**
* Process the render request and return a ModelAndView object which the
* DispatcherPortlet will render.
*/
ModelAndView handleRenderRequest(RenderRequest request,
RenderResponse response) throws Exception;

/**
* Process the action request. There is nothing to return.
*/
void handleActionRequest(ActionRequest request,
ActionResponse response) throws Exception;

As you can see, the Portlet Controller interface requires two methods that handle the two phases of a portlet request: the action request and the
render request. The action phase should be capable of handling an action request, and the render phase should be capable of handling a render
request and returning an appropriate model and view. While the Controller interface is quite abstract, Spring Portlet MVC offers several
controllers that already contain a lot of the functionality you might need; most of these are very similar to controllers from Spring Web MVC. The
Controller interface just deﬁnes the most common functionality required of every controller: handling an action request, handling a render
request, and returning a model and a view.

25.4.1 AbstractController and PortletContentGenerator

Of course, just a Controller interface isn’t enough. To provide a basic infrastructure, all of Spring Portlet MVC’s Controller s inherit from
AbstractController , a class offering access to Spring’s ApplicationContext and control over caching.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 477/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Table 25.3. Features offered by the AbstractController

Parameter Explanation

requireSession Indicates whether or not this Controller requires a session to do its work. This feature is offered to all
controllers. If a session is not present when such a controller receives a request, the user is informed using a
SessionRequiredException .

synchronizeSession Use this if you want handling by this controller to be synchronized on the user’s session. To be more speciﬁc,
the extending controller will override the handleRenderRequestInternal(..) and
handleActionRequestInternal(..) methods, which will be synchronized on the user’s session if you
specify this variable.

renderWhenMinimized If you want your controller to actually render the view when the portlet is in a minimized state, set this to true.
By default, this is set to false so that portlets that are in a minimized state don’t display any content.

cacheSeconds When you want a controller to override the default cache expiration deﬁned for the portlet, specify a positive
integer here. By default it is set to -1 , which does not change the default caching. Setting it to 0 will ensure
the result is never cached.

The requireSession and cacheSeconds properties are declared on the PortletContentGenerator class, which is the superclass of
AbstractController ) but are included here for completeness.

When using the AbstractController as a base class for your controllers (which is not recommended since there are a lot of other controllers
that might already do the job for you) you only have to override either the
handleActionRequestInternal(ActionRequest, ActionResponse) method or the
handleRenderRequestInternal(RenderRequest, RenderResponse) method (or both), implement your logic, and return a
ModelAndView object (in the case of handleRenderRequestInternal ).

The default implementations of both handleActionRequestInternal(..) and handleRenderRequestInternal(..) throw a

PortletException . This is consistent with the behavior of GenericPortlet from the JSR- 168 Speciﬁcation API. So you only need to
override the method that your controller is intended to handle.

Here is short example consisting of a class and a declaration in the web application context.

package samples;

import javax.portlet.RenderRequest;
import javax.portlet.RenderResponse;

import org.springframework.web.portlet.mvc.AbstractController;
import org.springframework.web.portlet.ModelAndView;

public class SampleController extends AbstractController {

public ModelAndView handleRenderRequestInternal(RenderRequest request, RenderResponse response) {

ModelAndView mav = new ModelAndView("foo");
mav.addObject("message", "Hello World!");
return mav;
}

<bean id="sampleController" class="samples.SampleController">

The class above and the declaration in the web application context is all you need besides setting up a handler mapping (see Section 25.5, “Handler
mappings”) to get this very simple controller working.

25.4.2 Other simple controllers

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 478/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Although you can extend AbstractController , Spring Portlet MVC provides a number of concrete implementations which offer functionality that
is commonly used in simple MVC applications.

The ParameterizableViewController is basically the same as the example above, except for the fact that you can specify the view name that
it will return in the web application context (no need to hard-code the view name).

The PortletModeNameViewController uses the current mode of the portlet as the view name. So, if your portlet is in View mode (i.e.
PortletMode.VIEW ) then it uses "view" as the view name.

25.4.3 Command Controllers
Spring Portlet MVC has the exact same hierarchy of command controllers as Spring Web MVC. They provide a way to interact with data objects and
dynamically bind parameters from the PortletRequest to the data object speciﬁed. Your data objects don’t have to implement a framework-
speciﬁc interface, so you can directly manipulate your persistent objects if you desire. Let’s examine what command controllers are available, to get
an overview of what you can do with them:

AbstractCommandController - a command controller you can use to create your own command controller, capable of binding request
parameters to a data object you specify. This class does not offer form functionality, it does however offer validation features and lets you specify
in the controller itself what to do with the command object that has been filled with the parameters from the request.
AbstractFormController - an abstract controller offering form submission support. Using this controller you can model forms and populate
them using a command object you retrieve in the controller. After a user has filled the form, AbstractFormController binds the fields,
validates, and hands the object back to the controller to take appropriate action. Supported features are: invalid form submission (resubmission),
validation, and normal form workflow. You implement methods to determine which views are used for form presentation and success. Use this
controller if you need forms, but don’t want to specify what views you’re going to show the user in the application context.
SimpleFormController - a concrete AbstractFormController that provides even more support when creating a form with a
corresponding command object. The SimpleFormController lets you specify a command object, a viewname for the form, a viewname for
the page you want to show the user when form submission has succeeded, and more.
AbstractWizardFormController — a concrete AbstractFormController that provides a wizard-style interface for editing the
contents of a command object across multiple display pages. Supports multiple user actions: finish, cancel, or page change, all of which are
easily specified in request parameters from the view.

These command controllers are quite powerful, but they do require a detailed understanding of how they operate in order to use them efﬁciently.
Carefully review the javadocs for this entire hierarchy and then look at some sample implementations before you start using them.

25.4.4 PortletWrappingController
Instead of developing new controllers, it is possible to use existing portlets and map requests to them from a DispatcherPortlet . Using the
PortletWrappingController , you can instantiate an existing Portlet as a Controller as follows:

<bean id="myPortlet" class="org.springframework.web.portlet.mvc.PortletWrappingController">

<property name="portletClass" value="sample.MyPortlet"/>
<property name="portletName" value="my-portlet"/>
<property name="initParameters">
<value>config=/WEB-INF/my-portlet-config.xml</value>
</property>
</bean>

This can be very valuable since you can then use interceptors to pre-process and post-process requests going to these portlets. Since JSR-286
does not support any kind of ﬁlter mechanism, this is quite handy. For example, this can be used to wrap the Hibernate
OpenSessionInViewInterceptor around a MyFaces JSF Portlet.

25.5 Handler mappings
Using a handler mapping you can map incoming portlet requests to appropriate handlers. There are some handler mappings you can use out of the
box, for example, the PortletModeHandlerMapping , but let’s ﬁrst examine the general concept of a HandlerMapping .

Note: We are intentionally using the term "Handler" here instead of "Controller". DispatcherPortlet is designed to be used with other ways to
process requests than just Spring Portlet MVC’s own Controllers. A Handler is any Object that can handle portlet requests. Controllers are an
example of Handlers, and they are of course the default. To use some other framework with DispatcherPortlet , a corresponding
implementation of HandlerAdapter is all that is needed.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 479/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The functionality a basic HandlerMapping provides is the delivering of a HandlerExecutionChain , which must contain the handler that
matches the incoming request, and may also contain a list of handler interceptors that are applied to the request. When a request comes in, the
DispatcherPortlet will hand it over to the handler mapping to let it inspect the request and come up with an appropriate
HandlerExecutionChain . Then the DispatcherPortlet will execute the handler and interceptors in the chain (if any). These concepts are
all exactly the same as in Spring Web MVC.

The concept of conﬁgurable handler mappings that can optionally contain interceptors (executed before or after the actual handler was executed, or
both) is extremely powerful. A lot of supporting functionality can be built into a custom HandlerMapping . Think of a custom handler mapping that
chooses a handler not only based on the portlet mode of the request coming in, but also on a speciﬁc state of the session associated with the
request.

In Spring Web MVC, handler mappings are commonly based on URLs. Since there is really no such thing as a URL within a Portlet, we must use
other mechanisms to control mappings. The two most common are the portlet mode and a request parameter, but anything available to the portlet
request can be used in a custom handler mapping.

The rest of this section describes three of Spring Portlet MVC’s most commonly used handler mappings. They all extend
AbstractHandlerMapping and share the following properties:

interceptors : The list of interceptors to use. HandlerInterceptor s are discussed in Section 25.5.4, “Adding HandlerInterceptors”.
defaultHandler : The default handler to use, when this handler mapping does not result in a matching handler.
order : Based on the value of the order property (see the org.springframework.core.Ordered interface), Spring will sort all handler
mappings available in the context and apply the ﬁrst matching handler.
lazyInitHandlers : Allows for lazy initialization of singleton handlers (prototype handlers are always lazily initialized). Default value is false.
This property is directly implemented in the three concrete Handlers.

25.5.1 PortletModeHandlerMapping
This is a simple handler mapping that maps incoming requests based on the current mode of the portlet (e.g. 'view', 'edit', 'help'). An example:

25.5.2 ParameterHandlerMapping
If we need to navigate around to multiple controllers without changing portlet mode, the simplest way to do this is with a request parameter that is
used as the key to control the mapping.

ParameterHandlerMapping uses the value of a speciﬁc request parameter to control the mapping. The default name of the parameter is
'action' , but can be changed using the 'parameterName' property.

The bean conﬁguration for this mapping will look something like this:

<entry key="delete" value-ref="deleteItemHandler"/>

</map>
</property>
</bean>

25.5.3 PortletModeParameterHandlerMapping

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 480/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The most powerful built-in handler mapping, PortletModeParameterHandlerMapping combines the capabilities of the two previous ones to
allow different navigation within each portlet mode.

Again the default name of the parameter is "action", but can be changed using the parameterName property.

By default, the same parameter value may not be used in two different portlet modes. This is so that if the portal itself changes the portlet mode, the
request will no longer be valid in the mapping. This behavior can be changed by setting the allowDupParameters property to true. However, this
is not recommended.

The bean conﬁguration for this mapping will look something like this:

This mapping can be chained ahead of a PortletModeHandlerMapping , which can then provide defaults for each mode and an overall default
as well.

25.5.4 Adding HandlerInterceptors
Spring’s handler mapping mechanism has a notion of handler interceptors, which can be extremely useful when you want to apply speciﬁc
functionality to certain requests, for example, checking for a principal. Again Spring Portlet MVC implements these concepts in the same way as
Web MVC.

Interceptors located in the handler mapping must implement HandlerInterceptor from the org.springframework.web.portlet package.
Just like the servlet version, this interface defines three methods: one that will be called before the actual handler will be executed ( preHandle ),
one that will be called after the handler is executed ( postHandle ), and one that is called after the complete request has finished (
afterCompletion ). These three methods should provide enough flexibility to do all kinds of pre- and post- processing.

The preHandle method returns a boolean value. You can use this method to break or continue the processing of the execution chain. When this
method returns true , the handler execution chain will continue. When it returns false , the DispatcherPortlet assumes the interceptor itself
has taken care of requests (and, for example, rendered an appropriate view) and does not continue executing the other interceptors and the actual
handler in the execution chain.

The postHandle method is only called on a RenderRequest . The preHandle and afterCompletion methods are called on both an
ActionRequest and a RenderRequest . If you need to execute logic in these methods for just one type of request, be sure to check what kind
of request it is before processing it.

25.5.5 HandlerInterceptorAdapter
As with the servlet package, the portlet package has a concrete implementation of HandlerInterceptor called
HandlerInterceptorAdapter . This class has empty versions of all the methods so that you can inherit from this class and implement just one
or two methods when that is all you need.

25.5.6 ParameterMappingInterceptor

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 481/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The portlet package also has a concrete interceptor named ParameterMappingInterceptor that is meant to be used directly with
ParameterHandlerMapping and PortletModeParameterHandlerMapping . This interceptor will cause the parameter that is being used to
control the mapping to be forwarded from an ActionRequest to the subsequent RenderRequest . This will help ensure that the
RenderRequest is mapped to the same Handler as the ActionRequest . This is done in the preHandle method of the interceptor, so you can
still modify the parameter value in your handler to change where the RenderRequest will be mapped.

Be aware that this interceptor is calling setRenderParameter on the ActionResponse , which means that you cannot call sendRedirect in
your handler when using this interceptor. If you need to do external redirects then you will either need to forward the mapping parameter manually or
write a different interceptor to handle this for you.

25.6 Views and resolving them

As mentioned previously, Spring Portlet MVC directly reuses all the view technologies from Spring Web MVC. This includes not only the various
View implementations themselves, but also the ViewResolver implementations. For more information, refer to Chapter 23, View technologies
and Section 22.5, “Resolving views” respectively.

A few items on using the existing View and ViewResolver implementations are worth mentioning:

Most portals expect the result of rendering a portlet to be an HTML fragment. So, things like JSP/JSTL, Velocity, FreeMarker, and XSLT all make
sense. But it is unlikely that views that return other document types will make any sense in a portlet context.
There is no such thing as an HTTP redirect from within a portlet (the sendRedirect(..) method of ActionResponse cannot be used to
stay within the portal). So, RedirectView and use of the 'redirect:' preﬁx will not work correctly from within Portlet MVC.
It may be possible to use the 'forward:' preﬁx from within Portlet MVC. However, remember that since you are in a portlet, you have no idea
what the current URL looks like. This means you cannot use a relative URL to access other resources in your web application and that you will
have to use an absolute URL.

Also, for JSP development, the new Spring Taglib and the new Spring Form Taglib both work in portlet views in exactly the same way that they work
in servlet views.

25.7 Multipart (ﬁle upload) support

Spring Portlet MVC has built-in multipart support to handle file uploads in portlet applications, just like Web MVC does. The design for the multipart
support is done with pluggable PortletMultipartResolver objects, defined in the org.springframework.web.portlet.multipart
package. Spring provides a PortletMultipartResolver for use with Commons FileUpload. How uploading files is supported will be described
in the rest of this section.

By default, no multipart handling will be done by Spring Portlet MVC, as some developers will want to handle multiparts themselves. You will have to
enable it yourself by adding a multipart resolver to the web application’s context. After you have done that, DispatcherPortlet will inspect each
request to see if it contains a multipart. If no multipart is found, the request will continue as expected. However, if a multipart is found in the request,
the PortletMultipartResolver that has been declared in your context will be used. After that, the multipart attribute in your request will be
treated like any other attribute.

Any conﬁgured PortletMultipartResolver bean must have the following id (or name): "
portletMultipartResolver`". If you have defined your `PortletMultipartResolver with any other name, then
the DispatcherPortlet will not ﬁnd your PortletMultipartResolver , and consequently no multipart support will be in effect.

25.7.1 Using the PortletMultipartResolver

The following example shows how to use the CommonsPortletMultipartResolver :

Of course you also need to put the appropriate jars in your classpath for the multipart resolver to work. In the case of the
CommonsMultipartResolver , you need to use commons-fileupload.jar . Be sure to use at least version 1.1 of Commons FileUpload as
previous versions do not support JSR-286 Portlet applications.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 482/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Now that you have seen how to set Portlet MVC up to handle multipart requests, let’s talk about how to actually use it. When
DispatcherPortlet detects a multipart request, it activates the resolver that has been declared in your context and hands over the request.
What the resolver then does is wrap the current ActionRequest in a MultipartActionRequest that has support for multipart ﬁle uploads.
Using the MultipartActionRequest you can get information about the multiparts contained by this request and actually get access to the
multipart ﬁles themselves in your controllers.

Note that you can only receive multipart ﬁle uploads as part of an ActionRequest , not as part of a RenderRequest .

25.7.2 Handling a ﬁle upload in a form

After the PortletMultipartResolver has finished doing its job, the request will be processed like any other. To use the
PortletMultipartResolver , create a form with an upload field (see example below), then let Spring bind the file onto your form (backing
object). To actually let the user upload a file, we have to create a (JSP/HTML) form:

<h1>Please upload a file</h1>

<form method="post" action="<portlet:actionURL/>" enctype="multipart/form-data">
<input type="file" name="file"/>
<input type="submit"/>
</form>

As you can see, we’ve created a field named "file" that matches the property of the bean that holds the byte[] array. Furthermore we’ve added the
encoding attribute ( enctype="multipart/form-data" ), which is necessary to let the browser know how to encode the multipart fields (do not
forget this!).

Just as with any other property that’s not automagically convertible to a string or primitive type, to be able to put binary data in your objects you have
to register a custom editor with the PortletRequestDataBinder . There are a couple of editors available for handling files and setting the results
on an object. There’s a StringMultipartFileEditor capable of converting files to Strings (using a user-defined character set), and there is a
ByteArrayMultipartFileEditor which converts files to byte arrays. They function analogous to the CustomDateEditor .

So, to be able to upload ﬁles using a form, declare the resolver, a mapping to a controller that will process the bean, and the controller itself.

<bean id="fileUploadController" class="examples.FileUploadController">

After that, create the controller and the actual class to hold the ﬁle property.

public class FileUploadController extends SimpleFormController {

public void onSubmitAction(ActionRequest request, ActionResponse response,

Object command, BindException errors) throws Exception {

// cast the bean

FileUploadBean bean = (FileUploadBean) command;

// let's see if there's content there

byte[] file = bean.getFile();
if (file == null) {
// hmm, that's strange, the user did not upload anything
}

// do something with the file here

}
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 483/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

protected void initBinder(PortletRequest request,

PortletRequestDataBinder binder) throws Exception {
// to actually be able to convert Multipart instance to byte[]
// we have to register a custom editor
binder.registerCustomEditor(byte[].class, new ByteArrayMultipartFileEditor());
// now Spring knows how to handle multipart object and convert
}

public class FileUploadBean {

private byte[] file;

public void setFile(byte[] file) {

this.file = file;
}

public byte[] getFile() {

return file;
}

As you can see, the FileUploadBean has a property of type byte[] that holds the ﬁle. The controller registers a custom editor to let Spring
know how to actually convert the multipart objects the resolver has found to properties speciﬁed by the bean. In this example, nothing is done with
the byte[] property of the bean itself, but in practice you can do whatever you want (save it in a database, mail it to somebody, etc).

An equivalent example in which a ﬁle is bound straight to a String-typed property on a form backing object might look like this:

public class FileUploadController extends SimpleFormController {

public void onSubmitAction(ActionRequest request, ActionResponse response,

Object command, BindException errors) throws Exception {

// cast the bean

FileUploadBean bean = (FileUploadBean) command;

// let's see if there's content there

String file = bean.getFile();
if (file == null) {
// hmm, that's strange, the user did not upload anything
}

// do something with the file here

}

protected void initBinder(PortletRequest request,

PortletRequestDataBinder binder) throws Exception {

// to actually be able to convert Multipart instance to a String

// we have to register a custom editor
binder.registerCustomEditor(String.class, new StringMultipartFileEditor());
// now Spring knows how to handle multipart objects and convert
}
}

public class FileUploadBean {

private String file;

public void setFile(String file) {

this.file = file;
}

public String getFile() {

return file;
}
}
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 484/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
}

Of course, this last example only makes (logical) sense in the context of uploading a plain text ﬁle (it wouldn’t work so well in the case of uploading
an image ﬁle).

The third (and ﬁnal) option is where one binds directly to a MultipartFile property declared on the (form backing) object’s class. In this case
one does not need to register any custom property editor because there is no type conversion to be performed.

public class FileUploadController extends SimpleFormController {

public void onSubmitAction(ActionRequest request, ActionResponse response,

Object command, BindException errors) throws Exception {

// cast the bean

FileUploadBean bean = (FileUploadBean) command;

// let's see if there's content there

MultipartFile file = bean.getFile();
if (file == null) {
// hmm, that's strange, the user did not upload anything
}

// do something with the file here

}
}

public class FileUploadBean {

private MultipartFile file;

public void setFile(MultipartFile file) {

this.file = file;
}

public MultipartFile getFile() {

return file;
}

25.8 Handling exceptions
Just like Servlet MVC, Portlet MVC provides HandlerExceptionResolver s to ease the pain of unexpected exceptions that occur while your
request is being processed by a handler that matched the request. Portlet MVC also provides a portlet-speciﬁc, concrete
SimpleMappingExceptionResolver that enables you to take the class name of any exception that might be thrown and map it to a view name.

25.9 Annotation-based controller conﬁguration

Spring 2.5 introduced an annotation-based programming model for MVC controllers, using annotations such as @RequestMapping ,
@RequestParam , @ModelAttribute , etc. This annotation support is available for both Servlet MVC and Portlet MVC. Controllers implemented
in this style do not have to extend speciﬁc base classes or implement speciﬁc interfaces. Furthermore, they do not usually have direct dependencies
on Servlet or Portlet API’s, although they can easily get access to Servlet or Portlet facilities if desired.

The following sections document these annotations and how they are most commonly used in a Portlet environment.

25.9.1 Setting up the dispatcher for annotation support

`@RequestMapping` will only be processed if a corresponding HandlerMapping (for type level annotations) and/or HandlerAdapter (for
method level annotations) is present in the dispatcher. This is the case by default in both DispatcherServlet and DispatcherPortlet .

However, if you are deﬁning custom HandlerMappings or HandlerAdapters , then you need to make sure that a corresponding custom
DefaultAnnotationHandlerMapping and/or AnnotationMethodHandlerAdapter is deﬁned as well - provided that you intend to use
@RequestMapping .

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 485/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
<?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
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd">

// ... (controller bean definitions) ...

</beans>

Deﬁning a DefaultAnnotationHandlerMapping and/or AnnotationMethodHandlerAdapter explicitly also makes sense if you would like
to customize the mapping strategy, e.g. specifying a custom WebBindingInitializer (see below).

25.9.2 Deﬁning a controller with @Controller

The @Controller annotation indicates that a particular class serves the role of a controller. There is no need to extend any controller base class
or reference the Portlet API. You are of course still able to reference Portlet-speciﬁc features if you need to.

The basic purpose of the @Controller annotation is to act as a stereotype for the annotated class, indicating its role. The dispatcher will scan
such annotated classes for mapped methods, detecting @RequestMapping annotations (see the next section).

Annotated controller beans may be defined explicitly, using a standard Spring bean definition in the dispatcher’s context. However, the
@Controller stereotype also allows for autodetection, aligned with Spring 2.5’s general support for detecting component classes in the classpath
and auto-registering bean definitions for them.

To enable autodetection of such annotated controllers, you have to add component scanning to your conﬁguration. This is easily achieved by using
the spring-context schema as shown in the following XML snippet:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<context:component-scan base-package="org.springframework.samples.petportal.portlet"/>

// ...

</beans>

25.9.3 Mapping requests with @RequestMapping

The @RequestMapping annotation is used to map portlet modes like 'VIEW'/'EDIT' onto an entire class or a particular handler method. Typically
the type-level annotation maps a speciﬁc mode (or mode plus parameter condition) onto a form controller, with additional method-level annotations
'narrowing' the primary mapping for speciﬁc portlet request parameters.

@RequestMapping at the type level may be used for plain implementations of the Controller interface as well. In this case, the
request processing code would follow the traditional handle(Action|Render)Request signature, while the controller’s mapping
would be expressed through an @RequestMapping annotation. This works for pre-built Controller base classes, such as
SimpleFormController , too.
In the following discussion, we’ll focus on controllers that are based on annotated handler methods.

The following is an example of a form controller from the PetPortal sample application using this annotation:

@Controller
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 486/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
@Controller
@RequestMapping("EDIT")
@SessionAttributes("site")
public class PetSitesEditController {

private Properties petSites;

public void setPetSites(Properties petSites) {

this.petSites = petSites;
}

@ModelAttribute("petSites")
public Properties getPetSites() {
return this.petSites;
}

@RequestMapping // default (action=list)

public String showPetSites() {
return "petSitesEdit";
}

@RequestMapping(params = "action=add") // render phase

public String showSiteForm(Model model) {
// Used for the initial form as well as for redisplaying with errors.
if (!model.containsAttribute("site")) {
model.addAttribute("site", new PetSite());
}

return "petSitesAdd";
}

@RequestMapping(params = "action=add") // action phase

public void populateSite(@ModelAttribute("site") PetSite petSite,
BindingResult result, SessionStatus status, ActionResponse response) {
new PetSiteValidator().validate(petSite, result);
if (!result.hasErrors()) {
this.petSites.put(petSite.getName(), petSite.getUrl());
status.setComplete();
response.setRenderParameter("action", "list");
}
}

@RequestMapping(params = "action=delete")
public void removeSite(@RequestParam("site") String site, ActionResponse response) {
this.petSites.remove(site);
response.setRenderParameter("action", "list");
}
}

As of Spring 3.0, there are dedicated @ActionMapping and @RenderMapping (as well as @ResourceMapping and @EventMapping )
annotations which can be used instead:

@Controller
@RequestMapping("EDIT")
@SessionAttributes("site")
public class PetSitesEditController {

private Properties petSites;

public void setPetSites(Properties petSites) {

this.petSites = petSites;
}

@ModelAttribute("petSites")
public Properties getPetSites() {
return this.petSites;
}

@RenderMapping // default (action=list)

public String showPetSites() {
return "petSitesEdit";
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 487/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
return "petSitesEdit";
}

@RenderMapping(params = "action=add")
public String showSiteForm(Model model) {
// Used for the initial form as well as for redisplaying with errors.
if (!model.containsAttribute("site")) {
model.addAttribute("site", new PetSite());
}

return "petSitesAdd";
}

@ActionMapping(params = "action=add")
public void populateSite(@ModelAttribute("site") PetSite petSite,
BindingResult result, SessionStatus status, ActionResponse response) {
new PetSiteValidator().validate(petSite, result);
if (!result.hasErrors()) {
this.petSites.put(petSite.getName(), petSite.getUrl());
status.setComplete();
response.setRenderParameter("action", "list");
}
}

@ActionMapping(params = "action=delete")
public void removeSite(@RequestParam("site") String site, ActionResponse response) {
this.petSites.remove(site);
response.setRenderParameter("action", "list");
}
}

25.9.4 Supported handler method arguments

Handler methods which are annotated with @RequestMapping are allowed to have very ﬂexible signatures. They may have arguments of the
following types, in arbitrary order (except for validation results, which need to follow right after the corresponding command object, if desired):

Request and/or response objects (Portlet API). You may choose any specific request/response type, e.g. PortletRequest / ActionRequest /
RenderRequest. An explicitly declared action/render argument is also used for mapping specific request types onto a handler method (in case of
no other information given that differentiates between action and render requests).
Session object (Portlet API): of type PortletSession. An argument of this type will enforce the presence of a corresponding session. As a
consequence, such an argument will never be null .
org.springframework.web.context.request.WebRequest or
org.springframework.web.context.request.NativeWebRequest . Allows for generic request parameter access as well as
request/session attribute access, without ties to the native Servlet/Portlet API.
java.util.Locale for the current request locale (the portal locale in a Portlet environment).
java.util.TimeZone / java.time.ZoneId for the current request time zone.
java.io.InputStream / java.io.Reader for access to the request’s content. This will be the raw InputStream/Reader as exposed by the
Portlet API.
java.io.OutputStream / java.io.Writer for generating the response’s content. This will be the raw OutputStream/Writer as exposed
by the Portlet API.
@RequestParam annotated parameters for access to specific Portlet request parameters. Parameter values will be converted to the declared
method argument type.
java.util.Map / org.springframework.ui.Model / org.springframework.ui.ModelMap for enriching the implicit model that will
be exposed to the web view.
Command/form objects to bind parameters to: as bean properties or fields, with customizable type conversion, depending on @InitBinder
methods and/or the HandlerAdapter configuration - see the "
webBindingInitializer`" property on ÀnnotationMethodHandlerAdapter . Such command objects along with their validation
results will be exposed as model attributes, by default using the non-qualified command class name in property notation (e.g. "orderAddress" for
type "mypackage.OrderAddress"). Specify a parameter-level ModelAttribute annotation for declaring a specific model attribute name.
org.springframework.validation.Errors / org.springframework.validation.BindingResult validation results for a
preceding command/form object (the immediate preceding argument).
org.springframework.web.bind.support.SessionStatus status handle for marking form processing as complete (triggering the
cleanup of session attributes that have been indicated by the @SessionAttributes annotation at the handler type level).

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 488/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The following return types are supported for handler methods:

25.9.5 Binding request parameters to method parameters with @RequestParam

The @RequestParam annotation is used to bind request parameters to a method parameter in your controller.

The following code snippet from the PetPortal sample application shows the usage:

@Controller
@RequestMapping("EDIT")
@SessionAttributes("site")
public class PetSitesEditController {

// ...

public void removeSite(@RequestParam("site") String site, ActionResponse response) {

this.petSites.remove(site);
response.setRenderParameter("action", "list");
}

// ...

Parameters using this annotation are required by default, but you can specify that a parameter is optional by setting
@RequestParam’s `required attribute to false (e.g., @RequestParam(name="id", required=false) ).

25.9.6 Providing a link to data from the model with @ModelAttribute

@ModelAttribute has two usage scenarios in controllers. When placed on a method parameter, @ModelAttribute is used to map a model
attribute to the speciﬁc, annotated method parameter (see the populateSite() method below). This is how the controller gets a reference to the
object holding the data entered in the form. In addition, the parameter can be declared as the speciﬁc type of the form backing object rather than as
a generic java.lang.Object , thus increasing type safety.

@ModelAttribute is also used at the method level to provide reference data for the model (see the getPetSites() method below). For this
usage the method signature can contain the same types as documented above for the @RequestMapping annotation.

@ModelAttribute annotated methods will be executed before the chosen @RequestMapping annotated handler method. They
effectively pre-populate the implicit model with speciﬁc attributes, often loaded from a database. Such an attribute can then already be
accessed through @ModelAttribute annotated handler method parameters in the chosen handler method, potentially with binding
and validation applied to it.

The following code snippet shows these two usages of this annotation:

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 489/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

@Controller
@RequestMapping("EDIT")
@SessionAttributes("site")
public class PetSitesEditController {

// ...

@ModelAttribute("petSites")
public Properties getPetSites() {
return this.petSites;
}

@RequestMapping(params = "action=add") // action phase

public void populateSite( @ModelAttribute("site") PetSite petSite, BindingResult result, SessionStatus status, ActionRespo
new PetSiteValidator().validate(petSite, result);
if (!result.hasErrors()) {
this.petSites.put(petSite.getName(), petSite.getUrl());
status.setComplete();
response.setRenderParameter("action", "list");
}
}
}

25.9.7 Specifying attributes to store in a Session with @SessionAttributes

The type-level @SessionAttributes annotation declares session attributes used by a speciﬁc handler. This will typically list the names of model
attributes or types of model attributes which should be transparently stored in the session or some conversational storage, serving as form-backing
beans between subsequent requests.

The following code snippet shows the usage of this annotation:

@Controller
@RequestMapping("EDIT")
@SessionAttributes("site")
public class PetSitesEditController {
// ...
}

25.9.8 Customizing WebDataBinder initialization

To customize request parameter binding with PropertyEditors, etc. via Spring’s WebDataBinder , you can either use @InitBinder -annotated
methods within your controller or externalize your conﬁguration by providing a custom WebBindingInitializer .

Customizing data binding with @InitBinder

Annotating controller methods with @InitBinder allows you to conﬁgure web data binding directly within your controller class. @InitBinder
identiﬁes methods which initialize the WebDataBinder which will be used for populating command and form object arguments of annotated
handler methods.

Such init-binder methods support all arguments that @RequestMapping supports, except for command/form objects and corresponding validation
result objects. Init-binder methods must not have a return value. Thus, they are usually declared as void . Typical arguments include
WebDataBinder in combination with WebRequest or java.util.Locale , allowing code to register context-speciﬁc editors.

The following example demonstrates the use of @InitBinder for conﬁguring a CustomDateEditor for all java.util.Date form properties.

@Controller
public class MyFormController {

// ...
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 490/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
// ...

Conﬁguring a custom WebBindingInitializer

25.10 Portlet application deployment

The process of deploying a Spring Portlet MVC application is no different than deploying any JSR-286 Portlet application. However, this area is
confusing enough in general that it is worth talking about here brieﬂy.

Generally, the portal/portlet container runs in one webapp in your servlet container and your portlets run in another webapp in your servlet container.
In order for the portlet container webapp to make calls into your portlet webapp it must make cross-context calls to a well-known servlet that provides
access to the portlet services deﬁned in your portlet.xml ﬁle.

The JSR-286 speciﬁcation does not specify exactly how this should happen, so each portlet container has its own mechanism for this, which usually
involves some kind of "deployment process" that makes changes to the portlet webapp itself and then registers the portlets within the portlet
container.

At a minimum, the web.xml ﬁle in your portlet webapp is modiﬁed to inject the well-known servlet that the portlet container will call. In some cases
a single servlet will service all portlets in the webapp, in other cases there will be an instance of the servlet for each portlet.

Some portlet containers will also inject libraries and/or conﬁguration ﬁles into the webapp as well. The portlet container must also make its
implementation of the Portlet JSP Tag Library available to your webapp.

The bottom line is that it is important to understand the deployment needs of your target portal and make sure they are met (usually by following the
automated deployment process it provides). Be sure to carefully review the documentation from your portal for this process.

Once you have deployed your portlet, review the resulting web.xml ﬁle for sanity. Some older portals have been known to corrupt the deﬁnition of
the ViewRendererServlet , thus breaking the rendering of your portlets.

26. WebSocket Support
This part of the reference documentation covers Spring Framework’s support for WebSocket-style messaging in web applications including use of
STOMP as an application level WebSocket sub-protocol.

Section 26.1, “Introduction” establishes a frame of mind in which to think about WebSocket, covering adoption challenges, design considerations,
and thoughts on when it is a good ﬁt.

Section 26.2, “WebSocket API” reviews the Spring WebSocket API on the server-side, while Section 26.3, “SockJS Fallback Options” explains the
SockJS protocol and shows how to conﬁgure and use it.

Section 26.4.1, “Overview of STOMP” introduces the STOMP messaging protocol. Section 26.4.2, “Enable STOMP over WebSocket” demonstrates
how to conﬁgure STOMP support in Spring. Section 26.4.4, “Annotation Message Handling” and the following sections explain how to write
annotated message handling methods, send messages, choose message broker options, as well as work with the special "user" destinations.
Finally, Section 26.4.18, “Testing Annotated Controller Methods” lists three approaches to testing STOMP/WebSocket applications.

26.1 Introduction
The WebSocket protocol RFC 6455 deﬁnes an important new capability for web applications: full-duplex, two-way communication between client and
server. It is an exciting new capability on the heels of a long history of techniques to make the web more interactive including Java Applets,
XMLHttpRequest, Adobe Flash, ActiveXObject, various Comet techniques, server-sent events, and others.

A proper introduction to the WebSocket protocol is beyond the scope of this document. At a minimum however it’s important to understand that
HTTP is used only for the initial handshake, which relies on a mechanism built into HTTP to request a protocol upgrade (or in this case a protocol
switch) to which the server can respond with HTTP status 101 (switching protocols) if it agrees. Assuming the handshake succeeds the TCP socket
underlying the HTTP upgrade request remains open and both client and server can use it to send messages to each other.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 491/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Spring Framework 4 includes a new spring-websocket module with comprehensive WebSocket support. It is compatible with the Java
WebSocket API standard (JSR-356) and also provides additional value-add as explained in the rest of the introduction.

26.1.1 WebSocket Fallback Options

An important challenge to adoption is the lack of support for WebSocket in some browsers. Notably the ﬁrst Internet Explorer version to support
WebSocket is version 10 (see http://caniuse.com/websockets for support by browser versions). Furthermore, some restrictive proxies may be
conﬁgured in ways that either preclude the attempt to do an HTTP upgrade or otherwise break connection after some time because it has remained
opened for too long. A good overview on this topic from Peter Lubbers is available in the InfoQ article "How HTML5 Web Sockets Interact With Proxy
Servers".

Therefore to build a WebSocket application today, fallback options are required in order to simulate the WebSocket API where necessary. The Spring
Framework provides such transparent fallback options based on the SockJS protocol. These options can be enabled through conﬁguration and do
not require modifying the application otherwise.

26.1.2 A Messaging Architecture

Aside from short-to-midterm adoption challenges, using WebSocket brings up important design considerations that are important to recognize early
on, especially in contrast to what we know about building web applications today.

Today REST is a widely accepted, understood, and supported architecture for building web applications. It is an architecture that relies on having
many URLs (nouns), a handful of HTTP methods (verbs), and other principles such as using hypermedia (links), remaining stateless, etc.

By contrast a WebSocket application may use a single URL only for the initial HTTP handshake. All messages thereafter share and ﬂow on the same
TCP connection. This points to an entirely different, asynchronous, event-driven, messaging architecture. One that is much closer to traditional
messaging applications (e.g. JMS, AMQP).

Spring Framework 4 includes a new spring-messaging module with key abstractions from the Spring Integration project such as Message ,
MessageChannel , MessageHandler , and others that can serve as a foundation for such a messaging architecture. The module also includes a
set of annotations for mapping messages to methods, similar to the Spring MVC annotation based programming model.

26.1.3 Sub-Protocol Support in WebSocket

WebSocket does imply a messaging architecture but does not mandate the use of any speciﬁc messaging protocol. It is a very thin layer over TCP
that transforms a stream of bytes into a stream of messages (either text or binary) and not much more. It is up to applications to interpret the
meaning of a message.

Unlike HTTP, which is an application-level protocol, in the WebSocket protocol there is simply not enough information in an incoming message for a
framework or container to know how to route it or process it. Therefore WebSocket is arguably too low level for anything but a very trivial application.
It can be done, but it will likely lead to creating a framework on top. This is comparable to how most web applications today are written using a web
framework rather than the Servlet API alone.

For this reason the WebSocket RFC deﬁnes the use of sub-protocols. During the handshake, the client and server can use the header
Sec-WebSocket-Protocol to agree on a sub-protocol, i.e. a higher, application-level protocol to use. The use of a sub-protocol is not required,
but even if not used, applications will still need to choose a message format that both the client and server can understand. That format can be
custom, framework-speciﬁc, or a standard messaging protocol.

The Spring Framework provides support for using STOMP — a simple, messaging protocol originally created for use in scripting languages with
frames inspired by HTTP. STOMP is widely supported and well suited for use over WebSocket and over the web.

26.1.4 Should I Use WebSocket?

With all the design considerations surrounding the use of WebSocket, it is reasonable to ask, "When is it appropriate to use?".

The best ﬁt for WebSocket is in web applications where the client and server need to exchange events at high frequency and with low latency. Prime
candidates include, but are not limited to, applications in ﬁnance, games, collaboration, and others. Such applications are both very sensitive to time
delays and also need to exchange a wide variety of messages at a high frequency.

For other application types, however, this may not be the case. For example, a news or social feed that shows breaking news as it becomes
available may be perfectly okay with simple polling once every few minutes. Here latency is important, but it is acceptable if the news takes a few
minutes to appear.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 492/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Even in cases where latency is crucial, if the volume of messages is relatively low (e.g. monitoring network failures) the use of long polling should be
considered as a relatively simple alternative that works reliably and is comparable in terms of efﬁciency (again assuming the volume of messages is
relatively low).

It is the combination of both low latency and high frequency of messages that can make the use of the WebSocket protocol critical. Even in such
applications, the choice remains whether all client-server communication should be done through WebSocket messages as opposed to using HTTP
and REST. The answer is going to vary by application; however, it is likely that some functionality may be exposed over both WebSocket and as a
REST API in order to provide clients with alternatives. Furthermore, a REST API call may need to broadcast a message to interested clients
connected via WebSocket.

The Spring Framework allows @Controller and @RestController classes to have both HTTP request handling and WebSocket message
handling methods. Furthermore, a Spring MVC request handling method, or any application method for that matter, can easily broadcast a message
to all interested WebSocket clients or to a speciﬁc user.

26.2 WebSocket API
The Spring Framework provides a WebSocket API designed to adapt to various WebSocket engines. Currently the list includes WebSocket runtimes
such as Tomcat 7.0.47+, Jetty 9.1+, GlassFish 4.1+, WebLogic 12.1.3+, and Undertow 1.0+ (and WildFly 8.0+). Additional support may be added as
more WebSocket runtimes become available.

As explained in the introduction, direct use of a WebSocket API is too low level for applications — until assumptions are made about
the format of a message there is little a framework can do to interpret messages or route them via annotations. This is why applications
should consider using a sub-protocol and Spring’s STOMP over WebSocket support.
When using a higher level protocol, the details of the WebSocket API become less relevant, much like the details of TCP
communication are not exposed to applications when using HTTP. Nevertheless this section covers the details of using WebSocket
directly.

26.2.1 Create and Conﬁgure a WebSocketHandler

Creating a WebSocket server is as simple as implementing WebSocketHandler or more likely extending either TextWebSocketHandler or
BinaryWebSocketHandler :

import org.springframework.web.socket.WebSocketHandler;
import org.springframework.web.socket.WebSocketSession;
import org.springframework.web.socket.TextMessage;

public class MyHandler extends TextWebSocketHandler {

@Override
public void handleTextMessage(WebSocketSession session, TextMessage message) {
// ...
}

There is dedicated WebSocket Java-conﬁg and XML namespace support for mapping the above WebSocket handler to a speciﬁc URL:

import org.springframework.web.socket.config.annotation.EnableWebSocket;
import org.springframework.web.socket.config.annotation.WebSocketConfigurer;
import org.springframework.web.socket.config.annotation.WebSocketHandlerRegistry;

@Configuration
@EnableWebSocket
public class WebSocketConfig implements WebSocketConfigurer {

@Override
public void registerWebSocketHandlers(WebSocketHandlerRegistry registry) {
registry.addHandler(myHandler(), "/myHandler");
}

@Bean
public WebSocketHandler myHandler() {
return new MyHandler();
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 493/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
return new MyHandler();
}

XML conﬁguration equivalent:

<websocket:handlers>
<websocket:mapping path="/myHandler" handler="myHandler"/>
</websocket:handlers>

<bean id="myHandler" class="org.springframework.samples.MyHandler"/>

</beans>

The above is for use in Spring MVC applications and should be included in the conﬁguration of a DispatcherServlet. However, Spring’s WebSocket
support does not depend on Spring MVC. It is relatively simple to integrate a WebSocketHandler into other HTTP serving environments with the
help of WebSocketHttpRequestHandler.

26.2.2 Customizing the WebSocket Handshake

The easiest way to customize the initial HTTP WebSocket handshake request is through a HandshakeInterceptor , which exposes "before" and
"after" the handshake methods. Such an interceptor can be used to preclude the handshake or to make any attributes available to the
WebSocketSession . For example, there is a built-in interceptor for passing HTTP session attributes to the WebSocket session:

@Configuration
@EnableWebSocket
public class WebSocketConfig implements WebSocketConfigurer {

@Override
public void registerWebSocketHandlers(WebSocketHandlerRegistry registry) {
registry.addHandler(new MyHandler(), "/myHandler")
.addInterceptors(new HttpSessionHandshakeInterceptor());
}

And the XML conﬁguration equivalent:

<websocket:handlers>
<websocket:mapping path="/myHandler" handler="myHandler"/>
<websocket:handshake-interceptors>
<bean class="org.springframework.web.socket.server.support.HttpSessionHandshakeInterceptor"/>
</websocket:handshake-interceptors>
</websocket:handlers>

<bean id="myHandler" class="org.springframework.samples.MyHandler"/>

</beans>

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 494/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
A more advanced option is to extend the DefaultHandshakeHandler that performs the steps of the WebSocket handshake, including validating
the client origin, negotiating a sub-protocol, and others. An application may also need to use this option if it needs to configure a custom
RequestUpgradeStrategy in order to adapt to a WebSocket server engine and version that is not yet supported (also see Section 26.2.4,
“Deployment Considerations” for more on this subject). Both the Java-config and XML namespace make it possible to configure a custom
HandshakeHandler .

26.2.3 WebSocketHandler Decoration
Spring provides a WebSocketHandlerDecorator base class that can be used to decorate a WebSocketHandler with additional behavior.
Logging and exception handling implementations are provided and added by default when using the WebSocket Java-conﬁg or XML namespace.
The ExceptionWebSocketHandlerDecorator catches all uncaught exceptions arising from any WebSocketHandler method and closes the
WebSocket session with status 1011 that indicates a server error.

26.2.4 Deployment Considerations
The Spring WebSocket API is easy to integrate into a Spring MVC application where the DispatcherServlet serves both HTTP WebSocket
handshake as well as other HTTP requests. It is also easy to integrate into other HTTP processing scenarios by invoking
WebSocketHttpRequestHandler . This is convenient and easy to understand. However, special considerations apply with regards to JSR-356
runtimes.

The Java WebSocket API (JSR-356) provides two deployment mechanisms. The ﬁrst involves a Servlet container classpath scan (Servlet 3 feature)
at startup; and the other is a registration API to use at Servlet container initialization. Neither of these mechanism makes it possible to use a single
"front controller" for all HTTP processing — including WebSocket handshake and all other HTTP requests — such as Spring MVC’s
DispatcherServlet .

This is a signiﬁcant limitation of JSR-356 that Spring’s WebSocket support addresses by providing a server-speciﬁc RequestUpgradeStrategy
even when running in a JSR-356 runtime.

A request to overcome the above limitation in the Java WebSocket API has been created and can be followed at
WEBSOCKET_SPEC-211. Also note that Tomcat and Jetty already provide native API alternatives that makes it easy to overcome the
limitation. We are hopeful that more servers will follow their example regardless of when it is addressed in the Java WebSocket API.

A secondary consideration is that Servlet containers with JSR-356 support are expected to perform a ServletContainerInitializer (SCI)
scan that can slow down application startup, in some cases dramatically. If a signiﬁcant impact is observed after an upgrade to a Servlet container
version with JSR-356 support, it should be possible to selectively enable or disable web fragments (and SCI scanning) through the use of the
<absolute-ordering /> element in web.xml :

<web-app xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="
http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee
http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_0.xsd"
version="3.0">

<absolute-ordering/>

</web-app>

You can then selectively enable web fragments by name, such as Spring’s own SpringServletContainerInitializer that provides support
for the Servlet 3 Java initialization API, if required:

<absolute-ordering>
<name>spring_web</name>
</absolute-ordering>

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 495/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

</web-app>

26.2.5 Conﬁguring the WebSocket Engine

Each underlying WebSocket engine exposes conﬁguration properties that control runtime characteristics such as the size of message buffer sizes,
idle timeout, and others.

For Tomcat, WildFly, and GlassFish add a ServletServerContainerFactoryBean to your WebSocket Java conﬁg:

@Configuration
@EnableWebSocket
public class WebSocketConfig implements WebSocketConfigurer {

@Bean
public ServletServerContainerFactoryBean createWebSocketContainer() {
ServletServerContainerFactoryBean container = new ServletServerContainerFactoryBean();
container.setMaxTextMessageBufferSize(8192);
container.setMaxBinaryMessageBufferSize(8192);
return container;
}

or WebSocket XML namespace:

</beans>

For client side WebSocket conﬁguration, you should use WebSocketContainerFactoryBean (XML) or
ContainerProvider.getWebSocketContainer() (Java conﬁg).

For Jetty, you’ll need to supply a pre-conﬁgured Jetty WebSocketServerFactory and plug that into Spring’s DefaultHandshakeHandler
through your WebSocket Java conﬁg:

@Configuration
@EnableWebSocket
public class WebSocketConfig implements WebSocketConfigurer {

@Override
public void registerWebSocketHandlers(WebSocketHandlerRegistry registry) {
registry.addHandler(echoWebSocketHandler(),
"/echo").setHandshakeHandler(handshakeHandler());
}

@Bean
public DefaultHandshakeHandler handshakeHandler() {

WebSocketPolicy policy = new WebSocketPolicy(WebSocketBehavior.SERVER);

policy.setInputBufferSize(8192);
policy.setIdleTimeout(600000);

return new DefaultHandshakeHandler(

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 496/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
return new DefaultHandshakeHandler(
new JettyRequestUpgradeStrategy(new WebSocketServerFactory(policy)));
}

or WebSocket XML namespace:

<websocket:handlers>
<websocket:mapping path="/echo" handler="echoHandler"/>
<websocket:handshake-handler ref="handshakeHandler"/>
</websocket:handlers>

<bean id="handshakeHandler" class="org.springframework...DefaultHandshakeHandler">

<constructor-arg ref="upgradeStrategy"/>
</bean>

<bean id="upgradeStrategy" class="org.springframework...JettyRequestUpgradeStrategy">

<constructor-arg ref="serverFactory"/>
</bean>

<bean id="serverFactory" class="org.eclipse.jetty...WebSocketServerFactory">

<constructor-arg>
<bean class="org.eclipse.jetty...WebSocketPolicy">
<constructor-arg value="SERVER"/>
<property name="inputBufferSize" value="8092"/>
<property name="idleTimeout" value="600000"/>
</bean>
</constructor-arg>
</bean>

</beans>

26.2.6 Conﬁguring allowed origins

As of Spring Framework 4.1.5, the default behavior for WebSocket and SockJS is to accept only same origin requests. It is also possible to allow all
or a speciﬁed list of origins. This check is mostly designed for browser clients. There is nothing preventing other types of clients from modifying the
Origin header value (see RFC 6454: The Web Origin Concept for more details).

The 3 possible behaviors are:

Allow only same origin requests (default): in this mode, when SockJS is enabled, the Iframe HTTP response header X-Frame-Options is set
to SAMEORIGIN , and JSONP transport is disabled since it does not allow to check the origin of a request. As a consequence, IE6 and IE7 are
not supported when this mode is enabled.
Allow a speciﬁed list of origins: each provided allowed origin must start with http:// or https:// . In this mode, when SockJS is enabled,
both IFrame and JSONP based transports are disabled. As a consequence, IE6 through IE9 are not supported when this mode is enabled.
Allow all origins: to enable this mode, you should provide * as the allowed origin value. In this mode, all transports are available.

WebSocket and SockJS allowed origins can be conﬁgured as shown bellow:

@Configuration
@EnableWebSocket
public class WebSocketConfig implements WebSocketConfigurer {

@Override
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 497/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
@Override
public void registerWebSocketHandlers(WebSocketHandlerRegistry registry) {
registry.addHandler(myHandler(), "/myHandler").setAllowedOrigins("http://mydomain.com");
}

@Bean
public WebSocketHandler myHandler() {
return new MyHandler();
}

XML conﬁguration equivalent:

<websocket:handlers allowed-origins="http://mydomain.com">
<websocket:mapping path="/myHandler" handler="myHandler" />
</websocket:handlers>

<bean id="myHandler" class="org.springframework.samples.MyHandler"/>

</beans>

26.3 SockJS Fallback Options

As explained in the introduction, WebSocket is not supported in all browsers yet and may be precluded by restrictive network proxies. This is why
Spring provides fallback options that emulate the WebSocket API as close as possible based on the SockJS protocol (version 0.3.3).

26.3.1 Overview of SockJS
The goal of SockJS is to let applications use a WebSocket API but fall back to non-WebSocket alternatives when necessary at runtime, i.e. without
the need to change application code.

SockJS consists of:

The SockJS protocol deﬁned in the form of executable narrated tests.

The SockJS JavaScript client - a client library for use in browsers.
SockJS server implementations including one in the Spring Framework spring-websocket module.
As of 4.1 spring-websocket also provides a SockJS Java client.

SockJS is designed for use in browsers. It goes to great lengths to support a wide range of browser versions using a variety of techniques. For the
full list of SockJS transport types and browsers see the SockJS client page. Transports fall in 3 general categories: WebSocket, HTTP Streaming,
and HTTP Long Polling. For an overview of these categories see this blog post.

The SockJS client begins by sending "GET /info" to obtain basic information from the server. After that it must decide what transport to use. If
possible WebSocket is used. If not, in most browsers there is at least one HTTP streaming option and if not then HTTP (long) polling is used.

All transport requests have the following URL structure:

http://host:port/myApp/myEndpoint/{server-id}/{session-id}/{transport}

{server-id} - useful for routing requests in a cluster but not used otherwise.
{session-id} - correlates HTTP requests belonging to a SockJS session.
{transport} - indicates the transport type, e.g. "websocket", "xhr-streaming", etc.

The WebSocket transport needs only a single HTTP request to do the WebSocket handshake. All messages thereafter are exchanged on that
socket.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 498/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
HTTP transports require more requests. Ajax/XHR streaming for example relies on one long-running request for server-to-client messages and
additional HTTP POST requests for client-to-server messages. Long polling is similar except it ends the current request after each server-to-client
send.

SockJS adds minimal message framing. For example the server sends the letter o ("open" frame) initially, messages are sent as
a["message1","message2"] (JSON-encoded array), the letter h ("heartbeat" frame) if no messages ﬂow for 25 seconds by default, and the letter c
("close" frame) to close the session.

To learn more, run an example in a browser and watch the HTTP requests. The SockJS client allows ﬁxing the list of transports so it is possible to
see each transport one at a time. The SockJS client also provides a debug ﬂag which enables helpful messages in the browser console. On the
server side enable TRACE logging for org.springframework.web.socket . For even more detail refer to the SockJS protocol narrated test.

26.3.2 Enable SockJS
SockJS is easy to enable through Java conﬁguration:

@Configuration
@EnableWebSocket
public class WebSocketConfig implements WebSocketConfigurer {

@Override
public void registerWebSocketHandlers(WebSocketHandlerRegistry registry) {
registry.addHandler(myHandler(), "/myHandler").withSockJS();
}

@Bean
public WebSocketHandler myHandler() {
return new MyHandler();
}

and the XML conﬁguration equivalent:

<websocket:handlers>
<websocket:mapping path="/myHandler" handler="myHandler"/>
<websocket:sockjs/>
</websocket:handlers>

<bean id="myHandler" class="org.springframework.samples.MyHandler"/>

</beans>

The above is for use in Spring MVC applications and should be included in the conﬁguration of a DispatcherServlet. However, Spring’s WebSocket
and SockJS support does not depend on Spring MVC. It is relatively simple to integrate into other HTTP serving environments with the help of
SockJsHttpRequestHandler.

On the browser side, applications can use the sockjs-client (version 1.0.x) that emulates the W3C WebSocket API and communicates with the server
to select the best transport option depending on the browser it’s running in. Review the sockjs-client page and the list of transport types supported by
browser. The client also provides several conﬁguration options, for example, to specify which transports to include.

26.3.3 HTTP Streaming in IE 8, 9: Ajax/XHR vs IFrame

Internet Explorer 8 and 9 are and will remain common for some time. They are a key reason for having SockJS. This section covers important
considerations about running in those browsers.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 499/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The SockJS client supports Ajax/XHR streaming in IE 8 and 9 via Microsoft’s XDomainRequest. That works across domains but does not support
sending cookies. Cookies are very often essential for Java applications. However since the SockJS client can be used with many server types (not
just Java ones), it needs to know whether cookies matter. If so the SockJS client prefers Ajax/XHR for streaming or otherwise it relies on a iframe-
based technique.

The very ﬁrst "/info" request from the SockJS client is a request for information that can inﬂuence the client’s choice of transports. One of those
details is whether the server application relies on cookies, e.g. for authentication purposes or clustering with sticky sessions. Spring’s SockJS
support includes a property called sessionCookieNeeded . It is enabled by default since most Java applications rely on the JSESSIONID
cookie. If your application does not need it, you can turn off this option and the SockJS client should choose xdr-streaming in IE 8 and 9.

If you do use an iframe-based transport, and in any case, it is good to know that browsers can be instructed to block the use of IFrames on a given
page by setting the HTTP response header X-Frame-Options to DENY , SAMEORIGIN , or ALLOW-FROM <origin> . This is used to prevent
clickjacking.

Spring Security 3.2+ provides support for setting X-Frame-Options on every response. By default the Spring Security Java config
sets it to DENY . In 3.2 the Spring Security XML namespace does not set that header by default but may be configured to do so, and in
the future it may set it by default.
See Section 7.1. "Default Security Headers" of the Spring Security documentation for details on how to configure the setting of the
X-Frame-Options header. You may also check or watch SEC-2501 for additional background.

If your application adds the X-Frame-Options response header (as it should!) and relies on an iframe-based transport, you will need to set the
header value to SAMEORIGIN or ALLOW-FROM <origin> . Along with that the Spring SockJS support also needs to know the location of the
SockJS client because it is loaded from the iframe. By default the iframe is set to download the SockJS client from a CDN location. It is a good idea
to conﬁgure this option to a URL from the same origin as the application.

In Java conﬁg this can be done as shown below. The XML namespace provides a similar option via the <websocket:sockjs> element:

@Configuration
@EnableWebSocket
public class WebSocketConfig implements WebSocketConfigurer {

@Override
public void registerStompEndpoints(StompEndpointRegistry registry) {
registry.addEndpoint("/portfolio").withSockJS()
.setClientLibraryUrl("http://localhost:8080/myapp/js/sockjs-client.js");
}

// ...

During initial development, do enable the SockJS client devel mode that prevents the browser from caching SockJS requests (like
the iframe) that would otherwise be cached. For details on how to enable it see the SockJS client page.

26.3.4 Heartbeat Messages
The SockJS protocol requires servers to send heartbeat messages to preclude proxies from concluding a connection is hung. The Spring SockJS
conﬁguration has a property called heartbeatTime that can be used to customize the frequency. By default a heartbeat is sent after 25 seconds
assuming no other messages were sent on that connection. This 25 seconds value is in line with the following IETF recommendation for public
Internet applications.

