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spring-framework/src/reference/docbook/beans-extension-points.xml
Chris Beams 62e94461f4 Move reference docs => src/reference
This change eliminates the spring-framework-reference subproject, moving
these sources into the root project's own src directory.

This makes sense because the reference docs span all submodules, and
also because api Javadoc is created at the root project level as well.
This means that both api and reference documentation output will now
reside in the root project's 'build' directory. This is more consistent
and easy to discover.
2012-01-31 14:32:14 +01:00

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XML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE section PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.5//EN"
"http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd">
<section id="beans-factory-extension">
<title>Container Extension Points</title>
<para>Typically, an application developer does not need to subclass
<interfacename>ApplicationContext</interfacename> 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.</para>
<section id="beans-factory-extension-bpp">
<title>Customizing beans using a
<interfacename>BeanPostProcessor</interfacename></title>
<para>The <interfacename>BeanPostProcessor</interfacename> interface defines
<firstterm>callback methods</firstterm> 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 <interfacename>BeanPostProcessor</interfacename>
implementations.</para>
<para>You can configure multiple <literal>BeanPostProcessor</literal>
instances, and you can control the order in which these
<literal>BeanPostProcessor</literal>s execute by setting the
<literal>order</literal> property. You can set this property only if the
<interfacename>BeanPostProcessor</interfacename> implements the
<interfacename>Ordered</interfacename> interface; if you write your own
<interfacename>BeanPostProcessor</interfacename> you should consider
implementing the <interfacename>Ordered</interfacename> interface too. For
further details, consult the Javadoc for the
<interfacename>BeanPostProcessor</interfacename> and
<interfacename>Ordered</interfacename> interfaces. See also the note below on
<link linkend="beans-factory-programmatically-registering-beanpostprocessors">
programmatic registration of <interfacename>BeanPostProcessors</interfacename>
</link></para>
<note>
<para><literal>BeanPostProcessor</literal>s operate on bean (or object)
<emphasis>instances</emphasis>; that is to say, the Spring IoC container
instantiates a bean instance and <emphasis>then</emphasis>
<literal>BeanPostProcessor</literal>s do their work.</para>
<para><literal>BeanPostProcessor</literal>s are scoped
<emphasis>per-container</emphasis>. This is only relevant if you are
using container hierarchies. If you define a
<interfacename>BeanPostProcessor</interfacename> in one container, it
will <emphasis>only</emphasis> post-process the beans in that
container. In other words, beans that are defined in one container are not
post-processed by a <literal>BeanPostProcessor</literal> defined in another
container, even if both containers are part of the same hierarchy.</para>
<para>To change the actual bean definition (i.e., the
<emphasis>blueprint</emphasis> that defines the bean), you instead need to use a
<interfacename>BeanFactoryPostProcessor</interfacename> as described
in <xref linkend="beans-factory-extension-factory-postprocessors"
/>.</para>
</note>
<para>The
<interfacename>org.springframework.beans.factory.config.BeanPostProcessor</interfacename>
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 <emphasis>before</emphasis> container initialization
methods (such as InitializingBean's <emphasis>afterPropertiesSet()</emphasis>
and any declared init method) are called as well as <emphasis>after</emphasis>
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.</para>
<para>An <interfacename>ApplicationContext</interfacename>
<emphasis>automatically detects</emphasis> any beans that are defined in
the configuration metadata which implement the
<interfacename>BeanPostProcessor</interfacename> interface. The
<interfacename>ApplicationContext</interfacename> registers these beans as
post-processors so that they can be called later upon bean creation.
Bean post-processors can be deployed in the container just like any other
beans.</para>
<anchor id="beans-factory-programmatically-registering-beanpostprocessors"/>
<note>
<title>Programmatically registering <interfacename>BeanPostProcessors
</interfacename></title>
<para>
While the recommended approach for <interfacename>BeanPostProcessor
</interfacename> registration is through <interfacename>ApplicationContext
</interfacename> auto-detection (as described above), it is also
possible to register them <emphasis>programmatically</emphasis>
against an <interfacename>ApplicationContext</interfacename> using the
<methodname>addBeanPostProcessor</methodname> 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 <interfacename>BeanPostProcessors</interfacename> added
programmatically <emphasis>do not respect the <interfacename>Ordered
</interfacename> interface</emphasis>. Here it is the <emphasis>order of
registration</emphasis> that dictates the order of execution. Note also
that <interfacename>BeanPostProcessors</interfacename> registered
programmatically are always processed before those registered through
auto-detection, regardless of any explicit ordering.
