Instantiating a container

Constructing application contexts from Resources

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");

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");

  1. 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.

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.

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();
}

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.class);
	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  {
   	...
}
Tip

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);
}
Note

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.

Web Apps

Convenient ApplicationContext instantiation for web applications (web.xml)

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>

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".

Support for web applications with AnnotationConfigWebApplicationContext

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>
	<!-- Configure ContextLoaderListener to use AnnotationConfigWebApplicationContext
		instead of the default XmlWebApplicationContext -->
	<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>

	<!-- Bootstrap the root application context as usual using ContextLoaderListener -->
	<listener>
		<listener-class>org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener</listener-class>
	</listener>

	<!-- Declare a Spring MVC DispatcherServlet as usual -->
	<servlet>
		<servlet-name>dispatcher</servlet-name>
		<servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
		<!-- Configure DispatcherServlet to use AnnotationConfigWebApplicationContext
			instead of the default XmlWebApplicationContext -->
		<init-param>
			<param-name>contextClass</param-name>
			<param-value>
				org.springframework.web.context.support.AnnotationConfigWebApplicationContext
			</param-value>
		</init-param>
		<!-- Again, config locations must consist of one or more comma- or space-delimited
			and fully-qualified @Configuration classes -->
		<init-param>
			<param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
			<param-value>com.acme.web.MvcConfig</param-value>
		</init-param>
	</servlet>

	<!-- map all requests for /app/* to the dispatcher servlet -->
	<servlet-mapping>
		<servlet-name>dispatcher</servlet-name>
		<url-pattern>/app/*</url-pattern>
	</servlet-mapping>
</web-app>

Code-based Servlet 3.0+ 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();
		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.

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