When using STOMP over WebSocket/SockJS, if the STOMP client and server negotiate heartbeats to be exchanged, the SockJS
heartbeats are disabled.

The Spring SockJS support also allows conﬁguring the TaskScheduler to use for scheduling heartbeats tasks. The task scheduler is backed by a
thread pool with default settings based on the number of available processors. Applications should consider customizing the settings according to
their speciﬁc needs.
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 500/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

26.3.5 Servlet 3 Async Requests

HTTP streaming and HTTP long polling SockJS transports require a connection to remain open longer than usual. For an overview of these
techniques see this blog post.

In Servlet containers this is done through Servlet 3 async support that allows exiting the Servlet container thread processing a request and
continuing to write to the response from another thread.

A speciﬁc issue is that the Servlet API does not provide notiﬁcations for a client that has gone away, see SERVLET_SPEC-44. However, Servlet
containers raise an exception on subsequent attempts to write to the response. Since Spring’s SockJS Service supports sever-sent heartbeats
(every 25 seconds by default), that means a client disconnect is usually detected within that time period or earlier if messages are sent more
frequently.

As a result network IO failures may occur simply because a client has disconnected, which can fill the log with unnecessary stack
traces. Spring makes a best effort to identify such network failures that represent client disconnects (specific to each server) and log a
minimal message using the dedicated log category DISCONNECTED_CLIENT_LOG_CATEGORY defined in
AbstractSockJsSession . If you need to see the stack traces, set that log category to TRACE.

26.3.6 CORS Headers for SockJS

If you allow cross-origin requests (see Section 26.2.6, “Conﬁguring allowed origins”), the SockJS protocol uses CORS for cross-domain support in
the XHR streaming and polling transports. Therefore CORS headers are added automatically unless the presence of CORS headers in the response
is detected. So if an application is already conﬁgured to provide CORS support, e.g. through a Servlet Filter, Spring’s SockJsService will skip this
part.

It is also possible to disable the addition of these CORS headers via the suppressCors property in Spring’s SockJsService.

The following is the list of headers and values expected by SockJS:

"Access-Control-Allow-Origin" - initialized from the value of the "Origin" request header.

"Access-Control-Allow-Credentials" - always set to true .
"Access-Control-Request-Headers" - initialized from values from the equivalent request header.
"Access-Control-Allow-Methods" - the HTTP methods a transport supports (see TransportType enum).
"Access-Control-Max-Age" - set to 31536000 (1 year).

For the exact implementation see addCorsHeaders in AbstractSockJsService as well as the TransportType enum in the source code.

Alternatively if the CORS conﬁguration allows it consider excluding URLs with the SockJS endpoint preﬁx thus letting Spring’s SockJsService
handle it.

26.3.7 SockJS Client
A SockJS Java client is provided in order to connect to remote SockJS endpoints without using a browser. This can be especially useful when there
is a need for bidirectional communication between 2 servers over a public network, i.e. where network proxies may preclude the use of the
WebSocket protocol. A SockJS Java client is also very useful for testing purposes, for example to simulate a large number of concurrent users.

The SockJS Java client supports the "websocket", "xhr-streaming", and "xhr-polling" transports. The remaining ones only make sense for use in a
browser.

The WebSocketTransport can be conﬁgured with:

StandardWebSocketClient in a JSR-356 runtime

JettyWebSocketClient using the Jetty 9+ native WebSocket API
Any implementation of Spring’s WebSocketClient

An XhrTransport by deﬁnition supports both "xhr-streaming" and "xhr-polling" since from a client perspective there is no difference other than in
the URL used to connect to the server. At present there are two implementations:

RestTemplateXhrTransport uses Spring’s RestTemplate for HTTP requests.

JettyXhrTransport uses Jetty’s HttpClient for HTTP requests.

The example below shows how to create a SockJS client and connect to a SockJS endpoint:

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 501/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

List<Transport> transports = new ArrayList<>(2);

transports.add(new WebSocketTransport(new StandardWebSocketClient()));
transports.add(new RestTemplateXhrTransport());

SockJsClient sockJsClient = new SockJsClient(transports);

sockJsClient.doHandshake(new MyWebSocketHandler(), "ws://example.com:8080/sockjs");

SockJS uses JSON formatted arrays for messages. By default Jackson 2 is used and needs to be on the classpath. Alternatively you
can conﬁgure a custom implementation of SockJsMessageCodec and conﬁgure it on the SockJsClient .

To use the SockJsClient for simulating a large number of concurrent users you will need to conﬁgure the underlying HTTP client (for XHR transports)
to allow a sufﬁcient number of connections and threads. For example with Jetty:

HttpClient jettyHttpClient = new HttpClient();

jettyHttpClient.setMaxConnectionsPerDestination(1000);
jettyHttpClient.setExecutor(new QueuedThreadPool(1000));

Consider also customizing these server-side SockJS related properties (see Javadoc for details):

@Configuration
public class WebSocketConfig extends WebSocketMessageBrokerConfigurationSupport {

@Override
public void registerStompEndpoints(StompEndpointRegistry registry) {
registry.addEndpoint("/sockjs").withSockJS()
.setStreamBytesLimit(512 * 1024)
.setHttpMessageCacheSize(1000)
.setDisconnectDelay(30 * 1000);
}

// ...

26.4 STOMP Over WebSocket Messaging Architecture

The WebSocket protocol defines two types of messages, text and binary, but their content is undefined. It’s expected that the client and server may
agree on using a sub-protocol (i.e. a higher-level protocol) to define message semantics. While the use of a sub-protocol with WebSocket is
completely optional either way client and server will need to agree on some kind of protocol to help interpret messages.

26.4.1 Overview of STOMP
STOMP is a simple text-oriented messaging protocol that was originally created for scripting languages such as Ruby, Python, and Perl to connect to
enterprise message brokers. It is designed to address a subset of commonly used messaging patterns. STOMP can be used over any reliable 2-way
streaming network protocol such as TCP and WebSocket. Although STOMP is a text-oriented protocol, the payload of messages can be either text
or binary.

STOMP is a frame based protocol whose frames are modeled on HTTP. The structure of a STOMP frame:

COMMAND
header1:value1
header2:value2

Body^@

Clients can use the SEND or SUBSCRIBE commands to send or subscribe for messages along with a "destination" header that describes what the
message is about and who should receive it. This enables a simple publish-subscribe mechanism that can be used to send messages through the
broker to other connected clients or to send messages to the server to request that some work be performed.

When using Spring’s STOMP support, the Spring WebSocket application acts as the STOMP broker to clients. Messages are routed to
@Controller message-handling methods or to a simple, in-memory broker that keeps track of subscriptions and broadcasts messages to
subscribed users. You can also conﬁgure Spring to work with a dedicated STOMP broker (e.g. RabbitMQ, ActiveMQ, etc) for the actual broadcasting
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 502/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
of messages. In that case Spring maintains TCP connections to the broker, relays messages to it, and also passes messages from it down to
connected WebSocket clients. Thus Spring web applications can rely on uniﬁed HTTP-based security, common validation, and a familiar
programming model message-handling work.

Here is an example of a client subscribing to receive stock quotes which the server may emit periodically e.g. via a scheduled task sending
messages through a SimpMessagingTemplate to the broker:

SUBSCRIBE
id:sub-1
destination:/topic/price.stock.*

Here is an example of a client sending a trade request, which the server may handle through an @MessageMapping method and later on, after the
execution, broadcast a trade conﬁrmation message and details down to the client:

SEND
destination:/queue/trade
content-type:application/json
content-length:44

{"action":"BUY","ticker":"MMM","shares",44}^@

The meaning of a destination is intentionally left opaque in the STOMP spec. It can be any string, and it’s entirely up to STOMP servers to deﬁne the
semantics and the syntax of the destinations that they support. It is very common, however, for destinations to be path-like strings where
"/topic/.." implies publish-subscribe (one-to-many) and "/queue/" implies point-to-point (one-to-one) message exchanges.

STOMP servers can use the MESSAGE command to broadcast messages to all subscribers. Here is an example of a server sending a stock quote
to a subscribed client:

MESSAGE
message-id:nxahklf6-1
subscription:sub-1
destination:/topic/price.stock.MMM

{"ticker":"MMM","price":129.45}^@

It is important to know that a server cannot send unsolicited messages. All messages from a server must be in response to a speciﬁc client
subscription, and the "subscription-id" header of the server message must match the "id" header of the client subscription.

The above overview is intended to provide the most basic understanding of the STOMP protocol. It is recommended to review the protocol
speciﬁcation in full.

The beneﬁts of using STOMP as a WebSocket sub-protocol:

No need to invent a custom message format

Use existing stomp.js client in the browser
Ability to route messages to based on destination
Option to use full-ﬂedged message broker such as RabbitMQ, ActiveMQ, etc. for broadcasting

Most importantly the use of STOMP (vs plain WebSocket) enables the Spring Framework to provide a programming model for application-level use
in the same way that Spring MVC provides a programming model based on HTTP.

26.4.2 Enable STOMP over WebSocket

The Spring Framework provides support for using STOMP over WebSocket through the spring-messaging and spring-websocket modules. Here is
an example of exposing a STOMP WebSocket/SockJS endpoint at the URL path /portfolio where messages whose destination starts with
"/app" are routed to message-handling methods (i.e. application work) and messages whose destinations start with "/topic" or "/queue" will be routed
to the message broker (i.e. broadcasting to other connected clients):

import org.springframework.web.socket.config.annotation.EnableWebSocketMessageBroker;
import org.springframework.web.socket.config.annotation.StompEndpointRegistry;

@Configuration
@EnableWebSocketMessageBroker
public class WebSocketConfig implements WebSocketMessageBrokerConfigurer {
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 503/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
public class WebSocketConfig implements WebSocketMessageBrokerConfigurer {

@Override
public void registerStompEndpoints(StompEndpointRegistry registry) {
registry.addEndpoint("/portfolio").withSockJS();
}

@Override
public void configureMessageBroker(MessageBrokerRegistry config) {
config.setApplicationDestinationPrefixes("/app");
config.enableSimpleBroker("/topic", "/queue");
}

and in XML:

<websocket:message-broker application-destination-prefix="/app">
<websocket:stomp-endpoint path="/portfolio">
<websocket:sockjs/>
</websocket:stomp-endpoint>
<websocket:simple-broker prefix="/topic, /queue"/>
</websocket:message-broker>

</beans>

The "/app" prefix is arbitrary. You can pick any prefix. It’s simply meant to differentiate messages to be routed to message-handling
methods to do application work vs messages to be routed to the broker to broadcast to subscribed clients.
The "/topic" and "/queue" prefixes depend on the broker in use. In the case of the simple, in-memory broker the prefixes do not have
any special meaning; it’s merely a convention that indicates how the destination is used (pub-sub targetting many subscribers or point-
to-point messages typically targeting an individual recipient). In the case of using a dedicated broker, most brokers use "/topic" as a
prefix for destinations with pub-sub semantics and "/queue" for destinations with point-to-point semantics. Check the STOMP page of
the broker to see the destination semantics it supports.

On the browser side, a client might connect as follows using stomp.js and the sockjs-client:

var socket = new SockJS("/spring-websocket-portfolio/portfolio");

var stompClient = Stomp.over(socket);

stompClient.connect({}, function(frame) {
}

Or if connecting via WebSocket (without SockJS):

var socket = new WebSocket("/spring-websocket-portfolio/portfolio");

var stompClient = Stomp.over(socket);

stompClient.connect({}, function(frame) {
}

Note that the stompClient above does not need to specify login and passcode headers. Even if it did, they would be ignored, or rather
overridden, on the server side. See the sections Section 26.4.8, “Connections To Full-Featured Broker” and Section 26.4.10, “Authentication” for
more information on authentication.

26.4.3 Flow of Messages

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 504/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
When a STOMP endpoint is conﬁgured, the Spring application acts as the STOMP broker to connected clients. This section provides a big picture
overview of how messages ﬂow within the application.

The spring-messaging module provides the foundation for asynchronous message processing. It contains a number of abstractions that
originated in the Spring Integration project and are intended for use as building blocks in messaging applications:

Message — a message with headers and a payload.

MessageHandler — a contract for handling a message.
MessageChannel — a contract for sending a message enabling loose coupling between senders and receivers.
SubscribableChannel — extends MessageChannel and sends messages to registered MessageHandler subscribers.
ExecutorSubscribableChannel — a concrete implementation of SubscribableChannel that can deliver messages asynchronously via a
thread pool.

The @EnableWebSocketMessageBroker Java config and the <websocket:message-broker> XML config both assemble a concrete
message flow. Below is a diagram of the part of the setup when using the simple, in-memory broker:

The above setup that includes 3 message channels:

"clientInboundChannel" for messages from WebSocket clients.

"clientOutboundChannel" for messages to WebSocket clients.
"brokerChannel" for messages to the broker from within the application.

The same three channels are also used with a dedicated broker except here a "broker relay" takes the place of the simple broker:

Messages on the "clientInboundChannel" can flow to annotated methods for application handling (e.g. a stock trade execution request) or
can be forwarded to the broker (e.g. client subscribing for stock quotes). The STOMP destination is used for simple prefix-based routing. For
example the "/app" prefix could route messages to annotated methods while the "/topic" and "/queue" prefixes could route messages to the broker.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 505/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
When a message-handling annotated method has a return type, its return value is sent as the payload of a Spring Message to the
"brokerChannel" . The broker in turn broadcasts the message to clients. Sending a message to a destination can also be done from anywhere in
the application with the help of a messaging template. For example, an HTTP POST handling method can broadcast a message to connected
clients, or a service component may periodically broadcast stock quotes.

Below is a simple example to illustrate the ﬂow of messages:

@Configuration
@EnableWebSocketMessageBroker
public class WebSocketConfig implements WebSocketMessageBrokerConfigurer {

@Override
public void registerStompEndpoints(StompEndpointRegistry registry) {
registry.addEndpoint("/portfolio");
}

@Override
public void configureMessageBroker(MessageBrokerRegistry registry) {
registry.setApplicationDestinationPrefixes("/app");
registry.enableSimpleBroker("/topic");
}

@Controller
public class GreetingController {

@MessageMapping("/greeting") {
public String handle(String greeting) {
return "[" + getTimestamp() + ": " + greeting;
}

The following explains the message ﬂow for the above example:

WebSocket clients connect to the WebSocket endpoint at "/portfolio".

Subscriptions to "/topic/greeting" pass through the "clientInboundChannel" and are forwarded to the broker.
Greetings sent to "/app/greeting" pass through the "clientInboundChannel" and are forwarded to the GreetingController . The controller
adds the current time, and the return value is passed through the "brokerChannel" as a message to "/topic/greeting" (destination is selected
based on a convention but can be overridden via @SendTo ).
The broker in turn broadcasts messages to subscribers, and they pass through the "clientOutboundChannel" .

The next section provides more details on annotated methods including the kinds of arguments and return values supported.

26.4.4 Annotation Message Handling

The @MessageMapping annotation is supported on methods of @Controller classes. It can be used for mapping methods to message
destinations and can also be combined with the type-level @MessageMapping for expressing shared mappings across all annotated methods
within a controller.

By default destination mappings are treated as Ant-style, slash-separated, path patterns, e.g. "/foo*", "/foo/**". etc. They can also contain template
variables, e.g. "/foo/{id}" that can then be referenced via @DestinationVariable -annotated method arguments.

Applications can also use dot-separated destinations (vs slash). See Section 26.4.9, “Using Dot as Separator in @MessageMapping
Destinations”.

The following method arguments are supported for @MessageMapping methods:

Message method argument to get access to the complete message being processed.
@Payload -annotated argument for access to the payload of a message, converted with a
org.springframework.messaging.converter.MessageConverter . The presence of the annotation is not required since it is assumed
by default. Payload method arguments annotated with validation annotations (like @Validated ) will be subject to JSR-303 validation.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 506/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
@Header -annotated arguments for access to a speciﬁc header value along with type conversion using an
org.springframework.core.convert.converter.Converter if necessary.
@Headers -annotated method argument that must also be assignable to java.util.Map for access to all headers in the message.
MessageHeaders method argument for getting access to a map of all headers.
MessageHeaderAccessor , SimpMessageHeaderAccessor , or StompHeaderAccessor for access to headers via typed accessor
methods.
@DestinationVariable -annotated arguments for access to template variables extracted from the message destination. Values will be
converted to the declared method argument type as necessary.
java.security.Principal method arguments reﬂecting the user logged in at the time of the WebSocket HTTP handshake.

A return value from an @MessageMapping method will be converted with a

org.springframework.messaging.converter.MessageConverter and used as the body of a new message that is then sent, by default,
to the "brokerChannel" with the same destination as the client message but using the preﬁx "/topic" by default. An @SendTo message
level annotation can be used to specify any other destination instead. It can also be set a class-level to share a common destination.

A response message may also be provided asynchronously via a ListenableFuture or CompletableFuture / CompletionStage return
type signature, analogous to deferred results in an MVC handler method.

A @SubscribeMapping annotation can be used to map subscription requests to @Controller methods. It is supported on the method level, but
can also be combined with a type level @MessageMapping annotation that expresses shared mappings across all message handling methods
within the same controller.

By default the return value from an @SubscribeMapping method is sent as a message directly back to the connected client and does not pass
through the broker. This is useful for implementing request-reply message interactions; for example, to fetch application data when the application UI
is being initialized. Or alternatively an @SubscribeMapping method can be annotated with @SendTo in which case the resulting message is sent
to the "brokerChannel" using the speciﬁed target destination.

In some cases a controller may need to be decorated with an AOP proxy at runtime. One example is if you choose to have
@Transactional annotations directly on the controller. When this is the case, for controllers speciﬁcally, we recommend using
class-based proxying. This is typically the default choice with controllers. However if a controller must implement an interface that is
not a Spring Context callback (e.g. InitializingBean , *Aware , etc), you may need to explicitly conﬁgure class-based proxying.
For example with <tx:annotation-driven /> , change to <tx:annotation-driven proxy-target-class="true" /> .

26.4.5 Sending Messages
What if you want to send messages to connected clients from any part of the application? Any application component can send messages to the
"brokerChannel" . The easiest way to do that is to have a SimpMessagingTemplate injected, and use it to send messages. Typically it
should be easy to have it injected by type, for example:

@Controller
public class GreetingController {

private SimpMessagingTemplate template;

@Autowired
public GreetingController(SimpMessagingTemplate template) {
this.template = template;
}

@RequestMapping(path="/greetings", method=POST)
public void greet(String greeting) {
String text = "[" + getTimestamp() + "]:" + greeting;
this.template.convertAndSend("/topic/greetings", text);
}

But it can also be qualiﬁed by its name "brokerMessagingTemplate" if another bean of the same type exists.

26.4.6 Simple Broker

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 507/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The built-in, simple message broker handles subscription requests from clients, stores them in memory, and broadcasts messages to connected
clients with matching destinations. The broker supports path-like destinations, including subscriptions to Ant-style destination patterns.

Applications can also use dot-separated destinations (vs slash). See Section 26.4.9, “Using Dot as Separator in @MessageMapping
Destinations”.

26.4.7 Full-Featured Broker
The simple broker is great for getting started but supports only a subset of STOMP commands (e.g. no acks, receipts, etc.), relies on a simple
message sending loop, and is not suitable for clustering. As an alternative, applications can upgrade to using a full-featured message broker.

Check the STOMP documentation for your message broker of choice (e.g. RabbitMQ, ActiveMQ, etc.), install the broker, and run it with STOMP
support enabled. Then enable the STOMP broker relay in the Spring conﬁguration instead of the simple broker.

Below is example conﬁguration that enables a full-featured broker:

@Configuration
@EnableWebSocketMessageBroker
public class WebSocketConfig implements WebSocketMessageBrokerConfigurer {

@Override
public void registerStompEndpoints(StompEndpointRegistry registry) {
registry.addEndpoint("/portfolio").withSockJS();
}

@Override
public void configureMessageBroker(MessageBrokerRegistry registry) {
registry.enableStompBrokerRelay("/topic", "/queue");
registry.setApplicationDestinationPrefixes("/app");
}

XML conﬁguration equivalent:

<websocket:message-broker application-destination-prefix="/app">
<websocket:stomp-endpoint path="/portfolio" />
<websocket:sockjs/>
</websocket:stomp-endpoint>
<websocket:stomp-broker-relay prefix="/topic,/queue" />
</websocket:message-broker>

</beans>

The "STOMP broker relay" in the above conﬁguration is a Spring MessageHandler that handles messages by forwarding them to an external
message broker. To do so it establishes TCP connections to the broker, forwards all messages to it, and then forwards all messages received from
the broker to clients through their WebSocket sessions. Essentially it acts as a "relay" that forwards messages in both directions.

Spring uses org.projectreactor:reactor-net and io.netty:netty-all for managing TCP connections to the broker
both of which need to be added as project dependencies.
The STOMP broker support in Spring Framework 4.3.x is compatible with the 2.0.x generation of Reactor. Therefore it is not supported
in combination with the spring-cloud-stream-reactive module which requires Reactor 3.x.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 508/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Spring Framework 5 relies on Reactor 3 and Reactor Netty, which has independent versioning, for TCP connections to the STOMP
broker but also to provide broad support for reactive programming models.

Furthermore, application components (e.g. HTTP request handling methods, business services, etc.) can also send messages to the broker relay, as
described in Section 26.4.5, “Sending Messages”, in order to broadcast messages to subscribed WebSocket clients.

In effect, the broker relay enables robust and scalable message broadcasting.

26.4.8 Connections To Full-Featured Broker

A STOMP broker relay maintains a single "system" TCP connection to the broker. This connection is used for messages originating from the server-
side application only, not for receiving messages. You can conﬁgure the STOMP credentials for this connection, i.e. the STOMP frame login and
passcode headers. This is exposed in both the XML namespace and the Java conﬁg as the systemLogin / systemPasscode properties with
default values guest / guest .

The STOMP broker relay also creates a separate TCP connection for every connected WebSocket client. You can conﬁgure the STOMP credentials
to use for all TCP connections created on behalf of clients. This is exposed in both the XML namespace and the Java conﬁg as the
clientLogin / clientPasscode properties with default values guest / guest .

The STOMP broker relay always sets the login and passcode headers on every CONNECT frame that it forwards to the broker on
behalf of clients. Therefore WebSocket clients need not set those headers; they will be ignored. As the following section explains,
instead WebSocket clients should rely on HTTP authentication to protect the WebSocket endpoint and establish the client identity.

The STOMP broker relay also sends and receives heartbeats to and from the message broker over the "system" TCP connection. You can conﬁgure
the intervals for sending and receiving heartbeats (10 seconds each by default). If connectivity to the broker is lost, the broker relay will continue to
try to reconnect, every 5 seconds, until it succeeds.

A Spring bean can implement ApplicationListener<BrokerAvailabilityEvent> in order to receive notiﬁcations when the
"system" connection to the broker is lost and re-established. For example a Stock Quote service broadcasting stock quotes can stop
trying to send messages when there is no active "system" connection.

The STOMP broker relay can also be conﬁgured with a virtualHost property. The value of this property will be set as the host header of every
CONNECT frame and may be useful for example in a cloud environment where the actual host to which the TCP connection is established is
different from the host providing the cloud-based STOMP service.

26.4.9 Using Dot as Separator in @MessageMapping Destinations

Although slash-separated path patterns are familiar to web developers, in messaging it is common to use a "." as the separator, for example in the
names of topics, queues, exchanges, etc. Applications can also switch to using "." (dot) instead of "/" (slash) as the separator in
@MessageMapping mappings by conﬁguring a custom AntPathMatcher .

In Java conﬁg:

@Configuration
@EnableWebSocketMessageBroker
public class WebSocketConfig extends AbstractWebSocketMessageBrokerConfigurer {

// ...

@Override
public void configureMessageBroker(MessageBrokerRegistry registry) {
registry.enableStompBrokerRelay("/queue/", "/topic/");
registry.setApplicationDestinationPrefixes("/app");
registry.setPathMatcher(new AntPathMatcher("."));
}

In XML conﬁg:

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 509/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:websocket="http://www.springframework.org/schema/websocket"
xsi:schemaLocation="
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/websocket
http://www.springframework.org/schema/websocket/spring-websocket.xsd">

<websocket:message-broker application-destination-prefix="/app" path-matcher="pathMatcher">

<websocket:stomp-endpoint path="/stomp" />
<websocket:simple-broker prefix="/topic, /queue"/>
</websocket:message-broker>

<bean id="pathMatcher" class="org.springframework.util.AntPathMatcher">

<constructor-arg index="0" value="." />
</bean>

</beans>

And below is a simple example to illustrate a controller with "." separator:

@Controller
@MessageMapping("foo")
public class FooController {

@MessageMapping("bar.{baz}")
public void handleBaz(@DestinationVariable String baz) {
}

If the application preﬁx is set to "/app" then the foo method is effectively mapped to "/app/foo.bar.{baz}".

26.4.10 Authentication
Every STOMP over WebSocket messaging session begins with an HTTP request — that can be a request to upgrade to WebSockets (i.e. a
WebSocket handshake) or in the case of SockJS fallbacks a series of SockJS HTTP transport requests.

Web applications already have authentication and authorization in place to secure HTTP requests. Typically a user is authenticated via Spring
Security using some mechanism such as a login page, HTTP basic authentication, or other. The security context for the authenticated user is saved
in the HTTP session and is associated with subsequent requests in the same cookie-based session.

Therefore for a WebSocket handshake, or for SockJS HTTP transport requests, typically there will already be an authenticated user accessible via
HttpServletRequest#getUserPrincipal() . Spring automatically associates that user with a WebSocket or SockJS session created for them
and subsequently with all STOMP messages transported over that session through a user header.

In short there is nothing special a typical web application needs to do above and beyond what it already does for security. The user is authenticated
at the HTTP request level with a security context maintained through a cookie-based HTTP session which is then associated with WebSocket or
SockJS sessions created for that user and results in a user header stamped on every Message ﬂowing through the application.

Note that the STOMP protocol does have a "login" and "passcode" headers on the CONNECT frame. Those were originally designed for and are still
needed for example for STOMP over TCP. However for STOMP over WebSocket by default Spring ignores authorization headers at the STOMP
protocol level and assumes the user is already authenticated at the HTTP transport level and expects that the WebSocket or SockJS session contain
the authenticated user.

Spring Security provides WebSocket sub-protocol authorization that uses a ChannelInterceptor to authorize messages based on
the user header in them. Also Spring Session provides a WebSocket integration that ensures the user HTTP session does not expire
when the WebSocket session is still active.

26.4.11 Token-based Authentication

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 510/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Spring Security OAuth provides support for token based security including JSON Web Token (JWT). This can be used as the authentication
mechanism in Web applications including STOMP over WebSocket interactions just as described in the previous section, i.e. maintaining identity
through a cookie-based session.

At the same time cookie-based sessions are not always the best ﬁt for example in applications that don’t wish to maintain a server-side session at all
or in mobile applications where it’s common to use headers for authentication.

The WebSocket protocol RFC 6455 "doesn’t prescribe any particular way that servers can authenticate clients during the WebSocket handshake." In
practice however browser clients can only use standard authentication headers (i.e. basic HTTP authentication) or cookies and cannot for example
provide custom headers. Likewise the SockJS JavaScript client does not provide a way to send HTTP headers with SockJS transport requests, see
sockjs-client issue 196. Instead it does allow sending query parameters that can be used to send a token but that has its own drawbacks, for
example as the token may be inadvertently logged with the URL in server logs.

The above limitations are for browser-based clients and do not apply to the Spring Java-based STOMP client which does support
sending headers with both WebSocket and SockJS requests.

Therefore applications that wish to avoid the use of cookies may not have any good alternatives for authentication at the HTTP protocol level.
Instead of using cookies they may prefer to authenticate with headers at the STOMP messaging protocol level There are 2 simple steps to doing
that:

1. Use the STOMP client to pass authentication header(s) at connect time.

2. Process the authentication header(s) with a ChannelInterceptor .

Below is the example server-side conﬁguration to register a custom authentication interceptor. Note that an interceptor only needs to authenticate
and set the user header on the CONNECT Message . Spring will note and save the authenticated user and associate it with subsequent STOMP
messages on the same session:

@Configuration
@EnableWebSocketMessageBroker
public class MyConfig extends AbstractWebSocketMessageBrokerConfigurer {

@Override
public void configureClientInboundChannel(ChannelRegistration registration) {
registration.setInterceptors(new ChannelInterceptorAdapter() {

@Override
public Message<?> preSend(Message<?> message, MessageChannel channel) {

StompHeaderAccessor accessor =
MessageHeaderAccessor.getAccessor(message, StompHeaderAccessor.class);

if (StompCommand.CONNECT.equals(accessor.getCommand())) {
Authentication user = ... ; // access authentication header(s)
accessor.setUser(user);
}

return message;
}
});
}
}

Also note that when using Spring Security’s authorization for messages, at present you will need to ensure that the authentication
ChannelInterceptor conﬁg is ordered ahead of Spring Security’s. This is best done by declaring the custom interceptor in its own sub-class of
AbstractWebSocketMessageBrokerConfigurer marked with @Order(Ordered.HIGHEST_PRECEDENCE + 99) .

26.4.12 User Destinations
An application can send messages targeting a speciﬁc user, and Spring’s STOMP support recognizes destinations preﬁxed with "/user/" for this
purpose. For example, a client might subscribe to the destination "/user/queue/position-updates" . This destination will be handled by the
UserDestinationMessageHandler and transformed into a destination unique to the user session, e.g.
"/queue/position-updates-user123" . This provides the convenience of subscribing to a generically named destination while at the same
time ensuring no collisions with other users subscribing to the same destination so that each user can receive unique stock position updates.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 511/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
On the sending side messages can be sent to a destination such as "/user/{username}/queue/position-updates" , which in turn will be
translated by the UserDestinationMessageHandler into one or more destinations, one for each session associated with the user. This allows
any component within the application to send messages targeting a speciﬁc user without necessarily knowing anything more than their name and the
generic destination. This is also supported through an annotation as well as a messaging template.

For example, a message-handling method can send messages to the user associated with the message being handled through the @SendToUser
annotation (also supported on the class-level to share a common destination):

@Controller
public class PortfolioController {

@MessageMapping("/trade")
@SendToUser("/queue/position-updates")
public TradeResult executeTrade(Trade trade, Principal principal) {
// ...
return tradeResult;
}
}

If the user has more than one session, by default all of the sessions subscribed to the given destination are targeted. However sometimes, it may be
necessary to target only the session that sent the message being handled. This can be done by setting the broadcast attribute to false, for
example:

@Controller
public class MyController {

@MessageMapping("/action")
public void handleAction() throws Exception{
// raise MyBusinessException here
}

@MessageExceptionHandler
@SendToUser(destinations="/queue/errors", broadcast=false)
public ApplicationError handleException(MyBusinessException exception) {
// ...
return appError;
}
}

While user destinations generally imply an authenticated user, it isn’t required strictly. A WebSocket session that is not associated with
an authenticated user can subscribe to a user destination. In such cases the @SendToUser annotation will behave exactly the same
as with broadcast=false , i.e. targeting only the session that sent the message being handled.

It is also possible to send a message to user destinations from any application component by injecting the SimpMessagingTemplate created by
the Java conﬁg or XML namespace, for example (the bean name is "brokerMessagingTemplate" if required for qualiﬁcation with
@Qualifier ):

@Service
public class TradeServiceImpl implements TradeService {

private final SimpMessagingTemplate messagingTemplate;

@Autowired
public TradeServiceImpl(SimpMessagingTemplate messagingTemplate) {
this.messagingTemplate = messagingTemplate;
}

// ...

public void afterTradeExecuted(Trade trade) {

this.messagingTemplate.convertAndSendToUser(
trade.getUserName(), "/queue/position-updates", trade.getResult());
}
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 512/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

When using user destinations with an external message broker, check the broker documentation on how to manage inactive queues,
so that when the user session is over, all unique user queues are removed. For example, RabbitMQ creates auto-delete queues when
destinations like /exchange/amq.direct/position-updates are used. So in that case the client could subscribe to
/user/exchange/amq.direct/position-updates . Similarly, ActiveMQ has conﬁguration options for purging inactive
destinations.

In a multi-application server scenario a user destination may remain unresolved because the user is connected to a different server. In such cases
you can conﬁgure a destination to broadcast unresolved messages to so that other servers have a chance to try. This can be done through the
userDestinationBroadcast property of the MessageBrokerRegistry in Java conﬁg and the user-destination-broadcast attribute
of the message-broker element in XML.

26.4.13 Listening To ApplicationContext Events and Intercepting Messages

Several ApplicationContext events (listed below) are published and can be received by implementing Spring’s ApplicationListener
interface.

BrokerAvailabilityEvent — indicates when the broker becomes available/unavailable. While the "simple" broker becomes available
immediately on startup and remains so while the application is running, the STOMP "broker relay" may lose its connection to the full featured
broker, for example if the broker is restarted. The broker relay has reconnect logic and will re-establish the "system" connection to the broker
when it comes back, hence this event is published whenever the state changes from connected to disconnected and vice versa. Components
using the SimpMessagingTemplate should subscribe to this event and avoid sending messages at times when the broker is not available. In
any case they should be prepared to handle MessageDeliveryException when sending a message.
SessionConnectEvent — published when a new STOMP CONNECT is received indicating the start of a new client session. The event
contains the message representing the connect including the session id, user information (if any), and any custom headers the client may have
sent. This is useful for tracking client sessions. Components subscribed to this event can wrap the contained message using
SimpMessageHeaderAccessor or StompMessageHeaderAccessor .
SessionConnectedEvent — published shortly after a SessionConnectEvent when the broker has sent a STOMP CONNECTED frame in
response to the CONNECT. At this point the STOMP session can be considered fully established.
SessionSubscribeEvent — published when a new STOMP SUBSCRIBE is received.
SessionUnsubscribeEvent — published when a new STOMP UNSUBSCRIBE is received.
SessionDisconnectEvent — published when a STOMP session ends. The DISCONNECT may have been sent from the client, or it may
also be automatically generated when the WebSocket session is closed. In some cases this event may be published more than once per
session. Components should be idempotent with regard to multiple disconnect events.

When using a full-featured broker, the STOMP "broker relay" automatically reconnects the "system" connection in case the broker
becomes temporarily unavailable. Client connections however are not automatically reconnected. Assuming heartbeats are enabled,
the client will typically notice the broker is not responding within 10 seconds. Clients need to implement their own reconnect logic.

Furthermore, an application can directly intercept every incoming and outgoing message by registering a ChannelInterceptor on the respective
message channel. For example to intercept inbound messages:

@Configuration
@EnableWebSocketMessageBroker
public class WebSocketConfig extends AbstractWebSocketMessageBrokerConfigurer {

@Override
public void configureClientInboundChannel(ChannelRegistration registration) {
registration.setInterceptors(new MyChannelInterceptor());
}
}

A custom ChannelInterceptor can extend the empty method base class ChannelInterceptorAdapter and use
StompHeaderAccessor or SimpMessageHeaderAccessor to access information about the message.

public class MyChannelInterceptor extends ChannelInterceptorAdapter {

@Override
public Message<?> preSend(Message<?> message, MessageChannel channel) {
StompHeaderAccessor accessor = StompHeaderAccessor.wrap(message);
StompCommand command = accessor.getStompCommand();
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 513/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
// ...
return message;
}
}

26.4.14 STOMP Client
Spring provides a STOMP over WebSocket client and a STOMP over TCP client.

To begin create and conﬁgure WebSocketStompClient :

WebSocketClient webSocketClient = new StandardWebSocketClient();

WebSocketStompClient stompClient = new WebSocketStompClient(webSocketClient);
stompClient.setMessageConverter(new StringMessageConverter());
stompClient.setTaskScheduler(taskScheduler); // for heartbeats

In the above example StandardWebSocketClient could be replaced with SockJsClient since that is also an implementation of
WebSocketClient . The SockJsClient can use WebSocket or HTTP-based transport as a fallback. For more details see Section 26.3.7,
“SockJS Client”.

Next establish a connection and provide a handler for the STOMP session:

String url = "ws://127.0.0.1:8080/endpoint";

StompSessionHandler sessionHandler = new MyStompSessionHandler();
stompClient.connect(url, sessionHandler);

When the session is ready for use the handler is notiﬁed:

public class MyStompSessionHandler extends StompSessionHandlerAdapter {

@Override
public void afterConnected(StompSession session, StompHeaders connectedHeaders) {
// ...
}
}

Once the session is established any payload can be sent and that will be serialized with the conﬁgured MessageConverter :

session.send("/topic/foo", "payload");

You can also subscribe to destinations. The subscribe methods require a handler for messages on the subscription and return a
Subscription handle that can be used to unsubscribe. For each received message the handler can specify the target Object type the payload
should be deserialized to:

session.subscribe("/topic/foo", new StompFrameHandler() {

@Override
public Type getPayloadType(StompHeaders headers) {
return String.class;
}

@Override
public void handleFrame(StompHeaders headers, Object payload) {
// ...
}

});

To enable STOMP heartbeat conﬁgure WebSocketStompClient with a TaskScheduler and optionally customize the heartbeat intervals, 10
seconds for write inactivity which causes a heartbeat to be sent and 10 seconds for read inactivity which closes the connection.

When using WebSocketStompClient for performance tests to simulate thousands of clients from the same machine consider
turning off heartbeats since each connection schedules its own heartbeat tasks and that’s not optimized for a a large number of clients
running on the same machine.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 514/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The STOMP protocol also supports receipts where the client must add a "receipt" header to which the server responds with a RECEIPT frame after
the send or subscribe are processed. To support this the StompSession offers setAutoReceipt(boolean) that causes a "receipt" header to
be added on every subsequent send or subscribe. Alternatively you can also manually add a "receipt" header to the StompHeaders . Both send
and subscribe return an instance of Receiptable that can be used to register for receipt success and failure callbacks. For this feature the client
must be conﬁgured with a TaskScheduler and the amount of time before a receipt expires (15 seconds by default).

Note that StompSessionHandler itself is a StompFrameHandler which allows it to handle ERROR frames in addition to the
handleException callback for exceptions from the handling of messages, and handleTransportError for transport-level errors including
ConnectionLostException .

26.4.15 WebSocket Scope
Each WebSocket session has a map of attributes. The map is attached as a header to inbound client messages and may be accessed from a
controller method, for example:

@Controller
public class MyController {

@MessageMapping("/action")
public void handle(SimpMessageHeaderAccessor headerAccessor) {
Map<String, Object> attrs = headerAccessor.getSessionAttributes();
// ...
}
}

It is also possible to declare a Spring-managed bean in the websocket scope. WebSocket-scoped beans can be injected into controllers and any
channel interceptors registered on the "clientInboundChannel". Those are typically singletons and live longer than any individual WebSocket session.
Therefore you will need to use a scope proxy mode for WebSocket-scoped beans:

@Component
@Scope(scopeName = "websocket", proxyMode = ScopedProxyMode.TARGET_CLASS)
public class MyBean {

@PostConstruct
public void init() {
// Invoked after dependencies injected
}

// ...

@PreDestroy
public void destroy() {
// Invoked when the WebSocket session ends
}
}

@Controller
public class MyController {

private final MyBean myBean;

@Autowired
public MyController(MyBean myBean) {
this.myBean = myBean;
}

@MessageMapping("/action")
public void handle() {
// this.myBean from the current WebSocket session
}
}

As with any custom scope, Spring initializes a new MyBean instance the ﬁrst time it is accessed from the controller and stores the instance in the
WebSocket session attributes. The same instance is returned subsequently until the session ends. WebSocket-scoped beans will have all Spring
lifecycle methods invoked as shown in the examples above.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 515/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

26.4.16 Conﬁguration and Performance

There is no silver bullet when it comes to performance. Many factors may affect it including the size of messages, the volume, whether application
methods perform work that requires blocking, as well as external factors such as network speed and others. The goal of this section is to provide an
overview of the available conﬁguration options along with some thoughts on how to reason about scaling.

In a messaging application messages are passed through channels for asynchronous executions backed by thread pools. Conﬁguring such an
application requires good knowledge of the channels and the ﬂow of messages. Therefore it is recommended to review Section 26.4.3, “Flow of
Messages”.

The obvious place to start is to conﬁgure the thread pools backing the "clientInboundChannel" and the "clientOutboundChannel" . By
default both are conﬁgured at twice the number of available processors.

If the handling of messages in annotated methods is mainly CPU bound then the number of threads for the "clientInboundChannel" should
remain close to the number of processors. If the work they do is more IO bound and requires blocking or waiting on a database or other external
system then the thread pool size will need to be increased.

ThreadPoolExecutor has 3 important properties. Those are the core and the max thread pool size as well as the capacity for the
queue to store tasks for which there are no available threads.
A common point of confusion is that conﬁguring the core pool size (e.g. 10) and max pool size (e.g. 20) results in a thread pool with 10
to 20 threads. In fact if the capacity is left at its default value of Integer.MAX_VALUE then the thread pool will never increase beyond
the core pool size since all additional tasks will be queued.
Please review the Javadoc of ThreadPoolExecutor to learn how these properties work and understand the various queuing
strategies.

On the "clientOutboundChannel" side it is all about sending messages to WebSocket clients. If clients are on a fast network then the number
of threads should remain close to the number of available processors. If they are slow or on low bandwidth they will take longer to consume
messages and put a burden on the thread pool. Therefore increasing the thread pool size will be necessary.

While the workload for the "clientInboundChannel" is possible to predict — after all it is based on what the application does — how to conﬁgure the
"clientOutboundChannel" is harder as it is based on factors beyond the control of the application. For this reason there are two additional properties
related to the sending of messages. Those are the "sendTimeLimit" and the "sendBufferSizeLimit" . Those are used to conﬁgure how
long a send is allowed to take and how much data can be buffered when sending messages to a client.

The general idea is that at any given time only a single thread may be used to send to a client. All additional messages meanwhile get buffered and
you can use these properties to decide how long sending a message is allowed to take and how much data can be buffered in the mean time.
Please review the Javadoc and documentation of the XML schema for this conﬁguration for important additional details.

Here is example conﬁguration:

@Configuration
@EnableWebSocketMessageBroker
public class WebSocketConfig implements WebSocketMessageBrokerConfigurer {

@Override
public void configureWebSocketTransport(WebSocketTransportRegistration registration) {
registration.setSendTimeLimit(15 * 1000).setSendBufferSizeLimit(512 * 1024);
}

// ...

<websocket:message-broker>
<websocket:transport send-timeout="15000" send-buffer-size="524288" />

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 516/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

</websocket:message-broker>

</beans>

The WebSocket transport conﬁguration shown above can also be used to conﬁgure the maximum allowed size for incoming STOMP messages.
Although in theory a WebSocket message can be almost unlimited in size, in practice WebSocket servers impose limits — for example, 8K on Tomcat
and 64K on Jetty. For this reason STOMP clients such as stomp.js split larger STOMP messages at 16K boundaries and send them as multiple
WebSocket messages thus requiring the server to buffer and re-assemble.

Spring’s STOMP over WebSocket support does this so applications can conﬁgure the maximum size for STOMP messages irrespective of
WebSocket server speciﬁc message sizes. Do keep in mind that the WebSocket message size will be automatically adjusted if necessary to ensure
they can carry 16K WebSocket messages at a minimum.

Here is example conﬁguration:

@Configuration
@EnableWebSocketMessageBroker
public class WebSocketConfig implements WebSocketMessageBrokerConfigurer {

@Override
public void configureWebSocketTransport(WebSocketTransportRegistration registration) {
registration.setMessageSizeLimit(128 * 1024);
}

// ...

<websocket:message-broker>

<websocket:transport message-size="131072" />

</websocket:message-broker>

</beans>

An important point about scaling is using multiple application instances. Currently it is not possible to do that with the simple broker. However when
using a full-featured broker such as RabbitMQ, each application instance connects to the broker and messages broadcast from one application
instance can be broadcast through the broker to WebSocket clients connected through any other application instances.

26.4.17 Runtime Monitoring
When using @EnableWebSocketMessageBroker or <websocket:message-broker> key infrastructure components automatically gather
stats and counters that provide important insight into the internal state of the application. The conﬁguration also declares a bean of type
WebSocketMessageBrokerStats that gathers all available information in one place and by default logs it at INFO level once every 30 minutes.
This bean can be exported to JMX through Spring’s MBeanExporter for viewing at runtime, for example through JDK’s jconsole . Below is a
summary of the available information.

Client WebSocket Sessions

Current
indicates how many client sessions there are currently with the count further broken down by WebSocket vs HTTP streaming and polling
SockJS sessions.
Total
indicates how many total sessions have been established.
Abnormally Closed

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 517/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Connect Failures
these are sessions that got established but were closed after not having received any messages within 60 seconds. This is usually
an indication of proxy or network issues.
Send Limit Exceeded
sessions closed after exceeding the conﬁgured send timeout or the send buffer limits which can occur with slow clients (see
previous section).
Transport Errors
sessions closed after a transport error such as failure to read or write to a WebSocket connection or HTTP request/response.
STOMP Frames
the total number of CONNECT, CONNECTED, and DISCONNECT frames processed indicating how many clients connected on the
STOMP level. Note that the DISCONNECT count may be lower when sessions get closed abnormally or when clients close without
sending a DISCONNECT frame.
STOMP Broker Relay
TCP Connections
indicates how many TCP connections on behalf of client WebSocket sessions are established to the broker. This should be equal to the
number of client WebSocket sessions + 1 additional shared "system" connection for sending messages from within the application.
STOMP Frames
the total number of CONNECT, CONNECTED, and DISCONNECT frames forwarded to or received from the broker on behalf of clients.
Note that a DISCONNECT frame is sent to the broker regardless of how the client WebSocket session was closed. Therefore a lower
DISCONNECT frame count is an indication that the broker is pro-actively closing connections, may be because of a heartbeat that didn’t
arrive in time, an invalid input frame, or other.
Client Inbound Channel
stats from thread pool backing the "clientInboundChannel" providing insight into the health of incoming message processing. Tasks queueing
up here is an indication the application may be too slow to handle messages. If there I/O bound tasks (e.g. slow database query, HTTP request
to 3rd party REST API, etc) consider increasing the thread pool size.
Client Outbound Channel
stats from the thread pool backing the "clientOutboundChannel" providing insight into the health of broadcasting messages to clients. Tasks
queueing up here is an indication clients are too slow to consume messages. One way to address this is to increase the thread pool size to
accommodate the number of concurrent slow clients expected. Another option is to reduce the send timeout and send buffer size limits (see
the previous section).
SockJS Task Scheduler
stats from thread pool of the SockJS task scheduler which is used to send heartbeats. Note that when heartbeats are negotiated on the
STOMP level the SockJS heartbeats are disabled.

26.4.18 Testing Annotated Controller Methods

There are two main approaches to testing applications using Spring’s STOMP over WebSocket support. The ﬁrst is to write server-side tests
verifying the functionality of controllers and their annotated message handling methods. The second is to write full end-to-end tests that involve
running a client and a server.

The two approaches are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary each has a place in an overall test strategy. Server-side tests are more focused and
easier to write and maintain. End-to-end integration tests on the other hand are more complete and test much more, but they’re also more involved
to write and maintain.

The simplest form of server-side tests is to write controller unit tests. However this is not useful enough since much of what a controller does
depends on its annotations. Pure unit tests simply can’t test that.

Ideally controllers under test should be invoked as they are at runtime, much like the approach to testing controllers handling HTTP requests using
the Spring MVC Test framework. i.e. without running a Servlet container but relying on the Spring Framework to invoke the annotated controllers.
Just like with Spring MVC Test here there are two two possible alternatives, either using a "context-based" or "standalone" setup:

1. Load the actual Spring conﬁguration with the help of the Spring TestContext framework, inject "clientInboundChannel" as a test ﬁeld, and use it
to send messages to be handled by controller methods.
2. Manually set up the minimum Spring framework infrastructure required to invoke controllers (namely the
SimpAnnotationMethodMessageHandler ) and pass messages for controllers directly to it.

Both of these setup scenarios are demonstrated in the tests for the stock portfolio sample application.

The second approach is to create end-to-end integration tests. For that you will need to run a WebSocket server in embedded mode and connect to
it as a WebSocket client sending WebSocket messages containing STOMP frames. The tests for the stock portfolio sample application also

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 518/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
demonstrates this approach using Tomcat as the embedded WebSocket server and a simple STOMP client for test purposes.

27. CORS Support

27.1 Introduction
For security reasons, browsers prohibit AJAX calls to resources residing outside the current origin. For example, as you’re checking your bank
account in one tab, you could have the evil.com website open in another tab. The scripts from evil.com should not be able to make AJAX requests to
your bank API (e.g., withdrawing money from your account!) using your credentials.

Cross-origin resource sharing (CORS) is a W3C speciﬁcation implemented by most browsers that allows you to specify in a ﬂexible way what kind of
cross domain requests are authorized, instead of using some less secured and less powerful hacks like IFRAME or JSONP.

As of Spring Framework 4.2, CORS is supported out of the box. CORS requests (including preflight ones with an OPTIONS method) are
automatically dispatched to the various registered HandlerMapping s. They handle CORS preflight requests and intercept CORS simple and
actual requests thanks to a CorsProcessor implementation (DefaultCorsProcessor by default) in order to add the relevant CORS response headers
(like Access-Control-Allow-Origin ) based on the CORS configuration you have provided.

Since CORS requests are automatically dispatched, you do not need to change the DispatcherServlet
dispatchOptionsRequest init parameter value; using its default value ( false ) is the recommended approach.

27.2 Controller method CORS conﬁguration

You can add an @CrossOrigin annotation to your @RequestMapping annotated handler method in order to enable CORS on it. By default
@CrossOrigin allows all origins and the HTTP methods speciﬁed in the @RequestMapping annotation:

@RestController
@RequestMapping("/account")
public class AccountController {

@CrossOrigin
@RequestMapping("/{id}")
public Account retrieve(@PathVariable Long id) {
// ...
}

@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.DELETE, path = "/{id}")

public void remove(@PathVariable Long id) {
// ...
}
}

It is also possible to enable CORS for the whole controller:

@CrossOrigin(origins = "http://domain2.com", maxAge = 3600)

@RestController
@RequestMapping("/account")
public class AccountController {

@RequestMapping("/{id}")
public Account retrieve(@PathVariable Long id) {
// ...
}

@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.DELETE, path = "/{id}")

public void remove(@PathVariable Long id) {
// ...
}
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 519/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
In the above example CORS support is enabled for both the retrieve() and the remove() handler methods, and you can also see how you
can customize the CORS conﬁguration using @CrossOrigin attributes.

You can even use both controller-level and method-level CORS conﬁgurations; Spring will then combine attributes from both annotations to create
merged CORS conﬁguration.

@CrossOrigin(maxAge = 3600)
@RestController
@RequestMapping("/account")
public class AccountController {

@CrossOrigin("http://domain2.com")
@RequestMapping("/{id}")
public Account retrieve(@PathVariable Long id) {
// ...
}

@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.DELETE, path = "/{id}")

public void remove(@PathVariable Long id) {
// ...
}
}

27.3 Global CORS conﬁguration

In addition to fine-grained, annotation-based configuration you’ll probably want to define some global CORS configuration as well. This is similar to
using filters but can be declared within Spring MVC and combined with fine-grained @CrossOrigin configuration. By default all origins and GET ,
HEAD , and POST methods are allowed.

27.3.1 JavaConﬁg
Enabling CORS for the whole application is as simple as:

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

@Override
public void addCorsMappings(CorsRegistry registry) {
registry.addMapping("/**");
}
}

You can easily change any properties, as well as only apply this CORS conﬁguration to a speciﬁc path pattern:

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

@Override
public void addCorsMappings(CorsRegistry registry) {
registry.addMapping("/api/**")
.allowedOrigins("http://domain2.com")
.allowedMethods("PUT", "DELETE")
.allowedHeaders("header1", "header2", "header3")
.exposedHeaders("header1", "header2")
.allowCredentials(false).maxAge(3600);
}
}

27.3.2 XML namespace
The following minimal XML conﬁguration enables CORS for the /** path pattern with the same default properties as with the aforementioned
JavaConﬁg examples:

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 520/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

<mvc:cors>
<mvc:mapping path="/**" />
</mvc:cors>

It is also possible to declare several CORS mappings with customized properties:

<mvc:cors>

<mvc:mapping path="/api/**"
allowed-origins="http://domain1.com, http://domain2.com"
allowed-methods="GET, PUT"
allowed-headers="header1, header2, header3"
exposed-headers="header1, header2" allow-credentials="false"
max-age="123" />

<mvc:mapping path="/resources/**"
allowed-origins="http://domain1.com" />

</mvc:cors>

27.4 Advanced Customization
CorsConﬁguration allows you to specify how the CORS requests should be processed: allowed origins, headers, methods, etc. It can be provided in
various ways:

AbstractHandlerMapping#setCorsConfiguration() allows to specify a Map with several CorsConﬁguration instances mapped to

path patterns like /api/** .
Subclasses can provide their own CorsConfiguration by overriding the
AbstractHandlerMapping#getCorsConfiguration(Object, HttpServletRequest) method.
Handlers can implement the CorsConfigurationSource interface (like ResourceHttpRequestHandler now does) in order to provide a
CorsConﬁguration instance for each request.

27.5 Filter based CORS support

In order to support CORS with filter-based security frameworks like Spring Security, or with other libraries that do not support natively CORS, Spring
Framework also provides a CorsFilter . Instead of using @CrossOrigin or WebMvcConfigurer#addCorsMappings(CorsRegistry) ,
you need to register a custom filter defined like bellow:

import org.springframework.web.cors.CorsConfiguration;
import org.springframework.web.cors.UrlBasedCorsConfigurationSource;
import org.springframework.web.filter.CorsFilter;

public class MyCorsFilter extends CorsFilter {

public MyCorsFilter() {
super(configurationSource());
}

private static UrlBasedCorsConfigurationSource configurationSource() {

CorsConfiguration config = new CorsConfiguration();
config.setAllowCredentials(true);
config.addAllowedOrigin("http://domain1.com");
config.addAllowedHeader("*");
config.addAllowedMethod("*");
UrlBasedCorsConfigurationSource source = new UrlBasedCorsConfigurationSource();
source.registerCorsConfiguration("/**", config);
return source;

}
}

You need to ensure that CorsFilter is ordered before the other ﬁlters, see this blog post about how to conﬁgure Spring Boot accordingly.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 521/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Part VII. Integration
This part of the reference documentation covers the Spring Framework’s integration with a number of Java EE (and related) technologies.

Chapter 28, Remoting and web services using Spring

Chapter 29, Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) integration
Chapter 30, JMS (Java Message Service)
Chapter 31, JMX
Chapter 32, JCA CCI
Chapter 33, Email
Chapter 34, Task Execution and Scheduling
Chapter 35, Dynamic language support
Chapter 36, Cache Abstraction

28. Remoting and web services using Spring

28.1 Introduction
Spring features integration classes for remoting support using various technologies. The remoting support eases the development of remote-enabled
services, implemented by your usual (Spring) POJOs. Currently, Spring supports the following remoting technologies:

Remote Method Invocation (RMI). Through the use of the RmiProxyFactoryBean and the RmiServiceExporter Spring supports both
traditional RMI (with java.rmi.Remote interfaces and java.rmi.RemoteException ) and transparent remoting via RMI invokers (with
any Java interface).
Spring’s HTTP invoker. Spring provides a special remoting strategy which allows for Java serialization via HTTP, supporting any Java interface
(just like the RMI invoker). The corresponding support classes are HttpInvokerProxyFactoryBean and
HttpInvokerServiceExporter .
Hessian. By using Spring’s HessianProxyFactoryBean and the HessianServiceExporter you can transparently expose your services
using the lightweight binary HTTP-based protocol provided by Caucho.
Burlap. Burlap is Caucho’s XML-based alternative to Hessian. Spring provides support classes such as BurlapProxyFactoryBean and
BurlapServiceExporter .
JAX-WS. Spring provides remoting support for web services via JAX-WS (the successor of JAX-RPC, as introduced in Java EE 5 and Java 6).
JMS. Remoting using JMS as the underlying protocol is supported via the JmsInvokerServiceExporter and
JmsInvokerProxyFactoryBean classes.
AMQP. Remoting using AMQP as the underlying protocol is supported by the Spring AMQP project.

While discussing the remoting capabilities of Spring, we’ll use the following domain model and corresponding services:

public class Account implements Serializable{

private String name;

public String getName(){

return name;
}

public void setName(String name) {

this.name = name;
}

public interface AccountService {

public void insertAccount(Account account);

public List<Account> getAccounts(String name);

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 522/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

// the implementation doing nothing at the moment

public class AccountServiceImpl implements AccountService {

public void insertAccount(Account acc) {

// do something...
}

public List<Account> getAccounts(String name) {

// do something...
}

We will start exposing the service to a remote client by using RMI and talk a bit about the drawbacks of using RMI. We’ll then continue to show an
example using Hessian as the protocol.

28.2 Exposing services using RMI

Using Spring’s support for RMI, you can transparently expose your services through the RMI infrastructure. After having this set up, you basically
have a conﬁguration similar to remote EJBs, except for the fact that there is no standard support for security context propagation or remote
transaction propagation. Spring does provide hooks for such additional invocation context when using the RMI invoker, so you can for example plug
in security frameworks or custom security credentials here.