</para>
</note>
<note>
<title><interfacename>BeanPostProcessors</interfacename> and AOP
auto-proxying</title>
<para>Classes that implement the
<interfacename>BeanPostProcessor</interfacename> interface are
<emphasis>special</emphasis> and are treated differently by the
container. All <interfacename>BeanPostProcessors</interfacename>
<emphasis>and beans that they reference directly</emphasis> are
instantiated on startup, as part of the special startup phase of the
<interfacename>ApplicationContext</interfacename>. Next, all
<interfacename>BeanPostProcessors</interfacename> are registered in a
sorted fashion and applied to all further beans in the container.
Because AOP auto-proxying is implemented as a
<interfacename>BeanPostProcessor</interfacename> itself, neither
<interfacename>BeanPostProcessors</interfacename> nor the beans they reference
directly are eligible for auto-proxying, and thus do not have aspects woven
into them.</para>
<para>For any such bean, you should see an informational log message:
<quote><emphasis>Bean foo is not eligible for getting processed by all
BeanPostProcessor interfaces (for example: not eligible for
auto-proxying)</emphasis></quote>.</para>
</note>
<para>The following examples show how to write, register, and use
<literal>BeanPostProcessors</literal> in an
<interfacename>ApplicationContext</interfacename>.</para>
<section id="beans-factory-extension-bpp-examples-hw">
<title>Example: Hello World,
<interfacename>BeanPostProcessor</interfacename>-style</title>
<para>This first example illustrates basic usage. The example shows a
custom <interfacename>BeanPostProcessor</interfacename> implementation
that invokes the <methodname>toString()</methodname> method of each bean
as it is created by the container and prints the resulting string to the
system console.</para>
<para>Find below the custom
<interfacename>BeanPostProcessor</interfacename> implementation class
definition:</para>
<programlisting language="java">package scripting;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.config.BeanPostProcessor;
import org.springframework.beans.BeansException;
public class InstantiationTracingBeanPostProcessor implements BeanPostProcessor {
<lineannotation>// simply return the instantiated bean as-is</lineannotation>
public Object postProcessBeforeInitialization(Object bean, String beanName)
throws BeansException {
return bean; <lineannotation>// we could potentially return <emphasis>any</emphasis> object reference here...</lineannotation>
}
public Object postProcessAfterInitialization(Object bean, String beanName)
throws BeansException {
System.out.println("Bean '" + beanName + "' created : " + bean.toString());
return bean;
}
}</programlisting>
<programlisting language="xml">&lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
&lt;beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:lang="http://www.springframework.org/schema/lang"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/lang
http://www.springframework.org/schema/lang/spring-lang-3.0.xsd"&gt;
&lt;lang:groovy id="messenger"
script-source="classpath:org/springframework/scripting/groovy/Messenger.groovy"&gt;
&lt;lang:property name="message" value="Fiona Apple Is Just So Dreamy."/&gt;
&lt;/lang:groovy&gt;
<lineannotation>&lt;!--
when the above bean (messenger) is instantiated, this custom
<interfacename>BeanPostProcessor</interfacename> implementation will output the fact to the system console
--&gt;</lineannotation>
&lt;bean class="scripting.InstantiationTracingBeanPostProcessor"/&gt;
&lt;/beans&gt;</programlisting>
<para>Notice how the
<classname>InstantiationTracingBeanPostProcessor</classname> 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 2.0 dynamic language support is detailed in the chapter entitled
<xref linkend="dynamic-language"/>.)</para>
<para>The following simple Java application executes the preceding code and
configuration:</para>
<programlisting language="java">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);
}
}</programlisting>
<para>The output of the preceding application resembles the
following:</para>
<programlisting>Bean 'messenger' created : org.springframework.scripting.groovy.GroovyMessenger@272961
org.springframework.scripting.groovy.GroovyMessenger@272961</programlisting>
</section>
<section id="beans-factory-extension-bpp-examples-rabpp">
<title>Example: The
<classname>RequiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor</classname></title>
<para>Using callback interfaces or annotations in conjunction with a
custom <interfacename>BeanPostProcessor</interfacename> implementation
is a common means of extending the Spring IoC container. An example is
Spring's <classname>RequiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor</classname> &mdash; a
<interfacename>BeanPostProcessor</interfacename> 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.</para>
</section>
</section>
<section id="beans-factory-extension-factory-postprocessors">
<title>Customizing configuration metadata with a
<interfacename>BeanFactoryPostProcessor</interfacename></title>
<para>The next extension point that we will look at is the
<interfacename>org.springframework.beans.factory.config.BeanFactoryPostProcessor</interfacename>.
