February 14, 2022

Spring @Configuration Annotation

Spring @Configuration annotation helps in creating Java based configuration in Spring rather than relying on XML based configuration. Any class annotated with @Configuration indicates that a class declares one or more @Bean methods that are processed by the Spring container to generate bean definitions and manage the overall bean lifecycle.

How to use @Configuration annotation in Spring

@Configuration
public class AppConfig {
  @Bean
  public MyBean myBean() {
    return new MyBean();
  }
}

Here AppConfig class is annotated with @Configuration indicating that it declares bean methods. In the class that method is myBean() annotated with @Bean annotation. Spring container creates and manages this bean instance.

How to bootstrap @Configuration classes

@Configuration classes are typically bootstrapped using either AnnotationConfigApplicationContext or its web-capable variant, AnnotationConfigWebApplicationContext.

If we take the Configuration as used above for AppConfig and try to bootstrap it then it can be done as given below-

public class App {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    AnnotationConfigApplicationContext ctx = new AnnotationConfigApplicationContext();
    ctx.register(AppConfig.class);
    ctx.refresh();
    MyBean myBean = ctx.getBean("myBean", MyBean.class);
    myBean.myMethod();
    ctx.close();
  }
}
MyBean.java
public class MyBean {
  public void myMethod() {
    System.out.println("In MyMethod of MyBean class");
  }
}

Spring @Configuration annotation example

Here is another example showing how to use @Configuration along with @Autowired and @Component annotations. This example shows the layered architecture having Service and DAO layers.

@Service
public class UserService {
  @Autowired
  UserDAO userDAO;

  public void getUsers() {
    userDAO.getUsers();
  }
}
UserDAO Interface
public interface UserDAO {
  public void getUsers();
}
UserDAOImpl.java
@Repository
public class UserDAOImpl implements UserDAO {
  public void getUsers() {
    System.out.println("In getUsers method, connect to DB and get data");
  }
}
Configuration class

Appconfig class is annotated with @Configuration indicating that it is the class providing bean configuration. There is also a @ComponentScan annotation with the package to scan for bean definitions. Because of component scanning classes annotated with @Repository, @Service, @Component are automatically registered as beans.

@Configuration
@ComponentScan(basePackages="com.knpcode")
public class AppConfig {

}

Now you can run the example using the following class.

public class App {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    AnnotationConfigApplicationContext ctx = new AnnotationConfigApplicationContext(AppConfig.class);
    UserService userService = ctx.getBean("userService", UserService.class);
    userService.getUsers();
    ctx.close();
  }
}
Output
14:21:11.584 [main] DEBUG org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory - Returning cached instance of singleton bean 'userDAO'
14:21:11.586 [main] DEBUG org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory - Returning cached instance of singleton bean 'org.springframework.context.event.internalEventListenerFactory'
14:21:11.891 [main] DEBUG org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory - Returning cached instance of singleton bean 'lifecycleProcessor'
14:21:11.909 [main] DEBUG org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory - Returning cached instance of singleton bean 'userService'
In getUsers method, connect to DB and get data

That's all for the topic Spring @Configuration Annotation. If something is missing or you have something to share about the topic please write a comment.


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