28.2.1 Exporting the service using the RmiServiceExporter

Using the RmiServiceExporter , we can expose the interface of our AccountService object as RMI object. The interface can be accessed by
using RmiProxyFactoryBean , or via plain RMI in case of a traditional RMI service. The RmiServiceExporter explicitly supports the exposing
of any non-RMI services via RMI invokers.

Of course, we ﬁrst have to set up our service in the Spring container:

<bean id="accountService" class="example.AccountServiceImpl">

</bean>

Next we’ll have to expose our service using the RmiServiceExporter :

As you can see, we’re overriding the port for the RMI registry. Often, your application server also maintains an RMI registry and it is wise to not
interfere with that one. Furthermore, the service name is used to bind the service under. So right now, the service will be bound at
'rmi://HOST:1199/AccountService' . We’ll use the URL later on to link in the service at the client side.

The servicePort property has been omitted (it defaults to 0). This means that an anonymous port will be used to communicate with
the service.

28.2.2 Linking in the service at the client

Our client is a simple object using the AccountService to manage accounts:

public class SimpleObject {

private AccountService accountService;

public void setAccountService(AccountService accountService) {

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 523/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
this.accountService = accountService;
}

// additional methods using the accountService

To link in the service on the client, we’ll create a separate Spring container, containing the simple object and the service linking conﬁguration bits:

<bean id="accountService" class="org.springframework.remoting.rmi.RmiProxyFactoryBean">

That’s all we need to do to support the remote account service on the client. Spring will transparently create an invoker and remotely enable the
account service through the RmiServiceExporter . At the client we’re linking it in using the RmiProxyFactoryBean .

28.3 Using Hessian or Burlap to remotely call services via HTTP

Hessian offers a binary HTTP-based remoting protocol. It is developed by Caucho and more information about Hessian itself can be found at
http://www.caucho.com.

28.3.1 Wiring up the DispatcherServlet for Hessian and co.

Hessian communicates via HTTP and does so using a custom servlet. Using Spring’s DispatcherServlet principles, as known from Spring Web
MVC usage, you can easily wire up such a servlet exposing your services. First we’ll have to create a new servlet in your application (this is an
excerpt from 'web.xml' ):

<servlet>
<servlet-name>remoting</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
<load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>

<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>remoting</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/remoting/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

You’re probably familiar with Spring’s DispatcherServlet principles and if so, you know that now you’ll have to create a Spring container
conﬁguration resource named 'remoting-servlet.xml' (after the name of your servlet) in the 'WEB-INF' directory. The application context
will be used in the next section.

Alternatively, consider the use of Spring’s simpler HttpRequestHandlerServlet . This allows you to embed the remote exporter definitions in
your root application context (by default in 'WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml' ), with individual servlet definitions pointing to specific
exporter beans. Each servlet name needs to match the bean name of its target exporter in this case.

28.3.2 Exposing your beans by using the HessianServiceExporter

In the newly created application context called remoting-servlet.xml , we’ll create a HessianServiceExporter exporting your services:

<bean id="accountService" class="example.AccountServiceImpl">

</bean>

<bean name="/AccountService" class="org.springframework.remoting.caucho.HessianServiceExporter">

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 524/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Now we’re ready to link in the service at the client. No explicit handler mapping is speciﬁed, mapping request URLs onto services, so
BeanNameUrlHandlerMapping will be used: Hence, the service will be exported at the URL indicated through its bean name within the
containing DispatcherServlet’s mapping (as defined above): ’http://HOST:8080/remoting/AccountService' .

Alternatively, create a HessianServiceExporter in your root application context (e.g. in 'WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml' ):

<bean name="accountExporter" class="org.springframework.remoting.caucho.HessianServiceExporter">

In the latter case, deﬁne a corresponding servlet for this exporter in 'web.xml' , with the same end result: The exporter getting mapped to the
request path /remoting/AccountService . Note that the servlet name needs to match the bean name of the target exporter.

<servlet>
<servlet-name>accountExporter</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>org.springframework.web.context.support.HttpRequestHandlerServlet</servlet-class>
</servlet>

<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>accountExporter</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/remoting/AccountService</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

28.3.3 Linking in the service on the client

Using the HessianProxyFactoryBean we can link in the service at the client. The same principles apply as with the RMI example. We’ll create a
separate bean factory or application context and mention the following beans where the SimpleObject is using the AccountService to
manage accounts:

<bean id="accountService" class="org.springframework.remoting.caucho.HessianProxyFactoryBean">

28.3.4 Using Burlap
We won’t discuss Burlap, the XML-based equivalent of Hessian, in detail here, since it is conﬁgured and set up in exactly the same way as the
Hessian variant explained above. Just replace the word Hessian with Burlap and you’re all set to go.

28.3.5 Applying HTTP basic authentication to a service exposed through Hessian or Burlap

One of the advantages of Hessian and Burlap is that we can easily apply HTTP basic authentication, because both protocols are HTTP-based. Your
normal HTTP server security mechanism can easily be applied through using the web.xml security features, for example. Usually, you don’t use
per-user security credentials here, but rather shared credentials deﬁned at the Hessian/BurlapProxyFactoryBean level (similar to a JDBC
DataSource ).

<bean id="authorizationInterceptor"

class="org.springframework.web.servlet.handler.UserRoleAuthorizationInterceptor">
<property name="authorizedRoles" value="administrator,operator"/>
</bean>

This is an example where we explicitly mention the BeanNameUrlHandlerMapping and set an interceptor allowing only administrators and
operators to call the beans mentioned in this application context.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 525/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Of course, this example doesn’t show a ﬂexible kind of security infrastructure. For more options as far as security is concerned, have a
look at the Spring Security project at http://projects.spring.io/spring-security/.

28.4 Exposing services using HTTP invokers

As opposed to Burlap and Hessian, which are both lightweight protocols using their own slim serialization mechanisms, Spring HTTP invokers use
the standard Java serialization mechanism to expose services through HTTP. This has a huge advantage if your arguments and return types are
complex types that cannot be serialized using the serialization mechanisms Hessian and Burlap use (refer to the next section for more
considerations when choosing a remoting technology).

Under the hood, Spring uses either the standard facilities provided by the JDK or Apache HttpComponents to perform HTTP calls. Use the latter if
you need more advanced and easier-to-use functionality. Refer to hc.apache.org/httpcomponents-client-ga/ for more information.

Be aware of vulnerabilities due to unsafe Java deserialization: Manipulated input streams could lead to unwanted code execution on
the server during the deserialization step. As a consequence, do not expose HTTP invoker endpoints to untrusted clients but rather
just between your own services. In general, we strongly recommend any other message format (e.g. JSON) instead.
If you are concerned about security vulnerabilities due to Java serialization, consider the general-purpose serialization ﬁlter mechanism
at the core JVM level, originally developed for JDK 9 but backported to JDK 8, 7 and 6 in the meantime: https://blogs.oracle.com/java-
platform-group/entry/incoming_ﬁlter_serialization_data_a http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/290

28.4.1 Exposing the service object

Setting up the HTTP invoker infrastructure for a service object resembles closely the way you would do the same using Hessian or Burlap. Just as
Hessian support provides the HessianServiceExporter , Spring’s HttpInvoker support provides the
org.springframework.remoting.httpinvoker.HttpInvokerServiceExporter .

To expose the AccountService (mentioned above) within a Spring Web MVC DispatcherServlet , the following conﬁguration needs to be in
place in the dispatcher’s application context:

<bean name="/AccountService" class="org.springframework.remoting.httpinvoker.HttpInvokerServiceExporter">

Such an exporter deﬁnition will be exposed through the `DispatcherServlet’s standard mapping facilities, as explained in the section on Hessian.

Alternatively, create an HttpInvokerServiceExporter in your root application context (e.g. in 'WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml' ):

<bean name="accountExporter" class="org.springframework.remoting.httpinvoker.HttpInvokerServiceExporter">

In addition, deﬁne a corresponding servlet for this exporter in 'web.xml' , with the servlet name matching the bean name of the target exporter:

<servlet>
<servlet-name>accountExporter</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>org.springframework.web.context.support.HttpRequestHandlerServlet</servlet-class>
</servlet>

<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>accountExporter</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/remoting/AccountService</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

If you are running outside of a servlet container and are using Oracle’s Java 6, then you can use the built-in HTTP server implementation. You can
conﬁgure the SimpleHttpServerFactoryBean together with a SimpleHttpInvokerServiceExporter as is shown in this example:

<bean name="accountExporter"
class="org.springframework.remoting.httpinvoker.SimpleHttpInvokerServiceExporter">
<property name="service" ref="accountService"/>
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 526/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
<property name="serviceInterface" value="example.AccountService"/>
</bean>

28.4.2 Linking in the service at the client

Again, linking in the service from the client much resembles the way you would do it when using Hessian or Burlap. Using a proxy, Spring will be able
to translate your calls to HTTP POST requests to the URL pointing to the exported service.

<bean id="httpInvokerProxy" class="org.springframework.remoting.httpinvoker.HttpInvokerProxyFactoryBean">

As mentioned before, you can choose what HTTP client you want to use. By default, the HttpInvokerProxy uses the JDK’s HTTP functionality,
but you can also use the Apache HttpComponents client by setting the httpInvokerRequestExecutor property:

28.5 Web services
Spring provides full support for standard Java web services APIs:

Exposing web services using JAX-WS

Accessing web services using JAX-WS

In addition to stock support for JAX-WS in Spring Core, the Spring portfolio also features Spring Web Services, a solution for contract-ﬁrst,
document-driven web services - highly recommended for building modern, future-proof web services.

28.5.1 Exposing servlet-based web services using JAX-WS

Spring provides a convenient base class for JAX-WS servlet endpoint implementations - SpringBeanAutowiringSupport . To expose our
AccountService we extend Spring’s SpringBeanAutowiringSupport class and implement our business logic here, usually delegating the
call to the business layer. We’ll simply use Spring’s @Autowired annotation for expressing such dependencies on Spring-managed beans.

/**
* JAX-WS compliant AccountService implementation that simply delegates
* to the AccountService implementation in the root web application context.
*
* This wrapper class is necessary because JAX-WS requires working with dedicated
* endpoint classes. If an existing service needs to be exported, a wrapper that
* extends SpringBeanAutowiringSupport for simple Spring bean autowiring (through
* the @Autowired annotation) is the simplest JAX-WS compliant way.
*
* This is the class registered with the server-side JAX-WS implementation.
* In the case of a Java EE 5 server, this would simply be defined as a servlet
* in web.xml, with the server detecting that this is a JAX-WS endpoint and reacting
* accordingly. The servlet name usually needs to match the specified WS service name.
*
* The web service engine manages the lifecycle of instances of this class.
* Spring bean references will just be wired in here.
*/
import org.springframework.web.context.support.SpringBeanAutowiringSupport;

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 527/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

@WebService(serviceName="AccountService")
public class AccountServiceEndpoint extends SpringBeanAutowiringSupport {

@Autowired
private AccountService biz;

@WebMethod
public void insertAccount(Account acc) {
biz.insertAccount(acc);
}

@WebMethod
public Account[] getAccounts(String name) {
return biz.getAccounts(name);
}

Our AccountServiceEndpoint needs to run in the same web application as the Spring context to allow for access to Spring’s facilities. This is
the case by default in Java EE 5 environments, using the standard contract for JAX-WS servlet endpoint deployment. See Java EE 5 web service
tutorials for details.

28.5.2 Exporting standalone web services using JAX-WS

The built-in JAX-WS provider that comes with Oracle’s JDK 1.6 supports exposure of web services using the built-in HTTP server that’s included in
JDK 1.6 as well. Spring’s SimpleJaxWsServiceExporter detects all @WebService annotated beans in the Spring application context,
exporting them through the default JAX-WS server (the JDK 1.6 HTTP server).

In this scenario, the endpoint instances are deﬁned and managed as Spring beans themselves; they will be registered with the JAX-WS engine but
their lifecycle will be up to the Spring application context. This means that Spring functionality like explicit dependency injection may be applied to the
endpoint instances. Of course, annotation-driven injection through @Autowired will work as well.

<bean id="accountServiceEndpoint" class="example.AccountServiceEndpoint">

...
</bean>

...

The AccountServiceEndpoint may derive from Spring’s SpringBeanAutowiringSupport but doesn’t have to since the endpoint is a fully
Spring-managed bean here. This means that the endpoint implementation may look like as follows, without any superclass declared - and Spring’s
@Autowired conﬁguration annotation still being honored:

@WebService(serviceName="AccountService")
public class AccountServiceEndpoint {

@Autowired
private AccountService biz;

@WebMethod
public void insertAccount(Account acc) {
biz.insertAccount(acc);
}

@WebMethod
public List<Account> getAccounts(String name) {
return biz.getAccounts(name);
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 528/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

28.5.3 Exporting web services using the JAX-WS RI’s Spring support

Oracle’s JAX-WS RI, developed as part of the GlassFish project, ships Spring support as part of its JAX-WS Commons project. This allows for
deﬁning JAX-WS endpoints as Spring-managed beans, similar to the standalone mode discussed in the previous section - but this time in a Servlet
environment. Note that this is not portable in a Java EE 5 environment; it is mainly intended for non-EE environments such as Tomcat, embedding
the JAX-WS RI as part of the web application.

The difference to the standard style of exporting servlet-based endpoints is that the lifecycle of the endpoint instances themselves will be managed
by Spring here, and that there will be only one JAX-WS servlet deﬁned in web.xml . With the standard Java EE 5 style (as illustrated above), you’ll
have one servlet deﬁnition per service endpoint, with each endpoint typically delegating to Spring beans (through the use of @Autowired , as
shown above).

Check out https://jax-ws-commons.java.net/spring/ for details on setup and usage style.

28.5.4 Accessing web services using JAX-WS

Spring provides two factory beans to create JAX-WS web service proxies, namely LocalJaxWsServiceFactoryBean and
JaxWsPortProxyFactoryBean . The former can only return a JAX-WS service class for us to work with. The latter is the full-ﬂedged version that
can return a proxy that implements our business service interface. In this example we use the latter to create a proxy for the AccountService
endpoint (again):

<bean id="accountWebService" class="org.springframework.remoting.jaxws.JaxWsPortProxyFactoryBean">

Where serviceInterface is our business interface the clients will use. wsdlDocumentUrl is the URL for the WSDL file. Spring needs this a
startup time to create the JAX-WS Service. namespaceUri corresponds to the targetNamespace in the .wsdl file. serviceName corresponds to
the service name in the .wsdl file. portName corresponds to the port name in the .wsdl file.

Accessing the web service is now very easy as we have a bean factory for it that will expose it as AccountService interface. We can wire this up
in Spring:

<bean id="client" class="example.AccountClientImpl">

...
<property name="service" ref="accountWebService"/>
</bean>

From the client code we can access the web service just as if it was a normal class:

public class AccountClientImpl {

private AccountService service;

public void setService(AccountService service) {

this.service = service;
}

public void foo() {

service.insertAccount(...);
}
}

The above is slightly simpliﬁed in that JAX-WS requires endpoint interfaces and implementation classes to be annotated with
@WebService , @SOAPBinding etc annotations. This means that you cannot (easily) use plain Java interfaces and implementation
classes as JAX-WS endpoint artifacts; you need to annotate them accordingly ﬁrst. Check the JAX-WS documentation for details on
those requirements.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 529/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

28.6 JMS
It is also possible to expose services transparently using JMS as the underlying communication protocol. The JMS remoting support in the Spring
Framework is pretty basic - it sends and receives on the same thread and in the same non-transactional Session , and as such throughput will
be very implementation dependent. Note that these single-threaded and non-transactional constraints apply only to Spring’s JMS remoting support.
See Chapter 30, JMS (Java Message Service) for information on Spring’s rich support for JMS-based messaging.

The following interface is used on both the server and the client side.

package com.foo;

public interface CheckingAccountService {

public void cancelAccount(Long accountId);

The following simple implementation of the above interface is used on the server-side.

package com.foo;

public class SimpleCheckingAccountService implements CheckingAccountService {

public void cancelAccount(Long accountId) {

System.out.println("Cancelling account [" + accountId + "]");
}

This conﬁguration ﬁle contains the JMS-infrastructure beans that are shared on both the client and server.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<bean id="connectionFactory" class="org.apache.activemq.ActiveMQConnectionFactory">

<bean id="queue" class="org.apache.activemq.command.ActiveMQQueue">

<constructor-arg value="mmm"/>
</bean>

</beans>

28.6.1 Server-side conﬁguration
On the server, you just need to expose the service object using the JmsInvokerServiceExporter .

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<bean class="org.springframework.jms.listener.SimpleMessageListenerContainer">
<property name="connectionFactory" ref="connectionFactory"/>
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 530/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
<property name="destination" ref="queue"/>
<property name="concurrentConsumers" value="3"/>
<property name="messageListener" ref="checkingAccountService"/>
</bean>

</beans>

package com.foo;

import org.springframework.context.support.ClassPathXmlApplicationContext;

public class Server {

public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {

new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext(new String[]{"com/foo/server.xml", "com/foo/jms.xml"});
}

28.6.2 Client-side conﬁguration
The client merely needs to create a client-side proxy that will implement the agreed upon interface ( CheckingAccountService ). The resulting
object created off the back of the following bean deﬁnition can be injected into other client side objects, and the proxy will take care of forwarding the
call to the server-side object via JMS.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

</beans>

package com.foo;

import org.springframework.context.ApplicationContext;
import org.springframework.context.support.ClassPathXmlApplicationContext;

public class Client {

public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {

ApplicationContext ctx = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext(
new String[] {"com/foo/client.xml", "com/foo/jms.xml"});
CheckingAccountService service = (CheckingAccountService) ctx.getBean("checkingAccountService");
service.cancelAccount(new Long(10));
}

28.7 AMQP
Refer to the Spring AMQP Reference Document 'Spring Remoting with AMQP' section for more information.

28.8 Auto-detection is not implemented for remote interfaces

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 531/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The main reason why auto-detection of implemented interfaces does not occur for remote interfaces is to avoid opening too many doors to remote
callers. The target object might implement internal callback interfaces like InitializingBean or DisposableBean which one would not want
to expose to callers.

Offering a proxy with all interfaces implemented by the target usually does not matter in the local case. But when exporting a remote service, you
should expose a specific service interface, with specific operations intended for remote usage. Besides internal callback interfaces, the target might
implement multiple business interfaces, with just one of them intended for remote exposure. For these reasons, we require such a service interface
to be specified.

This is a trade-off between conﬁguration convenience and the risk of accidental exposure of internal methods. Always specifying a service interface
is not too much effort, and puts you on the safe side regarding controlled exposure of speciﬁc methods.

28.9 Considerations when choosing a technology

Each and every technology presented here has its drawbacks. You should carefully consider your needs, the services you are exposing and the
objects you’ll be sending over the wire when choosing a technology.

When using RMI, it’s not possible to access the objects through the HTTP protocol, unless you’re tunneling the RMI trafﬁc. RMI is a fairly heavy-
weight protocol in that it supports full-object serialization which is important when using a complex data model that needs serialization over the wire.
However, RMI-JRMP is tied to Java clients: It is a Java-to-Java remoting solution.

Spring’s HTTP invoker is a good choice if you need HTTP-based remoting but also rely on Java serialization. It shares the basic infrastructure with
RMI invokers, just using HTTP as transport. Note that HTTP invokers are not only limited to Java-to-Java remoting but also to Spring on both the
client and server side. (The latter also applies to Spring’s RMI invoker for non-RMI interfaces.)

Hessian and/or Burlap might provide signiﬁcant value when operating in a heterogeneous environment, because they explicitly allow for non-Java
clients. However, non-Java support is still limited. Known issues include the serialization of Hibernate objects in combination with lazily-initialized
collections. If you have such a data model, consider using RMI or HTTP invokers instead of Hessian.

JMS can be useful for providing clusters of services and allowing the JMS broker to take care of load balancing, discovery and auto-failover. By
default: Java serialization is used when using JMS remoting but the JMS provider could use a different mechanism for the wire formatting, such as
XStream to allow servers to be implemented in other technologies.

Last but not least, EJB has an advantage over RMI in that it supports standard role-based authentication and authorization and remote transaction
propagation. It is possible to get RMI invokers or HTTP invokers to support security context propagation as well, although this is not provided by core
Spring: There are just appropriate hooks for plugging in third-party or custom solutions here.

28.10 Accessing RESTful services on the Client

The RestTemplate is the core class for client-side access to RESTful services. It is conceptually similar to other template classes in Spring, such
as JdbcTemplate and JmsTemplate and other template classes found in other Spring portfolio projects.
RestTemplate’s behavior is customized by providing callback methods and configuring the `HttpMessageConverter
used to marshal objects into the HTTP request body and to unmarshal any response back into an object. As it is common to use XML as a message
format, Spring provides a MarshallingHttpMessageConverter that uses the Object-to-XML framework that is part of the
org.springframework.oxm package. This gives you a wide range of choices of XML to Object mapping technologies to choose from.

This section describes how to use the RestTemplate and its associated HttpMessageConverters .

28.10.1 RestTemplate
Invoking RESTful services in Java is typically done using a helper class such as Apache HttpComponents HttpClient . For common REST
operations this approach is too low level as shown below.

String uri = "http://example.com/hotels/1/bookings";

PostMethod post = new PostMethod(uri);

String request = // create booking request content
post.setRequestEntity(new StringRequestEntity(request));

httpClient.executeMethod(post);

if (HttpStatus.SC_CREATED == post.getStatusCode()) {
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 532/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Header location = post.getRequestHeader("Location");
if (location != null) {
System.out.println("Created new booking at :" + location.getValue());
}
}

RestTemplate provides higher level methods that correspond to each of the six main HTTP methods that make invoking many RESTful services a
one-liner and enforce REST best practices.

RestTemplate has an asynchronous counter-part: see Section 28.10.3, “Async RestTemplate”.

Table 28.1. Overview of RestTemplate methods

HTTP RestTemplate Method

Method

DELETE delete

GET getForObject getForEntity

HEAD headForHeaders(String url, String… uriVariables)

OPTIONS optionsForAllow(String url, String… uriVariables)

POST postForLocation(String url, Object request, String… uriVariables) postForObject(String url, Object request, Class<T>
responseType, String… uriVariables)

PUT put(String url, Object request, String…uriVariables)

PATCH and exchange execute

others

The names of RestTemplate methods follow a naming convention, the ﬁrst part indicates what HTTP method is being invoked and the second
part indicates what is returned. For example, the method getForObject() will perform a GET, convert the HTTP response into an object type of
your choice and return that object. The method postForLocation() will do a POST, converting the given object into a HTTP request and return
the response HTTP Location header where the newly created object can be found. In case of an exception processing the HTTP request, an
exception of the type RestClientException will be thrown; this behavior can be changed by plugging in another ResponseErrorHandler
implementation into the RestTemplate .

The exchange and execute methods are generalized versions of the more speciﬁc methods listed above them and can support additional
combinations and methods, like HTTP PATCH. However, note that the underlying HTTP library must also support the desired combination. The JDK
HttpURLConnection does not support the PATCH method, but Apache HttpComponents HttpClient version 4.2 or later does. They also enable
RestTemplate to read an HTTP response to a generic type (e.g. List<Account> ), using a ParameterizedTypeReference , a new class
that enables capturing and passing generic type info.

Objects passed to and returned from these methods are converted to and from HTTP messages by HttpMessageConverter instances.
Converters for the main mime types are registered by default, but you can also write your own converter and register it via the
messageConverters() bean property. The default converter instances registered with the template are ByteArrayHttpMessageConverter ,
StringHttpMessageConverter , FormHttpMessageConverter and SourceHttpMessageConverter . You can override these defaults
using the messageConverters() bean property as would be required if using the MarshallingHttpMessageConverter or
MappingJackson2HttpMessageConverter .

Each method takes URI template arguments in two forms, either as a String variable-length argument or a Map<String,String> . For
example,

String result = restTemplate.getForObject(

"http://example.com/hotels/{hotel}/bookings/{booking}", String.class,"42", "21");

using variable-length arguments and

Map<String, String> vars = Collections.singletonMap("hotel", "42");

String result = restTemplate.getForObject(
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 533/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
String result = restTemplate.getForObject(
"http://example.com/hotels/{hotel}/rooms/{hotel}", String.class, vars);

using a Map<String,String> .

To create an instance of RestTemplate you can simply call the default no-arg constructor. This will use standard Java classes from the
java.net package as the underlying implementation to create HTTP requests. This can be overridden by specifying an implementation of
ClientHttpRequestFactory . Spring provides the implementation HttpComponentsClientHttpRequestFactory that uses the Apache
HttpComponents HttpClient to create requests. HttpComponentsClientHttpRequestFactory is conﬁgured using an instance of
org.apache.http.client.HttpClient which can in turn be conﬁgured with credentials information or connection pooling functionality.

Note that the java.net implementation for HTTP requests may raise an exception when accessing the status of a response that
represents an error (e.g. 401). If this is an issue, switch to HttpComponentsClientHttpRequestFactory instead.

The previous example using Apache HttpComponents HttpClient directly rewritten to use the RestTemplate is shown below

uri = "http://example.com/hotels/{id}/bookings";

RestTemplate template = new RestTemplate();

Booking booking = // create booking object

URI location = template.postForLocation(uri, booking, "1");

To use Apache HttpComponents instead of the native java.net functionality, construct the RestTemplate as follows:

RestTemplate template = new RestTemplate(new HttpComponentsClientHttpRequestFactory());

Apache HttpClient supports gzip encoding. To use it, construct a HttpComponentsClientHttpRequestFactory like so:
HttpClient httpClient = HttpClientBuilder.create().build();
ClientHttpRequestFactory requestFactory = new HttpComponentsClientHttpRequestFactory(httpClient);
RestTemplate restTemplate = new RestTemplate(requestFactory);

The general callback interface is RequestCallback and is called when the execute method is invoked.

public <T> T execute(String url, HttpMethod method, RequestCallback requestCallback,

ResponseExtractor<T> responseExtractor, String... uriVariables)

// also has an overload with uriVariables as a Map<String, String>.

The RequestCallback interface is deﬁned as

public interface RequestCallback {

void doWithRequest(ClientHttpRequest request) throws IOException;
}

and allows you to manipulate the request headers and write to the request body. When using the execute method you do not have to worry about
any resource management, the template will always close the request and handle any errors. Refer to the API documentation for more information
on using the execute method and the meaning of its other method arguments.

Working with the URI

For each of the main HTTP methods, the RestTemplate provides variants that either take a String URI or java.net.URI as the ﬁrst argument.

The String URI variants accept template arguments as a String variable-length argument or as a Map<String,String> . They also assume the
URL String is not encoded and needs to be encoded. For example the following:

restTemplate.getForObject("http://example.com/hotel list", String.class);

will perform a GET on http://example.com/hotel%20list . That means if the input URL String is already encoded, it will be encoded twice —
i.e. http://example.com/hotel%20list will become http://example.com/hotel%2520list . If this is not the intended effect, use the

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 534/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
java.net.URI method variant, which assumes the URL is already encoded is also generally useful if you want to reuse a single (fully expanded)
URI multiple times.

The UriComponentsBuilder class can be used to build and encode the URI including support for URI templates. For example you can start
with a URL String:

UriComponents uriComponents = UriComponentsBuilder.fromUriString(

"http://example.com/hotels/{hotel}/bookings/{booking}").build()
.expand("42", "21")
.encode();

URI uri = uriComponents.toUri();

Or specify each URI component individually:

UriComponents uriComponents = UriComponentsBuilder.newInstance()

.scheme("http").host("example.com").path("/hotels/{hotel}/bookings/{booking}").build()
.expand("42", "21")
.encode();

URI uri = uriComponents.toUri();

Dealing with request and response headers

Besides the methods described above, the RestTemplate also has the exchange() method, which can be used for arbitrary HTTP method
execution based on the HttpEntity class.

Perhaps most importantly, the exchange() method can be used to add request headers and read response headers. For example:

HttpHeaders requestHeaders = new HttpHeaders();

requestHeaders.set("MyRequestHeader", "MyValue");
HttpEntity<?> requestEntity = new HttpEntity(requestHeaders);

HttpEntity<String> response = template.exchange(

"http://example.com/hotels/{hotel}",
HttpMethod.GET, requestEntity, String.class, "42");

String responseHeader = response.getHeaders().getFirst("MyResponseHeader");

String body = response.getBody();

In the above example, we ﬁrst prepare a request entity that contains the MyRequestHeader header. We then retrieve the response, and read the
MyResponseHeader and body.

Jackson JSON Views support

It is possible to specify a Jackson JSON View to serialize only a subset of the object properties. For example:

MappingJacksonValue value = new MappingJacksonValue(new User("eric", "7!jd#h23"));

value.setSerializationView(User.WithoutPasswordView.class);
HttpEntity<MappingJacksonValue> entity = new HttpEntity<MappingJacksonValue>(value);
String s = template.postForObject("http://example.com/user", entity, String.class);

28.10.2 HTTP Message Conversion

Objects passed to and returned from the methods getForObject() , postForLocation() , and put() are converted to HTTP requests and
from HTTP responses by HttpMessageConverters . The HttpMessageConverter interface is shown below to give you a better feel for its
functionality

public interface HttpMessageConverter<T> {

// Indicate whether the given class and media type can be read by this converter.
boolean canRead(Class<?> clazz, MediaType mediaType);

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 535/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
// Indicate whether the given class and media type can be written by this converter.
boolean canWrite(Class<?> clazz, MediaType mediaType);

// Return the list of MediaType objects supported by this converter.

List<MediaType> getSupportedMediaTypes();

// Read an object of the given type from the given input message, and returns it.
T read(Class<T> clazz, HttpInputMessage inputMessage) throws IOException, HttpMessageNotReadableException;

// Write an given object to the given output message.

void write(T t, HttpOutputMessage outputMessage) throws IOException, HttpMessageNotWritableException;

Concrete implementations for the main media (mime) types are provided in the framework and are registered by default with the RestTemplate
on the client-side and with AnnotationMethodHandlerAdapter on the server-side.

The implementations of HttpMessageConverter s are described in the following sections. For all converters a default media type is used but can
be overridden by setting the supportedMediaTypes bean property

StringHttpMessageConverter
An HttpMessageConverter implementation that can read and write Strings from the HTTP request and response. By default, this converter
supports all text media types ( text/* ), and writes with a Content-Type of text/plain .

FormHttpMessageConverter
An HttpMessageConverter implementation that can read and write form data from the HTTP request and response. By default, this converter
reads and writes the media type application/x-www-form-urlencoded . Form data is read from and written into a
MultiValueMap<String, String> .

ByteArrayHttpMessageConverter
An HttpMessageConverter implementation that can read and write byte arrays from the HTTP request and response. By default, this converter
supports all media types ( */* ), and writes with a Content-Type of application/octet-stream . This can be overridden by setting the
supportedMediaTypes property, and overriding getContentType(byte[]) .

MarshallingHttpMessageConverter
An HttpMessageConverter implementation that can read and write XML using Spring’s Marshaller and Unmarshaller abstractions from
the org.springframework.oxm package. This converter requires a Marshaller and Unmarshaller before it can be used. These can be
injected via constructor or bean properties. By default this converter supports ( text/xml ) and ( application/xml ).

MappingJackson2HttpMessageConverter
An HttpMessageConverter implementation that can read and write JSON using Jackson’s ObjectMapper . JSON mapping can be customized
as needed through the use of Jackson’s provided annotations. When further control is needed, a custom ObjectMapper can be injected through
the ObjectMapper property for cases where custom JSON serializers/deserializers need to be provided for speciﬁc types. By default this
converter supports ( application/json ).

MappingJackson2XmlHttpMessageConverter
An HttpMessageConverter implementation that can read and write XML using Jackson XML extension’s XmlMapper . XML mapping can be
customized as needed through the use of JAXB or Jackson’s provided annotations. When further control is needed, a custom XmlMapper can be
injected through the ObjectMapper property for cases where custom XML serializers/deserializers need to be provided for speciﬁc types. By
default this converter supports ( application/xml ).

SourceHttpMessageConverter
An HttpMessageConverter implementation that can read and write javax.xml.transform.Source from the HTTP request and response.
Only DOMSource , SAXSource , and StreamSource are supported. By default, this converter supports ( text/xml ) and (
application/xml ).

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 536/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

BufferedImageHttpMessageConverter
An HttpMessageConverter implementation that can read and write java.awt.image.BufferedImage from the HTTP request and
response. This converter reads and writes the media type supported by the Java I/O API.

28.10.3 Async RestTemplate
Web applications often need to query external REST services those days. The very nature of HTTP and synchronous calls can lead up to challenges
when scaling applications for those needs: multiple threads may be blocked, waiting for remote HTTP responses.

AsyncRestTemplate and Section 28.10.1, “RestTemplate”'s APIs are very similar; see Table 28.1, “Overview of RestTemplate methods”. The
main difference between those APIs is that AsyncRestTemplate returns ListenableFuture wrappers as opposed to concrete results.

The previous RestTemplate example translates to:

// async call
Future<ResponseEntity<String>> futureEntity = template.getForEntity(
"http://example.com/hotels/{hotel}/bookings/{booking}", String.class, "42", "21");

// get the concrete result - synchronous call

ResponseEntity<String> entity = futureEntity.get();

ListenableFuture accepts completion callbacks:

ListenableFuture<ResponseEntity<String>> futureEntity = template.getForEntity(

"http://example.com/hotels/{hotel}/bookings/{booking}", String.class, "42", "21");

// register a callback
futureEntity.addCallback(new ListenableFutureCallback<ResponseEntity<String>>() {
@Override
public void onSuccess(ResponseEntity<String> entity) {
//...
}

@Override
public void onFailure(Throwable t) {
//...
}
});

The default AsyncRestTemplate constructor registers a SimpleAsyncTaskExecutor for executing HTTP requests. When
dealing with a large number of short-lived requests, a thread-pooling TaskExecutor implementation like ThreadPoolTaskExecutor
may be a good choice.

See the ListenableFuture javadocs and AsyncRestTemplate javadocs for more details.

29. Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) integration

29.1 Introduction
As a lightweight container, Spring is often considered an EJB replacement. We do believe that for many if not most applications and use cases,
Spring as a container, combined with its rich supporting functionality in the area of transactions, ORM and JDBC access, is a better choice than
implementing equivalent functionality via an EJB container and EJBs.

However, it is important to note that using Spring does not prevent you from using EJBs. In fact, Spring makes it much easier to access EJBs and
implement EJBs and functionality within them. Additionally, using Spring to access services provided by EJBs allows the implementation of those
services to later transparently be switched between local EJB, remote EJB, or POJO (plain old Java object) variants, without the client code having
to be changed.

In this chapter, we look at how Spring can help you access and implement EJBs. Spring provides particular value when accessing stateless session
beans (SLSBs), so we’ll begin by discussing this.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 537/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

29.2 Accessing EJBs

29.2.1 Concepts
To invoke a method on a local or remote stateless session bean, client code must normally perform a JNDI lookup to obtain the (local or remote) EJB
Home object, then use a 'create' method call on that object to obtain the actual (local or remote) EJB object. One or more methods are then invoked
on the EJB.

To avoid repeated low-level code, many EJB applications use the Service Locator and Business Delegate patterns. These are better than spraying
JNDI lookups throughout client code, but their usual implementations have signiﬁcant disadvantages. For example:

Typically code using EJBs depends on Service Locator or Business Delegate singletons, making it hard to test.
In the case of the Service Locator pattern used without a Business Delegate, application code still ends up having to invoke the create() method
on an EJB home, and deal with the resulting exceptions. Thus it remains tied to the EJB API and the complexity of the EJB programming model.
Implementing the Business Delegate pattern typically results in signiﬁcant code duplication, where we have to write numerous methods that
simply call the same method on the EJB.

The Spring approach is to allow the creation and use of proxy objects, normally conﬁgured inside a Spring container, which act as codeless business
delegates. You do not need to write another Service Locator, another JNDI lookup, or duplicate methods in a hand-coded Business Delegate unless
you are actually adding real value in such code.

29.2.2 Accessing local SLSBs

Assume that we have a web controller that needs to use a local EJB. We’ll follow best practice and use the EJB Business Methods Interface pattern,
so that the EJB’s local interface extends a non EJB-speciﬁc business methods interface. Let’s call this business methods interface MyComponent .

public interface MyComponent {

...
}

One of the main reasons to use the Business Methods Interface pattern is to ensure that synchronization between method signatures in local
interface and bean implementation class is automatic. Another reason is that it later makes it much easier for us to switch to a POJO (plain old Java
object) implementation of the service if it makes sense to do so. Of course we’ll also need to implement the local home interface and provide an
implementation class that implements SessionBean and the MyComponent business methods interface. Now the only Java coding we’ll need to
do to hook up our web tier controller to the EJB implementation is to expose a setter method of type MyComponent on the controller. This will save
the reference as an instance variable in the controller:

private MyComponent myComponent;

public void setMyComponent(MyComponent myComponent) {

this.myComponent = myComponent;
}

We can subsequently use this instance variable in any business method in the controller. Now assuming we are obtaining our controller object out of
a Spring container, we can (in the same context) configure a LocalStatelessSessionProxyFactoryBean instance, which will be the EJB
proxy object. The configuration of the proxy, and setting of the myComponent property of the controller is done with a configuration entry such as:

<bean id="myController" class="com.mycom.myController">

There’s a lot of work happening behind the scenes, courtesy of the Spring AOP framework, although you aren’t forced to work with AOP concepts to
enjoy the results. The myComponent bean deﬁnition creates a proxy for the EJB, which implements the business method interface. The EJB local
home is cached on startup, so there’s only a single JNDI lookup. Each time the EJB is invoked, the proxy invokes the classname method on the
local EJB and invokes the corresponding business method on the EJB.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 538/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The myController bean deﬁnition sets the myComponent property of the controller class to the EJB proxy.

Alternatively (and preferably in case of many such proxy deﬁnitions), consider using the <jee:local-slsb> conﬁguration element in Spring’s
"jee" namespace:

<jee:local-slsb id="myComponent" jndi-name="ejb/myBean"

business-interface="com.mycom.MyComponent"/>

<bean id="myController" class="com.mycom.myController">

This EJB access mechanism delivers huge simpliﬁcation of application code: the web tier code (or other EJB client code) has no dependence on the
use of EJB. If we want to replace this EJB reference with a POJO or a mock object or other test stub, we could simply change the myComponent
bean deﬁnition without changing a line of Java code. Additionally, we haven’t had to write a single line of JNDI lookup or other EJB plumbing code as
part of our application.

Benchmarks and experience in real applications indicate that the performance overhead of this approach (which involves reﬂective invocation of the
target EJB) is minimal, and is typically undetectable in typical use. Remember that we don’t want to make ﬁne-grained calls to EJBs anyway, as
there’s a cost associated with the EJB infrastructure in the application server.

There is one caveat with regards to the JNDI lookup. In a bean container, this class is normally best used as a singleton (there simply is no reason to
make it a prototype). However, if that bean container pre-instantiates singletons (as do the various XML ApplicationContext variants) you may
have a problem if the bean container is loaded before the EJB container loads the target EJB. That is because the JNDI lookup will be performed in
the init() method of this class and then cached, but the EJB will not have been bound at the target location yet. The solution is to not pre-
instantiate this factory object, but allow it to be created on ﬁrst use. In the XML containers, this is controlled via the lazy-init attribute.

Although this will not be of interest to the majority of Spring users, those doing programmatic AOP work with EJBs may want to look at
LocalSlsbInvokerInterceptor .

29.2.3 Accessing remote SLSBs

Accessing remote EJBs is essentially identical to accessing local EJBs, except that the SimpleRemoteStatelessSessionProxyFactoryBean
or <jee:remote-slsb> conﬁguration element is used. Of course, with or without Spring, remote invocation semantics apply; a call to a method
on an object in another VM in another computer does sometimes have to be treated differently in terms of usage scenarios and failure handling.

Spring’s EJB client support adds one more advantage over the non-Spring approach. Normally it is problematic for EJB client code to be easily
switched back and forth between calling EJBs locally or remotely. This is because the remote interface methods must declare that they throw
RemoteException , and client code must deal with this, while the local interface methods don’t. Client code written for local EJBs which needs to
be moved to remote EJBs typically has to be modiﬁed to add handling for the remote exceptions, and client code written for remote EJBs which
needs to be moved to local EJBs, can either stay the same but do a lot of unnecessary handling of remote exceptions, or needs to be modiﬁed to
remove that code. With the Spring remote EJB proxy, you can instead not declare any thrown RemoteException in your Business Method
Interface and implementing EJB code, have a remote interface which is identical except that it does throw RemoteException , and rely on the
proxy to dynamically treat the two interfaces as if they were the same. That is, client code does not have to deal with the checked
RemoteException class. Any actual RemoteException that is thrown during the EJB invocation will be re-thrown as the non-checked
RemoteAccessException class, which is a subclass of RuntimeException . The target service can then be switched at will between a local
EJB or remote EJB (or even plain Java object) implementation, without the client code knowing or caring. Of course, this is optional; there is nothing
stopping you from declaring RemoteExceptions in your business interface.

29.2.4 Accessing EJB 2.x SLSBs versus EJB 3 SLSBs

Accessing EJB 2.x Session Beans and EJB 3 Session Beans via Spring is largely transparent. Spring’s EJB accessors, including the
<jee:local-slsb> and <jee:remote-slsb> facilities, transparently adapt to the actual component at runtime. They handle a home interface
if found (EJB 2.x style), or perform straight component invocations if no home interface is available (EJB 3 style).

Note: For EJB 3 Session Beans, you could effectively use a JndiObjectFactoryBean / <jee:jndi-lookup> as well, since fully usable
component references are exposed for plain JNDI lookups there. Deﬁning explicit <jee:local-slsb> / <jee:remote-slsb> lookups simply
provides consistent and more explicit EJB access conﬁguration.

29.3 Using Spring’s EJB implementation support classes

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 539/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

29.3.1 EJB 3 injection interceptor

For EJB 3 Session Beans and Message-Driven Beans, Spring provides a convenient interceptor that resolves Spring’s @Autowired annotation in
the EJB component class: org.springframework.ejb.interceptor.SpringBeanAutowiringInterceptor . This interceptor can be
applied through an @Interceptors annotation in the EJB component class, or through an interceptor-binding XML element in the EJB
deployment descriptor.

@Stateless
@Interceptors(SpringBeanAutowiringInterceptor.class)
public class MyFacadeEJB implements MyFacadeLocal {

// automatically injected with a matching Spring bean

@Autowired
private MyComponent myComp;

// for business method, delegate to POJO service impl.

public String myFacadeMethod(...) {
return myComp.myMethod(...);
}

...

SpringBeanAutowiringInterceptor by default obtains target beans from a ContextSingletonBeanFactoryLocator , with the context
defined in a bean definition file named beanRefContext.xml . By default, a single context definition is expected, which is obtained by type rather
than by name. However, if you need to choose between multiple context definitions, a specific locator key is required. The locator key (i.e. the name
of the context definition in beanRefContext.xml ) can be explicitly specified either through overriding the getBeanFactoryLocatorKey
method in a custom SpringBeanAutowiringInterceptor subclass.

Alternatively, consider overriding SpringBeanAutowiringInterceptor’s `getBeanFactory method, e.g. obtaining a shared

ApplicationContext from a custom holder class.

30. JMS (Java Message Service)

30.1 Introduction
Spring provides a JMS integration framework that simpliﬁes the use of the JMS API much like Spring’s integration does for the JDBC API.

JMS can be roughly divided into two areas of functionality, namely the production and consumption of messages. The JmsTemplate class is used
for message production and synchronous message reception. For asynchronous reception similar to Java EE’s message-driven bean style, Spring
provides a number of message listener containers that are used to create Message-Driven POJOs (MDPs). Spring also provides a declarative way
of creating message listeners.

The package org.springframework.jms.core provides the core functionality for using JMS. It contains JMS template classes that simplify the
use of the JMS by handling the creation and release of resources, much like the JdbcTemplate does for JDBC. The design principle common to
Spring template classes is to provide helper methods to perform common operations and for more sophisticated usage, delegate the essence of the
processing task to user implemented callback interfaces. The JMS template follows the same design. The classes offer various convenience
methods for the sending of messages, consuming a message synchronously, and exposing the JMS session and message producer to the user.

The package org.springframework.jms.support provides JMSException translation functionality. The translation converts the checked
JMSException hierarchy to a mirrored hierarchy of unchecked exceptions. If there are any provider speciﬁc subclasses of the checked
javax.jms.JMSException , this exception is wrapped in the unchecked UncategorizedJmsException .

The package org.springframework.jms.support.converter provides a MessageConverter abstraction to convert between Java

objects and JMS messages.

The package org.springframework.jms.support.destination provides various strategies for managing JMS destinations, such as
providing a service locator for destinations stored in JNDI.

The package org.springframework.jms.annotation provides the necessary infrastructure to support annotation-driven listener endpoints
using @JmsListener .

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 540/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The package org.springframework.jms.config provides the parser implementation for the jms namespace as well the java conﬁg support
to conﬁgure listener containers and create listener endpoints.

Finally, the package org.springframework.jms.connection provides an implementation of the ConnectionFactory suitable for use in
standalone applications. It also contains an implementation of Spring’s PlatformTransactionManager for JMS (the cunningly named
JmsTransactionManager ). This allows for seamless integration of JMS as a transactional resource into Spring’s transaction management
mechanisms.

30.2 Using Spring JMS

30.2.1 JmsTemplate
The JmsTemplate class is the central class in the JMS core package. It simpliﬁes the use of JMS since it handles the creation and release of
resources when sending or synchronously receiving messages.

Code that uses the JmsTemplate only needs to implement callback interfaces giving them a clearly deﬁned high level contract. The
MessageCreator callback interface creates a message given a Session provided by the calling code in JmsTemplate . In order to allow for
more complex usage of the JMS API, the callback SessionCallback provides the user with the JMS session and the callback
ProducerCallback exposes a Session and MessageProducer pair.

The JMS API exposes two types of send methods, one that takes delivery mode, priority, and time-to-live as Quality of Service (QOS) parameters
and one that takes no QOS parameters which uses default values. Since there are many send methods in JmsTemplate , the setting of the QOS
parameters have been exposed as bean properties to avoid duplication in the number of send methods. Similarly, the timeout value for synchronous
receive calls is set using the property setReceiveTimeout .

Some JMS providers allow the setting of default QOS values administratively through the configuration of the ConnectionFactory . This has the
effect that a call to MessageProducer’s send method `send(Destination destination, Message message) will use different QOS
default values than those specified in the JMS specification. In order to provide consistent management of QOS values, the JmsTemplate must
therefore be specifically enabled to use its own QOS values by setting the boolean property isExplicitQosEnabled to true .

For convenience, JmsTemplate also exposes a basic request-reply operation that allows to send a message and wait for a reply on a temporary
queue that is created as part of the operation.

Instances of the JmsTemplate class are thread-safe once conﬁgured. This is important because it means that you can conﬁgure a
single instance of a JmsTemplate and then safely inject this shared reference into multiple collaborators. To be clear, the
JmsTemplate is stateful, in that it maintains a reference to a ConnectionFactory , but this state is not conversational state.

As of Spring Framework 4.1, JmsMessagingTemplate is built on top of JmsTemplate and provides an integration with the messaging
abstraction, i.e. org.springframework.messaging.Message . This allows you to create the message to send in generic manner.

30.2.2 Connections
The JmsTemplate requires a reference to a ConnectionFactory . The ConnectionFactory is part of the JMS specification and serves as
the entry point for working with JMS. It is used by the client application as a factory to create connections with the JMS provider and encapsulates
various configuration parameters, many of which are vendor specific such as SSL configuration options.

When using JMS inside an EJB, the vendor provides implementations of the JMS interfaces so that they can participate in declarative transaction
management and perform pooling of connections and sessions. In order to use this implementation, Java EE containers typically require that you
declare a JMS connection factory as a resource-ref inside the EJB or servlet deployment descriptors. To ensure the use of these features with
the JmsTemplate inside an EJB, the client application should ensure that it references the managed implementation of the
ConnectionFactory .

Caching Messaging Resources

The standard API involves creating many intermediate objects. To send a message the following 'API' walk is performed

ConnectionFactory->Connection->Session->MessageProducer->send

Between the ConnectionFactory and the Send operation there are three intermediate objects that are created and destroyed. To optimise the
resource usage and increase performance two implementations of ConnectionFactory are provided.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 541/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

SingleConnectionFactory
Spring provides an implementation of the ConnectionFactory interface, SingleConnectionFactory , that will return the same
Connection on all createConnection() calls and ignore calls to close() . This is useful for testing and standalone environments so that the
same connection can be used for multiple JmsTemplate calls that may span any number of transactions. SingleConnectionFactory takes a
reference to a standard ConnectionFactory that would typically come from JNDI.

CachingConnectionFactory
The CachingConnectionFactory extends the functionality of SingleConnectionFactory and adds the caching of Sessions,
MessageProducers, and MessageConsumers. The initial cache size is set to 1, use the property sessionCacheSize to increase the number of
cached sessions. Note that the number of actual cached sessions will be more than that number as sessions are cached based on their
acknowledgment mode, so there can be up to 4 cached session instances when sessionCacheSize is set to one, one for each acknowledgment
mode. MessageProducers and MessageConsumers are cached within their owning session and also take into account the unique properties of the
producers and consumers when caching. MessageProducers are cached based on their destination. MessageConsumers are cached based on a
key composed of the destination, selector, noLocal delivery ﬂag, and the durable subscription name (if creating durable consumers).

30.2.3 Destination Management
Destinations, like ConnectionFactories, are JMS administered objects that can be stored and retrieved in JNDI. When conﬁguring a Spring
application context you can use the JNDI factory class JndiObjectFactoryBean / <jee:jndi-lookup> to perform dependency injection on
your object’s references to JMS destinations. However, often this strategy is cumbersome if there are a large number of destinations in the
application or if there are advanced destination management features unique to the JMS provider. Examples of such advanced destination
management would be the creation of dynamic destinations or support for a hierarchical namespace of destinations. The JmsTemplate delegates
the resolution of a destination name to a JMS destination object to an implementation of the interface DestinationResolver .
DynamicDestinationResolver is the default implementation used by JmsTemplate and accommodates resolving dynamic destinations. A
JndiDestinationResolver is also provided that acts as a service locator for destinations contained in JNDI and optionally falls back to the
behavior contained in DynamicDestinationResolver .

Quite often the destinations used in a JMS application are only known at runtime and therefore cannot be administratively created when the
application is deployed. This is often because there is shared application logic between interacting system components that create destinations at
runtime according to a well-known naming convention. Even though the creation of dynamic destinations is not part of the JMS specification, most
vendors have provided this functionality. Dynamic destinations are created with a name defined by the user which differentiates them from temporary
destinations and are often not registered in JNDI. The API used to create dynamic destinations varies from provider to provider since the properties
associated with the destination are vendor specific. However, a simple implementation choice that is sometimes made by vendors is to disregard the
warnings in the JMS specification and to use the TopicSession method createTopic(String topicName) or the QueueSession method
createQueue(String queueName) to create a new destination with default destination properties. Depending on the vendor implementation,
DynamicDestinationResolver may then also create a physical destination instead of only resolving one.

The boolean property pubSubDomain is used to conﬁgure the JmsTemplate with knowledge of what JMS domain is being used. By default the
value of this property is false, indicating that the point-to-point domain, Queues, will be used. This property used by JmsTemplate determines the
behavior of dynamic destination resolution via implementations of the DestinationResolver interface.

You can also conﬁgure the JmsTemplate with a default destination via the property defaultDestination . The default destination will be used
with send and receive operations that do not refer to a speciﬁc destination.

30.2.4 Message Listener Containers

One of the most common uses of JMS messages in the EJB world is to drive message-driven beans (MDBs). Spring offers a solution to create
message-driven POJOs (MDPs) in a way that does not tie a user to an EJB container. (See Section 30.4.2, “Asynchronous Reception - Message-
Driven POJOs” for detailed coverage of Spring’s MDP support.) As from Spring Framework 4.1, endpoint methods can be simply annotated using
@JmsListener see Section 30.6, “Annotation-driven listener endpoints” for more details.

A message listener container is used to receive messages from a JMS message queue and drive the MessageListener that is injected into it.
The listener container is responsible for all threading of message reception and dispatches into the listener for processing. A message listener
container is the intermediary between an MDP and a messaging provider, and takes care of registering to receive messages, participating in
transactions, resource acquisition and release, exception conversion and suchlike. This allows you as an application developer to write the (possibly
complex) business logic associated with receiving a message (and possibly responding to it), and delegates boilerplate JMS infrastructure concerns
to the framework.

There are two standard JMS message listener containers packaged with Spring, each with its specialised feature set.
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 542/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

SimpleMessageListenerContainer
This message listener container is the simpler of the two standard flavors. It creates a fixed number of JMS sessions and consumers at startup,
registers the listener using the standard JMS MessageConsumer.setMessageListener() method, and leaves it up the JMS provider to
perform listener callbacks. This variant does not allow for dynamic adaption to runtime demands or for participation in externally managed
transactions. Compatibility-wise, it stays very close to the spirit of the standalone JMS specification - but is generally not compatible with Java EE’s
JMS restrictions.

While SimpleMessageListenerContainer does not allow for the participation in externally managed transactions, it does support
native JMS transactions: simply switch the 'sessionTransacted' ﬂag to 'true' or, in the namespace, set the 'acknowledge' attribute to
'transacted': Exceptions thrown from your listener will lead to a rollback then, with the message getting redelivered. Alternatively,
consider using 'CLIENT_ACKNOWLEDGE' mode which provides redelivery in case of an exception as well but does not use
transacted Sessions and therefore does not include any other Session operations (such as sending response messages) in the
transaction protocol.

DefaultMessageListenerContainer
This message listener container is the one used in most cases. In contrast to SimpleMessageListenerContainer , this container variant allows
for dynamic adaptation to runtime demands and is able to participate in externally managed transactions. Each received message is registered with
an XA transaction when conﬁgured with a JtaTransactionManager ; so processing may take advantage of XA transaction semantics. This
listener container strikes a good balance between low requirements on the JMS provider, advanced functionality such as the participation in
externally managed transactions, and compatibility with Java EE environments.

The cache level of the container can be customized. Note that when no caching is enabled, a new connection and a new session is created for each
message reception. Combining this with a non durable subscription with high loads may lead to message lost. Make sure to use a proper cache level
in such case.

This container also has recoverable capabilities when the broker goes down. By default, a simple BackOff implementation retries every 5 seconds.
It is possible to specify a custom BackOff implementation for more ﬁne-grained recovery options, see ExponentialBackOff for an example.

Like its sibling SimpleMessageListenerContainer , DefaultMessageListenerContainer supports native JMS transactions

and also allows for customizing the acknowledgment mode. This is strongly recommended over externally managed transactions if
feasible for your scenario: that is, if you can live with occasional duplicate messages in case of the JVM dying. Custom duplicate
message detection steps in your business logic may cover such situations, e.g. in the form of a business entity existence check or a
protocol table check. Any such arrangements will be significantly more efficient than the alternative: wrapping your entire processing
with an XA transaction (through configuring your DefaultMessageListenerContainer with an JtaTransactionManager ),
covering the reception of the JMS message as well as the execution of the business logic in your message listener (including database
operations etc).

30.2.5 Transaction management
Spring provides a JmsTransactionManager that manages transactions for a single JMS ConnectionFactory . This allows JMS applications
to leverage the managed transaction features of Spring as described in Chapter 17, Transaction Management. The JmsTransactionManager
performs local resource transactions, binding a JMS Connection/Session pair from the speciﬁed ConnectionFactory to the thread.
JmsTemplate automatically detects such transactional resources and operates on them accordingly.

In a Java EE environment, the ConnectionFactory will pool Connections and Sessions, so those resources are efﬁciently reused across
transactions. In a standalone environment, using Spring’s SingleConnectionFactory will result in a shared JMS Connection , with each
transaction having its own independent Session . Alternatively, consider the use of a provider-speciﬁc pooling adapter such as ActiveMQ’s
PooledConnectionFactory class.

JmsTemplate can also be used with the JtaTransactionManager and an XA-capable JMS ConnectionFactory for performing distributed
transactions. Note that this requires the use of a JTA transaction manager as well as a properly XA-conﬁgured ConnectionFactory! (Check your Java
EE server’s / JMS provider’s documentation.)

Reusing code across a managed and unmanaged transactional environment can be confusing when using the JMS API to create a Session from
a Connection . This is because the JMS API has only one factory method to create a Session and it requires values for the transaction and
acknowledgment modes. In a managed environment, setting these values is the responsibility of the environment’s transactional infrastructure, so
these values are ignored by the vendor’s wrapper to the JMS Connection. When using the JmsTemplate in an unmanaged environment you can

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 543/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
specify these values through the use of the properties sessionTransacted and sessionAcknowledgeMode . When using a
PlatformTransactionManager with JmsTemplate , the template will always be given a transactional JMS Session .