The semantics of this interface are similar to those of the
<interfacename>BeanPostProcessor</interfacename>, with one major
difference: <literal>BeanFactoryPostProcessor</literal>s operate on the
<emphasis>bean configuration metadata</emphasis>; that is, the Spring IoC
container allows <literal>BeanFactoryPostProcessors</literal> to read the
configuration metadata and potentially change it
<emphasis>before</emphasis> the container instantiates any beans other
than <literal>BeanFactoryPostProcessors</literal>.</para>
<para>You can configure multiple
<literal>BeanFactoryPostProcessors</literal>, and you can control the order in
which these <literal>BeanFactoryPostProcessors</literal> execute by
setting the <literal>order</literal> property. However, you can only set
this property if the
<interfacename>BeanFactoryPostProcessor</interfacename> implements the
<interfacename>Ordered</interfacename> interface. If you write your own
<interfacename>BeanFactoryPostProcessor</interfacename>, you should
consider implementing the <interfacename>Ordered</interfacename> interface
too. Consult the Javadoc for the
<interfacename>BeanFactoryPostProcessor</interfacename> and
<interfacename>Ordered</interfacename> interfaces for more details.</para>
<note>
<para>If you want to change the actual bean <emphasis>instances</emphasis>
(i.e., the objects that are created from the configuration metadata), then you
instead need to use a <interfacename>BeanPostProcessor</interfacename>
(described above in <xref linkend="beans-factory-extension-bpp"/>). While
it is technically possible to work with bean instances within a
<interfacename>BeanFactoryPostProcessor</interfacename> (e.g., using
<methodname>BeanFactory.getBean()</methodname>), doing so causes
premature bean instantiation, violating the standard container lifecycle.
This may cause negative side effects such as bypassing bean post
processing.</para>
<para>Also, <literal>BeanFactoryPostProcessors</literal> are scoped
<emphasis>per-container</emphasis>. This is only relevant if you are
using container hierarchies. If you define a
<interfacename>BeanFactoryPostProcessor</interfacename> in one
container, it will <emphasis>only</emphasis> be applied to the bean
definitions in that container. Bean definitions in one container
will not be post-processed by
<literal>BeanFactoryPostProcessors</literal> in another container, even
if both containers are part of the same hierarchy.</para>
</note>
<para>A bean factory post-processor is executed automatically when it is
declared inside an <interfacename>ApplicationContext</interfacename>,
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 <classname>PropertyOverrideConfigurer</classname>
and <classname>PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer</classname>. A custom
<interfacename>BeanFactoryPostProcessor</interfacename> can also be used,
for example, to register custom property editors.</para>
<anchor id="beans-factory-autodetect-beanfactorypostprocessors"/>
<para>An <interfacename>ApplicationContext</interfacename> automatically
detects any beans that are deployed into it that implement the
<interfacename>BeanFactoryPostProcessor</interfacename> 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.</para>
<note>
<para>As with <interfacename>BeanPostProcessor</interfacename>s, you typically
do not want to configure <interfacename>BeanFactoryPostProcessor</interfacename>s
for lazy initialization. If no other bean references a
<interfacename>Bean(Factory)PostProcessor</interfacename>,
that post-processor will not get instantiated at all. Thus, marking it for
lazy initialization will be ignored, and the
<interfacename>Bean(Factory)PostProcessor</interfacename> will be
instantiated eagerly even if you set the <literal>default-lazy-init</literal>
attribute to <literal>true</literal> on the declaration of your
<code>&lt;beans /&gt;</code> element.</para>
</note>
<section id="beans-factory-placeholderconfigurer">
<title>Example: the
<interfacename>PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer</interfacename></title>
<para>You use the
<interfacename>PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer</interfacename> to
externalize property values from a bean definition in a separate
file using the standard Java <classname>Properties</classname> 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.</para>
<!-- MLP: Beverly to review following 2 paragraphs -->
<para>Consider the following XML-based configuration metadata fragment,
where a <interfacename>DataSource</interfacename> with placeholder
values is defined. The example shows properties configured from an
external <classname>Properties</classname> file. At runtime, a
<classname>PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer</classname> is applied to the
metadata that will replace some properties of the DataSource. The values
to replace are specified as <emphasis>placeholders</emphasis> of the form
${property-name} which follows the Ant / log4j / JSP EL style.</para>
<programlisting language="xml">&lt;bean class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer"&gt;
&lt;property name="locations" value="classpath:com/foo/jdbc.properties"/&gt;
&lt;/bean&gt;
&lt;bean id="dataSource" destroy-method="close"
class="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource"&gt;
&lt;property name="driverClassName" value="<emphasis role="bold">${jdbc.driverClassName}</emphasis>"/&gt;
&lt;property name="url" value="<emphasis role="bold">${jdbc.url}</emphasis>"/&gt;
&lt;property name="username" value="<emphasis role="bold">${jdbc.username}</emphasis>"/&gt;
&lt;property name="password" value="<emphasis role="bold">${jdbc.password}</emphasis>"/&gt;
&lt;/bean&gt;</programlisting>
<para>The actual values come from another file in the standard Java
<classname>Properties</classname> format:</para>
<programlisting>jdbc.driverClassName=org.hsqldb.jdbcDriver
jdbc.url=jdbc:hsqldb:hsql://production:9002
jdbc.username=sa
jdbc.password=root</programlisting>
<para>Therefore, the string <literal>${jdbc.username}</literal> is replaced
at runtime with the value 'sa', and the same applies for other placeholder
values that match keys in the properties file. The
<classname>PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer</classname> checks for
placeholders in most properties and attributes of a bean definition.
Furthermore, the placeholder prefix and suffix can be customized.</para>
<para>With the <literal>context</literal> 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 <literal>location</literal>
attribute.</para>
<programlisting language="xml">&lt;context:property-placeholder location="classpath:com/foo/jdbc.properties"/&gt;</programlisting>
<para>The <classname>PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer</classname> not only
looks for properties in the <classname>Properties</classname> file
you specify. By default it also checks against the Java
<classname>System</classname> properties if it cannot find a property
in the specified properties files. You can customize this behavior by setting the
<literal>systemPropertiesMode</literal> property of the configurer with
one of the following three supported integer values:
<!--What property is it overriding and what will replace the overridden value?-->
<!--MLP: override a value in the Properties with one from the 'systemProperties' -->
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para><emphasis>never</emphasis> (0): Never check system properties</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><emphasis>fallback</emphasis> (1): Check system properties if not resolvable in the specified properties files. This is the default.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><emphasis>override</emphasis> (2): Check system properties first, before trying the specified properties files. This allows system properties to override any other property source.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>
Consult the Javadoc for the <classname>PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer</classname>
for more information.</para>
<tip>
<title>Class name substitution</title>
<para>You can use the
<classname>PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer</classname> to substitute
class names, which is sometimes useful when you have to pick a
particular implementation class at runtime. For example:</para>
<programlisting language="xml">&lt;bean class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer"&gt;
&lt;property name="locations"&gt;
&lt;value&gt;classpath:com/foo/strategy.properties&lt;/value&gt;
&lt;/property&gt;
&lt;property name="properties"&gt;
&lt;value&gt;custom.strategy.class=com.foo.DefaultStrategy&lt;/value&gt;
&lt;/property&gt;
&lt;/bean&gt;
&lt;bean id="serviceStrategy" class="${custom.strategy.class}"/&gt;</programlisting>
<para>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 <methodname>preInstantiateSingletons()</methodname> phase
of an <interfacename>ApplicationContext</interfacename> for a
non-lazy-init bean.</para>
</tip>
</section>
<section id="beans-factory-overrideconfigurer">
<title>Example: the
<classname>PropertyOverrideConfigurer</classname></title>
<para>The <classname>PropertyOverrideConfigurer</classname>, another bean