30.3 Sending a Message
The JmsTemplate contains many convenience methods to send a message. There are send methods that specify the destination using a
javax.jms.Destination object and those that specify the destination using a string for use in a JNDI lookup. The send method that takes no
destination argument uses the default destination.

import javax.jms.ConnectionFactory;
import javax.jms.JMSException;
import javax.jms.Message;
import javax.jms.Queue;
import javax.jms.Session;

import org.springframework.jms.core.MessageCreator;
import org.springframework.jms.core.JmsTemplate;

public class JmsQueueSender {

private JmsTemplate jmsTemplate;

private Queue queue;

public void setConnectionFactory(ConnectionFactory cf) {

this.jmsTemplate = new JmsTemplate(cf);
}

public void setQueue(Queue queue) {

this.queue = queue;
}

public void simpleSend() {

this.jmsTemplate.send(this.queue, new MessageCreator() {
public Message createMessage(Session session) throws JMSException {
return session.createTextMessage("hello queue world");
}
});
}
}

This example uses the MessageCreator callback to create a text message from the supplied Session object. The JmsTemplate is
constructed by passing a reference to a ConnectionFactory . As an alternative, a zero argument constructor and connectionFactory is
provided and can be used for constructing the instance in JavaBean style (using a BeanFactory or plain Java code). Alternatively, consider deriving
from Spring’s JmsGatewaySupport convenience base class, which provides pre-built bean properties for JMS conﬁguration.

The method send(String destinationName, MessageCreator creator) lets you send a message using the string name of the
destination. If these names are registered in JNDI, you should set the destinationResolver property of the template to an instance of
JndiDestinationResolver .

If you created the JmsTemplate and speciﬁed a default destination, the send(MessageCreator c) sends a message to that destination.

30.3.1 Using Message Converters

In order to facilitate the sending of domain model objects, the JmsTemplate has various send methods that take a Java object as an argument for
a message’s data content. The overloaded methods convertAndSend() and receiveAndConvert() in JmsTemplate delegate the
conversion process to an instance of the MessageConverter interface. This interface deﬁnes a simple contract to convert between Java objects
and JMS messages. The default implementation SimpleMessageConverter supports conversion between String and TextMessage ,
byte[] and BytesMesssage , and java.util.Map and MapMessage . By using the converter, you and your application code can focus on
the business object that is being sent or received via JMS and not be concerned with the details of how it is represented as a JMS message.

The sandbox currently includes a MapMessageConverter which uses reﬂection to convert between a JavaBean and a MapMessage . Other
popular implementation choices you might implement yourself are Converters that use an existing XML marshalling package, such as JAXB, Castor,
XMLBeans, or XStream, to create a TextMessage representing the object.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 544/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
To accommodate the setting of a message’s properties, headers, and body that can not be generically encapsulated inside a converter class, the
MessagePostProcessor interface gives you access to the message after it has been converted, but before it is sent. The example below
demonstrates how to modify a message header and a property after a java.util.Map is converted to a message.

public void sendWithConversion() {

Map map = new HashMap();
map.put("Name", "Mark");
map.put("Age", new Integer(47));
jmsTemplate.convertAndSend("testQueue", map, new MessagePostProcessor() {
public Message postProcessMessage(Message message) throws JMSException {
message.setIntProperty("AccountID", 1234);
message.setJMSCorrelationID("123-00001");
return message;
}
});
}

This results in a message of the form:

MapMessage={
Header={
... standard headers ...
CorrelationID={123-00001}
}
Properties={
AccountID={Integer:1234}
}
Fields={
Name={String:Mark}
Age={Integer:47}
}
}

30.3.2 SessionCallback and ProducerCallback

While the send operations cover many common usage scenarios, there are cases when you want to perform multiple operations on a JMS
Session or MessageProducer . The SessionCallback and ProducerCallback expose the JMS Session and Session /
MessageProducer pair respectively. The execute() methods on JmsTemplate execute these callback methods.

30.4 Receiving a message

30.4.1 Synchronous Reception
While JMS is typically associated with asynchronous processing, it is possible to consume messages synchronously. The overloaded
receive(..) methods provide this functionality. During a synchronous receive, the calling thread blocks until a message becomes available. This
can be a dangerous operation since the calling thread can potentially be blocked indeﬁnitely. The property receiveTimeout speciﬁes how long
the receiver should wait before giving up waiting for a message.

30.4.2 Asynchronous Reception - Message-Driven POJOs

Spring also supports annotated-listener endpoints through the use of the @JmsListener annotation and provides an open
infrastructure to register endpoints programmatically. This is by far the most convenient way to setup an asynchronous receiver, see
Section 30.6.1, “Enable listener endpoint annotations” for more details.

In a fashion similar to a Message-Driven Bean (MDB) in the EJB world, the Message-Driven POJO (MDP) acts as a receiver for JMS messages. The
one restriction (but see also below for the discussion of the MessageListenerAdapter class) on an MDP is that it must implement the
javax.jms.MessageListener interface. Please also be aware that in the case where your POJO will be receiving messages on multiple
threads, it is important to ensure that your implementation is thread-safe.

Below is a simple implementation of an MDP:

import javax.jms.JMSException;
import javax.jms.Message;
import javax.jms.MessageListener;
import javax.jms.TextMessage;

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 545/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

public class ExampleListener implements MessageListener {

public void onMessage(Message message) {

if (message instanceof TextMessage) {
try {
System.out.println(((TextMessage) message).getText());
}
catch (JMSException ex) {
throw new RuntimeException(ex);
}
}
else {
throw new IllegalArgumentException("Message must be of type TextMessage");
}
}

Once you’ve implemented your MessageListener , it’s time to create a message listener container.

Find below an example of how to deﬁne and conﬁgure one of the message listener containers that ships with Spring (in this case the
DefaultMessageListenerContainer ).

Please refer to the Spring javadocs of the various message listener containers for a full description of the features supported by each
implementation.

30.4.3 the SessionAwareMessageListener interface

The SessionAwareMessageListener interface is a Spring-speciﬁc interface that provides a similar contract to the JMS MessageListener
interface, but also provides the message handling method with access to the JMS Session from which the Message was received.

package org.springframework.jms.listener;

public interface SessionAwareMessageListener {

void onMessage(Message message, Session session) throws JMSException;

You can choose to have your MDPs implement this interface (in preference to the standard JMS MessageListener interface) if you want your
MDPs to be able to respond to any received messages (using the Session supplied in the onMessage(Message, Session) method). All of
the message listener container implementations that ship with Spring have support for MDPs that implement either the MessageListener or
SessionAwareMessageListener interface. Classes that implement the SessionAwareMessageListener come with the caveat that they
are then tied to Spring through the interface. The choice of whether or not to use it is left entirely up to you as an application developer or architect.

Please note that the 'onMessage(..)' method of the SessionAwareMessageListener interface throws JMSException . In contrast to the
standard JMS MessageListener interface, when using the SessionAwareMessageListener interface, it is the responsibility of the client
code to handle any exceptions thrown.

30.4.4 the MessageListenerAdapter

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 546/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The MessageListenerAdapter class is the ﬁnal component in Spring’s asynchronous messaging support: in a nutshell, it allows you to expose
almost any class as a MDP (there are of course some constraints).

Consider the following interface deﬁnition. Notice that although the interface extends neither the MessageListener nor
SessionAwareMessageListener interfaces, it can still be used as a MDP via the use of the MessageListenerAdapter class. Notice also
how the various message handling methods are strongly typed according to the contents of the various Message types that they can receive and
handle.

public interface MessageDelegate {

void handleMessage(String message);

void handleMessage(Map message);

void handleMessage(byte[] message);

void handleMessage(Serializable message);

public class DefaultMessageDelegate implements MessageDelegate {

// implementation elided for clarity...
}

In particular, note how the above implementation of the MessageDelegate interface (the above DefaultMessageDelegate class) has no JMS
dependencies at all. It truly is a POJO that we will make into an MDP via the following conﬁguration.

<bean id="jmsContainer" class="org.springframework.jms.listener.DefaultMessageListenerContainer">

Below is an example of another MDP that can only handle the receiving of JMS TextMessage messages. Notice how the message handling
method is actually called 'receive' (the name of the message handling method in a MessageListenerAdapter defaults to
'handleMessage' ), but it is conﬁgurable (as you will see below). Notice also how the 'receive(..)' method is strongly typed to receive and
respond only to JMS TextMessage messages.

public interface TextMessageDelegate {

void receive(TextMessage message);

public class DefaultTextMessageDelegate implements TextMessageDelegate {

// implementation elided for clarity...
}

The conﬁguration of the attendant MessageListenerAdapter would look like this:

<bean id="messageListener" class="org.springframework.jms.listener.adapter.MessageListenerAdapter">

<constructor-arg>
<bean class="jmsexample.DefaultTextMessageDelegate"/>
</constructor-arg>
<property name="defaultListenerMethod" value="receive"/>

<property name="messageConverter">
<null/>
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 547/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
</property>
</bean>

Please note that if the above 'messageListener' receives a JMS Message of a type other than TextMessage , an
IllegalStateException will be thrown (and subsequently swallowed). Another of the capabilities of the MessageListenerAdapter class is
the ability to automatically send back a response Message if a handler method returns a non-void value. Consider the interface and class:

public interface ResponsiveTextMessageDelegate {

// notice the return type...

String receive(TextMessage message);

public class DefaultResponsiveTextMessageDelegate implements ResponsiveTextMessageDelegate {

// implementation elided for clarity...
}

If the above DefaultResponsiveTextMessageDelegate is used in conjunction with a MessageListenerAdapter then any non-null value
that is returned from the execution of the 'receive(..)' method will (in the default configuration) be converted into a TextMessage . The
resulting TextMessage will then be sent to the Destination (if one exists) defined in the JMS Reply-To property of the original Message , or
the default Destination set on the MessageListenerAdapter (if one has been configured); if no Destination is found then an
InvalidDestinationException will be thrown (and please note that this exception will not be swallowed and will propagate up the call stack).

30.4.5 Processing messages within transactions

Invoking a message listener within a transaction only requires reconﬁguration of the listener container.

Local resource transactions can simply be activated through the sessionTransacted ﬂag on the listener container deﬁnition. Each message
listener invocation will then operate within an active JMS transaction, with message reception rolled back in case of listener execution failure.
Sending a response message (via SessionAwareMessageListener ) will be part of the same local transaction, but any other resource
operations (such as database access) will operate independently. This usually requires duplicate message detection in the listener implementation,
covering the case where database processing has committed but message processing failed to commit.

<bean id="jmsContainer" class="org.springframework.jms.listener.DefaultMessageListenerContainer">

For participating in an externally managed transaction, you will need to conﬁgure a transaction manager and use a listener container which supports
externally managed transactions: typically DefaultMessageListenerContainer .

To configure a message listener container for XA transaction participation, you’ll want to configure a JtaTransactionManager (which, by default,
delegates to the Java EE server’s transaction subsystem). Note that the underlying JMS ConnectionFactory needs to be XA-capable and properly
registered with your JTA transaction coordinator! (Check your Java EE server’s configuration of JNDI resources.) This allows message reception as
well as e.g. database access to be part of the same transaction (with unified commit semantics, at the expense of XA transaction log overhead).

<bean id="transactionManager" class="org.springframework.transaction.jta.JtaTransactionManager"/>

Then you just need to add it to our earlier container conﬁguration. The container will take care of the rest.

<bean id="jmsContainer" class="org.springframework.jms.listener.DefaultMessageListenerContainer">

30.5 Support for JCA Message Endpoints

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 548/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Beginning with version 2.5, Spring also provides support for a JCA-based MessageListener container. The JmsMessageEndpointManager
will attempt to automatically determine the ActivationSpec class name from the provider’s ResourceAdapter class name. Therefore, it is
typically possible to just provide Spring’s generic JmsActivationSpecConfig as shown in the following example.

Alternatively, you may set up a JmsMessageEndpointManager with a given ActivationSpec object. The ActivationSpec object may also
come from a JNDI lookup (using <jee:jndi-lookup> ).

Using Spring’s ResourceAdapterFactoryBean , the target ResourceAdapter may be conﬁgured locally as depicted in the following example.

<bean id="resourceAdapter" class="org.springframework.jca.support.ResourceAdapterFactoryBean">

The specified WorkManager may also point to an environment-specific thread pool - typically through SimpleTaskWorkManager’s
"asyncTaskExecutor" property. Consider defining a shared thread pool for all your ResourceAdapter instances if you happen to use multiple
adapters.

In some environments (e.g. WebLogic 9 or above), the entire ResourceAdapter object may be obtained from JNDI instead (using
<jee:jndi-lookup> ). The Spring-based message listeners can then interact with the server-hosted ResourceAdapter , also using the
server’s built-in WorkManager .

Please consult the javadoc for JmsMessageEndpointManager , JmsActivationSpecConfig , and ResourceAdapterFactoryBean for
more details.

Spring also provides a generic JCA message endpoint manager which is not tied to JMS:
org.springframework.jca.endpoint.GenericMessageEndpointManager . This component allows for using any message listener type
(e.g. a CCI MessageListener) and any provider-specific ActivationSpec object. Check out your JCA provider’s documentation to find out about the
actual capabilities of your connector, and consult `GenericMessageEndpointManager’s javadoc for the Spring-specific configuration details.

JCA-based message endpoint management is very analogous to EJB 2.1 Message-Driven Beans; it uses the same underlying
resource provider contract. Like with EJB 2.1 MDBs, any message listener interface supported by your JCA provider can be used in
the Spring context as well. Spring nevertheless provides explicit 'convenience' support for JMS, simply because JMS is the most
common endpoint API used with the JCA endpoint management contract.

30.6 Annotation-driven listener endpoints

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 549/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The easiest way to receive a message asynchronously is to use the annotated listener endpoint infrastructure. In a nutshell, it allows you to expose a
method of a managed bean as a JMS listener endpoint.

@Component
public class MyService {

@JmsListener(destination = "myDestination")
public void processOrder(String data) { ... }
}

The idea of the example above is that whenever a message is available on the javax.jms.Destination "myDestination", the processOrder
method is invoked accordingly (in this case, with the content of the JMS message similarly to what the MessageListenerAdapter provides).

The annotated endpoint infrastructure creates a message listener container behind the scenes for each annotated method, using a
JmsListenerContainerFactory . Such a container is not registered against the application context but can be easily located for management
purposes using the JmsListenerEndpointRegistry bean.

@JmsListener is a repeatable annotation on Java 8, so it is possible to associate several JMS destinations to the same method by
adding additional @JmsListener declarations to it. On Java 6 and 7, you can use the @JmsListeners annotation.

30.6.1 Enable listener endpoint annotations

To enable support for @JmsListener annotations add @EnableJms to one of your @Configuration classes.

@Configuration
@EnableJms
public class AppConfig {

@Bean
public DefaultJmsListenerContainerFactory jmsListenerContainerFactory() {
DefaultJmsListenerContainerFactory factory =
new DefaultJmsListenerContainerFactory();
factory.setConnectionFactory(connectionFactory());
factory.setDestinationResolver(destinationResolver());
factory.setConcurrency("3-10");
return factory;
}
}

By default, the infrastructure looks for a bean named jmsListenerContainerFactory as the source for the factory to use to create message
listener containers. In this case, and ignoring the JMS infrastructure setup, the processOrder method can be invoked with a core poll size of 3
threads and a maximum pool size of 10 threads.

It is possible to customize the listener container factory to use per annotation or an explicit default can be conﬁgured by implementing the
JmsListenerConfigurer interface. The default is only required if at least one endpoint is registered without a speciﬁc container factory. See the
javadoc for full details and examples.

If you prefer XML conﬁguration use the <jms:annotation-driven> element.

<jms:annotation-driven/>

30.6.2 Programmatic endpoints registration

JmsListenerEndpoint provides a model of an JMS endpoint and is responsible for conﬁguring the container for that model. The infrastructure
allows you to conﬁgure endpoints programmatically in addition to the ones that are detected by the JmsListener annotation.

@Configuration
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 550/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
@Configuration
@EnableJms
public class AppConfig implements JmsListenerConfigurer {

@Override
public void configureJmsListeners(JmsListenerEndpointRegistrar registrar) {
SimpleJmsListenerEndpoint endpoint = new SimpleJmsListenerEndpoint();
endpoint.setId("myJmsEndpoint");
endpoint.setDestination("anotherQueue");
endpoint.setMessageListener(message -> {
// processing
});
registrar.registerEndpoint(endpoint);
}
}

In the example above, we used SimpleJmsListenerEndpoint which provides the actual MessageListener to invoke but you could just as
well build your own endpoint variant describing a custom invocation mechanism.

It should be noted that you could just as well skip the use of @JmsListener altogether and only register your endpoints programmatically through
JmsListenerConfigurer .

30.6.3 Annotated endpoint method signature

So far, we have been injecting a simple String in our endpoint but it can actually have a very ﬂexible method signature. Let’s rewrite it to inject the
Order with a custom header:

@Component
public class MyService {

@JmsListener(destination = "myDestination")
public void processOrder(Order order, @Header("order_type") String orderType) {
...
}
}

These are the main elements you can inject in JMS listener endpoints:

The raw javax.jms.Message or any of its subclasses (provided of course that it matches the incoming message type).
The javax.jms.Session for optional access to the native JMS API e.g. for sending a custom reply.
The org.springframework.messaging.Message representing the incoming JMS message. Note that this message holds both the
custom and the standard headers (as deﬁned by JmsHeaders ).
@Header -annotated method arguments to extract a speciﬁc header value, including standard JMS headers.
@Headers -annotated argument that must also be assignable to java.util.Map for getting access to all headers.
A non-annotated element that is not one of the supported types (i.e. Message and Session ) is considered to be the payload. You can make
that explicit by annotating the parameter with @Payload . You can also turn on validation by adding an extra @Valid .

The ability to inject Spring’s Message abstraction is particularly useful to benefit from all the information stored in the transport-specific message
without relying on transport-specific API.

@JmsListener(destination = "myDestination")
public void processOrder(Message<Order> order) { ... }

Handling of method arguments is provided by DefaultMessageHandlerMethodFactory which can be further customized to support additional
method arguments. The conversion and validation support can be customized there as well.

For instance, if we want to make sure our Order is valid before processing it, we can annotate the payload with @Valid and conﬁgure the
necessary validator as follows:

@Configuration
@EnableJms
public class AppConfig implements JmsListenerConfigurer {

@Override
public void configureJmsListeners(JmsListenerEndpointRegistrar registrar) {
registrar.setMessageHandlerMethodFactory(myJmsHandlerMethodFactory());
}
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 551/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
}

@Bean
public DefaultMessageHandlerMethodFactory myHandlerMethodFactory() {
DefaultMessageHandlerMethodFactory factory = new DefaultMessageHandlerMethodFactory();
factory.setValidator(myValidator());
return factory;
}
}

30.6.4 Response management
The existing support in MessageListenerAdapter already allows your method to have a non- void return type. When that’s the case, the result of
the invocation is encapsulated in a javax.jms.Message sent either in the destination speciﬁed in the JMSReplyTo header of the original
message or in the default destination conﬁgured on the listener. That default destination can now be set using the @SendTo annotation of the
messaging abstraction.

Assuming our processOrder method should now return an OrderStatus , it is possible to write it as follow to automatically send a response:

@JmsListener(destination = "myDestination")
@SendTo("status")
public OrderStatus processOrder(Order order) {
// order processing
return status;
}

If you have several @JmsListener -annotated methods, you can also place the @SendTo annotation at the class level to share a
default reply destination.

If you need to set additional headers in a transport-independent manner, you could return a Message instead, something like:

@JmsListener(destination = "myDestination")
@SendTo("status")
public Message<OrderStatus> processOrder(Order order) {
// order processing
return MessageBuilder
.withPayload(status)
.setHeader("code", 1234)
.build();
}

If you need to compute the response destination at runtime, you can encapsulate your response in a JmsResponse instance that also provides the
destination to use at runtime. The previous example can be rewritten as follows:

@JmsListener(destination = "myDestination")
public JmsResponse<Message<OrderStatus>> processOrder(Order order) {
// order processing
Message<OrderStatus> response = MessageBuilder
.withPayload(status)
.setHeader("code", 1234)
.build();
return JmsResponse.forQueue(response, "status");
}

30.7 JMS namespace support

Spring provides an XML namespace for simplifying JMS conﬁguration. To use the JMS namespace elements you will need to reference the JMS
schema:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 552/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
xsi:schemaLocation="
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/jms http://www.springframework.org/schema/jms/spring-jms.xsd">

</beans>

The namespace consists of three top-level elements: <annotation-driven/> , <listener-container/> and

<jca-listener-container/> . <annotation-driven enables the use of annotation-driven listener endpoints. <listener-container/>
and <jca-listener-container/> defines shared listener container configuration and may contain <listener/> child elements. Here is an
example of a basic configuration for two listeners.

<jms:listener-container>

<jms:listener destination="queue.orders" ref="orderService" method="placeOrder"/>

<jms:listener destination="queue.confirmations" ref="confirmationLogger" method="log"/>

</jms:listener-container>

The example above is equivalent to creating two distinct listener container bean deﬁnitions and two distinct MessageListenerAdapter bean
deﬁnitions as demonstrated in Section 30.4.4, “the MessageListenerAdapter”. In addition to the attributes shown above, the listener element
may contain several optional ones. The following table describes all available attributes:

Table 30.1. Attributes of the JMS <listener> element

Attribute Description

id A bean name for the hosting listener container. If not speciﬁed, a bean name will be automatically generated.

destination The destination name for this listener, resolved through the DestinationResolver strategy.
(required)

ref The bean name of the handler object.

(required)

method The name of the handler method to invoke. If the ref points to a MessageListener or Spring
SessionAwareMessageListener , this attribute may be omitted.

response- The name of the default response destination to send response messages to. This will be applied in case of a request
destination message that does not carry a "JMSReplyTo" ﬁeld. The type of this destination will be determined by the listener-container’s
"response-destination-type" attribute. Note: This only applies to a listener method with a return value, for which each result
object will be converted into a response message.

subscription The name of the durable subscription, if any.

selector An optional message selector for this listener.

concurrency The number of concurrent sessions/consumers to start for this listener. Can either be a simple number indicating the
maximum number (e.g. "5") or a range indicating the lower as well as the upper limit (e.g. "3-5"). Note that a speciﬁed
minimum is just a hint and might be ignored at runtime. Default is the value provided by the container

The <listener-container/> element also accepts several optional attributes. This allows for customization of the various strategies (for
example, taskExecutor and destinationResolver ) as well as basic JMS settings and resource references. Using these attributes, it is
possible to deﬁne highly-customized listener containers while still beneﬁting from the convenience of the namespace.

Such settings can be automatically exposed as a JmsListenerContainerFactory by specifying the id of the bean to expose through the
factory-id attribute.

<jms:listener-container connection-factory="myConnectionFactory"
task-executor="myTaskExecutor"
destination-resolver="myDestinationResolver"
transaction-manager="myTransactionManager"
concurrency="10">
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 553/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
concurrency="10">

<jms:listener destination="queue.orders" ref="orderService" method="placeOrder"/>

<jms:listener destination="queue.confirmations" ref="confirmationLogger" method="log"/>

</jms:listener-container>

The following table describes all available attributes. Consult the class-level javadocs of the AbstractMessageListenerContainer and its
concrete subclasses for more details on the individual properties. The javadocs also provide a discussion of transaction choices and message
redelivery scenarios.

Table 30.2. Attributes of the JMS <listener-container> element

Attribute Description

container- The type of this listener container. Available options are: default , simple , default102 , or simple102 (the default
type value is 'default' ).

container- A custom listener container implementation class as fully qualiﬁed class name. Default is Spring’s standard
class DefaultMessageListenerContainer or SimpleMessageListenerContainer , according to the "container-type"
attribute.

factory-id Exposes the settings deﬁned by this element as a JmsListenerContainerFactory with the speciﬁed id so that they
can be reused with other endpoints.

connection- A reference to the JMS ConnectionFactory bean (the default bean name is 'connectionFactory' ).
factory

task- A reference to the Spring TaskExecutor for the JMS listener invokers.
executor

destination- A reference to the DestinationResolver strategy for resolving JMS Destinations .

resolver

message- A reference to the MessageConverter strategy for converting JMS Messages to listener method arguments. Default is a
converter SimpleMessageConverter .

error-handler A reference to an ErrorHandler strategy for handling any uncaught Exceptions that may occur during the execution of
the MessageListener .

destination- The JMS destination type for this listener: queue , topic , durableTopic , sharedTopic or
type sharedDurableTopic . This enables potentially the pubSubDomain , subscriptionDurable and
subscriptionShared properties of the container. The default is queue (i.e. disabling those 3 properties).

response- The JMS destination type for responses: "queue", "topic". Default is the value of the "destination-type" attribute.
destination-
type

client-id The JMS client id for this listener container. Needs to be speciﬁed when using durable subscriptions.

cache The cache level for JMS resources: none , connection , session , consumer or auto . By default ( auto ), the
cache level will effectively be "consumer", unless an external transaction manager has been speciﬁed - in which case the
effective default will be none (assuming Java EE-style transaction management where the given ConnectionFactory is an
XA-aware pool).

acknowledge The native JMS acknowledge mode: auto , client , dups-ok or transacted . A value of transacted activates a
locally transacted Session . As an alternative, specify the transaction-manager attribute described below. Default is
auto .

transaction- A reference to an external PlatformTransactionManager (typically an XA-based transaction coordinator, e.g. Spring’s
manager JtaTransactionManager ). If not speciﬁed, native acknowledging will be used (see "acknowledge" attribute).

concurrency The number of concurrent sessions/consumers to start for each listener. Can either be a simple number indicating the
maximum number (e.g. "5") or a range indicating the lower as well as the upper limit (e.g. "3-5"). Note that a speciﬁed
minimum is just a hint and might be ignored at runtime. Default is 1; keep concurrency limited to 1 in case of a topic listener
or if queue ordering is important; consider raising it for general queues.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 554/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Attribute Description

prefetch The maximum number of messages to load into a single session. Note that raising this number might lead to starvation of
concurrent consumers!

receive- The timeout to use for receive calls (in milliseconds). The default is 1000 ms (1 sec); -1 indicates no timeout at all.
timeout

back-off Specify the BackOff instance to use to compute the interval between recovery attempts. If the BackOffExecution
implementation returns BackOffExecution#STOP , the listener container will not further attempt to recover. The
recovery-interval value is ignored when this property is set. The default is a FixedBackOff with an interval of 5000
ms, that is 5 seconds.

recovery- Specify the interval between recovery attempts, in milliseconds. Convenience way to create a FixedBackOff with the
interval speciﬁed interval. For more recovery options, consider specifying a BackOff instance instead. The default is 5000 ms, that is
5 seconds.

phase The lifecycle phase within which this container should start and stop. The lower the value the earlier this container will start
and the later it will stop. The default is Integer.MAX_VALUE meaning the container will start as late as possible and stop
as soon as possible.

Conﬁguring a JCA-based listener container with the "jms" schema support is very similar.

<jms:jca-listener-container resource-adapter="myResourceAdapter"
destination-resolver="myDestinationResolver"
transaction-manager="myTransactionManager"
concurrency="10">

<jms:listener destination="queue.orders" ref="myMessageListener"/>

</jms:jca-listener-container>

The available conﬁguration options for the JCA variant are described in the following table:

Table 30.3. Attributes of the JMS <jca-listener-container/> element

Attribute Description

factory-id Exposes the settings deﬁned by this element as a JmsListenerContainerFactory with the speciﬁed id so that they
can be reused with other endpoints.

resource- A reference to the JCA ResourceAdapter bean (the default bean name is 'resourceAdapter' ).
adapter

activation- A reference to the JmsActivationSpecFactory . The default is to autodetect the JMS provider and its
spec-factory ActivationSpec class (see DefaultJmsActivationSpecFactory )

destination- A reference to the DestinationResolver strategy for resolving JMS Destinations .

resolver

message- A reference to the MessageConverter strategy for converting JMS Messages to listener method arguments. Default is a
converter SimpleMessageConverter .

response- The JMS destination type for responses: "queue", "topic". Default is the value of the "destination-type" attribute.
destination-
type

client-id The JMS client id for this listener container. Needs to be speciﬁed when using durable subscriptions.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 555/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Attribute Description

transaction- A reference to a Spring JtaTransactionManager or a javax.transaction.TransactionManager for kicking off

manager an XA transaction for each incoming message. If not speciﬁed, native acknowledging will be used (see the "acknowledge"
attribute).

concurrency The number of concurrent sessions/consumers to start for each listener. Can either be a simple number indicating the
maximum number (e.g. "5") or a range indicating the lower as well as the upper limit (e.g. "3-5"). Note that a speciﬁed
minimum is just a hint and will typically be ignored at runtime when using a JCA listener container. Default is 1.

prefetch The maximum number of messages to load into a single session. Note that raising this number might lead to starvation of
concurrent consumers!

31. JMX

31.1 Introduction
The JMX support in Spring provides you with the features to easily and transparently integrate your Spring application into a JMX infrastructure.

JMX?

This chapter is not an introduction to JMX… it doesn’t try to explain the motivations of why one might want to use JMX (or indeed what the
letters JMX actually stand for). If you are new to JMX, check out Section 31.8, “Further Resources” at the end of this chapter.

Speciﬁcally, Spring’s JMX support provides four core features:

The automatic registration of any Spring bean as a JMX MBean

A ﬂexible mechanism for controlling the management interface of your beans
The declarative exposure of MBeans over remote, JSR-160 connectors
The simple proxying of both local and remote MBean resources

These features are designed to work without coupling your application components to either Spring or JMX interfaces and classes. Indeed, for the
most part your application classes need not be aware of either Spring or JMX in order to take advantage of the Spring JMX features.

31.2 Exporting your beans to JMX

The core class in Spring’s JMX framework is the MBeanExporter . This class is responsible for taking your Spring beans and registering them with
a JMX MBeanServer . For example, consider the following class:

package org.springframework.jmx;

public class JmxTestBean implements IJmxTestBean {

private String name;

private int age;
private boolean isSuperman;

public int getAge() {

return age;
}

public void setAge(int age) {

this.age = age;
}

public void setName(String name) {

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 556/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
this.name = name;
}

public String getName() {

return name;
}

public int add(int x, int y) {

return x + y;
}

public void dontExposeMe() {

throw new RuntimeException();
}
}

To expose the properties and methods of this bean as attributes and operations of an MBean you simply configure an instance of the
MBeanExporter class in your configuration file and pass in the bean as shown below:

</bean>
<bean id="testBean" class="org.springframework.jmx.JmxTestBean">
<property name="name" value="TEST"/>
<property name="age" value="100"/>
</bean>
</beans>

The pertinent bean definition from the above configuration snippet is the exporter bean. The beans property tells the MBeanExporter exactly
which of your beans must be exported to the JMX MBeanServer . In the default configuration, the key of each entry in the beans Map is used as
the ObjectName for the bean referenced by the corresponding entry value. This behavior can be changed as described in Section 31.4,
“Controlling the ObjectNames for your beans”.

With this conﬁguration the testBean bean is exposed as an MBean under the ObjectName bean:name=testBean1 . By default, all public
properties of the bean are exposed as attributes and all public methods (bar those inherited from the Object class) are exposed as operations.

MBeanExporter is a Lifecycle bean (see the section called “Startup and shutdown callbacks”) and MBeans are exported as late
as possible during the application lifecycle by default. It is possible to conﬁgure the phase at which the export happens or disable
automatic registration by setting the autoStartup ﬂag.

31.2.1 Creating an MBeanServer
The above conﬁguration assumes that the application is running in an environment that has one (and only one) MBeanServer already running. In
this case, Spring will attempt to locate the running MBeanServer and register your beans with that server (if any). This behavior is useful when
your application is running inside a container such as Tomcat or IBM WebSphere that has its own MBeanServer .

However, this approach is of no use in a standalone environment, or when running inside a container that does not provide an MBeanServer . To
address this you can create an MBeanServer instance declaratively by adding an instance of the
org.springframework.jmx.support.MBeanServerFactoryBean class to your conﬁguration. You can also ensure that a speciﬁc
MBeanServer is used by setting the value of the MBeanExporter’s `server property to the MBeanServer value returned by an
MBeanServerFactoryBean ; for example:

<beans>

<bean id="mbeanServer" class="org.springframework.jmx.support.MBeanServerFactoryBean"/>

<bean id="exporter" class="org.springframework.jmx.export.MBeanExporter">
<property name="beans">
<map>
<entry key="bean:name=testBean1" value-ref="testBean"/>
</map>
</property>
<property name="server" ref="mbeanServer"/>
</bean>

<bean id="testBean" class="org.springframework.jmx.JmxTestBean">

</beans>

Here an instance of MBeanServer is created by the MBeanServerFactoryBean and is supplied to the MBeanExporter via the server
property. When you supply your own MBeanServer instance, the MBeanExporter will not attempt to locate a running MBeanServer and will
use the supplied MBeanServer instance. For this to work correctly, you must (of course) have a JMX implementation on your classpath.

31.2.2 Reusing an existing MBeanServer

If no server is speciﬁed, the MBeanExporter tries to automatically detect a running MBeanServer . This works in most environment where only
one MBeanServer instance is used, however when multiple instances exist, the exporter might pick the wrong server. In such cases, one should
use the MBeanServer agentId to indicate which instance to be used:

For platforms/cases where the existing MBeanServer has a dynamic (or unknown) agentId which is retrieved through lookup methods, one
should use factory-method:

</beans>

31.2.3 Lazy-initialized MBeans
If you configure a bean with the MBeanExporter that is also configured for lazy initialization, then the MBeanExporter will not break this
contract and will avoid instantiating the bean. Instead, it will register a proxy with the MBeanServer and will defer obtaining the bean from the
container until the first invocation on the proxy occurs.

31.2.4 Automatic registration of MBeans

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 558/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Any beans that are exported through the MBeanExporter and are already valid MBeans are registered as-is with the MBeanServer without
further intervention from Spring. MBeans can be automatically detected by the MBeanExporter by setting the autodetect property to true :

<bean id="exporter" class="org.springframework.jmx.export.MBeanExporter">

<bean name="spring:mbean=true" class="org.springframework.jmx.export.TestDynamicMBean"/>

Here, the bean called spring:mbean=true is already a valid JMX MBean and will be automatically registered by Spring. By default, beans that
are autodetected for JMX registration have their bean name used as the ObjectName . This behavior can be overridden as detailed in Section 31.4,
“Controlling the ObjectNames for your beans”.

31.2.5 Controlling the registration behavior

Consider the scenario where a Spring MBeanExporter attempts to register an MBean with an MBeanServer using the ObjectName
'bean:name=testBean1' . If an MBean instance has already been registered under that same ObjectName , the default behavior is to fail (and
throw an InstanceAlreadyExistsException ).

It is possible to control the behavior of exactly what happens when an MBean is registered with an MBeanServer . Spring’s JMX support allows for
three different registration behaviors to control the registration behavior when the registration process ﬁnds that an MBean has already been
registered under the same ObjectName ; these registration behaviors are summarized on the following table:

Table 31.1. Registration Behaviors

Registration behavior Explanation

REGISTRATION_FAIL_ON_EXISTING This is the default registration behavior. If an MBean instance has already been registered under
the same ObjectName , the MBean that is being registered will not be registered and an
InstanceAlreadyExistsException will be thrown. The existing MBean is unaffected.

REGISTRATION_IGNORE_EXISTING If an MBean instance has already been registered under the same ObjectName , the MBean
that is being registered will not be registered. The existing MBean is unaffected, and no
Exception will be thrown. This is useful in settings where multiple applications want to share a
common MBean in a shared MBeanServer .

REGISTRATION_REPLACE_EXISTING If an MBean instance has already been registered under the same ObjectName , the existing
MBean that was previously registered will be unregistered and the new MBean will be
registered in its place (the new MBean effectively replaces the previous instance).

The above values are deﬁned as constants on the MBeanRegistrationSupport class (the MBeanExporter class derives from this
superclass). If you want to change the default registration behavior, you simply need to set the value of the registrationBehaviorName
property on your MBeanExporter deﬁnition to one of those values.

The following example illustrates how to effect a change from the default registration behavior to the REGISTRATION_REPLACE_EXISTING
behavior:

<beans>

<bean id="exporter" class="org.springframework.jmx.export.MBeanExporter">

<bean id="testBean" class="org.springframework.jmx.JmxTestBean">

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 559/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

</beans>

31.3 Controlling the management interface of your beans

In the previous example, you had little control over the management interface of your bean; all of the public properties and methods of each exported
bean was exposed as JMX attributes and operations respectively. To exercise ﬁner-grained control over exactly which properties and methods of
your exported beans are actually exposed as JMX attributes and operations, Spring JMX provides a comprehensive and extensible mechanism for
controlling the management interfaces of your beans.

31.3.1 the MBeanInfoAssembler Interface

Behind the scenes, the MBeanExporter delegates to an implementation of the
org.springframework.jmx.export.assembler.MBeanInfoAssembler interface which is responsible for deﬁning the management
interface of each bean that is being exposed. The default implementation,
org.springframework.jmx.export.assembler.SimpleReflectiveMBeanInfoAssembler , simply deﬁnes a management interface that
exposes all public properties and methods (as you saw in the previous examples). Spring provides two additional implementations of the
MBeanInfoAssembler interface that allow you to control the generated management interface using either source-level metadata or any arbitrary
interface.

31.3.2 Using Source-Level Metadata (Java annotations)

Using the MetadataMBeanInfoAssembler you can deﬁne the management interfaces for your beans using source level metadata. The reading
of metadata is encapsulated by the org.springframework.jmx.export.metadata.JmxAttributeSource interface. Spring JMX provides
a default implementation which uses Java annotations, namely
org.springframework.jmx.export.annotation.AnnotationJmxAttributeSource . The MetadataMBeanInfoAssembler must be
conﬁgured with an implementation instance of the JmxAttributeSource interface for it to function correctly (there is no default).

To mark a bean for export to JMX, you should annotate the bean class with the ManagedResource annotation. Each method you wish to expose
as an operation must be marked with the ManagedOperation annotation and each property you wish to expose must be marked with the
ManagedAttribute annotation. When marking properties you can omit either the annotation of the getter or the setter to create a write-only or
read-only attribute respectively.

A ManagedResource annotated bean must be public as well as the methods exposing an operation or an attribute.

The example below shows the annotated version of the JmxTestBean class that you saw earlier:

package org.springframework.jmx;

import org.springframework.jmx.export.annotation.ManagedResource;
import org.springframework.jmx.export.annotation.ManagedOperation;

import org.springframework.jmx.export.annotation.ManagedAttribute;

@ManagedResource(
objectName="bean:name=testBean4",
description="My Managed Bean",
log=true,
logFile="jmx.log",
currencyTimeLimit=15,
persistPolicy="OnUpdate",
persistPeriod=200,
persistLocation="foo",
persistName="bar")
public class AnnotationTestBean implements IJmxTestBean {

private String name;

private int age;

@ManagedAttribute(description="The Age Attribute", currencyTimeLimit=15)

public int getAge() {
return age;
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 560/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
}

public void setAge(int age) {

this.age = age;
}

@ManagedAttribute(description="The Name Attribute",

currencyTimeLimit=20,
defaultValue="bar",
persistPolicy="OnUpdate")
public void setName(String name) {
this.name = name;
}

@ManagedAttribute(defaultValue="foo", persistPeriod=300)
public String getName() {
return name;
}

@ManagedOperation(description="Add two numbers")

@ManagedOperationParameters({
@ManagedOperationParameter(name = "x", description = "The first number"),
@ManagedOperationParameter(name = "y", description = "The second number")})
public int add(int x, int y) {
return x + y;
}

public void dontExposeMe() {

throw new RuntimeException();
}

Here you can see that the JmxTestBean class is marked with the ManagedResource annotation and that this ManagedResource annotation
is conﬁgured with a set of properties. These properties can be used to conﬁgure various aspects of the MBean that is generated by the
MBeanExporter , and are explained in greater detail later in section entitled Section 31.3.3, “Source-Level Metadata Types”.

You will also notice that both the age and name properties are annotated with the ManagedAttribute annotation, but in the case of the age
property, only the getter is marked. This will cause both of these properties to be included in the management interface as attributes, but the age
attribute will be read-only.

Finally, you will notice that the add(int, int) method is marked with the ManagedOperation attribute whereas the dontExposeMe()
method is not. This will cause the management interface to contain only one operation, add(int, int) , when using the
MetadataMBeanInfoAssembler .

The conﬁguration below shows how you conﬁgure the MBeanExporter to use the MetadataMBeanInfoAssembler :

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 561/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
<bean id="testBean" class="org.springframework.jmx.AnnotationTestBean">
<property name="name" value="TEST"/>
<property name="age" value="100"/>
</bean>
</beans>

Here you can see that an MetadataMBeanInfoAssembler bean has been conﬁgured with an instance of the
AnnotationJmxAttributeSource class and passed to the MBeanExporter through the assembler property. This is all that is required to take
advantage of metadata-driven management interfaces for your Spring-exposed MBeans.

31.3.3 Source-Level Metadata Types

The following source level metadata types are available for use in Spring JMX:

Table 31.2. Source-Level Metadata Types

Purpose Annotation Annotation Type

Mark all instances of a Class as JMX @ManagedResource Class

managed resources

Mark a method as a JMX operation @ManagedOperation Method

Mark a getter or setter as one half of a JMX @ManagedAttribute Method (only getters and
attribute setters)

Deﬁne descriptions for operation parameters @ManagedOperationParameter and Method

@ManagedOperationParameters

The following conﬁguration parameters are available for use on these source-level metadata types:

Table 31.3. Source-Level Metadata Parameters

Parameter Description Applies to

ObjectName Used by MetadataNamingStrategy to ManagedResource

determine the ObjectName of a managed
resource

description Sets the friendly description of the resource, ManagedResource , ManagedAttribute ,

attribute or operation ManagedOperation , ManagedOperationParameter

currencyTimeLimit Sets the value of the currencyTimeLimit ManagedResource , ManagedAttribute

descriptor ﬁeld

defaultValue Sets the value of the defaultValue descriptor ManagedAttribute

ﬁeld

log Sets the value of the log descriptor ﬁeld ManagedResource

logFile Sets the value of the logFile descriptor ﬁeld ManagedResource

persistPolicy Sets the value of the persistPolicy descriptor ManagedResource

ﬁeld

persistPeriod Sets the value of the persistPeriod descriptor ManagedResource

ﬁeld

persistLocation Sets the value of the persistLocation ManagedResource

descriptor ﬁeld

persistName Sets the value of the persistName descriptor ﬁeld ManagedResource

name Sets the display name of an operation parameter ManagedOperationParameter

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 562/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Parameter Description Applies to

index Sets the index of an operation parameter ManagedOperationParameter

31.3.4 the AutodetectCapableMBeanInfoAssembler interface

To simplify conﬁguration even further, Spring introduces the AutodetectCapableMBeanInfoAssembler interface which extends the
MBeanInfoAssembler interface to add support for autodetection of MBean resources. If you conﬁgure the MBeanExporter with an instance of
AutodetectCapableMBeanInfoAssembler then it is allowed to "vote" on the inclusion of beans for exposure to JMX.

Out of the box, the only implementation of the AutodetectCapableMBeanInfo interface is the MetadataMBeanInfoAssembler which will
vote to include any bean which is marked with the ManagedResource attribute. The default approach in this case is to use the bean name as the
ObjectName which results in a conﬁguration like this:

<beans>

<bean id="exporter" class="org.springframework.jmx.export.MBeanExporter">

<property name="autodetect" value="true"/>
<property name="assembler" ref="assembler"/>
</bean>

<bean id="testBean" class="org.springframework.jmx.JmxTestBean">

<bean id="assembler" class="org.springframework.jmx.export.assembler.MetadataMBeanInfoAssembler">

</beans>

Notice that in this conﬁguration no beans are passed to the MBeanExporter ; however, the JmxTestBean will still be registered since it is marked
with the ManagedResource attribute and the MetadataMBeanInfoAssembler detects this and votes to include it. The only problem with this
approach is that the name of the JmxTestBean now has business meaning. You can address this issue by changing the default behavior for
ObjectName creation as deﬁned in Section 31.4, “Controlling the ObjectNames for your beans”.

31.3.5 Deﬁning management interfaces using Java interfaces

In addition to the MetadataMBeanInfoAssembler , Spring also includes the InterfaceBasedMBeanInfoAssembler which allows you to
constrain the methods and properties that are exposed based on the set of methods deﬁned in a collection of interfaces.

Although the standard mechanism for exposing MBeans is to use interfaces and a simple naming scheme, the
InterfaceBasedMBeanInfoAssembler extends this functionality by removing the need for naming conventions, allowing you to use more than
one interface and removing the need for your beans to implement the MBean interfaces.

Consider this interface that is used to deﬁne a management interface for the JmxTestBean class that you saw earlier:

public interface IJmxTestBean {

public int add(int x, int y);

public long myOperation();

public int getAge();

public void setAge(int age);

public void setName(String name);

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 563/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
public String getName();

This interface defines the methods and properties that will be exposed as operations and attributes on the JMX MBean. The code below shows how
to configure Spring JMX to use this interface as the definition for the management interface:

<beans>

<bean id="exporter" class="org.springframework.jmx.export.MBeanExporter">

<property name="beans">
<map>
<entry key="bean:name=testBean5" value-ref="testBean"/>
</map>
</property>
<property name="assembler">
<bean class="org.springframework.jmx.export.assembler.InterfaceBasedMBeanInfoAssembler">
<property name="managedInterfaces">
<value>org.springframework.jmx.IJmxTestBean</value>
</property>
</bean>
</property>
</bean>

<bean id="testBean" class="org.springframework.jmx.JmxTestBean">

</beans>

Here you can see that the InterfaceBasedMBeanInfoAssembler is conﬁgured to use the IJmxTestBean interface when constructing the
management interface for any bean. It is important to understand that beans processed by the InterfaceBasedMBeanInfoAssembler are not
required to implement the interface used to generate the JMX management interface.

In the case above, the IJmxTestBean interface is used to construct all management interfaces for all beans. In many cases this is not the desired
behavior and you may want to use different interfaces for different beans. In this case, you can pass InterfaceBasedMBeanInfoAssembler a
Properties instance via the interfaceMappings property, where the key of each entry is the bean name and the value of each entry is a
comma-separated list of interface names to use for that bean.

If no management interface is speciﬁed through either the managedInterfaces or interfaceMappings properties, then the
InterfaceBasedMBeanInfoAssembler will reﬂect on the bean and use all of the interfaces implemented by that bean to create the
management interface.

31.3.6 Using MethodNameBasedMBeanInfoAssembler
The MethodNameBasedMBeanInfoAssembler allows you to specify a list of method names that will be exposed to JMX as attributes and
operations. The code below shows a sample conﬁguration for this:

<bean id="exporter" class="org.springframework.jmx.export.MBeanExporter">

<property name="beans">
<map>
<entry key="bean:name=testBean5" value-ref="testBean"/>
</map>
</property>
<property name="assembler">
<bean class="org.springframework.jmx.export.assembler.MethodNameBasedMBeanInfoAssembler">
<property name="managedMethods">
<value>add,myOperation,getName,setName,getAge</value>
</property>
</bean>

</property>
</bean>

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 564/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Here you can see that the methods add and myOperation will be exposed as JMX operations and getName() , setName(String) and
getAge() will be exposed as the appropriate half of a JMX attribute. In the code above, the method mappings apply to beans that are exposed to
JMX. To control method exposure on a bean-by-bean basis, use the methodMappings property of MethodNameMBeanInfoAssembler to map
bean names to lists of method names.

31.4 Controlling the ObjectNames for your beans

Behind the scenes, the MBeanExporter delegates to an implementation of the ObjectNamingStrategy to obtain ObjectName s for each of
the beans it is registering. The default implementation, KeyNamingStrategy , will, by default, use the key of the beans Map as the
ObjectName . In addition, the KeyNamingStrategy can map the key of the beans Map to an entry in a Properties ﬁle (or ﬁles) to resolve
the ObjectName . In addition to the KeyNamingStrategy , Spring provides two additional ObjectNamingStrategy implementations: the
IdentityNamingStrategy that builds an ObjectName based on the JVM identity of the bean and the MetadataNamingStrategy that uses
source level metadata to obtain the ObjectName .

31.4.1 Reading ObjectNames from Properties

You can conﬁgure your own KeyNamingStrategy instance and conﬁgure it to read ObjectName s from a Properties instance rather than
use bean key. The KeyNamingStrategy will attempt to locate an entry in the Properties with a key corresponding to the bean key. If no entry
is found or if the Properties instance is null then the bean key itself is used.

The code below shows a sample conﬁguration for the KeyNamingStrategy :

<beans>

<bean id="exporter" class="org.springframework.jmx.export.MBeanExporter">

<bean id="testBean" class="org.springframework.jmx.JmxTestBean">

<bean id="namingStrategy" class="org.springframework.jmx.export.naming.KeyNamingStrategy">

<property name="mappings">
<props>
<prop key="testBean">bean:name=testBean1</prop>
</props>
</property>
<property name="mappingLocations">
<value>names1.properties,names2.properties</value>
</property>
</bean>

</beans>

Here an instance of KeyNamingStrategy is configured with a Properties instance that is merged from the Properties instance defined by
the mapping property and the properties files located in the paths defined by the mappings property. In this configuration, the testBean bean will
be given the ObjectName bean:name=testBean1 since this is the entry in the Properties instance that has a key corresponding to the
bean key.

If no entry in the Properties instance can be found then the bean key name is used as the ObjectName .

31.4.2 Using the MetadataNamingStrategy

The MetadataNamingStrategy uses the objectName property of the ManagedResource attribute on each bean to create the
ObjectName . The code below shows the conﬁguration for the MetadataNamingStrategy :

<beans>
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 565/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
<beans>

<bean id="exporter" class="org.springframework.jmx.export.MBeanExporter">

<bean id="testBean" class="org.springframework.jmx.JmxTestBean">

<bean id="namingStrategy" class="org.springframework.jmx.export.naming.MetadataNamingStrategy">

</beans>

If no objectName has been provided for the ManagedResource attribute, then an ObjectName will be created with the following format:[fully-
qualiﬁed-package-name]:type=[short-classname],name=[bean-name]. For example, the generated ObjectName for the following bean would be:
com.foo:type=MyClass,name=myBean.

<bean id="myBean" class="com.foo.MyClass"/>

31.4.3 Conﬁguring annotation based MBean export

If you prefer using the annotation based approach to define your management interfaces, then a convenience subclass of MBeanExporter is
available: AnnotationMBeanExporter . When defining an instance of this subclass, the namingStrategy , assembler , and
attributeSource configuration is no longer needed, since it will always use standard Java annotation-based metadata (autodetection is always
enabled as well). In fact, rather than defining an MBeanExporter bean, an even simpler syntax is supported by the @EnableMBeanExport
@Configuration annotation.

@Configuration
@EnableMBeanExport
public class AppConfig {

If you prefer XML based conﬁguration the 'context:mbean-export' element serves the same purpose.

<context:mbean-export/>

You can provide a reference to a particular MBean server if necessary, and the defaultDomain attribute (a property of
AnnotationMBeanExporter ) accepts an alternate value for the generated MBean `ObjectNames’ domains. This would be used in place of the
fully qualiﬁed package name as described in the previous section on MetadataNamingStrategy.

@EnableMBeanExport(server="myMBeanServer", defaultDomain="myDomain")
@Configuration
ContextConfiguration {

<context:mbean-export server="myMBeanServer" default-domain="myDomain"/>

Do not use interface-based AOP proxies in combination with autodetection of JMX annotations in your bean classes. Interface-based
proxies 'hide' the target class, which also hides the JMX managed resource annotations. Hence, use target-class proxies in that case:

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 566/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
through setting the 'proxy-target-class' ﬂag on <aop:config/> , <tx:annotation-driven/> , etc. Otherwise, your JMX beans
might be silently ignored at startup…

31.5 JSR-160 Connectors
For remote access, Spring JMX module offers two FactoryBean implementations inside the org.springframework.jmx.support package
for creating both server- and client-side connectors.

31.5.1 Server-side Connectors
To have Spring JMX create, start and expose a JSR-160 JMXConnectorServer use the following conﬁguration:

<bean id="serverConnector" class="org.springframework.jmx.support.ConnectorServerFactoryBean"/>

By default ConnectorServerFactoryBean creates a JMXConnectorServer bound to "service:jmx:jmxmp://localhost:9875" . The

serverConnector bean thus exposes the local MBeanServer to clients through the JMXMP protocol on localhost, port 9875. Note that the
JMXMP protocol is marked as optional by the JSR 160 speciﬁcation: currently, the main open-source JMX implementation, MX4J, and the one
provided with the JDK do not support JMXMP.

To specify another URL and register the JMXConnectorServer itself with the MBeanServer use the serviceUrl and ObjectName
properties respectively:

If the ObjectName property is set Spring will automatically register your connector with the MBeanServer under that ObjectName . The
example below shows the full set of parameters which you can pass to the ConnectorServerFactoryBean when creating a JMXConnector:

Note that when using a RMI-based connector you need the lookup service (tnameserv or rmiregistry) to be started in order for the name registration
to complete. If you are using Spring to export remote services for you via RMI, then Spring will already have constructed an RMI registry. If not, you
can easily start a registry using the following snippet of conﬁguration:

<bean id="registry" class="org.springframework.remoting.rmi.RmiRegistryFactoryBean">

31.5.2 Client-side Connectors
To create an MBeanServerConnection to a remote JSR-160 enabled MBeanServer use the MBeanServerConnectionFactoryBean as
shown below:

<bean id="clientConnector" class="org.springframework.jmx.support.MBeanServerConnectionFactoryBean">

<property name="serviceUrl" value="service:jmx:rmi://localhost/jndi/rmi://localhost:1099/jmxrmi"/>
</bean>
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 567/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

31.5.3 JMX over Burlap/Hessian/SOAP

JSR-160 permits extensions to the way in which communication is done between the client and the server. The examples above are using the
mandatory RMI-based implementation required by the JSR-160 speciﬁcation (IIOP and JRMP) and the (optional) JMXMP. By using other providers
or JMX implementations (such as MX4J) you can take advantage of protocols like SOAP, Hessian, Burlap over simple HTTP or SSL and others:

<bean id="serverConnector" class="org.springframework.jmx.support.ConnectorServerFactoryBean">

In the case of the above example, MX4J 3.0.0 was used; see the ofﬁcial MX4J documentation for more information.

31.6 Accessing MBeans via Proxies

Spring JMX allows you to create proxies that re-route calls to MBeans registered in a local or remote MBeanServer . These proxies provide you
with a standard Java interface through which you can interact with your MBeans. The code below shows how to conﬁgure a proxy for an MBean
running in a local MBeanServer :

<bean id="proxy" class="org.springframework.jmx.access.MBeanProxyFactoryBean">

Here you can see that a proxy is created for the MBean registered under the ObjectName : bean:name=testBean . The set of interfaces that the
proxy will implement is controlled by the proxyInterfaces property and the rules for mapping methods and properties on these interfaces to
operations and attributes on the MBean are the same rules used by the InterfaceBasedMBeanInfoAssembler .

The MBeanProxyFactoryBean can create a proxy to any MBean that is accessible via an MBeanServerConnection . By default, the local
MBeanServer is located and used, but you can override this and provide an MBeanServerConnection pointing to a remote MBeanServer to
cater for proxies pointing to remote MBeans:

<bean id="proxy" class="org.springframework.jmx.access.MBeanProxyFactoryBean">

Here you can see that we create an MBeanServerConnection pointing to a remote machine using the
MBeanServerConnectionFactoryBean . This MBeanServerConnection is then passed to the MBeanProxyFactoryBean via the
server property. The proxy that is created will forward all invocations to the MBeanServer via this MBeanServerConnection .

31.7 Notiﬁcations
Spring’s JMX offering includes comprehensive support for JMX notiﬁcations.

31.7.1 Registering Listeners for Notiﬁcations

Spring’s JMX support makes it very easy to register any number of NotificationListeners with any number of MBeans (this includes MBeans
exported by Spring’s MBeanExporter and MBeans registered via some other mechanism). By way of an example, consider the scenario where
one would like to be informed (via a Notification ) each and every time an attribute of a target MBean changes.

package com.example;

import javax.management.AttributeChangeNotification;
import javax.management.Notification;
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 568/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
import javax.management.Notification;
import javax.management.NotificationFilter;
import javax.management.NotificationListener;

public class ConsoleLoggingNotificationListener

implements NotificationListener, NotificationFilter {

public void handleNotification(Notification notification, Object handback) {

System.out.println(notification);
System.out.println(handback);
}

public boolean isNotificationEnabled(Notification notification) {

return AttributeChangeNotification.class.isAssignableFrom(notification.getClass());
}

<beans>

<bean id="exporter" class="org.springframework.jmx.export.MBeanExporter">

<bean id="testBean" class="org.springframework.jmx.JmxTestBean">

</beans>

With the above conﬁguration in place, every time a JMX Notification is broadcast from the target MBean ( bean:name=testBean1 ), the
ConsoleLoggingNotificationListener bean that was registered as a listener via the notificationListenerMappings property will be
notiﬁed. The ConsoleLoggingNotificationListener bean can then take whatever action it deems appropriate in response to the
Notification .

You can also use straight bean names as the link between exported beans and listeners:

<beans>

<bean id="exporter" class="org.springframework.jmx.export.MBeanExporter">

<bean id="testBean" class="org.springframework.jmx.JmxTestBean">

<property name="name" value="TEST"/>
<property name="age" value="100"/>
</bean>
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 569/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
</bean>

</beans>

If one wants to register a single NotificationListener instance for all of the beans that the enclosing MBeanExporter is exporting, one can
use the special wildcard '*' (sans quotes) as the key for an entry in the notificationListenerMappings property map; for example:

If one needs to do the inverse (that is, register a number of distinct listeners against an MBean), then one has to use the
notificationListeners list property instead (and in preference to the notificationListenerMappings property). This time, instead of
configuring simply a NotificationListener for a single MBean, one configures NotificationListenerBean instances… a
NotificationListenerBean encapsulates a NotificationListener and the ObjectName (or ObjectNames ) that it is to be registered
against in an MBeanServer . The NotificationListenerBean also encapsulates a number of other properties such as a
NotificationFilter and an arbitrary handback object that can be used in advanced JMX notification scenarios.

The conﬁguration when using NotificationListenerBean instances is not wildly different to what was presented previously:

<beans>

<bean id="exporter" class="org.springframework.jmx.export.MBeanExporter">

<property name="beans">
<map>
<entry key="bean:name=testBean1" value-ref="testBean"/>
</map>
</property>
<property name="notificationListeners">
<list>
<bean class="org.springframework.jmx.export.NotificationListenerBean">
<constructor-arg>
<bean class="com.example.ConsoleLoggingNotificationListener"/>
</constructor-arg>
<property name="mappedObjectNames">
<list>
<value>bean:name=testBean1</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>
</list>
</property>
</bean>

<bean id="testBean" class="org.springframework.jmx.JmxTestBean">

</beans>

The above example is equivalent to the first notification example. Lets assume then that we want to be given a handback object every time a
Notification is raised, and that additionally we want to filter out extraneous Notifications by supplying a NotificationFilter . (For a
full discussion of just what a handback object is, and indeed what a NotificationFilter is, please do consult that section of the JMX
specification (1.2) entitled 'The JMX Notification Model'.)

<beans>

<bean id="exporter" class="org.springframework.jmx.export.MBeanExporter">

<property name="beans">
<map>
<entry key="bean:name=testBean1" value-ref="testBean1"/>
<entry key="bean:name=testBean2" value-ref="testBean2"/>
</map>
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 570/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
</property>
<property name="notificationListeners">
<list>
<bean class="org.springframework.jmx.export.NotificationListenerBean">
<constructor-arg ref="customerNotificationListener"/>
<property name="mappedObjectNames">
<list>

<value>bean:name=testBean1</value>
<value>bean:name=testBean2</value>
</list>
</property>
<property name="handback">
<bean class="java.lang.String">
<constructor-arg value="This could be anything..."/>
</bean>
</property>
<property name="notificationFilter" ref="customerNotificationListener"/>
</bean>
</list>
</property>
</bean>

<bean id="testBean1" class="org.springframework.jmx.JmxTestBean">

<bean id="testBean2" class="org.springframework.jmx.JmxTestBean">

</beans>

31.7.2 Publishing Notiﬁcations
Spring provides support not just for registering to receive Notifications , but also for publishing Notifications .

Please note that this section is really only relevant to Spring managed beans that have been exposed as MBeans via an
MBeanExporter ; any existing, user-deﬁned MBeans should use the standard JMX APIs for notiﬁcation publication.

The key interface in Spring’s JMX notiﬁcation publication support is the NotificationPublisher interface (deﬁned in the
org.springframework.jmx.export.notification package). Any bean that is going to be exported as an MBean via an MBeanExporter
instance can implement the related NotificationPublisherAware interface to gain access to a NotificationPublisher instance. The
NotificationPublisherAware interface simply supplies an instance of a NotificationPublisher to the implementing bean via a simple
setter method, which the bean can then use to publish Notifications .

As stated in the javadocs of the NotificationPublisher class, managed beans that are publishing events via the
NotificationPublisher mechanism are not responsible for the state management of any notiﬁcation listeners and the like … Spring’s JMX
support will take care of handling all the JMX infrastructure issues. All one need do as an application developer is implement the
NotificationPublisherAware interface and start publishing events using the supplied NotificationPublisher instance. Note that the
NotificationPublisher will be set after the managed bean has been registered with an MBeanServer .

Using a NotificationPublisher instance is quite straightforward… one simply creates a JMX Notification instance (or an instance of an
appropriate Notification subclass), populates the notiﬁcation with the data pertinent to the event that is to be published, and one then invokes
the sendNotification(Notification) on the NotificationPublisher instance, passing in the Notification .

Find below a simple example… in this scenario, exported instances of the JmxTestBean are going to publish a NotificationEvent every time
the add(int, int) operation is invoked.

package org.springframework.jmx;
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 571/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
package org.springframework.jmx;

import org.springframework.jmx.export.notification.NotificationPublisherAware;
import org.springframework.jmx.export.notification.NotificationPublisher;
import javax.management.Notification;

public class JmxTestBean implements IJmxTestBean, NotificationPublisherAware {

private String name;

private int age;
private boolean isSuperman;
private NotificationPublisher publisher;

// other getters and setters omitted for clarity

public int add(int x, int y) {

int answer = x + y;
this.publisher.sendNotification(new Notification("add", this, 0));
return answer;
}

public void dontExposeMe() {

throw new RuntimeException();
}

public void setNotificationPublisher(NotificationPublisher notificationPublisher) {

this.publisher = notificationPublisher;
}

The NotificationPublisher interface and the machinery to get it all working is one of the nicer features of Spring’s JMX support. It does
however come with the price tag of coupling your classes to both Spring and JMX; as always, the advice here is to be pragmatic… if you need the
functionality offered by the NotificationPublisher and you can accept the coupling to both Spring and JMX, then do so.

31.8 Further Resources
This section contains links to further resources about JMX.

The JMX homepage at Oracle

The JMX speciﬁcation (JSR-000003)
The JMX Remote API speciﬁcation (JSR-000160)
The MX4J homepage (an Open Source implementation of various JMX specs)

32. JCA CCI

32.1 Introduction
Java EE provides a speciﬁcation to standardize access to enterprise information systems (EIS): the JCA (Java EE Connector Architecture). This
speciﬁcation is divided into several different parts:

SPI (Service provider interfaces) that the connector provider must implement. These interfaces constitute a resource adapter which can be
deployed on a Java EE application server. In such a scenario, the server manages connection pooling, transaction and security (managed
mode). The application server is also responsible for managing the conﬁguration, which is held outside the client application. A connector can be
used without an application server as well; in this case, the application must conﬁgure it directly (non-managed mode).
CCI (Common Client Interface) that an application can use to interact with the connector and thus communicate with an EIS. An API for local
transaction demarcation is provided as well.

The aim of the Spring CCI support is to provide classes to access a CCI connector in typical Spring style, leveraging the Spring Framework’s general
resource and transaction management facilities.

The client side of connectors doesn’t alway use CCI. Some connectors expose their own APIs, only providing JCA resource adapter to

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 572/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
use the system contracts of a Java EE container (connection pooling, global transactions, security). Spring does not offer special
support for such connector-speciﬁc APIs.

32.2 Conﬁguring CCI

32.2.1 Connector conﬁguration
The base resource to use JCA CCI is the ConnectionFactory interface. The connector used must provide an implementation of this interface.

To use your connector, you can deploy it on your application server and fetch the ConnectionFactory from the server’s JNDI environment
(managed mode). The connector must be packaged as a RAR file (resource adapter archive) and contain a ra.xml file to describe its deployment
characteristics. The actual name of the resource is specified when you deploy it. To access it within Spring, simply use Spring’s
JndiObjectFactoryBean / <jee:jndi-lookup> fetch the factory by its JNDI name.

Another way to use a connector is to embed it in your application (non-managed mode), not using an application server to deploy and configure it.
Spring offers the possibility to configure a connector as a bean, through a provided FactoryBean ( LocalConnectionFactoryBean ). In this
manner, you only need the connector library in the classpath (no RAR file and no ra.xml descriptor needed). The library must be extracted from
the connector’s RAR file, if necessary.

Once you have got access to your ConnectionFactory instance, you can inject it into your components. These components can either be coded
against the plain CCI API or leverage Spring’s support classes for CCI access (e.g. CciTemplate ).

When you use a connector in non-managed mode, you can’t use global transactions because the resource is never enlisted / delisted
in the current global transaction of the current thread. The resource is simply not aware of any global Java EE transactions that might
be running.

32.2.2 ConnectionFactory conﬁguration in Spring

In order to make connections to the EIS, you need to obtain a ConnectionFactory from the application server if you are in a managed mode, or
directly from Spring if you are in a non-managed mode.

In a managed mode, you access a ConnectionFactory from JNDI; its properties will be conﬁgured in the application server.

<jee:jndi-lookup id="eciConnectionFactory" jndi-name="eis/cicseci"/>

In non-managed mode, you must conﬁgure the ConnectionFactory you want to use in the conﬁguration of Spring as a JavaBean. The
LocalConnectionFactoryBean class offers this setup style, passing in the ManagedConnectionFactory implementation of your connector,
exposing the application-level CCI ConnectionFactory .

<bean id="eciManagedConnectionFactory" class="com.ibm.connector2.cics.ECIManagedConnectionFactory">

<bean id="eciConnectionFactory" class="org.springframework.jca.support.LocalConnectionFactoryBean">

<property name="managedConnectionFactory" ref="eciManagedConnectionFactory"/>

</bean>

You can’t directly instantiate a speciﬁc ConnectionFactory . You need to go through the corresponding implementation of the
ManagedConnectionFactory interface for your connector. This interface is part of the JCA SPI speciﬁcation.

32.2.3 Conﬁguring CCI connections

JCA CCI allow the developer to conﬁgure the connections to the EIS using the ConnectionSpec implementation of your connector. In order to
conﬁgure its properties, you need to wrap the target connection factory with a dedicated adapter,

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 573/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
ConnectionSpecConnectionFactoryAdapter . So, the dedicated ConnectionSpec can be conﬁgured with the property
connectionSpec (as an inner bean).

This property is not mandatory because the CCI ConnectionFactory interface deﬁnes two different methods to obtain a CCI connection. Some
of the ConnectionSpec properties can often be conﬁgured in the application server (in managed mode) or on the corresponding local
ManagedConnectionFactory implementation.

public interface ConnectionFactory implements Serializable, Referenceable {

...
Connection getConnection() throws ResourceException;
Connection getConnection(ConnectionSpec connectionSpec) throws ResourceException;
...
}

Spring provides a ConnectionSpecConnectionFactoryAdapter that allows for specifying a ConnectionSpec instance to use for all
operations on a given factory. If the adapter’s connectionSpec property is speciﬁed, the adapter uses the getConnection variant with the
ConnectionSpec argument, otherwise the variant without argument.

32.2.4 Using a single CCI connection

If you want to use a single CCI connection, Spring provides a further ConnectionFactory adapter to manage this. The
SingleConnectionFactory adapter class will open a single connection lazily and close it when this bean is destroyed at application shutdown.
This class will expose special Connection proxies that behave accordingly, all sharing the same underlying physical connection.

<property name="targetConnectionFactory" ref="targetEciConnectionFactory"/>

</bean>

This ConnectionFactory adapter cannot directly be conﬁgured with a ConnectionSpec . Use an intermediary

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 574/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
ConnectionSpecConnectionFactoryAdapter that the SingleConnectionFactory talks to if you require a single
connection for a speciﬁc ConnectionSpec .

32.3 Using Spring’s CCI access support

32.3.1 Record conversion
One of the aims of the JCA CCI support is to provide convenient facilities for manipulating CCI records. The developer can specify the strategy to
create records and extract datas from records, for use with Spring’s CciTemplate . The following interfaces will conﬁgure the strategy to use input
and output records if you don’t want to work with records directly in your application.

In order to create an input Record , the developer can use a dedicated implementation of the RecordCreator interface.

public interface RecordCreator {

Record createRecord(RecordFactory recordFactory) throws ResourceException, DataAccessException;

As you can see, the createRecord(..) method receives a RecordFactory instance as parameter, which corresponds to the
RecordFactory of the ConnectionFactory used. This reference can be used to create IndexedRecord or MappedRecord instances.
The following sample shows how to use the RecordCreator interface and indexed/mapped records.

public class MyRecordCreator implements RecordCreator {

public Record createRecord(RecordFactory recordFactory) throws ResourceException {

IndexedRecord input = recordFactory.createIndexedRecord("input");
input.add(new Integer(id));
return input;
}

An output Record can be used to receive data back from the EIS. Hence, a speciﬁc implementation of the RecordExtractor interface can be
passed to Spring’s CciTemplate for extracting data from the output Record .

public interface RecordExtractor {

Object extractData(Record record) throws ResourceException, SQLException, DataAccessException;

The following sample shows how to use the RecordExtractor interface.

public class MyRecordExtractor implements RecordExtractor {

public Object extractData(Record record) throws ResourceException {

CommAreaRecord commAreaRecord = (CommAreaRecord) record;
String str = new String(commAreaRecord.toByteArray());
String field1 = string.substring(0,6);
String field2 = string.substring(6,1);
return new OutputObject(Long.parseLong(field1), field2);
}

32.3.2 the CciTemplate
The CciTemplate is the central class of the core CCI support package ( org.springframework.jca.cci.core ). It simpliﬁes the use of CCI
since it handles the creation and release of resources. This helps to avoid common errors like forgetting to always close the connection. It cares for
the lifecycle of connection and interaction objects, letting application code focus on generating input records from application data and extracting
application data from output records.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 575/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The JCA CCI speciﬁcation deﬁnes two distinct methods to call operations on an EIS. The CCI Interaction interface provides two execute
method signatures:

public interface javax.resource.cci.Interaction {

...

boolean execute(InteractionSpec spec, Record input, Record output) throws ResourceException;

Record execute(InteractionSpec spec, Record input) throws ResourceException;

...

Depending on the template method called, CciTemplate will know which execute method to call on the interaction. In any case, a correctly
initialized InteractionSpec instance is mandatory.

CciTemplate.execute(..) can be used in two ways:

With direct Record arguments. In this case, you simply need to pass the CCI input record in, and the returned object be the corresponding CCI
output record.
With application objects, using record mapping. In this case, you need to provide corresponding RecordCreator and RecordExtractor
instances.

With the ﬁrst approach, the following methods of the template will be used. These methods directly correspond to those on the Interaction
interface.

public class CciTemplate implements CciOperations {

public Record execute(InteractionSpec spec, Record inputRecord)

throws DataAccessException { ... }

public void execute(InteractionSpec spec, Record inputRecord, Record outputRecord)

throws DataAccessException { ... }

With the second approach, we need to specify the record creation and record extraction strategies as arguments. The interfaces used are those
describe in the previous section on record conversion. The corresponding CciTemplate methods are the following:

public class CciTemplate implements CciOperations {

public Record execute(InteractionSpec spec,

RecordCreator inputCreator) throws DataAccessException {
// ...
}

public Object execute(InteractionSpec spec, Record inputRecord,

RecordExtractor outputExtractor) throws DataAccessException {
// ...
}

public Object execute(InteractionSpec spec, RecordCreator creator,

RecordExtractor extractor) throws DataAccessException {
// ...
}

Unless the outputRecordCreator property is set on the template (see the following section), every method will call the corresponding execute
method of the CCI Interaction with two parameters: InteractionSpec and input Record , receiving an output Record as return value.

CciTemplate also provides methods to create IndexRecord and MappedRecord outside a RecordCreator implementation, through its
createIndexRecord(..) and createMappedRecord(..) methods. This can be used within DAO implementations to create Record
instances to pass into corresponding CciTemplate.execute(..) methods.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 576/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
public class CciTemplate implements CciOperations {

public IndexedRecord createIndexedRecord(String name) throws DataAccessException { ... }

public MappedRecord createMappedRecord(String name) throws DataAccessException { ... }

32.3.3 DAO support
Spring’s CCI support provides a abstract class for DAOs, supporting injection of a ConnectionFactory or a CciTemplate instances. The
name of the class is CciDaoSupport : It provides simple setConnectionFactory and setCciTemplate methods. Internally, this class will
create a CciTemplate instance for a passed-in ConnectionFactory , exposing it to concrete data access implementations in subclasses.

public abstract class CciDaoSupport {

public void setConnectionFactory(ConnectionFactory connectionFactory) {

// ...
}

public ConnectionFactory getConnectionFactory() {

// ...
}

public void setCciTemplate(CciTemplate cciTemplate) {

// ...
}

public CciTemplate getCciTemplate() {

// ...
}

32.3.4 Automatic output record generation

If the connector used only supports the Interaction.execute(..) method with input and output records as parameters (that is, it requires the
desired output record to be passed in instead of returning an appropriate output record), you can set the outputRecordCreator property of the
CciTemplate to automatically generate an output record to be ﬁlled by the JCA connector when the response is received. This record will be then
returned to the caller of the template.

This property simply holds an implementation of the RecordCreator interface, used for that purpose. The RecordCreator interface has
already been discussed in Section 32.3.1, “Record conversion”. The outputRecordCreator property must be directly speciﬁed on the
CciTemplate . This could be done in the application code like so:

cciTemplate.setOutputRecordCreator(new EciOutputRecordCreator());

Or (recommended) in the Spring conﬁguration, if the CciTemplate is conﬁgured as a dedicated bean instance:

<bean id="eciOutputRecordCreator" class="eci.EciOutputRecordCreator"/>

<bean id="cciTemplate" class="org.springframework.jca.cci.core.CciTemplate">

As the CciTemplate class is thread-safe, it will usually be conﬁgured as a shared instance.

32.3.5 Summary

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 577/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The following table summarizes the mechanisms of the CciTemplate class and the corresponding methods called on the CCI Interaction
interface:

Table 32.1. Usage of Interaction execute methods

CciTemplate method signature CciTemplate outputRecordCreator execute method called on the CCI
property Interaction

Record execute(InteractionSpec, Record) not set Record execute(InteractionSpec, Record)

Record execute(InteractionSpec, Record) set boolean execute(InteractionSpec,

Record, Record)

void execute(InteractionSpec, Record, Record) not set void execute(InteractionSpec, Record,

Record)

void execute(InteractionSpec, Record, Record) set void execute(InteractionSpec, Record,

Record)

Record execute(InteractionSpec, RecordCreator) not set Record execute(InteractionSpec, Record)

Record execute(InteractionSpec, RecordCreator) set void execute(InteractionSpec, Record,

Record)

Record execute(InteractionSpec, Record, not set Record execute(InteractionSpec, Record)

RecordExtractor)

Record execute(InteractionSpec, Record, set void execute(InteractionSpec, Record,

RecordExtractor) Record)

Record execute(InteractionSpec, RecordCreator, not set Record execute(InteractionSpec, Record)

RecordExtractor)

Record execute(InteractionSpec, RecordCreator, set void execute(InteractionSpec, Record,

RecordExtractor) Record)

32.3.6 Using a CCI Connection and Interaction directly

CciTemplate also offers the possibility to work directly with CCI connections and interactions, in the same manner as JdbcTemplate and
JmsTemplate . This is useful when you want to perform multiple operations on a CCI connection or interaction, for example.

The interface ConnectionCallback provides a CCI Connection as argument, in order to perform custom operations on it, plus the CCI
ConnectionFactory which the Connection was created with. The latter can be useful for example to get an associated RecordFactory
instance and create indexed/mapped records, for example.

public interface ConnectionCallback {

Object doInConnection(Connection connection, ConnectionFactory connectionFactory)

throws ResourceException, SQLException, DataAccessException;

The interface InteractionCallback provides the CCI Interaction , in order to perform custom operations on it, plus the corresponding CCI
ConnectionFactory .

public interface InteractionCallback {

Object doInInteraction(Interaction interaction, ConnectionFactory connectionFactory)

throws ResourceException, SQLException, DataAccessException;

InteractionSpec objects can either be shared across multiple template calls or newly created inside every callback method. This
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 578/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
is completely up to the DAO implementation.

32.3.7 Example for CciTemplate usage

In this section, the usage of the CciTemplate will be shown to acces to a CICS with ECI mode, with the IBM CICS ECI connector.

Firstly, some initializations on the CCI InteractionSpec must be done to specify which CICS program to access and how to interact with it.

ECIInteractionSpec interactionSpec = new ECIInteractionSpec();

interactionSpec.setFunctionName("MYPROG");
interactionSpec.setInteractionVerb(ECIInteractionSpec.SYNC_SEND_RECEIVE);

Then the program can use CCI via Spring’s template and specify mappings between custom objects and CCI Records .

public class MyDaoImpl extends CciDaoSupport implements MyDao {

public OutputObject getData(InputObject input) {

ECIInteractionSpec interactionSpec = ...;

OutputObject output = (ObjectOutput) getCciTemplate().execute(interactionSpec,

new RecordCreator() {
public Record createRecord(RecordFactory recordFactory) throws ResourceException {
return new CommAreaRecord(input.toString().getBytes());
}
},
new RecordExtractor() {
public Object extractData(Record record) throws ResourceException {
CommAreaRecord commAreaRecord = (CommAreaRecord)record;
String str = new String(commAreaRecord.toByteArray());
String field1 = string.substring(0,6);
String field2 = string.substring(6,1);
return new OutputObject(Long.parseLong(field1), field2);
}
});

return output;
}
}

As discussed previously, callbacks can be used to work directly on CCI connections or interactions.

public class MyDaoImpl extends CciDaoSupport implements MyDao {

public OutputObject getData(InputObject input) {

ObjectOutput output = (ObjectOutput) getCciTemplate().execute(
new ConnectionCallback() {
public Object doInConnection(Connection connection,
ConnectionFactory factory) throws ResourceException {

// do something...

}
});
}
return output;
}

With a ConnectionCallback , the Connection used will be managed and closed by the CciTemplate , but any interactions
created on the connection must be managed by the callback implementation.

For a more speciﬁc callback, you can implement an InteractionCallback . The passed-in Interaction will be managed and closed by the
CciTemplate in this case.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 579/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
public class MyDaoImpl extends CciDaoSupport implements MyDao {

public String getData(String input) {

ECIInteractionSpec interactionSpec = ...;
String output = (String) getCciTemplate().execute(interactionSpec,
new InteractionCallback() {
public Object doInInteraction(Interaction interaction,
ConnectionFactory factory) throws ResourceException {
Record input = new CommAreaRecord(inputString.getBytes());
Record output = new CommAreaRecord();
interaction.execute(holder.getInteractionSpec(), input, output);
return new String(output.toByteArray());
}
});
return output;
}

For the examples above, the corresponding conﬁguration of the involved Spring beans could look like this in non-managed mode:

<bean id="managedConnectionFactory" class="com.ibm.connector2.cics.ECIManagedConnectionFactory">

<bean id="connectionFactory" class="org.springframework.jca.support.LocalConnectionFactoryBean">

<bean id="component" class="mypackage.MyDaoImpl">

In managed mode (that is, in a Java EE environment), the conﬁguration could look as follows:

<jee:jndi-lookup id="connectionFactory" jndi-name="eis/cicseci"/>

<bean id="component" class="MyDaoImpl">

32.4 Modeling CCI access as operation objects

The org.springframework.jca.cci.object package contains support classes that allow you to access the EIS in a different style: through
reusable operation objects, analogous to Spring’s JDBC operation objects (see JDBC chapter). This will usually encapsulate the CCI API: an
application-level input object will be passed to the operation object, so it can construct the input record and then convert the received record data to
an application-level output object and return it.

This approach is internally based on the CciTemplate class and the RecordCreator / RecordExtractor interfaces, reusing
the machinery of Spring’s core CCI support.

32.4.1 MappingRecordOperation
MappingRecordOperation essentially performs the same work as CciTemplate , but represents a speciﬁc, pre-conﬁgured operation as an
object. It provides two template methods to specify how to convert an input object to a input record, and how to convert an output record to an output
object (record mapping):

createInputRecord(..) to specify how to convert an input object to an input Record

extractOutputData(..) to specify how to extract an output object from an output Record

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 580/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Here are the signatures of these methods:

public abstract class MappingRecordOperation extends EisOperation {

...

protected abstract Record createInputRecord(RecordFactory recordFactory,

Object inputObject) throws ResourceException, DataAccessException {
// ...
}

protected abstract Object extractOutputData(Record outputRecord)

throws ResourceException, SQLException, DataAccessException {
// ...
}

...

Thereafter, in order to execute an EIS operation, you need to use a single execute method, passing in an application-level input object and receiving
an application-level output object as result:

public abstract class MappingRecordOperation extends EisOperation {

...

public Object execute(Object inputObject) throws DataAccessException {

}

...
}

As you can see, contrary to the CciTemplate class, this execute(..) method does not have an InteractionSpec as argument. Instead,
the InteractionSpec is global to the operation. The following constructor must be used to instantiate an operation object with a speciﬁc
InteractionSpec :

InteractionSpec spec = ...;

MyMappingRecordOperation eisOperation = new MyMappingRecordOperation(getConnectionFactory(), spec);
...

32.4.2 MappingCommAreaOperation
Some connectors use records based on a COMMAREA which represents an array of bytes containing parameters to send to the EIS and data
returned by it. Spring provides a special operation class for working directly on COMMAREA rather than on records. The
MappingCommAreaOperation class extends the MappingRecordOperation class to provide such special COMMAREA support. It implicitly
uses the CommAreaRecord class as input and output record type, and provides two new methods to convert an input object into an input
COMMAREA and the output COMMAREA into an output object.

public abstract class MappingCommAreaOperation extends MappingRecordOperation {

...

protected abstract byte[] objectToBytes(Object inObject)

throws IOException, DataAccessException;

protected abstract Object bytesToObject(byte[] bytes)

throws IOException, DataAccessException;

...

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 581/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

32.4.3 Automatic output record generation

As every MappingRecordOperation subclass is based on CciTemplate internally, the same way to automatically generate output records as with
CciTemplate is available. Every operation object provides a corresponding setOutputRecordCreator(..) method. For further information,
see Section 32.3.4, “Automatic output record generation”.

32.4.4 Summary
The operation object approach uses records in the same manner as the CciTemplate class.

Table 32.2. Usage of Interaction execute methods

MappingRecordOperation method MappingRecordOperation execute method called on the CCI

signature outputRecordCreator property Interaction

Object execute(Object) not set Record execute(InteractionSpec, Record)

Object execute(Object) set boolean execute(InteractionSpec, Record,

Record)

32.4.5 Example for MappingRecordOperation usage

In this section, the usage of the MappingRecordOperation will be shown to access a database with the Blackbox CCI connector.

The original version of this connector is provided by the Java EE SDK (version 1.3), available from Oracle.

Firstly, some initializations on the CCI InteractionSpec must be done to specify which SQL request to execute. In this sample, we directly
deﬁne the way to convert the parameters of the request to a CCI record and the way to convert the CCI result record to an instance of the Person
class.

public class PersonMappingOperation extends MappingRecordOperation {

public PersonMappingOperation(ConnectionFactory connectionFactory) {

setConnectionFactory(connectionFactory);
CciInteractionSpec interactionSpec = new CciConnectionSpec();
interactionSpec.setSql("select * from person where person_id=?");
setInteractionSpec(interactionSpec);
}

protected Record createInputRecord(RecordFactory recordFactory,

Object inputObject) throws ResourceException {
Integer id = (Integer) inputObject;
IndexedRecord input = recordFactory.createIndexedRecord("input");
input.add(new Integer(id));
return input;
}

protected Object extractOutputData(Record outputRecord)

throws ResourceException, SQLException {
ResultSet rs = (ResultSet) outputRecord;
Person person = null;
if (rs.next()) {
Person person = new Person();
person.setId(rs.getInt("person_id"));
person.setLastName(rs.getString("person_last_name"));
person.setFirstName(rs.getString("person_first_name"));
}
return person;
}
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 582/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Then the application can execute the operation object, with the person identiﬁer as argument. Note that operation object could be set up as shared
instance, as it is thread-safe.

public class MyDaoImpl extends CciDaoSupport implements MyDao {

public Person getPerson(int id) {

PersonMappingOperation query = new PersonMappingOperation(getConnectionFactory());
Person person = (Person) query.execute(new Integer(id));
return person;
}
}

The corresponding conﬁguration of Spring beans could look as follows in non-managed mode:

<bean id="component" class="MyDaoImpl">

In managed mode (that is, in a Java EE environment), the conﬁguration could look as follows:

<jee:jndi-lookup id="targetConnectionFactory" jndi-name="eis/blackbox"/>

</property>
</bean>

<bean id="component" class="MyDaoImpl">

32.4.6 Example for MappingCommAreaOperation usage

In this section, the usage of the MappingCommAreaOperation will be shown: accessing a CICS with ECI mode with the IBM CICS ECI
connector.

Firstly, the CCI InteractionSpec needs to be initialized to specify which CICS program to access and how to interact with it.

public abstract class EciMappingOperation extends MappingCommAreaOperation {

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 583/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
public abstract class EciMappingOperation extends MappingCommAreaOperation {

public EciMappingOperation(ConnectionFactory connectionFactory, String programName) {

setConnectionFactory(connectionFactory);
ECIInteractionSpec interactionSpec = new ECIInteractionSpec(),
interactionSpec.setFunctionName(programName);
interactionSpec.setInteractionVerb(ECIInteractionSpec.SYNC_SEND_RECEIVE);
interactionSpec.setCommareaLength(30);
setInteractionSpec(interactionSpec);
setOutputRecordCreator(new EciOutputRecordCreator());
}

private static class EciOutputRecordCreator implements RecordCreator {

public Record createRecord(RecordFactory recordFactory) throws ResourceException {
return new CommAreaRecord();
}
}

The abstract EciMappingOperation class can then be subclassed to specify mappings between custom objects and Records .

public class MyDaoImpl extends CciDaoSupport implements MyDao {

public OutputObject getData(Integer id) {

EciMappingOperation query = new EciMappingOperation(getConnectionFactory(), "MYPROG") {

protected abstract byte[] objectToBytes(Object inObject) throws IOException {

Integer id = (Integer) inObject;
return String.valueOf(id);
}

protected abstract Object bytesToObject(byte[] bytes) throws IOException;

String str = new String(bytes);
String field1 = str.substring(0,6);
String field2 = str.substring(6,1);
String field3 = str.substring(7,1);
return new OutputObject(field1, field2, field3);
}
});

return (OutputObject) query.execute(new Integer(id));

}

The corresponding conﬁguration of Spring beans could look as follows in non-managed mode:

<bean id="managedConnectionFactory" class="com.ibm.connector2.cics.ECIManagedConnectionFactory">

<bean id="connectionFactory" class="org.springframework.jca.support.LocalConnectionFactoryBean">

<bean id="component" class="MyDaoImpl">

In managed mode (that is, in a Java EE environment), the conﬁguration could look as follows:

<jee:jndi-lookup id="connectionFactory" jndi-name="eis/cicseci"/>

<bean id="component" class="MyDaoImpl">

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 584/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
<property name="connectionFactory" ref="connectionFactory"/>
</bean>

32.5 Transactions
JCA specifies several levels of transaction support for resource adapters. The kind of transactions that your resource adapter supports is specified in
its ra.xml file. There are essentially three options: none (for example with CICS EPI connector), local transactions (for example with a CICS ECI
connector), global transactions (for example with an IMS connector).

<connector>
<resourceadapter>


<transaction-support>XATransaction</transaction-support>
<resourceadapter>
<connector>

For global transactions, you can use Spring’s generic transaction infrastructure to demarcate transactions, with JtaTransactionManager as
backend (delegating to the Java EE server’s distributed transaction coordinator underneath).

For local transactions on a single CCI ConnectionFactory , Spring provides a speciﬁc transaction management strategy for CCI, analogous to
the DataSourceTransactionManager for JDBC. The CCI API deﬁnes a local transaction object and corresponding local transaction
demarcation methods. Spring’s CciLocalTransactionManager executes such local CCI transactions, fully compliant with Spring’s generic
PlatformTransactionManager abstraction.

<jee:jndi-lookup id="eciConnectionFactory" jndi-name="eis/cicseci"/>

Both transaction strategies can be used with any of Spring’s transaction demarcation facilities, be it declarative or programmatic. This is a
consequence of Spring’s generic PlatformTransactionManager abstraction, which decouples transaction demarcation from the actual
execution strategy. Simply switch between JtaTransactionManager and CciLocalTransactionManager as needed, keeping your
transaction demarcation as-is.

For more information on Spring’s transaction facilities, see the chapter entitled Chapter 17, Transaction Management.

33. Email

33.1 Introduction

Library dependencies

The following JAR needs to be on the classpath of your application in order to use the Spring Framework’s email library.

The JavaMail library

This library is freely available on the web — for example, in Maven Central as com.sun.mail:javax.mail .

The Spring Framework provides a helpful utility library for sending email that shields the user from the speciﬁcs of the underlying mailing system and
is responsible for low level resource handling on behalf of the client.

The org.springframework.mail package is the root level package for the Spring Framework’s email support. The central interface for sending
emails is the MailSender interface; a simple value object encapsulating the properties of a simple mail such as from and to (plus many others) is
the SimpleMailMessage class. This package also contains a hierarchy of checked exceptions which provide a higher level of abstraction over the
lower level mail system exceptions with the root exception being MailException . Please refer to the javadocs for more information on the rich
mail exception hierarchy.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 585/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The org.springframework.mail.javamail.JavaMailSender interface adds specialized JavaMail features such as MIME message support
to the MailSender interface (from which it inherits). JavaMailSender also provides a callback interface for preparation of JavaMail MIME
messages, called org.springframework.mail.javamail.MimeMessagePreparator

33.2 Usage
Let’s assume there is a business interface called OrderManager :

public interface OrderManager {

void placeOrder(Order order);

Let us also assume that there is a requirement stating that an email message with an order number needs to be generated and sent to a customer
placing the relevant order.

33.2.1 Basic MailSender and SimpleMailMessage usage

import org.springframework.mail.MailException;
import org.springframework.mail.MailSender;
import org.springframework.mail.SimpleMailMessage;

public class SimpleOrderManager implements OrderManager {

private MailSender mailSender;

private SimpleMailMessage templateMessage;

public void setMailSender(MailSender mailSender) {

this.mailSender = mailSender;
}

public void setTemplateMessage(SimpleMailMessage templateMessage) {

this.templateMessage = templateMessage;
}

public void placeOrder(Order order) {

// Do the business calculations...

// Call the collaborators to persist the order...

// Create a thread safe "copy" of the template message and customize it

SimpleMailMessage msg = new SimpleMailMessage(this.templateMessage);
msg.setTo(order.getCustomer().getEmailAddress());
msg.setText(
"Dear " + order.getCustomer().getFirstName()
+ order.getCustomer().getLastName()
+ ", thank you for placing order. Your order number is "
+ order.getOrderNumber());
try{
this.mailSender.send(msg);
}
catch (MailException ex) {
// simply log it and go on...
System.err.println(ex.getMessage());
}
}

Find below the bean deﬁnitions for the above code:

<bean id="mailSender" class="org.springframework.mail.javamail.JavaMailSenderImpl">

<property name="host" value="mail.mycompany.com"/>
</bean>
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 586/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

<bean id="templateMessage" class="org.springframework.mail.SimpleMailMessage">
<property name="from" value="[email protected]"/>
<property name="subject" value="Your order"/>
</bean>

<bean id="orderManager" class="com.mycompany.businessapp.support.SimpleOrderManager">

33.2.2 Using the JavaMailSender and the MimeMessagePreparator

Here is another implementation of OrderManager using the MimeMessagePreparator callback interface. Please note in this case that the
mailSender property is of type JavaMailSender so that we are able to use the JavaMail MimeMessage class:

import javax.mail.Message;
import javax.mail.MessagingException;
import javax.mail.internet.InternetAddress;
import javax.mail.internet.MimeMessage;

import javax.mail.internet.MimeMessage;
import org.springframework.mail.MailException;
import org.springframework.mail.javamail.JavaMailSender;
import org.springframework.mail.javamail.MimeMessagePreparator;

public class SimpleOrderManager implements OrderManager {

private JavaMailSender mailSender;

public void setMailSender(JavaMailSender mailSender) {

this.mailSender = mailSender;
}

public void placeOrder(final Order order) {

// Do the business calculations...

// Call the collaborators to persist the order...

MimeMessagePreparator preparator = new MimeMessagePreparator() {

public void prepare(MimeMessage mimeMessage) throws Exception {

mimeMessage.setRecipient(Message.RecipientType.TO,
new InternetAddress(order.getCustomer().getEmailAddress()));
mimeMessage.setFrom(new InternetAddress("[email protected]"));
mimeMessage.setText(
"Dear " + order.getCustomer().getFirstName() + " "
+ order.getCustomer().getLastName()
+ ", thank you for placing order. Your order number is "
+ order.getOrderNumber());
}
};

try {
this.mailSender.send(preparator);
}
catch (MailException ex) {
// simply log it and go on...
System.err.println(ex.getMessage());
}
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 587/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The mail code is a crosscutting concern and could well be a candidate for refactoring into a custom Spring AOP aspect, which then
could be executed at appropriate joinpoints on the OrderManager target.

The Spring Framework’s mail support ships with the standard JavaMail implementation. Please refer to the relevant javadocs for more information.

33.3 Using the JavaMail MimeMessageHelper

A class that comes in pretty handy when dealing with JavaMail messages is the
org.springframework.mail.javamail.MimeMessageHelper class, which shields you from having to use the verbose JavaMail API. Using
the MimeMessageHelper it is pretty easy to create a MimeMessage :

// of course you would use DI in any real-world cases

JavaMailSenderImpl sender = new JavaMailSenderImpl();
sender.setHost("mail.host.com");

MimeMessage message = sender.createMimeMessage();

MimeMessageHelper helper = new MimeMessageHelper(message);
helper.setTo("[email protected]");
helper.setText("Thank you for ordering!");

sender.send(message);

33.3.1 Sending attachments and inline resources

Multipart email messages allow for both attachments and inline resources. Examples of inline resources would be images or a stylesheet you want to
use in your message, but that you don’t want displayed as an attachment.

Attachments
The following example shows you how to use the MimeMessageHelper to send an email along with a single JPEG image attachment.

JavaMailSenderImpl sender = new JavaMailSenderImpl();

sender.setHost("mail.host.com");

MimeMessage message = sender.createMimeMessage();

// use the true flag to indicate you need a multipart message

MimeMessageHelper helper = new MimeMessageHelper(message, true);
helper.setTo("[email protected]");

helper.setText("Check out this image!");

// let's attach the infamous windows Sample file (this time copied to c:/)
FileSystemResource file = new FileSystemResource(new File("c:/Sample.jpg"));
helper.addAttachment("CoolImage.jpg", file);

sender.send(message);

Inline resources
The following example shows you how to use the MimeMessageHelper to send an email along with an inline image.

JavaMailSenderImpl sender = new JavaMailSenderImpl();

sender.setHost("mail.host.com");

MimeMessage message = sender.createMimeMessage();

// use the true flag to indicate you need a multipart message

MimeMessageHelper helper = new MimeMessageHelper(message, true);
helper.setTo("[email protected]");

// use the true flag to indicate the text included is HTML

helper.setText("<html><body><img src='cid:identifier1234'></body></html>", true);

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 588/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

// let's include the infamous windows Sample file (this time copied to c:/)
FileSystemResource res = new FileSystemResource(new File("c:/Sample.jpg"));
helper.addInline("identifier1234", res);

sender.send(message);

Inline resources are added to the mime message using the speciﬁed Content-ID ( identifier1234 in the above example). The
order in which you are adding the text and the resource are very important. Be sure to ﬁrst add the text and after that the resources. If
you are doing it the other way around, it won’t work!

33.3.2 Creating email content using a templating library

The code in the previous examples explicitly created the content of the email message, using methods calls such as message.setText(..) .
This is ﬁne for simple cases, and it is okay in the context of the aforementioned examples, where the intent was to show you the very basics of the
API.

In your typical enterprise application though, you are not going to create the content of your emails using the above approach for a number of
reasons.

Creating HTML-based email content in Java code is tedious and error prone
There is no clear separation between display logic and business logic
Changing the display structure of the email content requires writing Java code, recompiling, redeploying…

Typically the approach taken to address these issues is to use a template library such as FreeMarker or Velocity to deﬁne the display structure of
email content. This leaves your code tasked only with creating the data that is to be rendered in the email template and sending the email. It is
deﬁnitely a best practice for when the content of your emails becomes even moderately complex, and with the Spring Framework’s support classes
for FreeMarker and Velocity becomes quite easy to do. Find below an example of using the Velocity template library to create email content.

A Velocity-based example
To use Velocity to create your email template(s), you will need to have the Velocity libraries available on your classpath. You will also need to create
one or more Velocity templates for the email content that your application needs. Find below the Velocity template that this example will be using. As
you can see it is HTML-based, and since it is plain text it can be created using your favorite HTML or text editor.

# in the com/foo/package
<html>
<body>
<h3>Hi ${user.userName}, welcome to the Chipping Sodbury On-the-Hill message boards!</h3>

<div>
Your email address is <a href="mailto:${user.emailAddress}">${user.emailAddress}</a>.
</div>
</body>
</html>

Find below some simple code and Spring XML conﬁguration that makes use of the above Velocity template to create email content and send
email(s).

package com.foo;

import org.apache.velocity.app.VelocityEngine;
import org.springframework.mail.javamail.JavaMailSender;
import org.springframework.mail.javamail.MimeMessageHelper;
import org.springframework.mail.javamail.MimeMessagePreparator;
import org.springframework.ui.velocity.VelocityEngineUtils;

import javax.mail.internet.MimeMessage;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;

public class SimpleRegistrationService implements RegistrationService {

private JavaMailSender mailSender;

private VelocityEngine velocityEngine;
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 589/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
private VelocityEngine velocityEngine;

public void setMailSender(JavaMailSender mailSender) {

this.mailSender = mailSender;
}

public void setVelocityEngine(VelocityEngine velocityEngine) {

this.velocityEngine = velocityEngine;
}

public void register(User user) {

// Do the registration logic...

sendConfirmationEmail(user);
}

private void sendConfirmationEmail(final User user) {

MimeMessagePreparator preparator = new MimeMessagePreparator() {
public void prepare(MimeMessage mimeMessage) throws Exception {
MimeMessageHelper message = new MimeMessageHelper(mimeMessage);
message.setTo(user.getEmailAddress());
message.setFrom("[email protected]"); // could be parameterized...
Map model = new HashMap();
model.put("user", user);
String text = VelocityEngineUtils.mergeTemplateIntoString(
velocityEngine, "com/dns/registration-confirmation.vm", model);
message.setText(text, true);
}
};
this.mailSender.send(preparator);
}

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<bean id="mailSender" class="org.springframework.mail.javamail.JavaMailSenderImpl">

<bean id="registrationService" class="com.foo.SimpleRegistrationService">

<bean id="velocityEngine" class="org.springframework.ui.velocity.VelocityEngineFactoryBean">

<property name="velocityProperties">
<value>
resource.loader=class
class.resource.loader.class=org.apache.velocity.runtime.resource.loader.ClasspathResourceLoader
</value>
</property>
</bean>

</beans>

34. Task Execution and Scheduling

34.1 Introduction

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 590/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The Spring Framework provides abstractions for asynchronous execution and scheduling of tasks with the TaskExecutor and TaskScheduler
interfaces, respectively. Spring also features implementations of those interfaces that support thread pools or delegation to CommonJ within an
application server environment. Ultimately the use of these implementations behind the common interfaces abstracts away the differences between
Java SE 5, Java SE 6 and Java EE environments.

Spring also features integration classes for supporting scheduling with the Timer , part of the JDK since 1.3, and the Quartz Scheduler (
http://quartz-scheduler.org). Both of those schedulers are set up using a FactoryBean with optional references to Timer or Trigger instances,
respectively. Furthermore, a convenience class for both the Quartz Scheduler and the Timer is available that allows you to invoke a method of an
existing target object (analogous to the normal MethodInvokingFactoryBean operation).

34.2 The Spring TaskExecutor abstraction

Spring 2.0 introduces a new abstraction for dealing with executors. Executors are the Java 5 name for the concept of thread pools. The "executor"
naming is due to the fact that there is no guarantee that the underlying implementation is actually a pool; an executor may be single-threaded or
even synchronous. Spring’s abstraction hides implementation details between Java SE 1.4, Java SE 5 and Java EE environments.

Spring’s TaskExecutor interface is identical to the java.util.concurrent.Executor interface. In fact, its primary reason for existence was
to abstract away the need for Java 5 when using thread pools. The interface has a single method execute(Runnable task) that accepts a task
for execution based on the semantics and conﬁguration of the thread pool.

The TaskExecutor was originally created to give other Spring components an abstraction for thread pooling where needed. Components such as
the ApplicationEventMulticaster , JMS’s AbstractMessageListenerContainer , and Quartz integration all use the TaskExecutor
abstraction to pool threads. However, if your beans need thread pooling behavior, it is possible to use this abstraction for your own needs.

34.2.1 TaskExecutor types
There are a number of pre-built implementations of TaskExecutor included with the Spring distribution. In all likelihood, you shouldn’t ever need
to implement your own.

SimpleAsyncTaskExecutor This implementation does not reuse any threads, rather it starts up a new thread for each invocation. However,
it does support a concurrency limit which will block any invocations that are over the limit until a slot has been freed up. If you are looking for true
pooling, see the discussions of SimpleThreadPoolTaskExecutor and ThreadPoolTaskExecutor below.
SyncTaskExecutor This implementation doesn’t execute invocations asynchronously. Instead, each invocation takes place in the calling
thread. It is primarily used in situations where multi-threading isn’t necessary such as simple test cases.
ConcurrentTaskExecutor This implementation is an adapter for a java.util.concurrent.Executor object. There is an alternative,
ThreadPoolTaskExecutor , that exposes the Executor configuration parameters as bean properties. It is rare to need to use the
ConcurrentTaskExecutor , but if the ThreadPoolTaskExecutor isn’t flexible enough for your needs, the ConcurrentTaskExecutor
is an alternative.
SimpleThreadPoolTaskExecutor This implementation is actually a subclass of Quartz’s SimpleThreadPool which listens to Spring’s
lifecycle callbacks. This is typically used when you have a thread pool that may need to be shared by both Quartz and non-Quartz components.
ThreadPoolTaskExecutor This implementation is the most commonly used one. It exposes bean properties for configuring a
java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor and wraps it in a TaskExecutor . If you need to adapt to a different kind of
java.util.concurrent.Executor , it is recommended that you use a ConcurrentTaskExecutor instead.
WorkManagerTaskExecutor
CommonJ is a set of specifications jointly developed between BEA and IBM. These specifications are not Java EE standards, but are
standard across BEA’s and IBM’s Application Server implementations.
This implementation uses the CommonJ WorkManager as its backing implementation and is the central convenience class for setting up a
CommonJ WorkManager reference in a Spring context. Similar to the SimpleThreadPoolTaskExecutor , this class implements the
WorkManager interface and therefore can be used directly as a WorkManager as well.

34.2.2 Using a TaskExecutor
Spring’s TaskExecutor implementations are used as simple JavaBeans. In the example below, we deﬁne a bean that uses the
ThreadPoolTaskExecutor to asynchronously print out a set of messages.

import org.springframework.core.task.TaskExecutor;

public class TaskExecutorExample {

private class MessagePrinterTask implements Runnable {

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 591/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

private String message;

public MessagePrinterTask(String message) {

this.message = message;
}

public void run() {

System.out.println(message);
}

private TaskExecutor taskExecutor;

public TaskExecutorExample(TaskExecutor taskExecutor) {

this.taskExecutor = taskExecutor;
}

public void printMessages() {

for(int i = 0; i < 25; i++) {
taskExecutor.execute(new MessagePrinterTask("Message" + i));
}
}

As you can see, rather than retrieving a thread from the pool and executing yourself, you add your Runnable to the queue and the
TaskExecutor uses its internal rules to decide when the task gets executed.

To conﬁgure the rules that the TaskExecutor will use, simple bean properties have been exposed.

<bean id="taskExecutor" class="org.springframework.scheduling.concurrent.ThreadPoolTaskExecutor">

<bean id="taskExecutorExample" class="TaskExecutorExample">

<constructor-arg ref="taskExecutor" />
</bean>

34.3 The Spring TaskScheduler abstraction

In addition to the TaskExecutor abstraction, Spring 3.0 introduces a TaskScheduler with a variety of methods for scheduling tasks to run at
some point in the future.

public interface TaskScheduler {

ScheduledFuture schedule(Runnable task, Trigger trigger);

ScheduledFuture schedule(Runnable task, Date startTime);

ScheduledFuture scheduleAtFixedRate(Runnable task, Date startTime, long period);

ScheduledFuture scheduleAtFixedRate(Runnable task, long period);

ScheduledFuture scheduleWithFixedDelay(Runnable task, Date startTime, long delay);

ScheduledFuture scheduleWithFixedDelay(Runnable task, long delay);

The simplest method is the one named 'schedule' that takes a Runnable and Date only. That will cause the task to run once after the specified
time. All of the other methods are capable of scheduling tasks to run repeatedly. The fixed-rate and fixed-delay methods are for simple, periodic
execution, but the method that accepts a Trigger is much more flexible.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 592/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

34.3.1 the Trigger interface

The Trigger interface is essentially inspired by JSR-236, which, as of Spring 3.0, has not yet been ofﬁcially implemented. The basic idea of the
Trigger is that execution times may be determined based on past execution outcomes or even arbitrary conditions. If these determinations do
take into account the outcome of the preceding execution, that information is available within a TriggerContext . The Trigger interface itself is
quite simple:

public interface Trigger {

Date nextExecutionTime(TriggerContext triggerContext);

As you can see, the TriggerContext is the most important part. It encapsulates all of the relevant data, and is open for extension in the future if
necessary. The TriggerContext is an interface (a SimpleTriggerContext implementation is used by default). Here you can see what
methods are available for Trigger implementations.

public interface TriggerContext {

Date lastScheduledExecutionTime();

Date lastActualExecutionTime();

Date lastCompletionTime();

34.3.2 Trigger implementations
Spring provides two implementations of the Trigger interface. The most interesting one is the CronTrigger . It enables the scheduling of tasks
based on cron expressions. For example, the following task is being scheduled to run 15 minutes past each hour but only during the 9-to-5 "business
hours" on weekdays.

scheduler.schedule(task, new CronTrigger("0 15 9-17 * * MON-FRI"));

The other out-of-the-box implementation is a PeriodicTrigger that accepts a fixed period, an optional initial delay value, and a boolean to
indicate whether the period should be interpreted as a fixed-rate or a fixed-delay. Since the TaskScheduler interface already defines methods for
scheduling tasks at a fixed-rate or with a fixed-delay, those methods should be used directly whenever possible. The value of the
PeriodicTrigger implementation is that it can be used within components that rely on the Trigger abstraction. For example, it may be
convenient to allow periodic triggers, cron-based triggers, and even custom trigger implementations to be used interchangeably. Such a component
could take advantage of dependency injection so that such Triggers could be configured externally and therefore easily modified or extended.

34.3.3 TaskScheduler implementations
As with Spring’s TaskExecutor abstraction, the primary benefit of the TaskScheduler is that code relying on scheduling behavior need not be
coupled to a particular scheduler implementation. The flexibility this provides is particularly relevant when running within Application Server
environments where threads should not be created directly by the application itself. For such cases, Spring provides a
TimerManagerTaskScheduler that delegates to a CommonJ TimerManager instance, typically configured with a JNDI-lookup.

A simpler alternative, the ThreadPoolTaskScheduler , can be used whenever external thread management is not a requirement. Internally, it
delegates to a ScheduledExecutorService instance. ThreadPoolTaskScheduler actually implements Spring’s TaskExecutor interface
as well, so that a single instance can be used for asynchronous execution as soon as possible as well as scheduled, and potentially recurring,
executions.

34.4 Annotation Support for Scheduling and Asynchronous Execution

Spring provides annotation support for both task scheduling and asynchronous method execution.

34.4.1 Enable scheduling annotations

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 593/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
To enable support for @Scheduled and @Async annotations add @EnableScheduling and @EnableAsync to one of your
@Configuration classes:

@Configuration
@EnableAsync
@EnableScheduling
public class AppConfig {
}

You are free to pick and choose the relevant annotations for your application. For example, if you only need support for @Scheduled , simply omit
@EnableAsync . For more ﬁne-grained control you can additionally implement the SchedulingConfigurer and/or AsyncConfigurer
interfaces. See the javadocs for full details.

If you prefer XML conﬁguration use the <task:annotation-driven> element.

<task:annotation-driven executor="myExecutor" scheduler="myScheduler"/>

<task:executor id="myExecutor" pool-size="5"/>
<task:scheduler id="myScheduler" pool-size="10"/>

Notice with the above XML that an executor reference is provided for handling those tasks that correspond to methods with the @Async annotation,
and the scheduler reference is provided for managing those methods annotated with @Scheduled .

34.4.2 The @Scheduled annotation

The @Scheduled annotation can be added to a method along with trigger metadata. For example, the following method would be invoked every 5
seconds with a ﬁxed delay, meaning that the period will be measured from the completion time of each preceding invocation.

@Scheduled(fixedDelay=5000)
public void doSomething() {
// something that should execute periodically
}

If a ﬁxed rate execution is desired, simply change the property name speciﬁed within the annotation. The following would be executed every 5
seconds measured between the successive start times of each invocation.

@Scheduled(fixedRate=5000)
public void doSomething() {
// something that should execute periodically
}

For fixed-delay and fixed-rate tasks, an initial delay may be specified indicating the number of milliseconds to wait before the first execution of the
method.

@Scheduled(initialDelay=1000, fixedRate=5000)
public void doSomething() {
// something that should execute periodically
}

If simple periodic scheduling is not expressive enough, then a cron expression may be provided. For example, the following will only execute on
weekdays.

@Scheduled(cron="*/5 * * * * MON-FRI")
public void doSomething() {
// something that should execute on weekdays only
}

You can additionally use the zone attribute to specify the time zone in which the cron expression will be resolved.

Notice that the methods to be scheduled must have void returns and must not expect any arguments. If the method needs to interact with other
objects from the Application Context, then those would typically have been provided through dependency injection.

As of Spring Framework 4.3, @Scheduled methods are supported on beans of any scope.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 594/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Make sure that you are not initializing multiple instances of the same @Scheduled annotation class at runtime, unless you do want to
schedule callbacks to each such instance. Related to this, make sure that you do not use @Configurable on bean classes which
are annotated with @Scheduled and registered as regular Spring beans with the container: You would get double initialization
otherwise, once through the container and once through the @Configurable aspect, with the consequence of each @Scheduled
method being invoked twice.

34.4.3 The @Async annotation

The @Async annotation can be provided on a method so that invocation of that method will occur asynchronously. In other words, the caller will
return immediately upon invocation and the actual execution of the method will occur in a task that has been submitted to a Spring TaskExecutor .
In the simplest case, the annotation may be applied to a void -returning method.

@Async
void doSomething() {
// this will be executed asynchronously
}

Unlike the methods annotated with the @Scheduled annotation, these methods can expect arguments, because they will be invoked in the
"normal" way by callers at runtime rather than from a scheduled task being managed by the container. For example, the following is a legitimate
application of the @Async annotation.

@Async
void doSomething(String s) {
// this will be executed asynchronously
}

Even methods that return a value can be invoked asynchronously. However, such methods are required to have a Future typed return value. This
still provides the beneﬁt of asynchronous execution so that the caller can perform other tasks prior to calling get() on that Future.

@Async
Future<String> returnSomething(int i) {
// this will be executed asynchronously
}

@Async methods may not only declare a regular java.util.concurrent.Future return type but also Spring’s
org.springframework.util.concurrent.ListenableFuture or, as of Spring 4.2, JDK 8’s
java.util.concurrent.CompletableFuture : for richer interaction with the asynchronous task and for immediate composition
with further processing steps.

@Async can not be used in conjunction with lifecycle callbacks such as @PostConstruct . To asynchronously initialize Spring beans you
currently have to use a separate initializing Spring bean that invokes the @Async annotated method on the target then.

public class SampleBeanImpl implements SampleBean {

@Async
void doSomething() {
// ...
}

public class SampleBeanInitializer {

private final SampleBean bean;

public SampleBeanInitializer(SampleBean bean) {

this.bean = bean;
}

@PostConstruct
public void initialize() {
bean.doSomething();

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 595/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
}

There is no direct XML equivalent for @Async since such methods should be designed for asynchronous execution in the ﬁrst place,
not externally re-declared to be async. However, you may manually set up Spring’s AsyncExecutionInterceptor with Spring
AOP, in combination with a custom pointcut.

34.4.4 Executor qualiﬁcation with @Async

By default when specifying @Async on a method, the executor that will be used is the one supplied to the 'annotation-driven' element as described
above. However, the value attribute of the @Async annotation can be used when needing to indicate that an executor other than the default
should be used when executing a given method.

@Async("otherExecutor")
void doSomething(String s) {
// this will be executed asynchronously by "otherExecutor"
}

In this case, "otherExecutor" may be the name of any Executor bean in the Spring container, or may be the name of a qualiﬁer associated with
any Executor , e.g. as speciﬁed with the <qualifier> element or Spring’s @Qualifier annotation.

34.4.5 Exception management with @Async

When an @Async method has a Future typed return value, it is easy to manage an exception that was thrown during the method execution as
this exception will be thrown when calling get on the Future result. With a void return type however, the exception is uncaught and cannot be
transmitted. For those cases, an AsyncUncaughtExceptionHandler can be provided to handle such exceptions.

public class MyAsyncUncaughtExceptionHandler implements AsyncUncaughtExceptionHandler {

@Override
public void handleUncaughtException(Throwable ex, Method method, Object... params) {
// handle exception
}
}

By default, the exception is simply logged. A custom AsyncUncaughtExceptionHandler can be deﬁned via AsyncConfigurer or the
task:annotation-driven XML element.