factory post-processor, resembles the
<interfacename>PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer</interfacename>, but unlike
the latter, the original definitions can have default values or no
values at all for bean properties. If an overriding
<classname>Properties</classname> file does not have an entry for a
certain bean property, the default context definition is used.</para>
<para>Note that the bean definition is <emphasis>not</emphasis> 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 <classname>PropertyOverrideConfigurer</classname> instances
that define different values for the same bean property, the last one
wins, due to the overriding mechanism.</para>
<para>Properties file configuration lines take this format:</para>
<programlisting language="java">beanName.property=value</programlisting>
<para>For example:</para>
<programlisting language="java">dataSource.driverClassName=com.mysql.jdbc.Driver
dataSource.url=jdbc:mysql:mydb</programlisting>
<para>This example file can be used with a container definition that
contains a bean called <emphasis>dataSource</emphasis>, which has
<emphasis>driver</emphasis> and <emphasis>url</emphasis>
properties.</para>
<para>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...</para>
<programlisting language="java">foo.fred.bob.sammy=123</programlisting>
<para>... the <literal>sammy</literal> property of the
<literal>bob</literal> property of the <literal>fred</literal> property
of the <literal>foo</literal> bean is set to the scalar value
<literal>123</literal>.</para>
<note>
<para>Specified override values are always <emphasis>literal</emphasis>
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.</para>
</note>
<para>With the <literal>context</literal> namespace introduced in Spring
2.5, it is possible to configure property overriding with a dedicated
configuration element:</para>
<programlisting language="xml">&lt;context:property-override location="classpath:override.properties"/&gt;</programlisting>
</section>
</section>
<section id="beans-factory-extension-factorybean">
<title>Customizing instantiation logic with a
<interfacename>FactoryBean</interfacename></title>
<para>Implement the
<interfacename>org.springframework.beans.factory.FactoryBean</interfacename>
interface for objects that <emphasis>are themselves
factories</emphasis>.</para>
<para>The <interfacename>FactoryBean</interfacename> 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
<interfacename>FactoryBean</interfacename>, write the complex
initialization inside that class, and then plug your custom
<interfacename>FactoryBean</interfacename> into the container.</para>
<para>The <interfacename>FactoryBean</interfacename> interface provides
three methods:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para><methodname>Object getObject()</methodname>: returns an instance
of the object this factory creates. The instance can possibly be
shared, depending on whether this factory returns singletons or
prototypes.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><methodname>boolean isSingleton()</methodname>: returns
<literal>true</literal> if this
<interfacename>FactoryBean</interfacename> returns singletons,
<literal>false</literal> otherwise.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><methodname>Class getObjectType()</methodname>: returns the object
type returned by the <methodname>getObject()</methodname> method or
<literal>null</literal> if the type is not known in advance.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>The <interfacename>FactoryBean</interfacename> concept and interface
is used in a number of places within the Spring Framework; more than 50
implementations of the <interfacename>FactoryBean</interfacename>
interface ship with Spring itself.</para>
<para>When you need to ask a container for an actual
<interfacename>FactoryBean</interfacename> instance itself instead of the bean
it produces, preface the bean's id with the ampersand symbol
(<literal>&amp;</literal>) when calling the
<methodname>getBean()</methodname> method of the
<interfacename>ApplicationContext</interfacename>. So for a given
<interfacename>FactoryBean</interfacename> with an id of
<literal>myBean</literal>, invoking <literal>getBean("myBean")</literal>
on the container returns the product of the
<interfacename>FactoryBean</interfacename>; whereas, invoking
<literal>getBean("&amp;myBean")</literal> returns the
<interfacename>FactoryBean</interfacename> instance
itself.<!--Moved ApplicationContext section to almost the end of the doc, right before BeanFactory and renamed it Additional Capabilities of.--></para>
</section>
</section>