34.5 The task namespace

Beginning with Spring 3.0, there is an XML namespace for conﬁguring TaskExecutor and TaskScheduler instances. It also provides a
convenient way to conﬁgure tasks to be scheduled with a trigger.

34.5.1 The 'scheduler' element

The following element will create a ThreadPoolTaskScheduler instance with the speciﬁed thread pool size.

<task:scheduler id="scheduler" pool-size="10"/>

The value provided for the 'id' attribute will be used as the preﬁx for thread names within the pool. The 'scheduler' element is relatively
straightforward. If you do not provide a 'pool-size' attribute, the default thread pool will only have a single thread. There are no other conﬁguration
options for the scheduler.

34.5.2 The 'executor' element

The following will create a ThreadPoolTaskExecutor instance:

<task:executor id="executor" pool-size="10"/>

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 596/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
As with the scheduler above, the value provided for the 'id' attribute will be used as the prefix for thread names within the pool. As far as the pool size
is concerned, the 'executor' element supports more configuration options than the 'scheduler' element. For one thing, the thread pool for a
ThreadPoolTaskExecutor is itself more configurable. Rather than just a single size, an executor’s thread pool may have different values for the
core and the max size. If a single value is provided then the executor will have a fixed-size thread pool (the core and max sizes are the same).
However, the 'executor' element’s 'pool-size' attribute also accepts a range in the form of "min-max".

<task:executor
id="executorWithPoolSizeRange"
pool-size="5-25"
queue-capacity="100"/>

As you can see from that configuration, a 'queue-capacity' value has also been provided. The configuration of the thread pool should also be
considered in light of the executor’s queue capacity. For the full description of the relationship between pool size and queue capacity, consult the
documentation for ThreadPoolExecutor. The main idea is that when a task is submitted, the executor will first try to use a free thread if the number of
active threads is currently less than the core size. If the core size has been reached, then the task will be added to the queue as long as its capacity
has not yet been reached. Only then, if the queue’s capacity has been reached, will the executor create a new thread beyond the core size. If the
max size has also been reached, then the executor will reject the task.

By default, the queue is unbounded, but this is rarely the desired configuration, because it can lead to OutOfMemoryErrors if enough tasks are
added to that queue while all pool threads are busy. Furthermore, if the queue is unbounded, then the max size has no effect at all. Since the
executor will always try the queue before creating a new thread beyond the core size, a queue must have a finite capacity for the thread pool to grow
beyond the core size (this is why a fixed size pool is the only sensible case when using an unbounded queue).

In a moment, we will review the effects of the keep-alive setting which adds yet another factor to consider when providing a pool size configuration.
First, let’s consider the case, as mentioned above, when a task is rejected. By default, when a task is rejected, a thread pool executor will throw a
TaskRejectedException . However, the rejection policy is actually configurable. The exception is thrown when using the default rejection policy
which is the AbortPolicy implementation. For applications where some tasks can be skipped under heavy load, either the DiscardPolicy or
DiscardOldestPolicy may be configured instead. Another option that works well for applications that need to throttle the submitted tasks under
heavy load is the CallerRunsPolicy . Instead of throwing an exception or discarding tasks, that policy will simply force the thread that is calling
the submit method to run the task itself. The idea is that such a caller will be busy while running that task and not able to submit other tasks
immediately. Therefore it provides a simple way to throttle the incoming load while maintaining the limits of the thread pool and queue. Typically this
allows the executor to "catch up" on the tasks it is handling and thereby frees up some capacity on the queue, in the pool, or both. Any of these
options can be chosen from an enumeration of values available for the 'rejection-policy' attribute on the 'executor' element.

<task:executor
id="executorWithCallerRunsPolicy"
pool-size="5-25"
queue-capacity="100"
rejection-policy="CALLER_RUNS"/>

Finally, the keep-alive setting determines the time limit (in seconds) for which threads may remain idle before being terminated. If there are more
than the core number of threads currently in the pool, after waiting this amount of time without processing a task, excess threads will get terminated.
A time value of zero will cause excess threads to terminate immediately after executing a task without remaining follow-up work in the task queue.

<task:executor
id="executorWithKeepAlive"
pool-size="5-25"
keep-alive="120"/>

34.5.3 The 'scheduled-tasks' element

The most powerful feature of Spring’s task namespace is the support for conﬁguring tasks to be scheduled within a Spring Application Context. This
follows an approach similar to other "method-invokers" in Spring, such as that provided by the JMS namespace for conﬁguring Message-driven
POJOs. Basically a "ref" attribute can point to any Spring-managed object, and the "method" attribute provides the name of a method to be invoked
on that object. Here is a simple example.

<task:scheduled-tasks scheduler="myScheduler">
<task:scheduled ref="beanA" method="methodA" fixed-delay="5000"/>
</task:scheduled-tasks>

<task:scheduler id="myScheduler" pool-size="10"/>

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 597/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
As you can see, the scheduler is referenced by the outer element, and each individual task includes the configuration of its trigger metadata. In the
preceding example, that metadata defines a periodic trigger with a fixed delay indicating the number of milliseconds to wait after each task execution
has completed. Another option is 'fixed-rate', indicating how often the method should be executed regardless of how long any previous execution
takes. Additionally, for both fixed-delay and fixed-rate tasks an 'initial-delay' parameter may be specified indicating the number of milliseconds to wait
before the first execution of the method. For more control, a "cron" attribute may be provided instead. Here is an example demonstrating these other
options.

<task:scheduled-tasks scheduler="myScheduler">
<task:scheduled ref="beanA" method="methodA" fixed-delay="5000" initial-delay="1000"/>
<task:scheduled ref="beanB" method="methodB" fixed-rate="5000"/>
<task:scheduled ref="beanC" method="methodC" cron="*/5 * * * * MON-FRI"/>
</task:scheduled-tasks>

<task:scheduler id="myScheduler" pool-size="10"/>

34.6 Using the Quartz Scheduler

Quartz uses Trigger , Job and JobDetail objects to realize scheduling of all kinds of jobs. For the basic concepts behind Quartz, have a look
at http://quartz-scheduler.org. For convenience purposes, Spring offers a couple of classes that simplify the usage of Quartz within Spring-based
applications.

34.6.1 Using the JobDetailFactoryBean

Quartz JobDetail objects contain all information needed to run a job. Spring provides a JobDetailFactoryBean which provides bean-style
properties for XML conﬁguration purposes. Let’s have a look at an example:

<bean name="exampleJob" class="org.springframework.scheduling.quartz.JobDetailFactoryBean">

The job detail conﬁguration has all information it needs to run the job ( ExampleJob ). The timeout is speciﬁed in the job data map. The job data
map is available through the JobExecutionContext (passed to you at execution time), but the JobDetail also gets its properties from the job
data mapped to properties of the job instance. So in this case, if the ExampleJob contains a bean property named timeout , the JobDetail
will have it applied automatically:

package example;

public class ExampleJob extends QuartzJobBean {

private int timeout;

/**
* Setter called after the ExampleJob is instantiated
* with the value from the JobDetailFactoryBean (5)
*/
public void setTimeout(int timeout) {
this.timeout = timeout;
}

protected void executeInternal(JobExecutionContext ctx) throws JobExecutionException {

// do the actual work
}

All additional properties from the job data map are of course available to you as well.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 598/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Using the name and group properties, you can modify the name and the group of the job, respectively. By default, the name of the
job matches the bean name of the JobDetailFactoryBean (in the example above, this is exampleJob ).

34.6.2 Using the MethodInvokingJobDetailFactoryBean

Often you just need to invoke a method on a speciﬁc object. Using the MethodInvokingJobDetailFactoryBean you can do exactly this:

<bean id="jobDetail" class="org.springframework.scheduling.quartz.MethodInvokingJobDetailFactoryBean">

The above example will result in the doIt method being called on the exampleBusinessObject method (see below):

public class ExampleBusinessObject {

// properties and collaborators

public void doIt() {

// do the actual work
}
}

<bean id="exampleBusinessObject" class="examples.ExampleBusinessObject"/>

Using the MethodInvokingJobDetailFactoryBean , you don’t need to create one-line jobs that just invoke a method, and you only need to
create the actual business object and wire up the detail object.

By default, Quartz Jobs are stateless, resulting in the possibility of jobs interfering with each other. If you specify two triggers for the same
JobDetail , it might be possible that before the first job has finished, the second one will start. If JobDetail classes implement the Stateful
interface, this won’t happen. The second job will not start before the first one has finished. To make jobs resulting from the
MethodInvokingJobDetailFactoryBean non-concurrent, set the concurrent flag to false .

<bean id="jobDetail" class="org.springframework.scheduling.quartz.MethodInvokingJobDetailFactoryBean">

By default, jobs will run in a concurrent fashion.

34.6.3 Wiring up jobs using triggers and the SchedulerFactoryBean

We’ve created job details and jobs. We’ve also reviewed the convenience bean that allows you to invoke a method on a speciﬁc object. Of course,
we still need to schedule the jobs themselves. This is done using triggers and a SchedulerFactoryBean . Several triggers are available within
Quartz and Spring offers two Quartz FactoryBean implementations with convenient defaults: CronTriggerFactoryBean and
SimpleTriggerFactoryBean .

Triggers need to be scheduled. Spring offers a SchedulerFactoryBean that exposes triggers to be set as properties.
SchedulerFactoryBean schedules the actual jobs with those triggers.

Find below a couple of examples:

<bean id="simpleTrigger" class="org.springframework.scheduling.quartz.SimpleTriggerFactoryBean">

<property name="jobDetail" ref="jobDetail"/>

<property name="startDelay" value="10000"/>

<property name="repeatInterval" value="50000"/>
</bean>
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 599/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
</bean>

<bean id="cronTrigger" class="org.springframework.scheduling.quartz.CronTriggerFactoryBean">

Now we’ve set up two triggers, one running every 50 seconds with a starting delay of 10 seconds and one every morning at 6 AM. To ﬁnalize
everything, we need to set up the SchedulerFactoryBean :

More properties are available for the SchedulerFactoryBean for you to set, such as the calendars used by the job details, properties to
customize Quartz with, etc. Have a look at the SchedulerFactoryBean javadocs for more information.

35. Dynamic language support

35.1 Introduction
Spring 2.0 introduces comprehensive support for using classes and objects that have been deﬁned using a dynamic language (such as JRuby) with
Spring. This support allows you to write any number of classes in a supported dynamic language, and have the Spring container transparently
instantiate, conﬁgure and dependency inject the resulting objects.

The dynamic languages currently supported are:

JRuby 1.5+
Groovy 1.8+
BeanShell 2.0

Why only these languages?

The supported languages were chosen because a) the languages have a lot of traction in the Java enterprise community, b) no requests were
made for other languages at the time that this support was added, and c) the Spring developers were most familiar with them.

Fully working examples of where this dynamic language support can be immediately useful are described in Section 35.4, “Scenarios”.

35.2 A ﬁrst example

This bulk of this chapter is concerned with describing the dynamic language support in detail. Before diving into all of the ins and outs of the dynamic
language support, let’s look at a quick example of a bean deﬁned in a dynamic language. The dynamic language for this ﬁrst bean is Groovy (the
basis of this example was taken from the Spring test suite, so if you want to see equivalent examples in any of the other supported languages, take a
look at the source code).

Find below the Messenger interface that the Groovy bean is going to be implementing, and note that this interface is deﬁned in plain Java.
Dependent objects that are injected with a reference to the Messenger won’t know that the underlying implementation is a Groovy script.

package org.springframework.scripting;

public interface Messenger {

String getMessage();

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 600/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Here is the deﬁnition of a class that has a dependency on the Messenger interface.

package org.springframework.scripting;

public class DefaultBookingService implements BookingService {

private Messenger messenger;

public void setMessenger(Messenger messenger) {

this.messenger = messenger;
}

public void processBooking() {

// use the injected Messenger object...
}

Here is an implementation of the Messenger interface in Groovy.

// from the file 'Messenger.groovy'

package org.springframework.scripting.groovy;

// import the Messenger interface (written in Java) that is to be implemented

import org.springframework.scripting.Messenger

// define the implementation in Groovy

class GroovyMessenger implements Messenger {

String message

Finally, here are the bean deﬁnitions that will effect the injection of the Groovy-deﬁned Messenger implementation into an instance of the
DefaultBookingService class.

To use the custom dynamic language tags to define dynamic-language-backed beans, you need to have the XML Schema preamble at
the top of your Spring XML configuration file. You also need to be using a Spring ApplicationContext implementation as your IoC
container. Using the dynamic-language-backed beans with a plain BeanFactory implementation is supported, but you have to
manage the plumbing of the Spring internals to do so.
For more information on schema-based configuration, see Chapter 41, XML Schema-based configuration.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<lang:groovy id="messenger" script-source="classpath:Messenger.groovy">
<lang:property name="message" value="I Can Do The Frug" />
</lang:groovy>

<bean id="bookingService" class="x.y.DefaultBookingService">
<property name="messenger" ref="messenger" />
</bean>

</beans>

The bookingService bean (a DefaultBookingService ) can now use its private messenger member variable as normal because the
Messenger instance that was injected into it is a Messenger instance. There is nothing special going on here, just plain Java and plain Groovy.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 601/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Hopefully the above XML snippet is self-explanatory, but don’t worry unduly if it isn’t. Keep reading for the in-depth detail on the whys and
wherefores of the above conﬁguration.

35.3 Deﬁning beans that are backed by dynamic languages

This section describes exactly how you deﬁne Spring managed beans in any of the supported dynamic languages.

Please note that this chapter does not attempt to explain the syntax and idioms of the supported dynamic languages. For example, if you want to use
Groovy to write certain of the classes in your application, then the assumption is that you already know Groovy. If you need further details about the
dynamic languages themselves, please consult Section 35.6, “Further Resources” at the end of this chapter.

35.3.1 Common concepts
The steps involved in using dynamic-language-backed beans are as follows:

Write the test for the dynamic language source code (naturally)
Then write the dynamic language source code itself :)
Define your dynamic-language-backed beans using the appropriate <lang:language/> element in the XML configuration (you can of course
define such beans programmatically using the Spring API - although you will have to consult the source code for directions on how to do this as
this type of advanced configuration is not covered in this chapter). Note this is an iterative step. You will need at least one bean definition per
dynamic language source file (although the same dynamic language source file can of course be referenced by multiple bean definitions).

The first two steps (testing and writing your dynamic language source files) are beyond the scope of this chapter. Refer to the language specification
and / or reference manual for your chosen dynamic language and crack on with developing your dynamic language source files. You will first want to
read the rest of this chapter though, as Spring’s dynamic language support does make some (small) assumptions about the contents of your
dynamic language source files.

The <lang:language/> element

The final step involves defining dynamic-language-backed bean definitions, one for each bean that you want to configure (this is no different from
normal JavaBean configuration). However, instead of specifying the fully qualified classname of the class that is to be instantiated and configured by
the container, you use the <lang:language/> element to define the dynamic language-backed bean.

Each of the supported languages has a corresponding <lang:language/> element:

<lang:jruby/> (JRuby)
<lang:groovy/> (Groovy)
<lang:bsh/> (BeanShell)

The exact attributes and child elements that are available for configuration depends on exactly which language the bean has been defined in (the
language-specific sections below provide the full lowdown on this).

Refreshable beans
One of the (if not the) most compelling value adds of the dynamic language support in Spring is the'refreshable bean' feature.

A refreshable bean is a dynamic-language-backed bean that with a small amount of configuration, a dynamic-language-backed bean can monitor
changes in its underlying source file resource, and then reload itself when the dynamic language source file is changed (for example when a
developer edits and saves changes to the file on the filesystem).

This allows a developer to deploy any number of dynamic language source files as part of an application, configure the Spring container to create
beans backed by dynamic language source files (using the mechanisms described in this chapter), and then later, as requirements change or some
other external factor comes into play, simply edit a dynamic language source file and have any change they make reflected in the bean that is
backed by the changed dynamic language source file. There is no need to shut down a running application (or redeploy in the case of a web
application). The dynamic-language-backed bean so amended will pick up the new state and logic from the changed dynamic language source file.

Please note that this feature is off by default.

Let’s take a look at an example to see just how easy it is to start using refreshable beans. To turn on the refreshable beans feature, you simply have
to specify exactly one additional attribute on the <lang:language/> element of your bean deﬁnition. So if we stick with the example from earlier

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 602/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
in this chapter, here’s what we would change in the Spring XML conﬁguration to effect refreshable beans:

<beans>

<lang:groovy id="messenger"
refresh-check-delay="5000" 
script-source="classpath:Messenger.groovy">
<lang:property name="message" value="I Can Do The Frug" />
</lang:groovy>

<bean id="bookingService" class="x.y.DefaultBookingService">

</beans>

That really is all you have to do. The 'refresh-check-delay' attribute defined on the 'messenger' bean definition is the number of
milliseconds after which the bean will be refreshed with any changes made to the underlying dynamic language source file. You can turn off the
refresh behavior by assigning a negative value to the 'refresh-check-delay' attribute. Remember that, by default, the refresh behavior is
disabled. If you don’t want the refresh behavior, then simply don’t define the attribute.

If we then run the following application we can exercise the refreshable feature; please do excuse the 'jumping-through-hoops-to-pause-the-
execution' shenanigans in this next slice of code. The System.in.read() call is only there so that the execution of the program pauses while I
(the author) go off and edit the underlying dynamic language source ﬁle so that the refresh will trigger on the dynamic-language-backed bean when
the program resumes execution.

import org.springframework.context.ApplicationContext;
import org.springframework.context.support.ClassPathXmlApplicationContext;
import org.springframework.scripting.Messenger;

public final class Boot {

public static void main(final String[] args) throws Exception {

ApplicationContext ctx = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("beans.xml");
Messenger messenger = (Messenger) ctx.getBean("messenger");
System.out.println(messenger.getMessage());
// pause execution while I go off and make changes to the source file...
System.in.read();
System.out.println(messenger.getMessage());
}
}

Let’s assume then, for the purposes of this example, that all calls to the getMessage() method of Messenger implementations have to be
changed such that the message is surrounded by quotes. Below are the changes that I (the author) make to the Messenger.groovy source ﬁle
when the execution of the program is paused.

package org.springframework.scripting

class GroovyMessenger implements Messenger {

private String message = "Bingo"

public String getMessage() {

// change the implementation to surround the message in quotes
return "'" + this.message + "'"
}

public void setMessage(String message) {

this.message = message
}
}

When the program executes, the output before the input pause will be I Can Do The Frug. After the change to the source ﬁle is made and saved,
and the program resumes execution, the result of calling the getMessage() method on the dynamic-language-backed Messenger
implementation will be 'I Can Do The Frug' (notice the inclusion of the additional quotes).

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 603/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
It is important to understand that changes to a script will not trigger a refresh if the changes occur within the window of the
'refresh-check-delay' value. It is equally important to understand that changes to the script are not actually 'picked up' until a method is
called on the dynamic-language-backed bean. It is only when a method is called on a dynamic-language-backed bean that it checks to see if its
underlying script source has changed. Any exceptions relating to refreshing the script (such as encountering a compilation error, or ﬁnding that the
script ﬁle has been deleted) will result in a fatal exception being propagated to the calling code.

The refreshable bean behavior described above does not apply to dynamic language source files defined using the <lang:inline-script/>
element notation (see the section called “Inline dynamic language source files”). Additionally, it only applies to beans where changes to the
underlying source file can actually be detected; for example, by code that checks the last modified date of a dynamic language source file that exists
on the filesystem.

Inline dynamic language source ﬁles

The dynamic language support can also cater for dynamic language source files that are embedded directly in Spring bean definitions. More
specifically, the <lang:inline-script/> element allows you to define dynamic language source immediately inside a Spring configuration file.
An example will perhaps make the inline script feature crystal clear:

<lang:groovy id="messenger">
<lang:inline-script>

package org.springframework.scripting.groovy;

import org.springframework.scripting.Messenger

class GroovyMessenger implements Messenger {

String message
}

</lang:inline-script>
<lang:property name="message" value="I Can Do The Frug" />
</lang:groovy>

If we put to one side the issues surrounding whether it is good practice to define dynamic language source inside a Spring configuration file, the
<lang:inline-script/> element can be useful in some scenarios. For instance, we might want to quickly add a Spring Validator
implementation to a Spring MVC Controller . This is but a moment’s work using inline source. (See Section 35.4.2, “Scripted Validators” for such
an example.)

Find below an example of defining the source for a JRuby-based bean directly in a Spring XML configuration file using the inline: notation.
(Notice the use of the < characters to denote a '<' character. In such a case surrounding the inline source in a <![CDATA[]]> region might be
better.)

<lang:jruby id="messenger" script-interfaces="org.springframework.scripting.Messenger">

<lang:inline-script>

require 'java'

include_class 'org.springframework.scripting.Messenger'

class RubyMessenger < Messenger

def setMessage(message)
@@message = message
end

def getMessage
@@message
end

end

</lang:inline-script>
<lang:property name="message" value="Hello World!" />
</lang:jruby>

Understanding Constructor Injection in the context of dynamic-language-backed beans

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 604/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
There is one very important thing to be aware of with regard to Spring’s dynamic language support. Namely, it is not (currently) possible to supply
constructor arguments to dynamic-language-backed beans (and hence constructor-injection is not available for dynamic-language-backed beans). In
the interests of making this special handling of constructors and properties 100% clear, the following mixture of code and conﬁguration will not work.

// from the file 'Messenger.groovy'

package org.springframework.scripting.groovy;

import org.springframework.scripting.Messenger

class GroovyMessenger implements Messenger {

GroovyMessenger() {}

// this constructor is not available for Constructor Injection

GroovyMessenger(String message) {
this.message = message;
}

String message

String anotherMessage

<lang:groovy id="badMessenger"
script-source="classpath:Messenger.groovy">


<constructor-arg value="This will not work" />

<lang:property name="anotherMessage" value="Passed straight through to the dynamic-language-backed object" />

</lang>

In practice this limitation is not as signiﬁcant as it ﬁrst appears since setter injection is the injection style favored by the overwhelming majority of
developers anyway (let’s leave the discussion as to whether that is a good thing to another day).

35.3.2 JRuby beans

The JRuby library dependencies

The JRuby scripting support in Spring requires the following libraries to be on the classpath of your application.

jruby.jar

From the JRuby homepage…

"JRuby is an 100% pure-Java implementation of the Ruby programming language."

In keeping with the Spring philosophy of offering choice, Spring’s dynamic language support also supports beans deﬁned in the JRuby language.
The JRuby language is based on the quite intuitive Ruby language, and has support for inline regular expressions, blocks (closures), and a whole
host of other features that do make solutions for some domain problems a whole lot easier to develop.

The implementation of the JRuby dynamic language support in Spring is interesting in that what happens is this: Spring creates a JDK dynamic
proxy implementing all of the interfaces that are speciﬁed in the 'script-interfaces' attribute value of the <lang:ruby> element (this is
why you must supply at least one interface in the value of the attribute, and (accordingly) program to interfaces when using JRuby-backed beans).

Let us look at a fully working example of using a JRuby-based bean. Here is the JRuby implementation of the Messenger interface that was
deﬁned earlier in this chapter (for your convenience it is repeated below).

package org.springframework.scripting;

public interface Messenger {

String getMessage();
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 605/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

require 'java'

class RubyMessenger
include org.springframework.scripting.Messenger

def setMessage(message)
@@message = message
end

def getMessage
@@message
end
end

# this last line is not essential (but see below)

RubyMessenger.new

And here is the Spring XML that deﬁnes an instance of the RubyMessenger JRuby bean.

<lang:jruby id="messageService"
script-interfaces="org.springframework.scripting.Messenger"
script-source="classpath:RubyMessenger.rb">

<lang:property name="message" value="Hello World!" />

</lang:jruby>

Take note of the last line of that JRuby source ( 'RubyMessenger.new' ). When using JRuby in the context of Spring’s dynamic language support,
you are encouraged to instantiate and return a new instance of the JRuby class that you want to use as a dynamic-language-backed bean as the
result of the execution of your JRuby source. You can achieve this by simply instantiating a new instance of your JRuby class on the last line of the
source ﬁle like so:

require 'java'

include_class 'org.springframework.scripting.Messenger'

# class definition same as above...

# instantiate and return a new instance of the RubyMessenger class

RubyMessenger.new

If you forget to do this, it is not the end of the world; this will however result in Spring having to trawl (reflectively) through the type representation of
your JRuby class looking for a class to instantiate. In the grand scheme of things this will be so fast that you’ll never notice it, but it is something that
can be avoided by simply having a line such as the one above as the last line of your JRuby script. If you don’t supply such a line, or if Spring cannot
find a JRuby class in your script to instantiate then an opaque ScriptCompilationException will be thrown immediately after the source is
executed by the JRuby interpreter. The key text that identifies this as the root cause of an exception can be found immediately below (so if your
Spring container throws the following exception when creating your dynamic-language-backed bean and the following text is there in the
corresponding stacktrace, this will hopefully allow you to identify and then easily rectify the issue):

org.springframework.scripting.ScriptCompilationException: Compilation of JRuby script returned ''

To rectify this, simply instantiate a new instance of whichever class you want to expose as a JRuby-dynamic-language-backed bean (as shown
above). Please also note that you can actually define as many classes and objects as you want in your JRuby script; what is important is that the
source file as a whole must return an object (for Spring to configure).

See Section 35.4, “Scenarios” for some scenarios where you might want to use JRuby-based beans.

35.3.3 Groovy beans

The Groovy library dependencies

The Groovy scripting support in Spring requires the following libraries to be on the classpath of your application.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 606/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
groovy-1.8.jar
asm-3.2.jar
antlr-2.7.7.jar

From the Groovy homepage…

"Groovy is an agile dynamic language for the Java 2 Platform that has many of the features that people like so much in languages like Python, Ruby
and Smalltalk, making them available to Java developers using a Java-like syntax. "

If you have read this chapter straight from the top, you will already have seen an example of a Groovy-dynamic-language-backed bean. Let’s look at
another example (again using an example from the Spring test suite).

package org.springframework.scripting;

public interface Calculator {

int add(int x, int y);

Here is an implementation of the Calculator interface in Groovy.

// from the file 'calculator.groovy'

package org.springframework.scripting.groovy

class GroovyCalculator implements Calculator {

int add(int x, int y) {

x + y
}

<-- from the file 'beans.xml' -->

Lastly, here is a small application to exercise the above conﬁguration.

package org.springframework.scripting;

import org.springframework.context.ApplicationContext;
import org.springframework.context.support.ClassPathXmlApplicationContext;

public class Main {

public static void Main(String[] args) {

ApplicationContext ctx = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("beans.xml");
Calculator calc = (Calculator) ctx.getBean("calculator");
System.out.println(calc.add(2, 8));
}
}

The resulting output from running the above program will be (unsurprisingly) 10. (Exciting example, huh? Remember that the intent is to illustrate the
concept. Please consult the dynamic language showcase project for a more complex example, or indeed Section 35.4, “Scenarios” later in this
chapter).

It is important that you do not define more than one class per Groovy source file. While this is perfectly legal in Groovy, it is (arguably) a bad practice:
in the interests of a consistent approach, you should (in the opinion of this author) respect the standard Java conventions of one (public) class per
source file.

Customizing Groovy objects via a callback

The GroovyObjectCustomizer interface is a callback that allows you to hook additional creation logic into the process of creating a Groovy-
backed bean. For example, implementations of this interface could invoke any required initialization method(s), or set some default property values,

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 607/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
or specify a custom MetaClass .

public interface GroovyObjectCustomizer {

void customize(GroovyObject goo);

}

The Spring Framework will instantiate an instance of your Groovy-backed bean, and will then pass the created GroovyObject to the speciﬁed
GroovyObjectCustomizer if one has been deﬁned. You can do whatever you like with the supplied GroovyObject reference: it is expected
that the setting of a custom MetaClass is what most folks will want to do with this callback, and you can see an example of doing that below.

public final class SimpleMethodTracingCustomizer implements GroovyObjectCustomizer {

public void customize(GroovyObject goo) {

DelegatingMetaClass metaClass = new DelegatingMetaClass(goo.getMetaClass()) {

public Object invokeMethod(Object object, String methodName, Object[] arguments) {

System.out.println("Invoking '" + methodName + "'.");
return super.invokeMethod(object, methodName, arguments);
}
};
metaClass.initialize();
goo.setMetaClass(metaClass);
}

A full discussion of meta-programming in Groovy is beyond the scope of the Spring reference manual. Consult the relevant section of the Groovy
reference manual, or do a search online: there are plenty of articles concerning this topic. Actually making use of a GroovyObjectCustomizer is
easy if you are using the Spring namespace support.

<bean id="tracingCustomizer" class="example.SimpleMethodTracingCustomizer"/>

<lang:groovy id="calculator"
script-source="classpath:org/springframework/scripting/groovy/Calculator.groovy"
customizer-ref="tracingCustomizer"/>

If you are not using the Spring namespace support, you can still use the GroovyObjectCustomizer functionality.

<bean id="calculator" class="org.springframework.scripting.groovy.GroovyScriptFactory">

<constructor-arg value="classpath:org/springframework/scripting/groovy/Calculator.groovy"/>

<constructor-arg>
<bean id="tracingCustomizer" class="example.SimpleMethodTracingCustomizer"/>
</constructor-arg>
</bean>

As of Spring Framework 4.3.3, you may also specify a Groovy CompilationCustomizer (such as an ImportCustomizer ) or
even a full Groovy CompilerConfiguration object in the same place as Spring’s GroovyObjectCustomizer .

35.3.4 BeanShell beans

The BeanShell library dependencies

The BeanShell scripting support in Spring requires the following libraries to be on the classpath of your application.

bsh-2.0b4.jar

From the BeanShell homepage…

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 608/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
"BeanShell is a small, free, embeddable Java source interpreter with dynamic language features, written in Java. BeanShell dynamically executes
standard Java syntax and extends it with common scripting conveniences such as loose types, commands, and method closures like those in Perl
and JavaScript."

In contrast to Groovy, BeanShell-backed bean definitions require some (small) additional configuration. The implementation of the BeanShell
dynamic language support in Spring is interesting in that what happens is this: Spring creates a JDK dynamic proxy implementing all of the interfaces
that are specified in the 'script-interfaces' attribute value of the <lang:bsh> element (this is why you must supply at least one interface
in the value of the attribute, and (accordingly) program to interfaces when using BeanShell-backed beans). This means that every method call on a
BeanShell-backed object is going through the JDK dynamic proxy invocation mechanism.

Let’s look at a fully working example of using a BeanShell-based bean that implements the Messenger interface that was deﬁned earlier in this
chapter (repeated below for your convenience).

package org.springframework.scripting;

public interface Messenger {

String getMessage();

Here is the BeanShell 'implementation' (the term is used loosely here) of the Messenger interface.

String message;

String getMessage() {
return message;
}

void setMessage(String aMessage) {

message = aMessage;
}

And here is the Spring XML that deﬁnes an 'instance' of the above 'class' (again, the term is used very loosely here).

<lang:bsh id="messageService" script-source="classpath:BshMessenger.bsh"

script-interfaces="org.springframework.scripting.Messenger">

<lang:property name="message" value="Hello World!" />

</lang:bsh>

See Section 35.4, “Scenarios” for some scenarios where you might want to use BeanShell-based beans.

35.4 Scenarios
The possible scenarios where deﬁning Spring managed beans in a scripting language would be beneﬁcial are, of course, many and varied. This
section describes two possible use cases for the dynamic language support in Spring.

35.4.1 Scripted Spring MVC Controllers

One group of classes that may benefit from using dynamic-language-backed beans is that of Spring MVC controllers. In pure Spring MVC
applications, the navigational flow through a web application is to a large extent determined by code encapsulated within your Spring MVC
controllers. As the navigational flow and other presentation layer logic of a web application needs to be updated to respond to support issues or
changing business requirements, it may well be easier to effect any such required changes by editing one or more dynamic language source files
and seeing those changes being immediately reflected in the state of a running application.

Remember that in the lightweight architectural model espoused by projects such as Spring, you are typically aiming to have a really thin presentation
layer, with all the meaty business logic of an application being contained in the domain and service layer classes. Developing Spring MVC controllers
as dynamic-language-backed beans allows you to change presentation layer logic by simply editing and saving text files; any changes to such
dynamic language source files will (depending on the configuration) automatically be reflected in the beans that are backed by dynamic language
source files.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 609/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
In order to effect this automatic 'pickup' of any changes to dynamic-language-backed beans, you will have had to enable the
'refreshable beans' functionality. See the section called “Refreshable beans” for a full treatment of this feature.

Find below an example of an org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.Controller implemented using the Groovy dynamic language.

// from the file '/WEB-INF/groovy/FortuneController.groovy'

package org.springframework.showcase.fortune.web

import org.springframework.showcase.fortune.service.FortuneService
import org.springframework.showcase.fortune.domain.Fortune
import org.springframework.web.servlet.ModelAndView
import org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.Controller

import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse

class FortuneController implements Controller {

@Property FortuneService fortuneService

ModelAndView handleRequest(HttpServletRequest request,

HttpServletResponse httpServletResponse) {
return new ModelAndView("tell", "fortune", this.fortuneService.tellFortune())
}

<lang:groovy id="fortune"
refresh-check-delay="3000"
script-source="/WEB-INF/groovy/FortuneController.groovy">
<lang:property name="fortuneService" ref="fortuneService"/>
</lang:groovy>

35.4.2 Scripted Validators
Another area of application development with Spring that may beneﬁt from the ﬂexibility afforded by dynamic-language-backed beans is that of
validation. It may be easier to express complex validation logic using a loosely typed dynamic language (that may also have support for inline regular
expressions) as opposed to regular Java.

Again, developing validators as dynamic-language-backed beans allows you to change validation logic by simply editing and saving a simple text
file; any such changes will (depending on the configuration) automatically be reflected in the execution of a running application and would not require
the restart of an application.

Please note that in order to effect the automatic 'pickup' of any changes to dynamic-language-backed beans, you will have had to
enable the 'refreshable beans' feature. See the section called “Refreshable beans” for a full and detailed treatment of this feature.

Find below an example of a Spring org.springframework.validation.Validator implemented using the Groovy dynamic language. (See
Section 9.2, “Validation using Spring’s Validator interface” for a discussion of the Validator interface.)

import org.springframework.validation.Validator
import org.springframework.validation.Errors
import org.springframework.beans.TestBean

class TestBeanValidator implements Validator {

boolean supports(Class clazz) {

return TestBean.class.isAssignableFrom(clazz)
}

void validate(Object bean, Errors errors) {

if(bean.name?.trim()?.size() > 0) {
return
}
errors.reject("whitespace", "Cannot be composed wholly of whitespace.")
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 610/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
}

35.5 Bits and bobs

This last section contains some bits and bobs related to the dynamic language support.

35.5.1 AOP - advising scripted beans

It is possible to use the Spring AOP framework to advise scripted beans. The Spring AOP framework actually is unaware that a bean that is being
advised might be a scripted bean, so all of the AOP use cases and functionality that you may be using or aim to use will work with scripted beans.
There is just one (small) thing that you need to be aware of when advising scripted beans… you cannot use class-based proxies, you must use
interface-based proxies.

You are of course not just limited to advising scripted beans… you can also write aspects themselves in a supported dynamic language and use
such beans to advise other Spring beans. This really would be an advanced use of the dynamic language support though.

35.5.2 Scoping
In case it is not immediately obvious, scripted beans can of course be scoped just like any other bean. The scope attribute on the various
<lang:language/> elements allows you to control the scope of the underlying scripted bean, just as it does with a regular bean. (The default
scope is singleton, just as it is with 'regular' beans.)

Find below an example of using the scope attribute to deﬁne a Groovy bean scoped as a prototype.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<lang:groovy id="messenger" script-source="classpath:Messenger.groovy" scope="prototype">

<lang:property name="message" value="I Can Do The RoboCop" />
</lang:groovy>

<bean id="bookingService" class="x.y.DefaultBookingService">

</beans>

See Section 7.5, “Bean scopes” in Chapter 7, The IoC container for a fuller discussion of the scoping support in the Spring Framework.

35.6 Further Resources
Find below links to further resources about the various dynamic languages described in this chapter.

The JRuby homepage

The Groovy homepage
The BeanShell homepage

36. Cache Abstraction

36.1 Introduction
Since version 3.1, Spring Framework provides support for transparently adding caching into an existing Spring application. Similar to the transaction
support, the caching abstraction allows consistent use of various caching solutions with minimal impact on the code.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 611/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
As from Spring 4.1, the cache abstraction has been signiﬁcantly improved with the support of JSR-107 annotations and more customization options.

36.2 Understanding the cache abstraction

Cache vs Buffer

The terms "buffer" and "cache" tend to be used interchangeably; note however they represent different things. A buffer is used traditionally as
an intermediate temporary store for data between a fast and a slow entity. As one party would have to wait for the other affecting performance,
the buffer alleviates this by allowing entire blocks of data to move at once rather then in small chunks. The data is written and read only once
from the buffer. Furthermore, the buffers are visible to at least one party which is aware of it.

A cache on the other hand by deﬁnition is hidden and neither party is aware that caching occurs.It as well improves performance but does that
by allowing the same data to be read multiple times in a fast fashion.

A further explanation of the differences between two can be found here.

At its core, the abstraction applies caching to Java methods, reducing thus the number of executions based on the information available in the
cache. That is, each time a targeted method is invoked, the abstraction will apply a caching behavior checking whether the method has been already
executed for the given arguments. If it has, then the cached result is returned without having to execute the actual method; if it has not, then method
is executed, the result cached and returned to the user so that, the next time the method is invoked, the cached result is returned. This way,
expensive methods (whether CPU or IO bound) can be executed only once for a given set of parameters and the result reused without having to
actually execute the method again. The caching logic is applied transparently without any interference to the invoker.

Important

Obviously this approach works only for methods that are guaranteed to return the same output (result) for a given input (or arguments)
no matter how many times it is being executed.

Other cache-related operations are provided by the abstraction such as the ability to update the content of the cache or remove one of all entries.
These are useful if the cache deals with data that can change during the course of the application.

Just like other services in the Spring Framework, the caching service is an abstraction (not a cache implementation) and requires the use of an
actual storage to store the cache data - that is, the abstraction frees the developer from having to write the caching logic but does not provide the
actual stores. This abstraction is materialized by the org.springframework.cache.Cache and
org.springframework.cache.CacheManager interfaces.

There are a few implementations of that abstraction available out of the box: JDK java.util.concurrent.ConcurrentMap based caches,
Ehcache 2.x, Gemﬁre cache, Caffeine, Guava caches and JSR-107 compliant caches (e.g. Ehcache 3.x). See Section 36.7, “Plugging-in different
back-end caches” for more information on plugging in other cache stores/providers.

Important

The caching abstraction has no special handling of multi-threaded and multi-process environments as such features are handled by
the cache implementation. .

If you have a multi-process environment (i.e. an application deployed on several nodes), you will need to conﬁgure your cache provider accordingly.
Depending on your use cases, a copy of the same data on several nodes may be enough but if you change the data during the course of the
application, you may need to enable other propagation mechanisms.

Caching a particular item is a direct equivalent of the typical get-if-not-found-then- proceed-and-put-eventually code blocks found with programmatic
cache interaction: no locks are applied and several threads may try to load the same item concurrently. The same applies to eviction: if several
threads are trying to update or evict data concurrently, you may use stale data. Certain cache providers offer advanced features in that area, refer to
the documentation of the cache provider that you are using for more details.

To use the cache abstraction, the developer needs to take care of two aspects:

caching declaration - identify the methods that need to be cached and their policy
cache conﬁguration - the backing cache where the data is stored and read from

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 612/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

36.3 Declarative annotation-based caching

For caching declaration, the abstraction provides a set of Java annotations:

@Cacheable triggers cache population

@CacheEvict triggers cache eviction
@CachePut updates the cache without interfering with the method execution
@Caching regroups multiple cache operations to be applied on a method
@CacheConfig shares some common cache-related settings at class-level

Let us take a closer look at each annotation:

36.3.1 @Cacheable annotation
As the name implies, @Cacheable is used to demarcate methods that are cacheable - that is, methods for whom the result is stored into the cache
so on subsequent invocations (with the same arguments), the value in the cache is returned without having to actually execute the method. In its
simplest form, the annotation declaration requires the name of the cache associated with the annotated method:

@Cacheable("books")
public Book findBook(ISBN isbn) {...}

In the snippet above, the method findBook is associated with the cache named books . Each time the method is called, the cache is checked to
see whether the invocation has been already executed and does not have to be repeated. While in most cases, only one cache is declared, the
annotation allows multiple names to be speciﬁed so that more than one cache are being used. In this case, each of the caches will be checked
before executing the method - if at least one cache is hit, then the associated value will be returned:

All the other caches that do not contain the value will be updated as well even though the cached method was not actually executed.

@Cacheable({"books", "isbns"})
public Book findBook(ISBN isbn) {...}

Default Key Generation

Since caches are essentially key-value stores, each invocation of a cached method needs to be translated into a suitable key for cache access. Out
of the box, the caching abstraction uses a simple KeyGenerator based on the following algorithm:

If no params are given, return SimpleKey.EMPTY .

If only one param is given, return that instance.
If more the one param is given, return a SimpleKey containing all parameters.

This approach works well for most use-cases; As long as parameters have natural keys and implement valid hashCode() and equals()
methods. If that is not the case then the strategy needs to be changed.

To provide a different default key generator, one needs to implement the org.springframework.cache.interceptor.KeyGenerator
interface.

The default key generation strategy changed with the release of Spring 4.0. Earlier versions of Spring used a key generation strategy
that, for multiple key parameters, only considered the hashCode() of parameters and not equals() ; this could cause unexpected
key collisions (see SPR-10237 for background). The new 'SimpleKeyGenerator' uses a compound key for such scenarios.
If you want to keep using the previous key strategy, you can conﬁgure the deprecated
org.springframework.cache.interceptor.DefaultKeyGenerator class or create a custom hash-based 'KeyGenerator'
implementation.

Custom Key Generation Declaration

Since caching is generic, it is quite likely the target methods have various signatures that cannot be simply mapped on top of the cache structure.
This tends to become obvious when the target method has multiple arguments out of which only some are suitable for caching (while the rest are
used only by the method logic). For example:

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 613/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

@Cacheable("books")
public Book findBook(ISBN isbn, boolean checkWarehouse, boolean includeUsed)

At ﬁrst glance, while the two boolean arguments inﬂuence the way the book is found, they are no use for the cache. Further more what if only one
of the two is important while the other is not?

For such cases, the @Cacheable annotation allows the user to specify how the key is generated through its key attribute. The developer can use
SpEL to pick the arguments of interest (or their nested properties), perform operations or even invoke arbitrary methods without having to write any
code or implement any interface. This is the recommended approach over the default generator since methods tend to be quite different in
signatures as the code base grows; while the default strategy might work for some methods, it rarely does for all methods.

Below are some examples of various SpEL declarations - if you are not familiar with it, do yourself a favor and read Chapter 10, Spring Expression
Language (SpEL):

@Cacheable(cacheNames="books", key="#isbn")
public Book findBook(ISBN isbn, boolean checkWarehouse, boolean includeUsed)

@Cacheable(cacheNames="books", key="#isbn.rawNumber")
public Book findBook(ISBN isbn, boolean checkWarehouse, boolean includeUsed)

@Cacheable(cacheNames="books", key="T(someType).hash(#isbn)")
public Book findBook(ISBN isbn, boolean checkWarehouse, boolean includeUsed)

The snippets above show how easy it is to select a certain argument, one of its properties or even an arbitrary (static) method.

If the algorithm responsible to generate the key is too speciﬁc or if it needs to be shared, you may deﬁne a custom keyGenerator on the
operation. To do this, specify the name of the KeyGenerator bean implementation to use:

@Cacheable(cacheNames="books", keyGenerator="myKeyGenerator")
public Book findBook(ISBN isbn, boolean checkWarehouse, boolean includeUsed)

The key and keyGenerator parameters are mutually exclusive and an operation specifying both will result in an exception.

Default Cache Resolution

Out of the box, the caching abstraction uses a simple CacheResolver that retrieves the cache(s) deﬁned at the operation level using the
conﬁgured CacheManager .

To provide a different default cache resolver, one needs to implement the org.springframework.cache.interceptor.CacheResolver
interface.

Custom cache resolution

The default cache resolution ﬁts well for applications working with a single CacheManager and with no complex cache resolution requirements.

For applications working with several cache managers, it is possible to set the cacheManager to use per operation:

@Cacheable(cacheNames="books", cacheManager="anotherCacheManager")
public Book findBook(ISBN isbn) {...}

It is also possible to replace the CacheResolver entirely in a similar fashion as for key generation. The resolution is requested for every cache
operation, giving a chance to the implementation to actually resolve the cache(s) to use based on runtime arguments:

@Cacheable(cacheResolver="runtimeCacheResolver")
public Book findBook(ISBN isbn) {...}

Since Spring 4.1, the value attribute of the cache annotations are no longer mandatory since this particular information can be
provided by the CacheResolver regardless of the content of the annotation.
Similarly to key and keyGenerator , the cacheManager and cacheResolver parameters are mutually exclusive and an
operation specifying both will result in an exception as a custom CacheManager will be ignored by the CacheResolver
implementation. This is probably not what you expect.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 614/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Synchronized caching
In a multi-threaded environment, certain operations might be concurrently invoked for the same argument (typically on startup). By default, the cache
abstraction does not lock anything and the same value may be computed several times, defeating the purpose of caching.

For those particular cases, the sync attribute can be used to instruct the underlying cache provider to lock the cache entry while the value is being
computed. As a result, only one thread will be busy computing the value while the others are blocked until the entry is updated in the cache.

@Cacheable(cacheNames="foos", sync="true")
public Foo executeExpensiveOperation(String id) {...}

This is an optional feature and your favorite cache library may not support it. All CacheManager implementations provided by the
core framework support it. Check the documentation of your cache provider for more details.

Conditional caching
Sometimes, a method might not be suitable for caching all the time (for example, it might depend on the given arguments). The cache annotations
support such functionality through the condition parameter which takes a SpEL expression that is evaluated to either true or false . If
true , the method is cached - if not, it behaves as if the method is not cached, that is executed every time no matter what values are in the cache or
what arguments are used. A quick example - the following method will be cached only if the argument name has a length shorter than 32:

@Cacheable(cacheNames="book", condition="#name.length() < 32")

public Book findBook(String name)

In addition the condition parameter, the unless parameter can be used to veto the adding of a value to the cache. Unlike condition ,
unless expressions are evaluated after the method has been called. Expanding on the previous example - perhaps we only want to cache
paperback books:

@Cacheable(cacheNames="book", condition="#name.length() < 32", unless="#result.hardback")

public Book findBook(String name)

The cache abstraction supports java.util.Optional , using its content as cached value only if it present. #result always refers to the
business entity and never on a supported wrapper so the previous example can be rewritten as follows:

@Cacheable(cacheNames="book", condition="#name.length() < 32", unless="#result?.hardback")

public Optional<Book> findBook(String name)

Note that result still refers to Book and not Optional . As it might be null , we should use the safe navigation operator.

Available caching SpEL evaluation context

Each SpEL expression evaluates again a dedicated context . In addition to the build in parameters, the framework provides dedicated caching
related metadata such as the argument names. The next table lists the items made available to the context so one can use them for key and
conditional computations:

Table 36.1. Cache SpEL available metadata

Name Location Description Example

methodName root object The name of the method being invoked #root.methodName

method root object The method being invoked #root.method.name

target root object The target object being invoked #root.target

targetClass root object The class of the target being invoked #root.targetClass

args root object The arguments (as array) used for invoking the target #root.args[0]

caches root object Collection of caches against which the current method is executed #root.caches[0].name

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 615/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Name Location Description Example

argument evaluation Name of any of the method arguments. If for some reason the names are not #iban or #a0 (one can
name context available (e.g. no debug information), the argument names are also available also use #p0 or
under the #a<#arg> where #arg stands for the argument index (starting from #p<#arg> notation as an
0). alias).

result evaluation The result of the method call (the value to be cached). Only available in #result
context unless expressions, cache put expressions (to compute the key ), or
cache evict expressions (when beforeInvocation is false ). For
supported wrappers such as Optional , #result refers to the actual object,
not the wrapper.

36.3.2 @CachePut annotation
For cases where the cache needs to be updated without interfering with the method execution, one can use the @CachePut annotation. That is, the
method will always be executed and its result placed into the cache (according to the @CachePut options). It supports the same options as
@Cacheable and should be used for cache population rather than method ﬂow optimization:

@CachePut(cacheNames="book", key="#isbn")
public Book updateBook(ISBN isbn, BookDescriptor descriptor)

Important

Note that using @CachePut and @Cacheable annotations on the same method is generally strongly discouraged because they
have different behaviors. While the latter causes the method execution to be skipped by using the cache, the former forces the
execution in order to execute a cache update. This leads to unexpected behavior and with the exception of speciﬁc corner-cases (such
as annotations having conditions that exclude them from each other), such declaration should be avoided. Note also that such
condition should not rely on the result object (i.e. the #result variable) as these are validated upfront to conﬁrm the exclusion.

36.3.3 @CacheEvict annotation
The cache abstraction allows not just population of a cache store but also eviction. This process is useful for removing stale or unused data from the
cache. Opposed to @Cacheable , annotation @CacheEvict demarcates methods that perform cache eviction, that is methods that act as triggers
for removing data from the cache. Just like its sibling, @CacheEvict requires specifying one (or multiple) caches that are affected by the action,
allows a custom cache and key resolution or a condition to be speciﬁed but in addition, features an extra parameter allEntries which indicates
whether a cache-wide eviction needs to be performed rather then just an entry one (based on the key):

@CacheEvict(cacheNames="books", allEntries=true)
public void loadBooks(InputStream batch)

This option comes in handy when an entire cache region needs to be cleared out - rather then evicting each entry (which would take a long time
since it is inefﬁcient), all the entries are removed in one operation as shown above. Note that the framework will ignore any key speciﬁed in this
scenario as it does not apply (the entire cache is evicted not just one entry).

One can also indicate whether the eviction should occur after (the default) or before the method executes through the beforeInvocation
attribute. The former provides the same semantics as the rest of the annotations - once the method completes successfully, an action (in this case
eviction) on the cache is executed. If the method does not execute (as it might be cached) or an exception is thrown, the eviction does not occur. The
latter ( beforeInvocation=true ) causes the eviction to occur always, before the method is invoked - this is useful in cases where the eviction
does not need to be tied to the method outcome.

It is important to note that void methods can be used with @CacheEvict - as the methods act as triggers, the return values are ignored (as they
don’t interact with the cache) - this is not the case with @Cacheable which adds/updates data into the cache and thus requires a result.

36.3.4 @Caching annotation

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 616/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
There are cases when multiple annotations of the same type, such as @CacheEvict or @CachePut need to be speciﬁed, for example because
the condition or the key expression is different between different caches. @Caching allows multiple nested @Cacheable , @CachePut and
@CacheEvict to be used on the same method:

@Caching(evict = { @CacheEvict("primary"), @CacheEvict(cacheNames="secondary", key="#p0") })

public Book importBooks(String deposit, Date date)

36.3.5 @CacheConfig annotation
So far we have seen that caching operations offered many customization options and these can be set on an operation basis. However, some of the
customization options can be tedious to configure if they apply to all operations of the class. For instance, specifying the name of the cache to use
for every cache operation of the class could be replaced by a single class-level definition. This is where @CacheConfig comes into play.

@CacheConfig("books")
public class BookRepositoryImpl implements BookRepository {

@Cacheable
public Book findBook(ISBN isbn) {...}
}

@CacheConfig is a class-level annotation that allows to share the cache names, the custom KeyGenerator , the custom CacheManager and
ﬁnally the custom CacheResolver . Placing this annotation on the class does not turn on any caching operation.

An operation-level customization will always override a customization set on @CacheConfig . This gives therefore three levels of customizations
per cache operation:

Globally conﬁgured, available for CacheManager , KeyGenerator

At class level, using @CacheConfig
At the operation level

36.3.6 Enable caching annotations

It is important to note that even though declaring the cache annotations does not automatically trigger their actions - like many things in Spring, the
feature has to be declaratively enabled (which means if you ever suspect caching is to blame, you can disable it by removing only one conﬁguration
line rather than all the annotations in your code).

To enable caching annotations add the annotation @EnableCaching to one of your @Configuration classes:

@Configuration
@EnableCaching
public class AppConfig {
}

Alternatively for XML conﬁguration use the cache:annotation-driven element:

<cache:annotation-driven />

</beans>

Both the cache:annotation-driven element and @EnableCaching annotation allow various options to be specified that influence the way
the caching behavior is added to the application through AOP. The configuration is intentionally similar with that of @Transactional :

Advanced customizations using Java conﬁg require to implement CachingConfigurer , refer to the javadoc for more details.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 617/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Table 36.2. Cache annotation settings

XML Attribute Annotation Attribute Default Description

cache-manager N/A (See cacheManager Name of cache manager to use. A default

CachingConfigurer CacheResolver will be initialized behind the
javadocs) scenes with this cache manager (or
`cacheManager`if not set). For more ﬁne-
grained management of the cache resolution,
consider setting the 'cache-resolver' attribute.

cache-resolver N/A (See A SimpleCacheResolver using The bean name of the CacheResolver that is to
CachingConfigurer the conﬁgured cacheManager . be used to resolve the backing caches. This
javadocs) attribute is not required, and only needs to be
speciﬁed as an alternative to the 'cache-
manager' attribute.

key-generator N/A (See SimpleKeyGenerator Name of the custom key generator to use.
CachingConfigurer
javadocs)

error-handler N/A (See SimpleCacheErrorHandler Name of the custom cache error handler to use.
CachingConfigurer By default, any exception throw during a cache
javadocs) related operations are thrown back at the client.

mode mode proxy The default mode "proxy" processes annotated

beans to be proxied using Spring’s AOP
framework (following proxy semantics, as
discussed above, applying to method calls
coming in through the proxy only). The
alternative mode "aspectj" instead weaves the
affected classes with Spring’s AspectJ caching
aspect, modifying the target class byte code to
apply to any kind of method call. AspectJ
weaving requires spring-aspects.jar in the
classpath as well as load-time weaving (or
compile-time weaving) enabled. (See the
section called “Spring conﬁguration” for details
on how to set up load-time weaving.)

proxy-target-class proxyTargetClass false Applies to proxy mode only. Controls what type
of caching proxies are created for classes
annotated with the @Cacheable or
@CacheEvict annotations. If the
proxy-target-class attribute is set to
true , then class-based proxies are created. If
proxy-target-class is false or if the
attribute is omitted, then standard JDK
interface-based proxies are created. (See
Section 11.6, “Proxying mechanisms” for a
detailed examination of the different proxy
types.)

order order Ordered.LOWEST_PRECEDENCE Deﬁnes the order of the cache advice that is
applied to beans annotated with @Cacheable
or @CacheEvict . (For more information about
the rules related to ordering of AOP advice, see
the section called “Advice ordering”.) No
speciﬁed ordering means that the AOP
subsystem determines the order of the advice.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 618/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

<cache:annotation-driven/> only looks for @Cacheable/@CachePut/@CacheEvict/@Caching on beans in the same

application context it is deﬁned in. This means that, if you put <cache:annotation-driven/> in a WebApplicationContext
for a DispatcherServlet , it only checks for beans in your controllers, and not your services. See Section 22.2, “The
DispatcherServlet” for more information.

Method visibility and cache annotations

When using proxies, you should apply the cache annotations only to methods with public visibility. If you do annotate protected, private or
package-visible methods with these annotations, no error is raised, but the annotated method does not exhibit the conﬁgured caching settings.
Consider the use of AspectJ (see below) if you need to annotate non-public methods as it changes the bytecode itself.

Spring recommends that you only annotate concrete classes (and methods of concrete classes) with the @Cache* annotation, as
opposed to annotating interfaces. You certainly can place the @Cache* annotation on an interface (or an interface method), but this
works only as you would expect it to if you are using interface-based proxies. The fact that Java annotations are not inherited from
interfaces means that if you are using class-based proxies ( proxy-target-class="true" ) or the weaving-based aspect (
mode="aspectj" ), then the caching settings are not recognized by the proxying and weaving infrastructure, and the object will not
be wrapped in a caching proxy, which would be decidedly bad.

In proxy mode (which is the default), only external method calls coming in through the proxy are intercepted. This means that self-
invocation, in effect, a method within the target object calling another method of the target object, will not lead to an actual caching at
runtime even if the invoked method is marked with @Cacheable - considering using the aspectj mode in this case. Also, the proxy
must be fully initialized to provide the expected behaviour so you should not rely on this feature in your initialization code, i.e.
@PostConstruct .

36.3.7 Using custom annotations

Custom annotation and AspectJ

This feature only works out-of-the-box with the proxy-based approach but can be enabled with a bit of extra effort using AspectJ.

The spring-aspects module defines an aspect for the standard annotations only. If you have defined your own annotations, you also need
to define an aspect for those. Check AnnotationCacheAspect for an example.

The caching abstraction allows you to use your own annotations to identify what method triggers cache population or eviction. This is quite handy as
a template mechanism as it eliminates the need to duplicate cache annotation declarations (especially useful if the key or condition are speciﬁed) or
if the foreign imports ( org.springframework ) are not allowed in your code base. Similar to the rest of the stereotype annotations,
@Cacheable , @CachePut , @CacheEvict and @CacheConfig can be used as meta-annotations, that is annotations that can annotate other
annotations. To wit, let us replace a common @Cacheable declaration with our own, custom annotation:

@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@Target({ElementType.METHOD})
@Cacheable(cacheNames="books", key="#isbn")
public @interface SlowService {
}

Above, we have deﬁned our own SlowService annotation which itself is annotated with @Cacheable - now we can replace the following code:

@Cacheable(cacheNames="books", key="#isbn")
public Book findBook(ISBN isbn, boolean checkWarehouse, boolean includeUsed)

with:

@SlowService
public Book findBook(ISBN isbn, boolean checkWarehouse, boolean includeUsed)

Even though @SlowService is not a Spring annotation, the container automatically picks up its declaration at runtime and understands its
meaning. Note that as mentioned above, the annotation-driven behavior needs to be enabled.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 619/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

36.4 JCache (JSR-107) annotations

Since the Spring Framework 4.1, the caching abstraction fully supports the JCache standard annotations: these are @CacheResult , @CachePut ,
@CacheRemove and @CacheRemoveAll as well as the @CacheDefaults , @CacheKey and @CacheValue companions. These annotations
can be used right the way without migrating your cache store to JSR-107: the internal implementation uses Spring’s caching abstraction and
provides default CacheResolver and KeyGenerator implementations that are compliant with the speciﬁcation. In other words, if you are
already using Spring’s caching abstraction, you can switch to these standard annotations without changing your cache storage (or conﬁguration, for
that matter).

36.4.1 Features summary
For those who are familiar with Spring’s caching annotations, the following table describes the main differences between the Spring annotations and
the JSR-107 counterpart:

Table 36.3. Spring vs. JSR-107 caching annotations

Spring JSR-107 Remark

@Cacheable @CacheResult Fairly similar. @CacheResult can cache speciﬁc exceptions and force
the execution of the method regardless of the content of the cache.

@CachePut @CachePut While Spring updates the cache with the result of the method invocation,
JCache requires to pass it as an argument that is annotated with
@CacheValue . Due to this difference, JCache allows to update the cache
before or after the actual method invocation.

@CacheEvict @CacheRemove Fairly similar. @CacheRemove supports a conditional evict in case the
method invocation results in an exception.

@CacheEvict(allEntries=true) @CacheRemoveAll See @CacheRemove .

@CacheConfig @CacheDefaults Allows to conﬁgure the same concepts, in a similar fashion.

JCache has the notion of javax.cache.annotation.CacheResolver that is identical to the Spring’s CacheResolver interface, except that
JCache only supports a single cache. By default, a simple implementation retrieves the cache to use based on the name declared on the annotation.
It should be noted that if no cache name is speciﬁed on the annotation, a default is automatically generated, check the javadoc of
@CacheResult#cacheName() for more information.

CacheResolver instances are retrieved by a CacheResolverFactory . It is possible to customize the factory per cache operation:

@CacheResult(cacheNames="books", cacheResolverFactory=MyCacheResolverFactory.class)
public Book findBook(ISBN isbn)

For all referenced classes, Spring tries to locate a bean with the given type. If more than one match exists, a new instance is created
and can use the regular bean lifecycle callbacks such as dependency injection.

Keys are generated by a javax.cache.annotation.CacheKeyGenerator that serves the same purpose as Spring’s KeyGenerator . By
default, all method arguments are taken into account unless at least one parameter is annotated with @CacheKey . This is similar to Spring’s custom
key generation declaration. For instance these are identical operations, one using Spring’s abstraction and the other with JCache:

@Cacheable(cacheNames="books", key="#isbn")
public Book findBook(ISBN isbn, boolean checkWarehouse, boolean includeUsed)

@CacheResult(cacheName="books")
public Book findBook(@CacheKey ISBN isbn, boolean checkWarehouse, boolean includeUsed)

The CacheKeyResolver to use can also be speciﬁed on the operation, in a similar fashion as the CacheResolverFactory .

JCache can manage exceptions thrown by annotated methods: this can prevent an update of the cache but it can also cache the exception as an
indicator of the failure instead of calling the method again. Let’s assume that InvalidIsbnNotFoundException is thrown if the structure of the
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 620/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
ISBN is invalid. This is a permanent failure, no book could ever be retrieved with such parameter. The following caches the exception so that further
calls with the same, invalid ISBN, throws the cached exception directly instead of invoking the method again.

@CacheResult(cacheName="books", exceptionCacheName="failures"
cachedExceptions = InvalidIsbnNotFoundException.class)
public Book findBook(ISBN isbn)

36.4.2 Enabling JSR-107 support

Nothing speciﬁc needs to be done to enable the JSR-107 support alongside Spring’s declarative annotation support. Both @EnableCaching and
the cache:annotation-driven element will enable automatically the JCache support if both the JSR-107 API and the
spring-context-support module are present in the classpath.

Depending of your use case, the choice is basically yours. You can even mix and match services using the JSR-107 API and others
using Spring’s own annotations. Be aware however that if these services are impacting the same caches, a consistent and identical
key generation implementation should be used.

36.5 Declarative XML-based caching

If annotations are not an option (no access to the sources or no external code), one can use XML for declarative caching. So instead of annotating
the methods for caching, one speciﬁes the target method and the caching directives externally (similar to the declarative transaction management
advice). The previous example can be translated into:

<cache:advice id="cacheAdvice" cache-manager="cacheManager">
<cache:caching cache="books">
<cache:cacheable method="findBook" key="#isbn"/>
<cache:cache-evict method="loadBooks" all-entries="true"/>
</cache:caching>
</cache:advice>

<aop:config>
<aop:advisor advice-ref="cacheAdvice" pointcut="execution(* x.y.BookService.*(..))"/>
</aop:config>

In the configuration above, the bookService is made cacheable. The caching semantics to apply are encapsulated in the cache:advice
definition which instructs method findBooks to be used for putting data into the cache while method loadBooks for evicting data. Both
definitions are working against the books cache.

The aop:config deﬁnition applies the cache advice to the appropriate points in the program by using the AspectJ pointcut expression (more
information is available in Chapter 11, Aspect Oriented Programming with Spring). In the example above, all methods from the BookService are
considered and the cache advice applied to them.

The declarative XML caching supports all of the annotation-based model so moving between the two should be fairly easy - further more both can be
used inside the same application. The XML based approach does not touch the target code however it is inherently more verbose; when dealing with
classes with overloaded methods that are targeted for caching, identifying the proper methods does take an extra effort since the method argument
is not a good discriminator - in these cases, the AspectJ pointcut can be used to cherry pick the target methods and apply the appropriate caching
functionality. However through XML, it is easier to apply a package/group/interface-wide caching (again due to the AspectJ pointcut) and to create
template-like deﬁnitions (as we did in the example above by deﬁning the target cache through the cache:definitions cache attribute).

36.6 Conﬁguring the cache storage

Out of the box, the cache abstraction provides several storage integration. To use them, one needs to simply declare an appropriate
CacheManager - an entity that controls and manages Cache s and can be used to retrieve these for storage.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 621/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

36.6.1 JDK ConcurrentMap-based Cache

The JDK-based Cache implementation resides under org.springframework.cache.concurrent package. It allows one to use
ConcurrentHashMap as a backing Cache store.

The snippet above uses the SimpleCacheManager to create a CacheManager for the two nested ConcurrentMapCache instances named
default and books. Note that the names are conﬁgured directly for each cache.

As the cache is created by the application, it is bound to its lifecycle, making it suitable for basic use cases, tests or simple applications. The cache
scales well and is very fast but it does not provide any management or persistence capabilities nor eviction contracts.

36.6.2 Ehcache-based Cache

Ehcache 3.x is fully JSR-107 compliant and no dedicated support is required for it.

The Ehcache 2.x implementation is located under org.springframework.cache.ehcache package. Again, to use it, one simply needs to
declare the appropriate CacheManager :

This setup bootstraps the ehcache library inside Spring IoC (through the ehcache bean) which is then wired into the dedicated CacheManager
implementation. Note the entire ehcache-speciﬁc conﬁguration is read from ehcache.xml .

36.6.3 Caffeine Cache
Caffeine is a Java 8 rewrite of Guava’s cache and its implementation is located under org.springframework.cache.caffeine package and
provides access to several features of Caffeine.

Conﬁguring a CacheManager that creates the cache on demand is straightforward:

It is also possible to provide the caches to use explicitly. In that case, only those will be made available by the manager:

<bean id="cacheManager" class="org.springframework.cache.caffeine.CaffeineCacheManager">

<property name="caches">
<set>
<value>default</value>
<value>books</value>
</set>
</property>
</bean>

The Caffeine CacheManager also supports customs Caffeine and CacheLoader . See the Caffeine documentation for more information about
those.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 622/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

36.6.4 Guava Cache
The Guava implementation is located under org.springframework.cache.guava package and provides access to several features of Guava.

Conﬁguring a CacheManager that creates the cache on demand is straightforward:

It is also possible to provide the caches to use explicitly. In that case, only those will be made available by the manager:

<bean id="cacheManager" class="org.springframework.cache.guava.GuavaCacheManager">

<property name="caches">
<set>
<value>default</value>
<value>books</value>
</set>
</property>
</bean>

The Guava CacheManager also supports customs CacheBuilder and CacheLoader . See the Guava documentation for more information
about those.

36.6.5 GemFire-based Cache
GemFire is a memory-oriented/disk-backed, elastically scalable, continuously available, active (with built-in pattern-based subscription notiﬁcations),
globally replicated database and provides fully-featured edge caching. For further information on how to use GemFire as a CacheManager (and
more), please refer to the Spring Data GemFire reference documentation.

36.6.6 JSR-107 Cache
JSR-107 compliant caches can also be used by Spring’s caching abstraction. The JCache implementation is located under
org.springframework.cache.jcache package.

Again, to use it, one simply needs to declare the appropriate CacheManager :

36.6.7 Dealing with caches without a backing store

Sometimes when switching environments or doing testing, one might have cache declarations without an actual backing cache configured. As this is
an invalid configuration, at runtime an exception will be thrown since the caching infrastructure is unable to find a suitable store. In situations like this,
rather then removing the cache declarations (which can prove tedious), one can wire in a simple, dummy cache that performs no caching - that is,
forces the cached methods to be executed every time:

<bean id="cacheManager" class="org.springframework.cache.support.CompositeCacheManager">

The CompositeCacheManager above chains multiple CacheManager s and additionally, through the fallbackToNoOpCache flag, adds a no
op cache that for all the definitions not handled by the configured cache managers. That is, every cache definition not found in either jdkCache or

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 623/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
gemfireCache (conﬁgured above) will be handled by the no op cache, which will not store any information causing the target method to be
executed every time.

36.7 Plugging-in different back-end caches

Clearly there are plenty of caching products out there that can be used as a backing store. To plug them in, one needs to provide a CacheManager
and Cache implementation since unfortunately there is no available standard that we can use instead. This may sound harder than it is since in
practice, the classes tend to be simple adapters that map the caching abstraction framework on top of the storage API as the ehcache classes can
show. Most CacheManager classes can use the classes in org.springframework.cache.support package, such as
AbstractCacheManager which takes care of the boiler-plate code leaving only the actual mapping to be completed. We hope that in time, the
libraries that provide integration with Spring can ﬁll in this small conﬁguration gap.

36.8 How can I set the TTL/TTI/Eviction policy/XXX feature?

Directly through your cache provider. The cache abstraction is… well, an abstraction not a cache implementation. The solution you are using might
support various data policies and different topologies which other solutions do not (take for example the JDK ConcurrentHashMap ) - exposing
that in the cache abstraction would be useless simply because there would no backing support. Such functionality should be controlled directly
through the backing cache, when conﬁguring it or through its native API.

Part VIII. Appendices

37. Migrating to Spring Framework 4.x

Migration guides for upgrading from previous releases of the Spring Framework are now provided as a Wiki page.

38. Spring Annotation Programming Model

Spring’s annotation programming model is documented in the Spring Framework Wiki.

39. Classic Spring Usage

This appendix discusses some classic Spring usage patterns as a reference for developers maintaining legacy Spring applications. These usage
patterns no longer reﬂect the recommended way of using these features, and the current recommended usage is covered in the respective sections
of the reference manual.

39.1 Classic ORM usage

This section documents the classic usage patterns that you might encounter in a legacy Spring application. For the currently recommended usage
patterns, please refer to the ORM chapter.

39.1.1 Hibernate
For the currently recommended usage patterns for Hibernate see Section 20.3, “Hibernate”.

The HibernateTemplate
The basic programming model for templating looks as follows, for methods that can be part of any custom data access object or business service.
There are no restrictions on the implementation of the surrounding object at all, it just needs to provide a Hibernate SessionFactory . It can get
the latter from anywhere, but preferably as bean reference from a Spring IoC container - via a simple setSessionFactory(..) bean property
setter. The following snippets show a DAO deﬁnition in a Spring container, referencing the above deﬁned SessionFactory , and an example for a
DAO method implementation.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 624/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

<beans>

<bean id="myProductDao" class="product.ProductDaoImpl">

</beans>

public class ProductDaoImpl implements ProductDao {

private HibernateTemplate hibernateTemplate;

public void setSessionFactory(SessionFactory sessionFactory) {

this.hibernateTemplate = new HibernateTemplate(sessionFactory);
}

public Collection loadProductsByCategory(String category) throws DataAccessException {

return this.hibernateTemplate.find("from test.Product product where product.category=?", category);
}
}

The HibernateTemplate class provides many methods that mirror the methods exposed on the Hibernate Session interface, in addition to a
number of convenience methods such as the one shown above. If you need access to the Session to invoke methods that are not exposed on the
HibernateTemplate , you can always drop down to a callback-based approach like so.

public class ProductDaoImpl implements ProductDao {

private HibernateTemplate hibernateTemplate;

public void setSessionFactory(SessionFactory sessionFactory) {

this.hibernateTemplate = new HibernateTemplate(sessionFactory);
}

public Collection loadProductsByCategory(final String category) throws DataAccessException {

return this.hibernateTemplate.execute(new HibernateCallback() {
public Object doInHibernate(Session session) {
Criteria criteria = session.createCriteria(Product.class);
criteria.add(Expression.eq("category", category));
criteria.setMaxResults(6);
return criteria.list();
}
};
}

A callback implementation effectively can be used for any Hibernate data access. HibernateTemplate will ensure that Session instances are
properly opened and closed, and automatically participate in transactions. The template instances are thread-safe and reusable, they can thus be
kept as instance variables of the surrounding class. For simple single step actions like a single ﬁnd, load, saveOrUpdate, or delete call,
HibernateTemplate offers alternative convenience methods that can replace such one line callback implementations. Furthermore, Spring
provides a convenient HibernateDaoSupport base class that provides a setSessionFactory(..) method for receiving a
SessionFactory , and getSessionFactory() and getHibernateTemplate() for use by subclasses. In combination, this allows for very
simple DAO implementations for typical requirements:

public class ProductDaoImpl extends HibernateDaoSupport implements ProductDao {

public Collection loadProductsByCategory(String category) throws DataAccessException {

return this.getHibernateTemplate().find(
"from test.Product product where product.category=?", category);
}

Implementing Spring-based DAOs without callbacks

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 625/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
As alternative to using Spring’s HibernateTemplate to implement DAOs, data access code can also be written in a more traditional fashion,
without wrapping the Hibernate access code in a callback, while still respecting and participating in Spring’s generic DataAccessException
hierarchy. The HibernateDaoSupport base class offers methods to access the current transactional Session and to convert exceptions in
such a scenario; similar methods are also available as static helpers on the SessionFactoryUtils class. Note that such code will usually pass
false as the value of the getSession(..) methods allowCreate argument, to enforce running within a transaction (which avoids the need
to close the returned Session , as its lifecycle is managed by the transaction).

public class HibernateProductDao extends HibernateDaoSupport implements ProductDao {

public Collection loadProductsByCategory(String category) throws DataAccessException, MyException {

Session session = getSession(false);
try {
Query query = session.createQuery("from test.Product product where product.category=?");
query.setString(0, category);
List result = query.list();
if (result == null) {
throw new MyException("No search results.");
}
return result;
}
catch (HibernateException ex) {
throw convertHibernateAccessException(ex);
}
}
}

The advantage of such direct Hibernate access code is that it allows any checked application exception to be thrown within the data access code;
contrast this to the HibernateTemplate class which is restricted to throwing only unchecked exceptions within the callback. Note that you can
often defer the corresponding checks and the throwing of application exceptions to after the callback, which still allows working with
HibernateTemplate . In general, the HibernateTemplate class' convenience methods are simpler and more convenient for many scenarios.

39.2 JMS Usage
One of the beneﬁts of Spring’s JMS support is to shield the user from differences between the JMS 1.0.2 and 1.1 APIs. (For a description of the
differences between the two APIs see sidebar on Domain Uniﬁcation). Since it is now common to encounter only the JMS 1.1 API the use of classes
that are based on the JMS 1.0.2 API has been deprecated in Spring 3.0. This section describes Spring JMS support for the JMS 1.0.2 deprecated
classes.

Domain Uniﬁcation

There are two major releases of the JMS speciﬁcation, 1.0.2 and 1.1.

JMS 1.0.2 defined two types of messaging domains, point-to-point (Queues) and publish/subscribe (Topics). The 1.0.2 API reflected these two
messaging domains by providing a parallel class hierarchy for each domain. As a result, a client application became domain specific in its use
of the JMS API. JMS 1.1 introduced the concept of domain unification that minimized both the functional differences and client API differences
between the two domains. As an example of a functional difference that was removed, if you use a JMS 1.1 provider you can transactionally
consume a message from one domain and produce a message on the other using the same Session .

The JMS 1.1 speciﬁcation was released in April 2002 and incorporated as part of J2EE 1.4 in November 2003. As a result,
common J2EE 1.3 application servers which are still in widespread use (such as BEA WebLogic 8.1 and IBM WebSphere 5.1)
are based on JMS 1.0.2.

39.2.1 JmsTemplate
Located in the package org.springframework.jms.core the class JmsTemplate102 provides all of the features of the JmsTemplate
described the JMS chapter, but is based on the JMS 1.0.2 API instead of the JMS 1.1 API. As a consequence, if you are using JmsTemplate102 you
need to set the boolean property pubSubDomain to conﬁgure the JmsTemplate with knowledge of what JMS domain is being used. By default
the value of this property is false, indicating that the point-to-point domain, Queues, will be used.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 626/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

39.2.2 Asynchronous Message Reception

MessageListenerAdapter’s are used in conjunction with Spring’s message listener containers to support asynchronous message reception by
exposing almost any class as a Message-driven POJO. If you are using the JMS 1.0.2 API, you will want to use the 1.0.2 speciﬁc classes such as
MessageListenerAdapter102 , SimpleMessageListenerContainer102 , and DefaultMessageListenerContainer102 . These
classes provide the same functionality as the JMS 1.1 based counterparts but rely only on the JMS 1.0.2 API.

39.2.3 Connections
The ConnectionFactory interface is part of the JMS speciﬁcation and serves as the entry point for working with JMS. Spring provides an
implementation of the ConnectionFactory interface, SingleConnectionFactory102 , based on the JMS 1.0.2 API that will return the same
Connection on all createConnection() calls and ignore calls to close() . You will need to set the boolean property pubSubDomain to
indicate which messaging domain is used as SingleConnectionFactory102 will always explicitly differentiate between a
javax.jms.QueueConnection and a javax.jmsTopicConnection .

39.2.4 Transaction Management
In a JMS 1.0.2 environment the class JmsTransactionManager102 provides support for managing JMS transactions for a single Connection
Factory. Please refer to the reference documentation on JMS Transaction Management for more information on this functionality.

40. Classic Spring AOP Usage

In this appendix we discuss the lower-level Spring AOP APIs and the AOP support used in Spring 1.2 applications. For new applications, we
recommend the use of the Spring 2.0 AOP support described in the AOP chapter, but when working with existing applications, or when reading
books and articles, you may come across Spring 1.2 style examples. Spring 2.0 is fully backwards compatible with Spring 1.2 and everything
described in this appendix is fully supported in Spring 2.0.

40.1 Pointcut API in Spring

Let’s look at how Spring handles the crucial pointcut concept.

40.1.1 Concepts
Spring’s pointcut model enables pointcut reuse independent of advice types. It’s possible to target different advice using the same pointcut.

The org.springframework.aop.Pointcut interface is the central interface, used to target advices to particular classes and methods. The
complete interface is shown below:

public interface Pointcut {

ClassFilter getClassFilter();

MethodMatcher getMethodMatcher();

Splitting the Pointcut interface into two parts allows reuse of class and method matching parts, and ﬁne-grained composition operations (such as
performing a "union" with another method matcher).

The ClassFilter interface is used to restrict the pointcut to a given set of target classes. If the matches() method always returns true, all
target classes will be matched:

public interface ClassFilter {

boolean matches(Class clazz);

The MethodMatcher interface is normally more important. The complete interface is shown below:

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 627/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

public interface MethodMatcher {

boolean matches(Method m, Class targetClass);

boolean isRuntime();

boolean matches(Method m, Class targetClass, Object[] args);

Most MethodMatchers are static, meaning that their isRuntime() method returns false. In this case, the 3-argument matches method will never
be invoked.

If possible, try to make pointcuts static, allowing the AOP framework to cache the results of pointcut evaluation when an AOP proxy is
created.

40.1.2 Operations on pointcuts
Spring supports operations on pointcuts: notably, union and intersection.

Union means the methods that either pointcut matches.

40.1.3 AspectJ expression pointcuts

See the previous chapter for a discussion of supported AspectJ pointcut primitives.

40.1.4 Convenience pointcut implementations

Spring provides several convenient pointcut implementations. Some can be used out of the box; others are intended to be subclassed in application-
speciﬁc pointcuts.

Let’s consider some static pointcut implementations included with Spring.

Regular expression pointcuts

One obvious way to specify static pointcuts is regular expressions. Several AOP frameworks besides Spring make this possible.
org.springframework.aop.support.Perl5RegexpMethodPointcut is a generic regular expression pointcut, using Perl 5 regular
expression syntax. The Perl5RegexpMethodPointcut class depends on Jakarta ORO for regular expression matching. Spring also provides the
JdkRegexpMethodPointcut class that uses the regular expression support in JDK 1.4+.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 628/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Using the Perl5RegexpMethodPointcut class, you can provide a list of pattern Strings. If any of these is a match, the pointcut will evaluate to
true. (So the result is effectively the union of these pointcuts.)

The usage is shown below:

<bean id="settersAndAbsquatulatePointcut"
class="org.springframework.aop.support.Perl5RegexpMethodPointcut">
<property name="patterns">
<list>
<value>.set.</value>
<value>.*absquatulate</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>

RegexpMethodPointcutAdvisor can be used with any Advice type.

Attribute-driven pointcuts
An important type of static pointcut is a metadata-driven pointcut. This uses the values of metadata attributes: typically, source-level metadata.

Dynamic pointcuts
Dynamic pointcuts are costlier to evaluate than static pointcuts. They take into account methodarguments, as well as static information. This means
that they must be evaluated with every method invocation; the result cannot be cached, as arguments will vary.

The main example is the control flow pointcut.

Control ﬂow pointcuts

Control ﬂow pointcuts are signiﬁcantly more expensive to evaluate at runtime than even other dynamic pointcuts. In Java 1.4, the cost
is about 5 times that of other dynamic pointcuts.

40.1.5 Pointcut superclasses
Spring provides useful pointcut superclasses to help you to implement your own pointcuts.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 629/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

class TestStaticPointcut extends StaticMethodMatcherPointcut {

public boolean matches(Method m, Class targetClass) {

// return true if custom criteria match
}

There are also superclasses for dynamic pointcuts.

You can use custom pointcuts with any advice type in Spring 1.0 RC2 and above.

40.1.6 Custom pointcuts
Because pointcuts in Spring AOP are Java classes, rather than language features (as in AspectJ) it’s possible to declare custom pointcuts, whether
static or dynamic. Custom pointcuts in Spring can be arbitrarily complex. However, using the AspectJ pointcut expression language is recommended
if possible.

Later versions of Spring may offer support for "semantic pointcuts" as offered by JAC: for example, "all methods that change instance
variables in the target object."

40.2 Advice API in Spring

Let’s now look at how Spring AOP handles advice.

40.2.1 Advice lifecycles
Each advice is a Spring bean. An advice instance can be shared across all advised objects, or unique to each advised object. This corresponds to
per-class or per-instance advice.

Per-instance advice is appropriate for introductions, to support mixins. In this case, the advice adds state to the proxied object.

It’s possible to use a mix of shared and per-instance advice in the same AOP proxy.

40.2.2 Advice types in Spring

Spring provides several advice types out of the box, and is extensible to support arbitrary advice types. Let us look at the basic concepts and
standard advice types.

Interception around advice

The most fundamental advice type in Spring is interception around advice.

Spring is compliant with the AOP Alliance interface for around advice using method interception. MethodInterceptors implementing around advice
should implement the following interface:

public interface MethodInterceptor extends Interceptor {

Object invoke(MethodInvocation invocation) throws Throwable;

A simple MethodInterceptor implementation looks as follows:

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 630/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

public class DebugInterceptor implements MethodInterceptor {

public Object invoke(MethodInvocation invocation) throws Throwable {

System.out.println("Before: invocation=[" + invocation + "]");
Object rval = invocation.proceed();
System.out.println("Invocation returned");
return rval;
}

Before advice
A simpler advice type is a before advice. This does not need a MethodInvocation object, since it will only be called before entering the method.

The main advantage of a before advice is that there is no need to invoke the proceed() method, and therefore no possibility of inadvertently
failing to proceed down the interceptor chain.

public interface MethodBeforeAdvice extends BeforeAdvice {

void before(Method m, Object[] args, Object target) throws Throwable;

An example of a before advice in Spring, which counts all method invocations:

public class CountingBeforeAdvice implements MethodBeforeAdvice {

private int count;

public void before(Method m, Object[] args, Object target) throws Throwable {

++count;
}

public int getCount() {

return count;
}
}

Before advice can be used with any pointcut.

Throws advice

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 631/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Throws advice is invoked after the return of the join point if the join point threw an exception. Spring offers typed throws advice. Note that this means
that the org.springframework.aop.ThrowsAdvice interface does not contain any methods: It is a tag interface identifying that the given
object implements one or more typed throws advice methods. These should be in the form of:

afterThrowing([Method, args, target], subclassOfThrowable)

The advice below is invoked if a RemoteException is thrown (including subclasses):

public class RemoteThrowsAdvice implements ThrowsAdvice {

public void afterThrowing(RemoteException ex) throws Throwable {

// Do something with remote exception
}

The following advice is invoked if a ServletException is thrown. Unlike the above advice, it declares 4 arguments, so that it has access to the
invoked method, method arguments and target object:

public class ServletThrowsAdviceWithArguments implements ThrowsAdvice {

public void afterThrowing(Method m, Object[] args, Object target, ServletException ex) {

// Do something with all arguments
}

public static class CombinedThrowsAdvice implements ThrowsAdvice {

public void afterThrowing(RemoteException ex) throws Throwable {

// Do something with remote exception
}

public void afterThrowing(Method m, Object[] args, Object target, ServletException ex) {

// Do something with all arguments
}
}

Note: If a throws-advice method throws an exception itself, it will override the original exception (i.e. change the exception thrown to the user). The
overriding exception will typically be a RuntimeException; this is compatible with any method signature. However, if a throws-advice method throws a
checked exception, it will have to match the declared exceptions of the target method and is hence to some degree coupled to speciﬁc target method
signatures. Do not throw an undeclared checked exception that is incompatible with the target method’s signature!

Throws advice can be used with any pointcut.

After Returning advice

An after returning advice in Spring must implement the org.springframework.aop.AfterReturningAdvice interface, shown below:

public interface AfterReturningAdvice extends Advice {

void afterReturning(Object returnValue, Method m, Object[] args,

Object target) throws Throwable;

An after returning advice has access to the return value (which it cannot modify), invoked method, methods arguments and target.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 632/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The following after returning advice counts all successful method invocations that have not thrown exceptions:

public class CountingAfterReturningAdvice implements AfterReturningAdvice {

private int count;

public void afterReturning(Object returnValue, Method m, Object[] args,

Object target) throws Throwable {
++count;
}

public int getCount() {

return count;
}

This advice doesn’t change the execution path. If it throws an exception, this will be thrown up the interceptor chain instead of the return value.

After returning advice can be used with any pointcut.

Introduction advice
Spring treats introduction advice as a special kind of interception advice.

Introduction requires an IntroductionAdvisor , and an IntroductionInterceptor , implementing the following interface:

public interface IntroductionInterceptor extends MethodInterceptor {

boolean implementsInterface(Class intf);

Introduction advice cannot be used with any pointcut, as it applies only at class, rather than method, level. You can only use introduction advice with
the IntroductionAdvisor , which has the following methods:

public interface IntroductionAdvisor extends Advisor, IntroductionInfo {

ClassFilter getClassFilter();

void validateInterfaces() throws IllegalArgumentException;

public interface IntroductionInfo {

Class[] getInterfaces();

There is no MethodMatcher , and hence no Pointcut , associated with introduction advice. Only class ﬁltering is logical.

The getInterfaces() method returns the interfaces introduced by this advisor.

The validateInterfaces() method is used internally to see whether or not the introduced interfaces can be implemented by the conﬁgured
IntroductionInterceptor .

Let’s look at a simple example from the Spring test suite. Let’s suppose we want to introduce the following interface to one or more objects:

public interface Lockable {

void lock();

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 633/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
void unlock();

boolean locked();

Thus LockMixin subclasses DelegatingIntroductionInterceptor and implements Lockable itself. The superclass automatically picks up
that Lockable can be supported for introduction, so we don’t need to specify that. We could introduce any number of interfaces in this way.

Note the use of the locked instance variable. This effectively adds additional state to that held in the target object.

public class LockMixin extends DelegatingIntroductionInterceptor implements Lockable {

private boolean locked;

public void lock() {

this.locked = true;
}

public void unlock() {

this.locked = false;
}

public boolean locked() {

return this.locked;
}

public Object invoke(MethodInvocation invocation) throws Throwable {

if (locked() && invocation.getMethod().getName().indexOf("set") == 0) {
throw new LockedException();
}
return super.invoke(invocation);
}

public class LockMixinAdvisor extends DefaultIntroductionAdvisor {

public LockMixinAdvisor() {
super(new LockMixin(), Lockable.class);
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 634/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

40.3 Advisor API in Spring

In Spring, an Advisor is an aspect that contains just a single advice object associated with a pointcut expression.

40.4 Using the ProxyFactoryBean to create AOP proxies

The Spring 2.0 AOP support also uses factory beans under the covers.

40.4.1 Basics
The ProxyFactoryBean , like other Spring FactoryBean implementations, introduces a level of indirection. If you deﬁne a
ProxyFactoryBean with name foo , what objects referencing foo see is not the ProxyFactoryBean instance itself, but an object created by
the ProxyFactoryBean’s implementation of the `getObject() method. This method will create an AOP proxy wrapping a target
object.

One of the most important beneﬁts of using a ProxyFactoryBean or another IoC-aware class to create AOP proxies, is that it means that advices
and pointcuts can also be managed by IoC. This is a powerful feature, enabling certain approaches that are hard to achieve with other AOP
frameworks. For example, an advice may itself reference application objects (besides the target, which should be available in any AOP framework),
beneﬁting from all the pluggability provided by Dependency Injection.

40.4.2 JavaBean properties
In common with most FactoryBean implementations provided with Spring, the ProxyFactoryBean class is itself a JavaBean. Its properties are
used to:

Specify the target you want to proxy.

Specify whether to use CGLIB (see below and also Section 12.5.3, “JDK- and CGLIB-based proxies”).

Some key properties are inherited from org.springframework.aop.framework.ProxyConfig (the superclass for all AOP proxy factories in
Spring). These key properties include:

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 635/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
with JDK dynamic proxies.
frozen : if a proxy conﬁguration is frozen , then changes to the conﬁguration are no longer allowed. This is useful both as a slight
optimization and for those cases when you don’t want callers to be able to manipulate the proxy (via the Advised interface) after the proxy has
been created. The default value of this property is false , so changes such as adding additional advice are allowed.
exposeProxy : determines whether or not the current proxy should be exposed in a ThreadLocal so that it can be accessed by the target. If
a target needs to obtain the proxy and the exposeProxy property is set to true , the target can use the AopContext.currentProxy()
method.
aopProxyFactory : the implementation of AopProxyFactory to use. Offers a way of customizing whether to use dynamic proxies, CGLIB
or any other proxy strategy. The default implementation will choose dynamic proxies or CGLIB appropriately. There should be no need to use
this property; it is intended to allow the addition of new proxy types in Spring 1.1.

Other properties speciﬁc to ProxyFactoryBean include:

proxyInterfaces : array of String interface names. If this isn’t supplied, a CGLIB proxy for the target class will be used (but see also below
Section 12.5.3, “JDK- and CGLIB-based proxies”).
interceptorNames : String array of Advisor , interceptor or other advice names to apply. Ordering is significant, on a first come-first served
basis. That is to say that the first interceptor in the list will be the first to be able to intercept the invocation.

40.4.3 JDK- and CGLIB-based proxies

This section serves as the deﬁnitive documentation on how the ProxyFactoryBean chooses to create one of either a JDK- and CGLIB-based
proxy for a particular target object (that is to be proxied).

If the target class implements one (or more) interfaces, then the type of proxy that is created depends on the conﬁguration of the
ProxyFactoryBean .

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 636/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

40.4.4 Proxying interfaces
Let’s look at a simple example of ProxyFactoryBean in action. This example involves:

<bean id="personTarget" class="com.mycompany.PersonImpl">

<bean id="myAdvisor" class="com.mycompany.MyAdvisor">

<property name="someProperty"><value>Custom string property value</value></property>
</bean>

<bean id="debugInterceptor" class="org.springframework.aop.interceptor.DebugInterceptor">

</bean>

<bean id="person" class="org.springframework.aop.framework.ProxyFactoryBean">

<property name="proxyInterfaces"><value>com.mycompany.Person</value></property>
<property name="target"><ref bean="personTarget"/></property>
<property name="interceptorNames">
<list>
<value>myAdvisor</value>
<value>debugInterceptor</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>

The "person" bean deﬁnition above can be used in place of a Person implementation, as follows:

Person person = (Person) factory.getBean("person");

Other beans in the same IoC context can express a strongly typed dependency on it, as with an ordinary Java object:

<bean id="personUser" class="com.mycompany.PersonUser">

<bean id="myAdvisor" class="com.mycompany.MyAdvisor">

<property name="someProperty"><value>Custom string property value</value></property>
</bean>

<bean id="debugInterceptor" class="org.springframework.aop.interceptor.DebugInterceptor"/>

<bean id="person" class="org.springframework.aop.framework.ProxyFactoryBean">

<property name="proxyInterfaces"><value>com.mycompany.Person</value></property>

<property name="target">
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 637/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
<property name="target">
<bean class="com.mycompany.PersonImpl">
<property name="name"><value>Tony</value></property>
<property name="age"><value>51</value></property>
</bean>
</property>
<property name="interceptorNames">
<list>
<value>myAdvisor</value>
<value>debugInterceptor</value>

</list>
</property>
</bean>

40.4.5 Proxying classes
What if you need to proxy a class, rather than one or more interfaces?

If you want to, you can force the use of CGLIB in any case, even if you do have interfaces.

CGLIB proxying should generally be transparent to users. However, there are some issues to consider:

Final methods can’t be advised, as they can’t be overridden.

As of Spring 3.2 it is no longer required to add CGLIB to your project classpath. CGLIB classes have been repackaged under
org.springframework and included directly in the spring-core JAR. This is both for user convenience as well as to avoid potential conﬂicts with
other projects that have dependence on a differing version of CGLIB.

40.4.6 Using 'global' advisors

<bean id="proxy" class="org.springframework.aop.framework.ProxyFactoryBean">

<property name="target" ref="service"/>
<property name="interceptorNames">
<list>
<value>global*</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>

<bean id="global_debug" class="org.springframework.aop.interceptor.DebugInterceptor"/>

40.5 Concise proxy deﬁnitions

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 638/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Especially when defining transactional proxies, you may end up with many similar proxy definitions. The use of parent and child bean definitions,
along with inner bean definitions, can result in much cleaner and more concise proxy definitions.

First a parent, template, bean deﬁnition is created for the proxy:

<bean id="txProxyTemplate" abstract="true"

<bean id="myService" parent="txProxyTemplate">

It is of course possible to override properties from the parent template, such as in this case, the transaction propagation settings:

<bean id="mySpecialService" parent="txProxyTemplate">

Note that in the example above, we have explicitly marked the parent bean definition as abstract by using the abstract attribute, as described
previously, so that it may not actually ever be instantiated. Application contexts (but not simple bean factories) will by default pre-instantiate all
singletons. It is therefore important (at least for singleton beans) that if you have a (parent) bean definition which you intend to use only as a
template, and this definition specifies a class, you must make sure to set theabstract attribute to true, otherwise the application context will actually
try to pre-instantiate it.

40.6 Creating AOP proxies programmatically with the ProxyFactory

It’s easy to create AOP proxies programmatically using Spring. This enables you to use Spring AOP without dependency on Spring IoC.

The following listing shows creation of a proxy for a target object, with one interceptor and one advisor. The interfaces implemented by the target
object will automatically be proxied:

ProxyFactory factory = new ProxyFactory(myBusinessInterfaceImpl);

factory.addInterceptor(myMethodInterceptor);
factory.addAdvisor(myAdvisor);
MyBusinessInterface tb = (MyBusinessInterface) factory.getProxy();

You can add interceptors or advisors, and manipulate them for the life of the ProxyFactory. If you add an IntroductionInterceptionAroundAdvisor you
can cause the proxy to implement additional interfaces.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 639/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
There are also convenience methods on ProxyFactory (inherited from AdvisedSupport ) which allow you to add other advice types such as
before and throws advice. AdvisedSupport is the superclass of both ProxyFactory and ProxyFactoryBean.

Integrating AOP proxy creation with the IoC framework is best practice in most applications. We recommend that you externalize
conﬁguration from Java code with AOP, as in general.

40.7 Manipulating advised objects

Advisor[] getAdvisors();

void addAdvice(Advice advice) throws AopConfigException;

void addAdvice(int pos, Advice advice) throws AopConfigException;

void addAdvisor(Advisor advisor) throws AopConfigException;

void addAdvisor(int pos, Advisor advisor) throws AopConfigException;

int indexOf(Advisor advisor);

boolean removeAdvisor(Advisor advisor) throws AopConfigException;

void removeAdvisor(int index) throws AopConfigException;

boolean replaceAdvisor(Advisor a, Advisor b) throws AopConfigException;

boolean isFrozen();

A simple example of casting an AOP proxy to the Advised interface and examining and manipulating its advice:

Advised advised = (Advised) myObject;

Advisor[] advisors = advised.getAdvisors();
int oldAdvisorCount = advisors.length;
System.out.println(oldAdvisorCount + " advisors");

// Add an advice like an interceptor without a pointcut

// Will match all proxied methods
// Can use for interceptors, before, after returning or throws advice
advised.addAdvice(new DebugInterceptor());

// Add selective advice using a pointcut

advised.addAdvisor(new DefaultPointcutAdvisor(mySpecialPointcut, myAdvice));

assertEquals("Added two advisors", oldAdvisorCount + 2, advised.getAdvisors().length);

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 640/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
example, the advice can get inside a transaction created for that method: for example, to run SQL to check that a database was
correctly updated, before marking the transaction for roll back.)

40.8 Using the "autoproxy" facility

So far we’ve considered explicit creation of AOP proxies using a ProxyFactoryBean or similar factory bean.

Spring also allows us to use "autoproxy" bean definitions, which can automatically proxy selected bean definitions. This is built on Spring "bean post
processor" infrastructure, which enables modification of any bean definition as the container loads.

In this model, you set up some special bean definitions in your XML bean definition file to configure the auto proxy infrastructure. This allows you just
to declare the targets eligible for autoproxying: you don’t need to use ProxyFactoryBean .

There are two ways to do this:

Using an autoproxy creator that refers to speciﬁc beans in the current context.
A special case of autoproxy creation that deserves to be considered separately; autoproxy creation driven by source-level metadata attributes.

40.8.1 Autoproxy bean deﬁnitions

The org.springframework.aop.framework.autoproxy package provides the following standard autoproxy creators.

BeanNameAutoProxyCreator
The BeanNameAutoProxyCreator class is a BeanPostProcessor that automatically creates AOP proxies for beans with names matching
literal values or wildcards.

<bean class="org.springframework.aop.framework.autoproxy.BeanNameAutoProxyCreator">
<property name="beanNames"><value>jdk*,onlyJdk</value></property>
<property name="interceptorNames">
<list>
<value>myInterceptor</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>

As with auto proxying in general, the main point of using BeanNameAutoProxyCreator is to apply the same conﬁguration consistently to multiple
objects, with minimal volume of conﬁguration. It is a popular choice for applying declarative transactions to multiple objects.

DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator
A more general and extremely powerful auto proxy creator is DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator . This will automagically apply eligible
advisors in the current context, without the need to include specific bean names in the autoproxy advisor’s bean definition. It offers the same merit of
consistent configuration and avoidance of duplication as BeanNameAutoProxyCreator .

Using this mechanism involves:

Specifying a DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator bean deﬁnition.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 641/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator will automatically evaluate the pointcut contained in each advisor, to see what (if any) advice it should
apply to each business object (such as "businessObject1" and "businessObject2" in the example).

<bean id="customAdvisor" class="com.mycompany.MyAdvisor"/>

<bean id="businessObject1" class="com.mycompany.BusinessObject1">

</bean>

<bean id="businessObject2" class="com.mycompany.BusinessObject2"/>

AbstractAdvisorAutoProxyCreator
This is the superclass of DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator. You can create your own autoproxy creators by subclassing this class, in the unlikely
event that advisor deﬁnitions offer insufﬁcient customization to the behavior of the framework DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator .

40.8.2 Using metadata-driven auto-proxying

A particularly important type of autoproxying is driven by metadata. This produces a similar programming model to .NET ServicedComponents .
Instead of using XML deployment descriptors as in EJB, conﬁguration for transaction management and other enterprise services is held in source-
level attributes.

In this case, you use the DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator , in combination with Advisors that understand metadata attributes. The metadata
speciﬁcs are held in the pointcut part of the candidate advisors, rather than in the autoproxy creation class itself.

The /attributes directory of the JPetStore sample application shows the use of attribute-driven autoproxying. In this case, there’s no need to
use the TransactionProxyFactoryBean . Simply defining transactional attributes on business objects is sufficient, because of the use of
metadata-aware pointcuts. The bean definitions include the following code, in /WEB-INF/declarativeServices.xml . Note that this is generic,
and can be used outside the JPetStore:

<bean id="transactionInterceptor"
class="org.springframework.transaction.interceptor.TransactionInterceptor">
<property name="transactionManager" ref="transactionManager"/>
<property name="transactionAttributeSource">
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 642/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
<property name="transactionAttributeSource">
<bean class="org.springframework.transaction.interceptor.AttributesTransactionAttributeSource">
<property name="attributes" ref="attributes"/>
</bean>
</property>
</bean>

<bean id="attributes" class="org.springframework.metadata.commons.CommonsAttributes"/>

This mechanism is extensible. It’s possible to do autoproxying based on custom attributes. You need to:

Deﬁne your custom attribute.

<bean id="lockMixin" class="org.springframework.aop.LockMixin"

scope="prototype"/>

<bean id="lockableAdvisor" class="org.springframework.aop.support.DefaultPointcutAdvisor"

scope="prototype">
<property name="pointcut" ref="myAttributeAwarePointcut"/>
<property name="advice" ref="lockMixin"/>
</bean>
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 643/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
</bean>

<bean id="anyBean" class="anyclass" ...

If the attribute aware pointcut matches any methods in the anyBean or other bean definitions, the mixin will be applied. Note that both lockMixin
and lockableAdvisor definitions are prototypes. The myAttributeAwarePointcut pointcut can be a singleton definition, as it doesn’t hold
state for individual advised objects.

40.9 Using TargetSources
Spring offers the concept of a TargetSource, expressed in the org.springframework.aop.TargetSource interface. This interface is
responsible for returning the "target object" implementing the join point. The TargetSource implementation is asked for a target instance each
time the AOP proxy handles a method invocation.

If you do not specify a TargetSource, a default implementation is used that wraps a local object. The same target is returned for each invocation (as
you would expect).

Let’s look at the standard target sources provided with Spring, and how you can use them.

When using a custom target source, your target will usually need to be a prototype rather than a singleton bean deﬁnition. This allows
Spring to create a new target instance when required.

40.9.1 Hot swappable target sources

The org.springframework.aop.target.HotSwappableTargetSource exists to allow the target of an AOP proxy to be switched while
allowing callers to keep their references to it.

Changing the target source’s target takes effect immediately. The HotSwappableTargetSource is threadsafe.

You can change the target via the swap() method on HotSwappableTargetSource as follows:

HotSwappableTargetSource swapper = (HotSwappableTargetSource) beanFactory.getBean("swapper");

Object oldTarget = swapper.swap(newTarget);

The XML deﬁnitions required look as follows:

<bean id="initialTarget" class="mycompany.OldTarget"/>

<bean id="swapper" class="org.springframework.aop.target.HotSwappableTargetSource">

<constructor-arg ref="initialTarget"/>
</bean>

<bean id="swappable" class="org.springframework.aop.framework.ProxyFactoryBean">

The above swap() call changes the target of the swappable bean. Clients who hold a reference to that bean will be unaware of the change, but will
immediately start hitting the new target.

Although this example doesn’t add any advice - and it’s not necessary to add advice to use a TargetSource - of course any TargetSource can
be used in conjunction with arbitrary advice.

40.9.2 Pooling target sources

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 644/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
A crucial difference between Spring pooling and SLSB pooling is that Spring pooling can be applied to any POJO. As with Spring in general, this
service can be applied in a non-invasive way.

Commons Pool 1.5+ is also supported but deprecated as of Spring Framework 4.2.

Sample conﬁguration is shown below:

<bean id="businessObjectTarget" class="com.mycompany.MyBusinessObject" scope="prototype">

... properties omitted
</bean>

<bean id="poolTargetSource" class="org.springframework.aop.target.CommonsPool2TargetSource">

<bean id="businessObject" class="org.springframework.aop.framework.ProxyFactoryBean">

Note that the target object - "businessObjectTarget" in the example - must be a prototype. This allows the PoolingTargetSource implementation
to create new instances of the target to grow the pool as necessary. See the Javadoc for AbstractPoolingTargetSource and the concrete
subclass you wish to use for information about its properties: "maxSize" is the most basic, and always guaranteed to be present.

<bean id="poolConfigAdvisor" class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.MethodInvokingFactoryBean">

The cast will look as follows:

PoolingConfig conf = (PoolingConfig) beanFactory.getBean("businessObject");

System.out.println("Max pool size is " + conf.getMaxSize());

Pooling stateless service objects is not usually necessary. We don’t believe it should be the default choice, as most stateless objects
are naturally thread safe, and instance pooling is problematic if resources are cached.

Simpler pooling is available using autoproxying. It’s possible to set the TargetSources used by any autoproxy creator.

40.9.3 Prototype target sources

To do this, you could modify the poolTargetSource deﬁnition shown above as follows. (I’ve also changed the name, for clarity.)
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 645/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

<bean id="prototypeTargetSource" class="org.springframework.aop.target.PrototypeTargetSource">

40.9.4 ThreadLocal target sources

<bean id="threadlocalTargetSource" class="org.springframework.aop.target.ThreadLocalTargetSource">

40.10 Deﬁning new Advice types

Please refer to the org.springframework.aop.framework.adapter package’s Javadocs for further information.

40.11 Further resources
Please refer to the Spring sample applications for further examples of Spring AOP:

41. XML Schema-based conﬁguration

41.1 Introduction
This appendix details the XML Schema-based conﬁguration introduced in Spring 2.0 and enhanced and extended in Spring 2.5 and 3.0.

DTD support?

Authoring Spring conﬁguration ﬁles using the older DTD style is still fully supported.

Nothing will break if you forego the use of the new XML Schema-based approach to authoring Spring XML configuration files. All that you lose
out on is the opportunity to have more succinct and clearer configuration. Regardless of whether the XML configuration is DTD- or Schema-
based, in the end it all boils down to the same object model in the container (namely one or more BeanDefinition instances).

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 646/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The central motivation for moving to XML Schema based configuration files was to make Spring XML configuration easier. The 'classic' <bean/> -
based approach is good, but its generic-nature comes with a price in terms of configuration overhead.

From the Spring IoC containers point-of-view, everything is a bean. That’s great news for the Spring IoC container, because if everything is a bean
then everything can be treated in the exact same fashion. The same, however, is not true from a developer’s point-of-view. The objects defined in a
Spring XML configuration file are not all generic, vanilla beans. Usually, each bean requires some degree of specific configuration.

Spring 2.0’s new XML Schema-based configuration addresses this issue. The <bean/> element is still present, and if you wanted to, you could
continue to write the exact same style of Spring XML configuration using only <bean/> elements. The new XML Schema-based configuration
does, however, make Spring XML configuration files substantially clearer to read. In addition, it allows you to express the intent of a bean definition.

The key thing to remember is that the new custom tags work best for infrastructure or integration beans: for example, AOP, collections, transactions,
integration with 3rd-party frameworks such as Mule, etc., while the existing bean tags are best suited to application-speciﬁc beans, such as DAOs,
service layer objects, validators, etc.

The examples included below will hopefully convince you that the inclusion of XML Schema support in Spring 2.0 was a good idea. The reception in
the community has been encouraging; also, please note the fact that this new configuration mechanism is totally customisable and extensible. This
means you can write your own domain-specific configuration tags that would better represent your application’s domain; the process involved in
doing so is covered in the appendix entitled Chapter 42, Extensible XML authoring.

41.2 XML Schema-based conﬁguration

41.2.1 Referencing the schemas

To switch over from the DTD-style to the new XML Schema-style, you need to make the following change.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE beans PUBLIC "-//SPRING//DTD BEAN 2.0//EN"
"http://www.springframework.org/dtd/spring-beans-2.0.dtd">

<beans>

</beans>

The equivalent ﬁle in the XML Schema-style would be…

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

</beans>

The 'xsi:schemaLocation' fragment is not actually required, but can be included to reference a local copy of a schema (which
can be useful during development).

The above Spring XML configuration fragment is boilerplate that you can copy and paste (!) and then plug <bean/> definitions into like you have
always done. However, the entire point of switching over is to take advantage of the new Spring 2.0 XML tags since they make configuration easier.
The section entitled Section 41.2.2, “the util schema” demonstrates how you can start immediately by using some of the more common utility tags.

The rest of this chapter is devoted to showing examples of the new Spring XML Schema based conﬁguration, with at least one example for every
new tag. The format follows a before and after style, with a before snippet of XML showing the old (but still 100% legal and supported) style, followed
immediately by an after example showing the equivalent in the new XML Schema-based style.

41.2.2 the util schema

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 647/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
First up is coverage of the util tags. As the name implies, the util tags deal with common, utility conﬁguration issues, such as conﬁguring
collections, referencing constants, and suchlike.

To use the tags in the util schema, you need to have the following preamble at the top of your Spring XML conﬁguration ﬁle; the text in the
snippet below references the correct schema so that the tags in the util namespace are available to you.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

</beans>

<util:constant/>
Before…

<bean id="..." class="...">

The above conﬁguration uses a Spring FactoryBean implementation, the FieldRetrievingFactoryBean , to set the value of the
isolation property on a bean to the value of the java.sql.Connection.TRANSACTION_SERIALIZABLE constant. This is all well and good,
but it is a tad verbose and (unnecessarily) exposes Spring’s internal plumbing to the end user.

The following XML Schema-based version is more concise and clearly expresses the developer’s intent ('inject this constant value'), and it just reads
better.

<bean id="..." class="...">

Setting a bean property or constructor arg from a ﬁeld value

FieldRetrievingFactoryBean is a FactoryBean which retrieves a static or non-static ﬁeld value. It is typically used for retrieving
public static final constants, which may then be used to set a property value or constructor arg for another bean.

Find below an example which shows how a static ﬁeld is exposed, by using the staticField property:

There is also a convenience usage form where the static ﬁeld is speciﬁed as the bean name:

This does mean that there is no longer any choice in what the bean id is (so any other bean that refers to it will also have to use this longer name),
but this form is very concise to deﬁne, and very convenient to use as an inner bean since the id doesn’t have to be speciﬁed for the bean reference:

<bean id="..." class="...">

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 648/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
It is also possible to access a non-static (instance) ﬁeld of another bean, as described in the API documentation for the
FieldRetrievingFactoryBean class.

Injecting enum values into beans as either property or constructor arguments is very easy to do in Spring, in that you don’t actually have to do
anything or know anything about the Spring internals (or even about classes such as the FieldRetrievingFactoryBean ). Let’s look at an
example to see how easy injecting an enum value is; consider this JDK 5 enum:

package javax.persistence;

public enum PersistenceContextType {

TRANSACTION,
EXTENDED

Now consider a setter of type PersistenceContextType :

package example;

public class Client {

private PersistenceContextType persistenceContextType;

public void setPersistenceContextType(PersistenceContextType type) {

this.persistenceContextType = type;
}

a. and the corresponding bean deﬁnition:

This works for classic type-safe emulated enums (on JDK 1.4 and JDK 1.3) as well; Spring will automatically attempt to match the string property
value to a constant on the enum class.

<util:property-path/>
Before…

<bean id="testBean.age" class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPathFactoryBean"/>

The above conﬁguration uses a Spring FactoryBean implementation, the PropertyPathFactoryBean , to create a bean (of type int ) called
testBean.age that has a value equal to the age property of the testBean bean.

After…

<bean id="testBean" class="org.springframework.beans.TestBean" scope="prototype">
<property name="age" value="10"/>
<property name="spouse">
<bean class="org.springframework.beans.TestBean">
<property name="age" value="11"/>
</bean>
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 649/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
</bean>
</property>
</bean>

<util:property-path id="name" path="testBean.age"/>

The value of the path attribute of the <property-path/> tag follows the form beanName.beanProperty .

Using <util:property-path/> to set a bean property or constructor-argument

PropertyPathFactoryBean is a FactoryBean that evaluates a property path on a given target object. The target object can be speciﬁed
directly or via a bean name. This value may then be used in another bean deﬁnition as a property value or constructor argument.

Here’s an example where a path is used against another bean, by name:

// target bean to be referenced by name

// will result in 11, which is the value of property 'spouse.age' of bean 'person'
<bean id="theAge"
class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPathFactoryBean">
<property name="targetBeanName" value="person"/>
<property name="propertyPath" value="spouse.age"/>
</bean>

In this example, a path is evaluated against an inner bean:

<bean id="theAge"
class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPathFactoryBean">
<property name="targetObject">
<bean class="org.springframework.beans.TestBean">
<property name="age" value="12"/>
</bean>
</property>
<property name="propertyPath" value="age"/>
</bean>

There is also a shortcut form, where the bean name is the property path.

<bean id="person.age"
class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPathFactoryBean"/>

This form does mean that there is no choice in the name of the bean. Any reference to it will also have to use the same id, which is the path. Of
course, if used as an inner bean, there is no need to refer to it at all:

<bean id="..." class="...">

The result type may be speciﬁcally set in the actual deﬁnition. This is not necessary for most use cases, but can be of use for some. Please see the
Javadocs for more info on this feature.

<util:properties/>

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 650/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Before…

<bean id="jdbcConfiguration" class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertiesFactoryBean">
<property name="location" value="classpath:com/foo/jdbc-production.properties"/>
</bean>

The above conﬁguration uses a Spring FactoryBean implementation, the PropertiesFactoryBean , to instantiate a
java.util.Properties instance with values loaded from the supplied Resource location).

After…

<util:properties id="jdbcConfiguration" location="classpath:com/foo/jdbc-production.properties"/>

<util:list/>
Before…

<bean id="emails" class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.ListFactoryBean">
<property name="sourceList">
<list>
<value>[email protected]</value>
<value>[email protected]</value>
<value>[email protected]</value>
<value>[email protected]</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>

The above conﬁguration uses a Spring FactoryBean implementation, the ListFactoryBean , to create a java.util.List instance
initialized with values taken from the supplied sourceList .

After…

<util:list id="emails">
<value>[email protected]</value>
<value>[email protected]</value>
<value>[email protected]</value>
<value>[email protected]</value>
</util:list>

You can also explicitly control the exact type of List that will be instantiated and populated via the use of the list-class attribute on the
<util:list/> element. For example, if we really need a java.util.LinkedList to be instantiated, we could use the following conﬁguration:

<util:list id="emails" list-class="java.util.LinkedList">

<value>[email protected]</value>
<value>[email protected]</value>
<value>[email protected]</value>
<value>d'[email protected]</value>
</util:list>

If no list-class attribute is supplied, a List implementation will be chosen by the container.

<util:map/>
Before…

<bean id="emails" class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.MapFactoryBean">
<property name="sourceMap">
<map>
<entry key="pechorin" value="[email protected]"/>
<entry key="raskolnikov" value="[email protected]"/>
<entry key="stavrogin" value="[email protected]"/>
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 651/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
<entry key="stavrogin" value="[email protected]"/>
<entry key="porfiry" value="[email protected]"/>
</map>
</property>
</bean>

The above conﬁguration uses a Spring FactoryBean implementation, the MapFactoryBean , to create a java.util.Map instance initialized
with key-value pairs taken from the supplied 'sourceMap' .

After…

<util:map id="emails">
<entry key="pechorin" value="[email protected]"/>
<entry key="raskolnikov" value="[email protected]"/>
<entry key="stavrogin" value="[email protected]"/>
<entry key="porfiry" value="[email protected]"/>
</util:map>

You can also explicitly control the exact type of Map that will be instantiated and populated via the use of the 'map-class' attribute on the
<util:map/> element. For example, if we really need a java.util.TreeMap to be instantiated, we could use the following conﬁguration:

<util:map id="emails" map-class="java.util.TreeMap">

If no 'map-class' attribute is supplied, a Map implementation will be chosen by the container.

<util:set/>
Before…

<bean id="emails" class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.SetFactoryBean">
<property name="sourceSet">
<set>
<value>[email protected]</value>
<value>[email protected]</value>
<value>[email protected]</value>
<value>[email protected]</value>
</set>
</property>
</bean>

The above conﬁguration uses a Spring FactoryBean implementation, the SetFactoryBean , to create a java.util.Set instance initialized
with values taken from the supplied 'sourceSet' .

After…

<util:set id="emails">
<value>[email protected]</value>
<value>[email protected]</value>
<value>[email protected]</value>
<value>[email protected]</value>
</util:set>

You can also explicitly control the exact type of Set that will be instantiated and populated via the use of the 'set-class' attribute on the
<util:set/> element. For example, if we really need a java.util.TreeSet to be instantiated, we could use the following conﬁguration:

<util:set id="emails" set-class="java.util.TreeSet">

<value>[email protected]</value>
<value>[email protected]</value>
<value>[email protected]</value>

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 652/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
<value>[email protected]</value>
</util:set>

If no 'set-class' attribute is supplied, a Set implementation will be chosen by the container.

41.2.3 the jee schema

The jee tags deal with Java EE (Java Enterprise Edition)-related conﬁguration issues, such as looking up a JNDI object and deﬁning EJB
references.

To use the tags in the jee schema, you need to have the following preamble at the top of your Spring XML conﬁguration ﬁle; the text in the
following snippet references the correct schema so that the tags in the jee namespace are available to you.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

</beans>

<jee:jndi-lookup/> (simple)
Before…

<bean id="dataSource" class="org.springframework.jndi.JndiObjectFactoryBean">

After…

<jee:jndi-lookup id="dataSource" jndi-name="jdbc/MyDataSource"/>

<bean id="userDao" class="com.foo.JdbcUserDao">

<property name="dataSource" ref="dataSource"/>
</bean>

<jee:jndi-lookup/> (with single JNDI environment setting)

Before…

<bean id="simple" class="org.springframework.jndi.JndiObjectFactoryBean">

After…

<jee:jndi-lookup id="simple" jndi-name="jdbc/MyDataSource">

<jee:environment>foo=bar</jee:environment>
</jee:jndi-lookup>

<jee:jndi-lookup/> (with multiple JNDI environment settings)

Before…

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 653/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

<bean id="simple" class="org.springframework.jndi.JndiObjectFactoryBean">

After…

<jee:jndi-lookup id="simple" jndi-name="jdbc/MyDataSource">

<jee:environment>
foo=bar
ping=pong
</jee:environment>
</jee:jndi-lookup>

<jee:jndi-lookup/> (complex)
Before…

<bean id="simple" class="org.springframework.jndi.JndiObjectFactoryBean">

After…

<jee:jndi-lookup id="simple"
jndi-name="jdbc/MyDataSource"
cache="true"
resource-ref="true"
lookup-on-startup="false"
expected-type="com.myapp.DefaultFoo"
proxy-interface="com.myapp.Foo"/>

<jee:local-slsb/> (simple)
The <jee:local-slsb/> tag conﬁgures a reference to an EJB Stateless SessionBean.

Before…

After…

<jee:local-slsb id="simpleSlsb" jndi-name="ejb/RentalServiceBean"

business-interface="com.foo.service.RentalService"/>

<jee:local-slsb/> (complex)

<bean id="complexLocalEjb"
class="org.springframework.ejb.access.LocalStatelessSessionProxyFactoryBean">
<property name="jndiName" value="ejb/RentalServiceBean"/>
<property name="businessInterface" value="com.foo.service.RentalService"/>
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 654/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
<property name="cacheHome" value="true"/>
<property name="lookupHomeOnStartup" value="true"/>
<property name="resourceRef" value="true"/>
</bean>

After…

<jee:local-slsb id="complexLocalEjb"
jndi-name="ejb/RentalServiceBean"
business-interface="com.foo.service.RentalService"
cache-home="true"
lookup-home-on-startup="true"
resource-ref="true">

<jee:remote-slsb/>
The <jee:remote-slsb/> tag conﬁgures a reference to a remote EJB Stateless SessionBean.

Before…

After…

<jee:remote-slsb id="complexRemoteEjb"
jndi-name="ejb/MyRemoteBean"
business-interface="com.foo.service.RentalService"
cache-home="true"
lookup-home-on-startup="true"
resource-ref="true"
home-interface="com.foo.service.RentalService"
refresh-home-on-connect-failure="true">

41.2.4 the lang schema

The lang tags deal with exposing objects that have been written in a dynamic language such as JRuby or Groovy as beans in the Spring container.

These tags (and the dynamic language support) are comprehensively covered in the chapter entitled Chapter 35, Dynamic language support. Please
do consult that chapter for full details on this support and the lang tags themselves.

In the interest of completeness, to use the tags in the lang schema, you need to have the following preamble at the top of your Spring XML
conﬁguration ﬁle; the text in the following snippet references the correct schema so that the tags in the lang namespace are available to you.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

</beans>

41.2.5 the jms schema

The jms tags deal with conﬁguring JMS-related beans such as Spring’s MessageListenerContainers. These tags are detailed in the section of the
JMS chapter entitled Section 30.7, “JMS namespace support”. Please do consult that chapter for full details on this support and the jms tags

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 655/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
themselves.

In the interest of completeness, to use the tags in the jms schema, you need to have the following preamble at the top of your Spring XML
conﬁguration ﬁle; the text in the following snippet references the correct schema so that the tags in the jms namespace are available to you.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

</beans>

41.2.6 the tx (transaction) schema

The tx tags deal with conﬁguring all of those beans in Spring’s comprehensive support for transactions. These tags are covered in the chapter
entitled Chapter 17, Transaction Management.

You are strongly encouraged to look at the 'spring-tx.xsd' file that ships with the Spring distribution. This file is (of course), the
XML Schema for Spring’s transaction configuration, and covers all of the various tags in the tx namespace, including attribute
defaults and suchlike. This file is documented inline, and thus the information is not repeated here in the interests of adhering to the
DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself) principle.

In the interest of completeness, to use the tags in the tx schema, you need to have the following preamble at the top of your Spring XML
conﬁguration ﬁle; the text in the following snippet references the correct schema so that the tags in the tx namespace are available to you.

<?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:aop="http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop"
xmlns:tx="http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx" xsi:schemaLocation="
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx/spring-tx.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop/spring-aop.xsd"> <!-- bean definit

</beans>

Often when using the tags in the tx namespace you will also be using the tags from the aop namespace (since the declarative
transaction support in Spring is implemented using AOP). The above XML snippet contains the relevant lines needed to reference the
aop schema so that the tags in the aop namespace are available to you.

41.2.7 the aop schema

The aop tags deal with conﬁguring all things AOP in Spring: this includes Spring’s own proxy-based AOP framework and Spring’s integration with
the AspectJ AOP framework. These tags are comprehensively covered in the chapter entitled Chapter 11, Aspect Oriented Programming with
Spring.

In the interest of completeness, to use the tags in the aop schema, you need to have the following preamble at the top of your Spring XML
conﬁguration ﬁle; the text in the following snippet references the correct schema so that the tags in the aop namespace are available to you.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

</beans>

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 656/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

41.2.8 the context schema

The context tags deal with ApplicationContext conﬁguration that relates to plumbing - that is, not usually beans that are important to an
end-user but rather beans that do a lot of grunt work in Spring, such as BeanfactoryPostProcessors . The following snippet references the
correct schema so that the tags in the context namespace are available to you.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

</beans>

The context schema was only introduced in Spring 2.5.

<property-placeholder/>
This element activates the replacement of ${…} placeholders, resolved against the specified properties file (as a Spring resource location). This
element is a convenience mechanism that sets up a PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer for you; if you need more control over the
PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer , just define one yourself explicitly.

<annotation-conﬁg/>
Activates the Spring infrastructure for various annotations to be detected in bean classes: Spring’s @Required and @Autowired , as well as JSR
250’s @PostConstruct , @PreDestroy and @Resource (if available), and JPA’s @PersistenceContext and @PersistenceUnit (if
available). Alternatively, you can choose to activate the individual BeanPostProcessors for those annotations explicitly.

This element does not activate processing of Spring’s @Transactional annotation. Use the <tx:annotation-driven/>
element for that purpose.

<component-scan/>
This element is detailed in Section 7.9, “Annotation-based container conﬁguration”.

<load-time-weaver/>
This element is detailed in Section 11.8.4, “Load-time weaving with AspectJ in the Spring Framework”.

<spring-conﬁgured/>
This element is detailed in Section 11.8.1, “Using AspectJ to dependency inject domain objects with Spring”.

<mbean-export/>
This element is detailed in Section 31.4.3, “Conﬁguring annotation based MBean export”.

41.2.9 the tool schema

The tool tags are for use when you want to add tooling-speciﬁc metadata to your custom conﬁguration elements. This metadata can then be
consumed by tools that are aware of this metadata, and the tools can then do pretty much whatever they want with it (validation, etc.).

The tool tags are not documented in this release of Spring as they are currently undergoing review. If you are a third party tool vendor and you
would like to contribute to this review process, then do mail the Spring mailing list. The currently supported tool tags can be found in the ﬁle
'spring-tool.xsd' in the 'src/org/springframework/beans/factory/xml' directory of the Spring source distribution.

41.2.10 the jdbc schema

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 657/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The jdbc tags allow you to quickly conﬁgure an embedded database or initialize an existing data source. These tags are documented in
Section 19.8, “Embedded database support” and ??? respectively.

To use the tags in the jdbc schema, you need to have the following preamble at the top of your Spring XML conﬁguration ﬁle; the text in the
following snippet references the correct schema so that the tags in the jdbc namespace are available to you.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

</beans>

41.2.11 the cache schema

The cache tags can be used to enable support for Spring’s @CacheEvict , @CachePut and @Caching annotations. It it also supports
declarative XML-based caching. See Section 36.3.6, “Enable caching annotations” and Section 36.5, “Declarative XML-based caching” for details.

To use the tags in the cache schema, you need to have the following preamble at the top of your Spring XML conﬁguration ﬁle; the text in the
following snippet references the correct schema so that the tags in the cache namespace are available to you.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

</beans>

41.2.12 the beans schema

Last but not least we have the tags in the beans schema. These are the same tags that have been in Spring since the very dawn of the framework.
Examples of the various tags in the beans schema are not shown here because they are quite comprehensively covered in Section 7.4.2,
“Dependencies and conﬁguration in detail” (and indeed in that entire chapter).

One thing that is new to the beans tags themselves in Spring 2.0 is the idea of arbitrary bean metadata. In Spring 2.0 it is now possible to add zero
or more key / value pairs to <bean/> XML deﬁnitions. What, if anything, is done with this extra metadata is totally up to your own custom logic (and
so is typically only of use if you are writing your own custom tags as described in the appendix entitled Chapter 42, Extensible XML authoring).

Find below an example of the <meta/> tag in the context of a surrounding <bean/> (please note that without any logic to interpret it the metadata
is effectively useless as-is).

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<bean id="foo" class="x.y.Foo">

</beans>

In the case of the above example, you would assume that there is some logic that will consume the bean deﬁnition and set up some caching
infrastructure using the supplied metadata.

42. Extensible XML authoring

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 658/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

42.1 Introduction
Since version 2.0, Spring has featured a mechanism for schema-based extensions to the basic Spring XML format for defining and configuring
beans. This section is devoted to detailing how you would go about writing your own custom XML bean definition parsers and integrating such
parsers into the Spring IoC container.

To facilitate the authoring of configuration files using a schema-aware XML editor, Spring’s extensible XML configuration mechanism is based on
XML Schema. If you are not familiar with Spring’s current XML configuration extensions that come with the standard Spring distribution, please first
read the appendix entitled???.

Creating new XML conﬁguration extensions can be done by following these (relatively) simple steps:

Authoring an XML schema to describe your custom element(s).

Coding a custom NamespaceHandler implementation (this is an easy step, don’t worry).
Coding one or more BeanDefinitionParser implementations (this is where the real work is done).
Registering the above artifacts with Spring (this too is an easy step).

What follows is a description of each of these steps. For the example, we will create an XML extension (a custom XML element) that allows us to
configure objects of the type SimpleDateFormat (from the java.text package) in an easy manner. When we are done, we will be able to
define bean definitions of type SimpleDateFormat like this:

<myns:dateformat id="dateFormat"
pattern="yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm"
lenient="true"/>

(Don’t worry about the fact that this example is very simple; much more detailed examples follow afterwards. The intent in this ﬁrst simple example is
to walk you through the basic steps involved.)

42.2 Authoring the schema

Creating an XML conﬁguration extension for use with Spring’s IoC container starts with authoring an XML Schema to describe the extension. What
follows is the schema we’ll use to conﬁgure SimpleDateFormat objects.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<xsd:schema xmlns="http://www.mycompany.com/schema/myns"
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
xmlns:beans="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
targetNamespace="http://www.mycompany.com/schema/myns"
elementFormDefault="qualified"
attributeFormDefault="unqualified">

<xsd:import namespace="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"/>

<xsd:element name="dateformat">
<xsd:complexType>
<xsd:complexContent>
<xsd:extension base="beans:identifiedType">
<xsd:attribute name="lenient" type="xsd:boolean"/>
<xsd:attribute name="pattern" type="xsd:string" use="required"/>
</xsd:extension>
</xsd:complexContent>
</xsd:complexType>
</xsd:element>
</xsd:schema>

(The emphasized line contains an extension base for all tags that will be identiﬁable (meaning they have an id attribute that will be used as the
bean identiﬁer in the container). We are able to use this attribute because we imported the Spring-provided 'beans' namespace.)

The above schema will be used to conﬁgure SimpleDateFormat objects, directly in an XML application context ﬁle using the
<myns:dateformat/> element.

<myns:dateformat id="dateFormat"
pattern="yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm"

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 659/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
lenient="true"/>

Note that after we’ve created the infrastructure classes, the above snippet of XML will essentially be exactly the same as the following XML snippet.
In other words, we’re just creating a bean in the container, identiﬁed by the name 'dateFormat' of type SimpleDateFormat , with a couple of
properties set.

<bean id="dateFormat" class="java.text.SimpleDateFormat">

<constructor-arg value="yyyy-HH-dd HH:mm"/>
<property name="lenient" value="true"/>
</bean>

The schema-based approach to creating configuration format allows for tight integration with an IDE that has a schema-aware XML
editor. Using a properly authored schema, you can use autocompletion to have a user choose between several configuration options
defined in the enumeration.

42.3 Coding a NamespaceHandler
In addition to the schema, we need a NamespaceHandler that will parse all elements of this specific namespace Spring encounters while parsing
configuration files. The NamespaceHandler should in our case take care of the parsing of the myns:dateformat element.

The NamespaceHandler interface is pretty simple in that it features just three methods:

init() - allows for initialization of the NamespaceHandler and will be called by Spring before the handler is used
BeanDefinition parse(Element, ParserContext) - called when Spring encounters a top-level element (not nested inside a bean
definition or a different namespace). This method can register bean definitions itself and/or return a bean definition.
BeanDefinitionHolder decorate(Node, BeanDefinitionHolder, ParserContext) - called when Spring encounters an attribute
or nested element of a different namespace. The decoration of one or more bean definitions is used for example with theout-of-the-box scopes
Spring 2.0 supports. We’ll start by highlighting a simple example, without using decoration, after which we will show decoration in a somewhat
more advanced example.

Although it is perfectly possible to code your own NamespaceHandler for the entire namespace (and hence provide code that parses each and
every element in the namespace), it is often the case that each top-level XML element in a Spring XML configuration file results in a single bean
definition (as in our case, where a single <myns:dateformat/> element results in a single SimpleDateFormat bean definition). Spring
features a number of convenience classes that support this scenario. In this example, we’ll make use the NamespaceHandlerSupport class:

package org.springframework.samples.xml;

import org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.NamespaceHandlerSupport;

public class MyNamespaceHandler extends NamespaceHandlerSupport {

public void init() {

registerBeanDefinitionParser("dateformat", new SimpleDateFormatBeanDefinitionParser());
}

The observant reader will notice that there isn’t actually a whole lot of parsing logic in this class. Indeed… the NamespaceHandlerSupport class
has a built in notion of delegation. It supports the registration of any number of BeanDefinitionParser instances, to which it will delegate to
when it needs to parse an element in its namespace. This clean separation of concerns allows a NamespaceHandler to handle the orchestration
of the parsing of all of the custom elements in its namespace, while delegating to BeanDefinitionParsers to do the grunt work of the XML
parsing; this means that each BeanDefinitionParser will contain just the logic for parsing a single custom element, as we can see in the next
step

42.4 BeanDefinitionParser
A BeanDefinitionParser will be used if the NamespaceHandler encounters an XML element of the type that has been mapped to the
specific bean definition parser (which is 'dateformat' in this case). In other words, the BeanDefinitionParser is responsible for parsing
one distinct top-level XML element defined in the schema. In the parser, we’ll have access to the XML element (and thus its subelements too) so that
we can parse our custom XML content, as can be seen in the following example:

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 660/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

package org.springframework.samples.xml;

import org.springframework.beans.factory.support.BeanDefinitionBuilder;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.AbstractSingleBeanDefinitionParser;
import org.springframework.util.StringUtils;
import org.w3c.dom.Element;

import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;

public class SimpleDateFormatBeanDefinitionParser extends AbstractSingleBeanDefinitionParser {

protected Class getBeanClass(Element element) {

return SimpleDateFormat.class;
}

protected void doParse(Element element, BeanDefinitionBuilder bean) {

// this will never be null since the schema explicitly requires that a value be supplied
String pattern = element.getAttribute("pattern");
bean.addConstructorArg(pattern);

// this however is an optional property

String lenient = element.getAttribute("lenient");
if (StringUtils.hasText(lenient)) {
bean.addPropertyValue("lenient", Boolean.valueOf(lenient));
}
}

We use the Spring-provided AbstractSingleBeanDefinitionParser to handle a lot of the basic grunt work of creating a single
BeanDefinition .
We supply the AbstractSingleBeanDefinitionParser superclass with the type that our single BeanDefinition will represent.

In this simple case, this is all that we need to do. The creation of our single BeanDefinition is handled by the
AbstractSingleBeanDefinitionParser superclass, as is the extraction and setting of the bean deﬁnition’s unique identiﬁer.

42.5 Registering the handler and the schema

The coding is finished! All that remains to be done is to somehow make the Spring XML parsing infrastructure aware of our custom element; we do
this by registering our custom namespaceHandler and custom XSD file in two special purpose properties files. These properties files are both
placed in a 'META-INF' directory in your application, and can, for example, be distributed alongside your binary classes in a JAR file. The Spring
XML parsing infrastructure will automatically pick up your new extension by consuming these special properties files, the formats of which are
detailed below.

42.5.1 'META-INF/spring.handlers'
The properties ﬁle called 'spring.handlers' contains a mapping of XML Schema URIs to namespace handler classes. So for our example, we
need to write the following:

http\://www.mycompany.com/schema/myns=org.springframework.samples.xml.MyNamespaceHandler

(The ':' character is a valid delimiter in the Java properties format, and so the ':' character in the URI needs to be escaped with a backslash.)

The ﬁrst part (the key) of the key-value pair is the URI associated with your custom namespace extension, and needs to match exactly the value of
the 'targetNamespace' attribute as speciﬁed in your custom XSD schema.

42.5.2 'META-INF/spring.schemas'
The properties file called 'spring.schemas' contains a mapping of XML Schema locations (referred to along with the schema declaration in
XML files that use the schema as part of the 'xsi:schemaLocation' attribute) to classpath resources. This file is needed to prevent Spring from
absolutely having to use a default EntityResolver that requires Internet access to retrieve the schema file. If you specify the mapping in this
properties file, Spring will search for the schema on the classpath (in this case 'myns.xsd' in the 'org.springframework.samples.xml'
package):

http\://www.mycompany.com/schema/myns/myns.xsd=org/springframework/samples/xml/myns.xsd
https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 661/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
The upshot of this is that you are encouraged to deploy your XSD ﬁle(s) right alongside the NamespaceHandler and BeanDefinitionParser
classes on the classpath.

42.6 Using a custom extension in your Spring XML conﬁguration

Using a custom extension that you yourself have implemented is no different from using one of the 'custom' extensions that Spring provides straight
out of the box. Find below an example of using the custom <dateformat/> element developed in the previous steps in a Spring XML
conﬁguration ﬁle.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<myns:dateformat id="defaultDateFormat" pattern="yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm" lenient="true"/>

<bean id="jobDetailTemplate" abstract="true">

</beans>

42.7 Meatier examples
Find below some much meatier examples of custom XML extensions.

42.7.1 Nesting custom tags within custom tags

This example illustrates how you might go about writing the various artifacts required to satisfy a target of the following conﬁguration:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<foo:component id="bionic-family" name="Bionic-1">

<foo:component name="Mother-1">
<foo:component name="Karate-1"/>
<foo:component name="Sport-1"/>
</foo:component>
<foo:component name="Rock-1"/>
</foo:component>

</beans>

The above configuration actually nests custom extensions within each other. The class that is actually configured by the above
<foo:component/> element is the Component class (shown directly below). Notice how the Component class does not expose a setter
method for the 'components' property; this makes it hard (or rather impossible) to configure a bean definition for the Component class using
setter injection.

package com.foo;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 662/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

public class Component {

private String name;

private List<Component> components = new ArrayList<Component> ();

// mmm, there is no setter method for the 'components'

public void addComponent(Component component) {
this.components.add(component);
}

public List<Component> getComponents() {

return components;
}

public String getName() {

return name;
}

public void setName(String name) {

this.name = name;
}

The typical solution to this issue is to create a custom FactoryBean that exposes a setter property for the 'components' property.

package com.foo;

import org.springframework.beans.factory.FactoryBean;

import java.util.List;

public class ComponentFactoryBean implements FactoryBean<Component> {

private Component parent;

private List<Component> children;

public void setParent(Component parent) {

this.parent = parent;
}

public void setChildren(List<Component> children) {

this.children = children;
}

public Component getObject() throws Exception {

if (this.children != null && this.children.size() > 0) {
for (Component child : children) {
this.parent.addComponent(child);
}
}
return this.parent;
}

public Class<Component> getObjectType() {

return Component.class;
}

public boolean isSingleton() {

return true;
}

This is all very well, and does work nicely, but exposes a lot of Spring plumbing to the end user. What we are going to do is write a custom extension
that hides away all of this Spring plumbing. If we stick to the steps described previously, we’ll start off by creating the XSD schema to deﬁne the
structure of our custom tag.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 663/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>

<xsd:schema xmlns="http://www.foo.com/schema/component"
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
targetNamespace="http://www.foo.com/schema/component"
elementFormDefault="qualified"
attributeFormDefault="unqualified">

<xsd:element name="component">
<xsd:complexType>
<xsd:choice minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded">
<xsd:element ref="component"/>
</xsd:choice>
<xsd:attribute name="id" type="xsd:ID"/>
<xsd:attribute name="name" use="required" type="xsd:string"/>
</xsd:complexType>
</xsd:element>

</xsd:schema>

We’ll then create a custom NamespaceHandler .

package com.foo;

import org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.NamespaceHandlerSupport;

public class ComponentNamespaceHandler extends NamespaceHandlerSupport {

public void init() {

registerBeanDefinitionParser("component", new ComponentBeanDefinitionParser());
}

Next up is the custom BeanDefinitionParser . Remember that what we are creating is a BeanDefinition describing a
ComponentFactoryBean .

package com.foo;

import org.springframework.beans.factory.config.BeanDefinition;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanDefinition;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.support.BeanDefinitionBuilder;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.support.ManagedList;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.AbstractBeanDefinitionParser;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.ParserContext;
import org.springframework.util.xml.DomUtils;
import org.w3c.dom.Element;

import java.util.List;

public class ComponentBeanDefinitionParser extends AbstractBeanDefinitionParser {

protected AbstractBeanDefinition parseInternal(Element element, ParserContext parserContext) {

return parseComponentElement(element);
}

private static AbstractBeanDefinition parseComponentElement(Element element) {

BeanDefinitionBuilder factory = BeanDefinitionBuilder.rootBeanDefinition(ComponentFactoryBean.class);
factory.addPropertyValue("parent", parseComponent(element));

List<Element> childElements = DomUtils.getChildElementsByTagName(element, "component");

if (childElements != null && childElements.size() > 0) {
parseChildComponents(childElements, factory);
}

return factory.getBeanDefinition();
}

private static BeanDefinition parseComponent(Element element) {

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 664/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
BeanDefinitionBuilder component = BeanDefinitionBuilder.rootBeanDefinition(Component.class);
component.addPropertyValue("name", element.getAttribute("name"));
return component.getBeanDefinition();
}

private static void parseChildComponents(List<Element> childElements, BeanDefinitionBuilder factory) {

ManagedList<BeanDefinition> children = new ManagedList<BeanDefinition>(childElements.size());
for (Element element : childElements) {
children.add(parseComponentElement(element));
}
factory.addPropertyValue("children", children);
}

Lastly, the various artifacts need to be registered with the Spring XML infrastructure.

# in 'META-INF/spring.handlers'
http\://www.foo.com/schema/component=com.foo.ComponentNamespaceHandler

# in 'META-INF/spring.schemas'
http\://www.foo.com/schema/component/component.xsd=com/foo/component.xsd

42.7.2 Custom attributes on 'normal' elements

Writing your own custom parser and the associated artifacts isn’t hard, but sometimes it is not the right thing to do. Consider the scenario where you
need to add metadata to already existing bean deﬁnitions. In this case you certainly don’t want to have to go off and write your own entire custom
extension; rather you just want to add an additional attribute to the existing bean deﬁnition element.

By way of another example, let’s say that the service class that you are deﬁning a bean deﬁnition for a service object that will (unknown to it) be
accessing a clustered JCache, and you want to ensure that the named JCache instance is eagerly started within the surrounding cluster:

<bean id="checkingAccountService" class="com.foo.DefaultCheckingAccountService"

jcache:cache-name="checking.account">

</bean>

What we are going to do here is create another BeanDefinition when the 'jcache:cache-name' attribute is parsed; this
BeanDefinition will then initialize the named JCache for us. We will also modify the existing BeanDefinition for the
'checkingAccountService' so that it will have a dependency on this new JCache-initializing BeanDefinition .

package com.foo;

public class JCacheInitializer {

private String name;

public JCacheInitializer(String name) {

this.name = name;
}

public void initialize() {

// lots of JCache API calls to initialize the named cache...
}

Now onto the custom extension. Firstly, the authoring of the XSD schema describing the custom attribute (quite easy in this case).

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>

<xsd:schema xmlns="http://www.foo.com/schema/jcache"
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
targetNamespace="http://www.foo.com/schema/jcache"
elementFormDefault="qualified">

<xsd:attribute name="cache-name" type="xsd:string"/>

</xsd:schema>

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 665/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Next, the associated NamespaceHandler .

package com.foo;

import org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.NamespaceHandlerSupport;

public class JCacheNamespaceHandler extends NamespaceHandlerSupport {

public void init() {

super.registerBeanDefinitionDecoratorForAttribute("cache-name",
new JCacheInitializingBeanDefinitionDecorator());
}

Next, the parser. Note that in this case, because we are going to be parsing an XML attribute, we write a BeanDefinitionDecorator rather than
a BeanDefinitionParser .

package com.foo;

import org.springframework.beans.factory.config.BeanDefinitionHolder;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanDefinition;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.support.BeanDefinitionBuilder;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.BeanDefinitionDecorator;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.ParserContext;
import org.w3c.dom.Attr;
import org.w3c.dom.Node;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.List;

public class JCacheInitializingBeanDefinitionDecorator implements BeanDefinitionDecorator {

private static final String[] EMPTY_STRING_ARRAY = new String[0];

public BeanDefinitionHolder decorate(Node source, BeanDefinitionHolder holder,

ParserContext ctx) {
String initializerBeanName = registerJCacheInitializer(source, ctx);
createDependencyOnJCacheInitializer(holder, initializerBeanName);
return holder;
}

private void createDependencyOnJCacheInitializer(BeanDefinitionHolder holder,

String initializerBeanName) {
AbstractBeanDefinition definition = ((AbstractBeanDefinition) holder.getBeanDefinition());
String[] dependsOn = definition.getDependsOn();
if (dependsOn == null) {
dependsOn = new String[]{initializerBeanName};
} else {
List dependencies = new ArrayList(Arrays.asList(dependsOn));
dependencies.add(initializerBeanName);
dependsOn = (String[]) dependencies.toArray(EMPTY_STRING_ARRAY);
}
definition.setDependsOn(dependsOn);
}

private String registerJCacheInitializer(Node source, ParserContext ctx) {

String cacheName = ((Attr) source).getValue();
String beanName = cacheName + "-initializer";
if (!ctx.getRegistry().containsBeanDefinition(beanName)) {
BeanDefinitionBuilder initializer = BeanDefinitionBuilder.rootBeanDefinition(JCacheInitializer.class);
initializer.addConstructorArg(cacheName);
ctx.getRegistry().registerBeanDefinition(beanName, initializer.getBeanDefinition());
}
return beanName;
}

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 666/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Lastly, the various artifacts need to be registered with the Spring XML infrastructure.

# in 'META-INF/spring.handlers'
http\://www.foo.com/schema/jcache=com.foo.JCacheNamespaceHandler
# in 'META-INF/spring.schemas'
http\://www.foo.com/schema/jcache/jcache.xsd=com/foo/jcache.xsd

42.8 Further Resources
Find below links to further resources concerning XML Schema and the extensible XML support described in this chapter.

The XML Schema Part 1: Structures Second Edition

The XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes Second Edition

43. spring JSP Tag Library

43.1 Introduction
One of the view technologies you can use with the Spring Framework is Java Server Pages (JSPs). To help you implement views using Java Server
Pages the Spring Framework provides you with some tags for evaluating errors, setting themes and outputting internationalized messages.

Please note that the various tags generated by this form tag library are compliant with the XHTML-1.0-Strict speciﬁcation and attendant DTD.

This appendix describes the spring.tld tag library.

43.2 The argument tag

Argument tag based on the JSTL fmt:param tag. The purpose is to support arguments inside the message and theme tags.

Table 43.1. Attributes

Attribute Required? Runtime Expression? Description

value false true The value of the argument.

43.3 The bind tag

Provides BindStatus object for the given bind path. The HTML escaping ﬂag participates in a page-wide or application-wide setting (i.e. by
HtmlEscapeTag or a "defaultHtmlEscape" context-param in web.xml).

Table 43.2. Attributes

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 667/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Attribute Required? Runtime Description

Expression?

htmlEscape false true Set HTML escaping for this tag, as boolean value. Overrides the default HTML
escaping setting for the current page.

ignoreNestedPath false true Set whether to ignore a nested path, if any. Default is to not ignore.

path true true The path to the bean or bean property to bind status information for. For instance
account.name, company.address.zipCode or just employee. The status object will
exported to the page scope, speciﬁcally for this bean or bean property

43.4 The escapeBody tag

Escapes its enclosed body content, applying HTML escaping and/or JavaScript escaping. The HTML escaping ﬂag participates in a page-wide or
application-wide setting (i.e. by HtmlEscapeTag or a "defaultHtmlEscape" context-param in web.xml).

Table 43.3. Attributes

Attribute Required? Runtime Description

Expression?

htmlEscape false true Set HTML escaping for this tag, as boolean value. Overrides the default HTML
escaping setting for the current page.

javaScriptEscape false true Set JavaScript escaping for this tag, as boolean value. Default is false.

43.5 The eval tag

Evaluates a Spring expression (SpEL) and either prints the result or assigns it to a variable.

Table 43.4. Attributes

Attribute Required? Runtime Description

Expression?

expression true true The expression to evaluate.

htmlEscape false true Set HTML escaping for this tag, as a boolean value. Overrides the default HTML
escaping setting for the current page.

javaScriptEscape false true Set JavaScript escaping for this tag, as a boolean value. Default is false.

scope false true The scope for the var. 'application', 'session', 'request' and 'page' scopes are supported.
Defaults to page scope. This attribute has no effect unless the var attribute is also
deﬁned.

var false true The name of the variable to export the evaluation result to. If not speciﬁed the
evaluation result is converted to a String and written as output.

43.6 The hasBindErrors tag

Provides Errors instance in case of bind errors. The HTML escaping ﬂag participates in a page-wide or application-wide setting (i.e. by
HtmlEscapeTag or a "defaultHtmlEscape" context-param in web.xml).

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 668/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Table 43.5. Attributes

Attribute Required? Runtime Description

Expression?

htmlEscape false true Set HTML escaping for this tag, as boolean value. Overrides the default HTML escaping
setting for the current page.

name true true The name of the bean in the request, that needs to be inspected for errors. If errors are
available for this bean, they will be bound under the 'errors' key.

43.7 The htmlEscape tag

Sets default HTML escape value for the current page. Overrides a "defaultHtmlEscape" context-param in web.xml, if any.

Table 43.6. Attributes

Attribute Required? Runtime Description

Expression?

defaultHtmlEscape true true Set the default value for HTML escaping, to be put into the current
PageContext.

43.8 The message tag

Retrieves the message with the given code, or text if code isn’t resolvable. The HTML escaping ﬂag participates in a page-wide or application-wide
setting (i.e. by HtmlEscapeTag or a "defaultHtmlEscape" context-param in web.xml).

Table 43.7. Attributes

Attribute Required? Runtime Description

Expression?

arguments false true Set optional message arguments for this tag, as a (comma-)delimited String (each
String argument can contain JSP EL), an Object array (used as argument array), or a
single Object (used as single argument).

argumentSeparator false true The separator character to be used for splitting the arguments string value; defaults to
a 'comma' (',').

code false true The code (key) to use when looking up the message. If code is not provided, the text
attribute will be used.

htmlEscape false true Set HTML escaping for this tag, as boolean value. Overrides the default HTML
escaping setting for the current page.

javaScriptEscape false true Set JavaScript escaping for this tag, as boolean value. Default is false.

message false true A MessageSourceResolvable argument (direct or through JSP EL). Fits nicely when
used in conjunction with Spring’s own validation error classes which all implement the
MessageSourceResolvable interface. For example, this allows you to iterate over all
of the errors in a form, passing each error (using a runtime expression) as the value
of this 'message' attribute, thus effecting the easy display of such error messages.

scope false true The scope to use when exporting the result to a variable. This attribute is only used
when var is also set. Possible values are page, request, session and application.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 669/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Attribute Required? Runtime Description

Expression?

text false true Default text to output when a message for the given code could not be found. If both
text and code are not set, the tag will output null.

var false true The string to use when binding the result to the page, request, session or application
scope. If not speciﬁed, the result gets outputted to the writer (i.e. typically directly to
the JSP).

43.9 The nestedPath tag

Sets a nested path to be used by the bind tag’s path.

Table 43.8. Attributes

Attribute Required? Runtime Description

Expression?

path true true Set the path that this tag should apply. E.g. 'customer' to allow bind paths like
'address.street' rather than 'customer.address.street'.

43.10 The param tag

Parameter tag based on the JSTL c:param tag. The sole purpose is to support params inside the url tag.

Table 43.9. Attributes

Attribute Required? Runtime Expression? Description

name true true The name of the parameter.

value false true The value of the parameter.

43.11 The theme tag

Retrieves the theme message with the given code, or text if code isn’t resolvable. The HTML escaping ﬂag participates in a page-wide or application-
wide setting (i.e. by HtmlEscapeTag or a "defaultHtmlEscape" context-param in web.xml).

Table 43.10. Attributes

Attribute Required? Runtime Description

Expression?

argumentSeparator false true The separator character to be used for splitting the arguments string value; defaults to
a 'comma' (',').

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 670/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Attribute Required? Runtime Description

Expression?

code false true The code (key) to use when looking up the message. If code is not provided, the text
attribute will be used.

htmlEscape false true Set HTML escaping for this tag, as boolean value. Overrides the default HTML
escaping setting for the current page.

javaScriptEscape false true Set JavaScript escaping for this tag, as boolean value. Default is false.

message false true A MessageSourceResolvable argument (direct or through JSP EL).

scope false true The scope to use when exporting the result to a variable. This attribute is only used
when var is also set. Possible values are page, request, session and application.

text false true Default text to output when a message for the given code could not be found. If both
text and code are not set, the tag will output null.

43.12 The transform tag

Provides transformation of variables to Strings, using an appropriate custom PropertyEditor from BindTag (can only be used inside BindTag). The
HTML escaping ﬂag participates in a page-wide or application-wide setting (i.e. by HtmlEscapeTag or a 'defaultHtmlEscape' context-param in
web.xml).

Table 43.11. Attributes

Attribute Required? Runtime Description

Expression?

htmlEscape false true Set HTML escaping for this tag, as boolean value. Overrides the default HTML escaping
setting for the current page.

scope false true The scope to use when exported the result to a variable. This attribute is only used when var
is also set. Possible values are page, request, session and application.

value true true The value to transform. This is the actual object you want to have transformed (for instance a
Date). Using the PropertyEditor that is currently in use by the 'spring:bind' tag.

var false true The string to use when binding the result to the page, request, session or application scope.
If not speciﬁed, the result gets outputted to the writer (i.e. typically directly to the JSP).

43.13 The url tag

Creates URLs with support for URI template variables, HTML/XML escaping, and Javascript escaping. Modeled after the JSTL c:url tag with
backwards compatibility in mind.

Table 43.12. Attributes

Attribute Required? Runtime Description

Expression?

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 671/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

value true true The URL to build. This value can include template {placeholders} that are replaced with
the URL encoded value of the named parameter. Parameters must be deﬁned using the
param tag inside the body of this tag.

context false true Speciﬁes a remote application context path. The default is the current application
context path.

var false true The name of the variable to export the URL value to. If not speciﬁed the URL is written
as output.

htmlEscape false true Set HTML escaping for this tag, as a boolean value. Overrides the default HTML
escaping setting for the current page.

javaScriptEscape false true Set JavaScript escaping for this tag, as a boolean value. Default is false.

44. spring-form JSP Tag Library

44.1 Introduction
One of the view technologies you can use with the Spring Framework is Java Server Pages (JSPs). To help you implement views using Java Server
Pages the Spring Framework provides you with some tags for evaluating errors, setting themes and outputting internationalized messages.

Please note that the various tags generated by this form tag library are compliant with the XHTML-1.0-Strict speciﬁcation and attendant DTD.

This appendix describes the spring-form.tld tag library.

44.2 The button tag

Renders a form ﬁeld label in an HTML 'button' tag.

Table 44.1. Attributes

Attribute Required? Runtime Description

Expression?

disabled false true HTML Optional Attribute. Setting the value of this attribute to 'true' will disable the
HTML element.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 672/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Attribute Required? Runtime Description

Expression?

id false true HTML Standard Attribute

name false true The name attribute for the HTML button tag

value false true The name attribute for the HTML button tag

44.3 The checkbox tag

Renders an HTML 'input' tag with type 'checkbox'.

Table 44.2. Attributes

Attribute Required? Runtime Description

Expression?

accesskey false true HTML Standard Attribute

cssClass false true Equivalent to "class" - HTML Optional Attribute

cssErrorClass false true Equivalent to "class" - HTML Optional Attribute. Used when the bound ﬁeld has
errors.

cssStyle false true Equivalent to "style" - HTML Optional Attribute

dir false true HTML Standard Attribute

disabled false true HTML Optional Attribute. Setting the value of this attribute to 'true' will disable the
HTML element.

htmlEscape false true Enable/disable HTML escaping of rendered values.

id false true HTML Standard Attribute

label false true Value to be displayed as part of the tag

lang false true HTML Standard Attribute

onblur false true HTML Event Attribute

onchange false true HTML Event Attribute

onclick false true HTML Event Attribute

ondblclick false true HTML Event Attribute

onfocus false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeydown false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeypress false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeyup false true HTML Event Attribute

onmousedown false true HTML Event Attribute

onmousemove false true HTML Event Attribute

onmouseout false true HTML Event Attribute

onmouseover false true HTML Event Attribute

onmouseup false true HTML Event Attribute

path true true Path to property for data binding

tabindex false true HTML Standard Attribute

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 673/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Attribute Required? Runtime Description

Expression?

title false true HTML Standard Attribute

value false true HTML Optional Attribute

44.4 The checkboxes tag

Renders multiple HTML 'input' tags with type 'checkbox'.

Table 44.3. Attributes

Attribute Required? Runtime Description

Expression?

accesskey false true HTML Standard Attribute

cssClass false true Equivalent to "class" - HTML Optional Attribute

cssErrorClass false true Equivalent to "class" - HTML Optional Attribute. Used when the bound ﬁeld has errors.

cssStyle false true Equivalent to "style" - HTML Optional Attribute

delimiter false true Delimiter to use between each 'input' tag with type 'checkbox'. There is no delimiter by
default.

dir false true HTML Standard Attribute

disabled false true HTML Optional Attribute. Setting the value of this attribute to 'true' will disable the
HTML element.

element false true Speciﬁes the HTML element that is used to enclose each 'input' tag with type
'checkbox'. Defaults to 'span'.

htmlEscape false true Enable/disable HTML escaping of rendered values.

id false true HTML Standard Attribute

itemLabel false true Value to be displayed as part of the 'input' tags with type 'checkbox'

items true true The Collection, Map or array of objects used to generate the 'input' tags with type
'checkbox'

itemValue false true Name of the property mapped to 'value' attribute of the 'input' tags with type
'checkbox'

lang false true HTML Standard Attribute

onblur false true HTML Event Attribute

onchange false true HTML Event Attribute

onclick false true HTML Event Attribute

ondblclick false true HTML Event Attribute

onfocus false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeydown false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeypress false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeyup false true HTML Event Attribute

onmousedown false true HTML Event Attribute

onmousemove false true HTML Event Attribute

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 674/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Attribute Required? Runtime Description

Expression?

onmouseout false true HTML Event Attribute

onmouseover false true HTML Event Attribute

onmouseup false true HTML Event Attribute

path true true Path to property for data binding

tabindex false true HTML Standard Attribute

title false true HTML Standard Attribute

44.5 The errors tag

Renders ﬁeld errors in an HTML 'span' tag.

Table 44.4. Attributes

Attribute Required? Runtime Expression? Description

cssClass false true Equivalent to "class" - HTML Optional Attribute

cssStyle false true Equivalent to "style" - HTML Optional Attribute

delimiter false true Delimiter for displaying multiple error messages. Defaults to the br tag.

dir false true HTML Standard Attribute

element false true Speciﬁes the HTML element that is used to render the enclosing errors.

htmlEscape false true Enable/disable HTML escaping of rendered values.

id false true HTML Standard Attribute

lang false true HTML Standard Attribute

onclick false true HTML Event Attribute

ondblclick false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeydown false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeypress false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeyup false true HTML Event Attribute

onmousedown false true HTML Event Attribute

onmousemove false true HTML Event Attribute

onmouseout false true HTML Event Attribute

onmouseover false true HTML Event Attribute

onmouseup false true HTML Event Attribute

path false true Path to errors object for data binding

tabindex false true HTML Standard Attribute

title false true HTML Standard Attribute

44.6 The form tag

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 675/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Renders an HTML 'form' tag and exposes a binding path to inner tags for binding.

Table 44.5. Attributes

Attribute Required? Runtime Description

Expression?

acceptCharset false true Speciﬁes the list of character encodings for input data that is accepted by the server
processing this form. The value is a space- and/or comma-delimited list of charset
values. The client must interpret this list as an exclusive-or list, i.e., the server is
able to accept any single character encoding per entity received.

action false true HTML Required Attribute

cssClass false true Equivalent to "class" - HTML Optional Attribute

cssStyle false true Equivalent to "style" - HTML Optional Attribute

dir false true HTML Standard Attribute

enctype false true HTML Optional Attribute

htmlEscape false true Enable/disable HTML escaping of rendered values.

id false true HTML Standard Attribute

lang false true HTML Standard Attribute

method false true HTML Optional Attribute

methodParam false true The parameter name used for HTTP methods other then GET and POST. Default is
'_method'.

modelAttribute false true Name of the model attribute under which the form object is exposed. Defaults to
'command'.

name false true HTML Standard Attribute - added for backwards compatibility cases

onclick false true HTML Event Attribute

ondblclick false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeydown false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeypress false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeyup false true HTML Event Attribute

onmousedown false true HTML Event Attribute

onmousemove false true HTML Event Attribute

onmouseout false true HTML Event Attribute

onmouseover false true HTML Event Attribute

onmouseup false true HTML Event Attribute

onreset false true HTML Event Attribute

onsubmit false true HTML Event Attribute

servletRelativeAction false true Action reference to be appended to the current servlet path

target false true HTML Optional Attribute

title false true HTML Standard Attribute

44.7 The hidden tag

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 676/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Renders an HTML 'input' tag with type 'hidden' using the bound value.

Table 44.6. Attributes

Attribute Required? Runtime Expression? Description

htmlEscape false true Enable/disable HTML escaping of rendered values.

id false true HTML Standard Attribute

path true true Path to property for data binding

44.8 The input tag

Renders an HTML 'input' tag with type 'text' using the bound value.

Table 44.7. Attributes

Attribute Required? Runtime Description

Expression?

accesskey false true HTML Standard Attribute

alt false true HTML Optional Attribute

autocomplete false true Common Optional Attribute

cssClass false true Equivalent to "class" - HTML Optional Attribute

cssErrorClass false true Equivalent to "class" - HTML Optional Attribute. Used when the bound ﬁeld has
errors.

cssStyle false true Equivalent to "style" - HTML Optional Attribute

dir false true HTML Standard Attribute

disabled false true HTML Optional Attribute. Setting the value of this attribute to 'true' will disable the
HTML element.

htmlEscape false true Enable/disable HTML escaping of rendered values.

id false true HTML Standard Attribute

lang false true HTML Standard Attribute

maxlength false true HTML Optional Attribute

onblur false true HTML Event Attribute

onchange false true HTML Event Attribute

onclick false true HTML Event Attribute

ondblclick false true HTML Event Attribute

onfocus false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeydown false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeypress false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeyup false true HTML Event Attribute

onmousedown false true HTML Event Attribute

onmousemove false true HTML Event Attribute

onmouseout false true HTML Event Attribute

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 677/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Attribute Required? Runtime Description

Expression?

onmouseover false true HTML Event Attribute

onmouseup false true HTML Event Attribute

onselect false true HTML Event Attribute

path true true Path to property for data binding

readonly false true HTML Optional Attribute. Setting the value of this attribute to 'true' will make the
HTML element readonly.

size false true HTML Optional Attribute

tabindex false true HTML Standard Attribute

title false true HTML Standard Attribute

44.9 The label tag

Renders a form ﬁeld label in an HTML 'label' tag.

Table 44.8. Attributes

Attribute Required? Runtime Description

Expression?

cssClass false true Equivalent to "class" - HTML Optional Attribute.

cssErrorClass false true Equivalent to "class" - HTML Optional Attribute. Used only when errors are
present.

cssStyle false true Equivalent to "style" - HTML Optional Attribute

dir false true HTML Standard Attribute

for false true HTML Standard Attribute

htmlEscape false true Enable/disable HTML escaping of rendered values.

id false true HTML Standard Attribute

lang false true HTML Standard Attribute

onclick false true HTML Event Attribute

ondblclick false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeydown false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeypress false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeyup false true HTML Event Attribute

onmousedown false true HTML Event Attribute

onmousemove false true HTML Event Attribute

onmouseout false true HTML Event Attribute

onmouseover false true HTML Event Attribute

onmouseup false true HTML Event Attribute

path true true Path to errors object for data binding

tabindex false true HTML Standard Attribute

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 678/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Attribute Required? Runtime Description

Expression?

title false true HTML Standard Attribute

44.10 The option tag

Renders a single HTML 'option'. Sets 'selected' as appropriate based on bound value.

Table 44.9. Attributes

Attribute Required? Runtime Description

Expression?

cssClass false true Equivalent to "class" - HTML Optional Attribute

cssErrorClass false true Equivalent to "class" - HTML Optional Attribute. Used when the bound ﬁeld has
errors.

cssStyle false true Equivalent to "style" - HTML Optional Attribute

dir false true HTML Standard Attribute

disabled false true HTML Optional Attribute. Setting the value of this attribute to 'true' will disable the
HTML element.

htmlEscape false true Enable/disable HTML escaping of rendered values.

id false true HTML Standard Attribute

label false true HTML Optional Attribute

lang false true HTML Standard Attribute

onclick false true HTML Event Attribute

ondblclick false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeydown false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeypress false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeyup false true HTML Event Attribute

onmousedown false true HTML Event Attribute

onmousemove false true HTML Event Attribute

onmouseout false true HTML Event Attribute

onmouseover false true HTML Event Attribute

onmouseup false true HTML Event Attribute

tabindex false true HTML Standard Attribute

title false true HTML Standard Attribute

value true true HTML Optional Attribute

44.11 The options tag

Renders a list of HTML 'option' tags. Sets 'selected' as appropriate based on bound value.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 679/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Table 44.10. Attributes

Attribute Required? Runtime Description

Expression?

cssClass false true Equivalent to "class" - HTML Optional Attribute

cssErrorClass false true Equivalent to "class" - HTML Optional Attribute. Used when the bound ﬁeld has
errors.

cssStyle false true Equivalent to "style" - HTML Optional Attribute

dir false true HTML Standard Attribute

disabled false true HTML Optional Attribute. Setting the value of this attribute to 'true' will disable the
HTML element.

htmlEscape false true Enable/disable HTML escaping of rendered values.

id false true HTML Standard Attribute

itemLabel false true Name of the property mapped to the inner text of the 'option' tag

items true true The Collection, Map or array of objects used to generate the inner 'option' tags

itemValue false true Name of the property mapped to 'value' attribute of the 'option' tag

lang false true HTML Standard Attribute

onclick false true HTML Event Attribute

ondblclick false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeydown false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeypress false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeyup false true HTML Event Attribute

onmousedown false true HTML Event Attribute

onmousemove false true HTML Event Attribute

onmouseout false true HTML Event Attribute

onmouseover false true HTML Event Attribute

onmouseup false true HTML Event Attribute

tabindex false true HTML Standard Attribute

title false true HTML Standard Attribute

44.12 The password tag

Renders an HTML 'input' tag with type 'password' using the bound value.

Table 44.11. Attributes

Attribute Required? Runtime Description

Expression?

accesskey false true HTML Standard Attribute

alt false true HTML Optional Attribute

autocomplete false true Common Optional Attribute

cssClass false true Equivalent to "class" - HTML Optional Attribute

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 680/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Attribute Required? Runtime Description

Expression?

cssErrorClass false true Equivalent to "class" - HTML Optional Attribute. Used when the bound ﬁeld has
errors.

cssStyle false true Equivalent to "style" - HTML Optional Attribute

dir false true HTML Standard Attribute

disabled false true HTML Optional Attribute. Setting the value of this attribute to 'true' will disable the
HTML element.

htmlEscape false true Enable/disable HTML escaping of rendered values.

id false true HTML Standard Attribute

lang false true HTML Standard Attribute

maxlength false true HTML Optional Attribute

onblur false true HTML Event Attribute

onchange false true HTML Event Attribute

onclick false true HTML Event Attribute

ondblclick false true HTML Event Attribute

onfocus false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeydown false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeypress false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeyup false true HTML Event Attribute

onmousedown false true HTML Event Attribute

onmousemove false true HTML Event Attribute

onmouseout false true HTML Event Attribute

onmouseover false true HTML Event Attribute

onmouseup false true HTML Event Attribute

onselect false true HTML Event Attribute

path true true Path to property for data binding

readonly false true HTML Optional Attribute. Setting the value of this attribute to 'true' will make the
HTML element readonly.

showPassword false true Is the password value to be shown? Defaults to false.

size false true HTML Optional Attribute

tabindex false true HTML Standard Attribute

title false true HTML Standard Attribute

44.13 The radiobutton tag

Renders an HTML 'input' tag with type 'radio'.

Table 44.12. Attributes

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 681/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Attribute Required? Runtime Description

Expression?

accesskey false true HTML Standard Attribute

cssClass false true Equivalent to "class" - HTML Optional Attribute

cssErrorClass false true Equivalent to "class" - HTML Optional Attribute. Used when the bound ﬁeld has
errors.

cssStyle false true Equivalent to "style" - HTML Optional Attribute

dir false true HTML Standard Attribute

disabled false true HTML Optional Attribute. Setting the value of this attribute to 'true' will disable the
HTML element.

htmlEscape false true Enable/disable HTML escaping of rendered values.

id false true HTML Standard Attribute

label false true Value to be displayed as part of the tag

lang false true HTML Standard Attribute

onblur false true HTML Event Attribute

onchange false true HTML Event Attribute

onclick false true HTML Event Attribute

ondblclick false true HTML Event Attribute

onfocus false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeydown false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeypress false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeyup false true HTML Event Attribute

onmousedown false true HTML Event Attribute

onmousemove false true HTML Event Attribute

onmouseout false true HTML Event Attribute

onmouseover false true HTML Event Attribute

onmouseup false true HTML Event Attribute

path true true Path to property for data binding

tabindex false true HTML Standard Attribute

title false true HTML Standard Attribute

value false true HTML Optional Attribute

44.14 The radiobuttons tag

Renders multiple HTML 'input' tags with type 'radio'.

Table 44.13. Attributes

Attribute Required? Runtime Description

Expression?

accesskey false true HTML Standard Attribute

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 682/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation

Attribute Required? Runtime Description

Expression?

cssClass false true Equivalent to "class" - HTML Optional Attribute

cssErrorClass false true Equivalent to "class" - HTML Optional Attribute. Used when the bound ﬁeld has
errors.

cssStyle false true Equivalent to "style" - HTML Optional Attribute

delimiter false true Delimiter to use between each 'input' tag with type 'radio'. There is no delimiter by
default.

dir false true HTML Standard Attribute

disabled false true HTML Optional Attribute. Setting the value of this attribute to 'true' will disable the
HTML element.

element false true Speciﬁes the HTML element that is used to enclose each 'input' tag with type 'radio'.
Defaults to 'span'.

htmlEscape false true Enable/disable HTML escaping of rendered values.

id false true HTML Standard Attribute

itemLabel false true Value to be displayed as part of the 'input' tags with type 'radio'

items true true The Collection, Map or array of objects used to generate the 'input' tags with type
'radio'

itemValue false true Name of the property mapped to 'value' attribute of the 'input' tags with type 'radio'

lang false true HTML Standard Attribute

onblur false true HTML Event Attribute

onchange false true HTML Event Attribute

onclick false true HTML Event Attribute

ondblclick false true HTML Event Attribute

onfocus false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeydown false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeypress false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeyup false true HTML Event Attribute

onmousedown false true HTML Event Attribute

onmousemove false true HTML Event Attribute

onmouseout false true HTML Event Attribute

onmouseover false true HTML Event Attribute

onmouseup false true HTML Event Attribute

path true true Path to property for data binding

tabindex false true HTML Standard Attribute

title false true HTML Standard Attribute

44.15 The select tag

Renders an HTML 'select' element. Supports databinding to the selected option.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 683/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Table 44.14. Attributes

Attribute Required? Runtime Description

Expression?

accesskey false true HTML Standard Attribute

cssClass false true Equivalent to "class" - HTML Optional Attribute

cssErrorClass false true Equivalent to "class" - HTML Optional Attribute. Used when the bound ﬁeld has
errors.

cssStyle false true Equivalent to "style" - HTML Optional Attribute

dir false true HTML Standard Attribute

disabled false true HTML Optional Attribute. Setting the value of this attribute to 'true' will disable the
HTML element.

htmlEscape false true Enable/disable HTML escaping of rendered values.

id false true HTML Standard Attribute

itemLabel false true Name of the property mapped to the inner text of the 'option' tag

items false true The Collection, Map or array of objects used to generate the inner 'option' tags

itemValue false true Name of the property mapped to 'value' attribute of the 'option' tag

lang false true HTML Standard Attribute

multiple false true HTML Optional Attribute

onblur false true HTML Event Attribute

onchange false true HTML Event Attribute

onclick false true HTML Event Attribute

ondblclick false true HTML Event Attribute

onfocus false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeydown false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeypress false true HTML Event Attribute

onkeyup false true HTML Event Attribute

onmousedown false true HTML Event Attribute

onmousemove false true HTML Event Attribute

onmouseout false true HTML Event Attribute

onmouseover false true HTML Event Attribute

onmouseup false true HTML Event Attribute

path true true Path to property for data binding

size false true HTML Optional Attribute

tabindex false true HTML Standard Attribute

title false true HTML Standard Attribute

44.16 The textarea tag

Renders an HTML 'textarea'.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/#beans-introduction 684/685
9/27/2017 Spring Framework Reference Documentation
Table 44.15. Attributes