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.

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>4.3.1.BUILD-SNAPSHOT</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:

<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>

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>4.3.1.BUILD-SNAPSHOT</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>

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

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:4.3.1.BUILD-SNAPSHOT")
    testCompile("org.springframework:spring-test:4.3.1.BUILD-SNAPSHOT")
}

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:

<resolvers>
    <ibiblio name="io.spring.repo.maven.release"
            m2compatible="true"
            root="http://repo.spring.io/release/"/>
</resolvers>

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="4.3.1.BUILD-SNAPSHOT" conf="compile->runtime"/>

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.

Unfortunately, the runtime discovery algorithm in commons-logging, while convenient for the end-user, is problematic. If we could turn back the clock and start Spring now as a new project it would use a different logging dependency. The first choice would probably be the Simple Logging Facade for Java ( SLF4J), which is also used by a lot of other tools that people use with Spring inside their applications.

There are basically two ways to switch off commons-logging:

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

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
        <version>4.3.1.BUILD-SNAPSHOT</version>
        <exclusions>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>commons-logging</groupId>
                <artifactId>commons-logging</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
        </exclusions>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

Now this application is probably 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 as an example.

SLF4J is a cleaner dependency and more efficient at runtime than commons-logging because it uses compile-time bindings instead of runtime discovery of the other logging frameworks it integrates. This also means that you have to be more explicit about what you want to happen at runtime, and declare it or configure it accordingly. SLF4J provides bindings to many common logging frameworks, so you can usually choose one that you already use, and bind to that for configuration and management.

SLF4J provides bindings to many common logging frameworks, including JCL, 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 4 dependencies (and exclude the existing commons-logging): the bridge, the SLF4J API, the binding to Log4J, and the Log4J implementation itself. In Maven you would do that like this

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
        <version>4.3.1.BUILD-SNAPSHOT</version>
        <exclusions>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>commons-logging</groupId>
                <artifactId>commons-logging</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
        </exclusions>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
        <artifactId>jcl-over-slf4j</artifactId>
        <version>1.5.8</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
        <artifactId>slf4j-api</artifactId>
        <version>1.5.8</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
        <artifactId>slf4j-log4j12</artifactId>
        <version>1.5.8</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>log4j</groupId>
        <artifactId>log4j</artifactId>
        <version>1.2.14</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

That might seem like a lot of dependencies just to get some logging. Well it is, but it is optional, and it should behave better than the vanilla commons-logging with respect to classloader issues, notably if you are in a strict container like an OSGi platform. Allegedly there is also a performance benefit because the bindings are at compile-time not runtime.

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 two libraries not four ( jcl-over-slf4j and logback). If you do that you might also need to exclude the slf4j-api dependency from other external dependencies (not Spring), because you only want one version of that API on the classpath.

Many people use Log4j as a logging framework for configuration and management purposes. It’s efficient and well-established, and in fact it’s what we use at runtime when we build and test 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 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>4.3.1.BUILD-SNAPSHOT</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>log4j</groupId>
        <artifactId>log4j</artifactId>
        <version>1.2.14</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

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:

<beans>
    <import resource="services.xml"/>
    <import resource="resources/messageSource.xml"/>
    <import resource="/resources/themeSource.xml"/>

    <bean id="bean1" class="..."/>
    <bean id="bean2" class="..."/>
</beans>

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.

Note

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.

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"/>
<alias name="subsystemA-dataSource" alias="myApp-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.

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 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.

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.

<bean id="clientService"
    class="examples.ClientService"
    factory-method="createInstance"/>

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.

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.

<!-- the factory bean, which contains a method called createInstance() -->
<bean id="serviceLocator" class="examples.DefaultServiceLocator">
    <!-- inject any dependencies required by this locator bean -->
</bean>

<!-- the bean to be created via the factory bean -->
<bean id="clientService"
    factory-bean="serviceLocator"
    factory-method="createClientServiceInstance"/>

public class DefaultServiceLocator {

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

    public ClientService createClientServiceInstance() {
        return clientService;
    }
}

One factory class can also hold more than one factory method as shown here:

<bean id="serviceLocator" class="examples.DefaultServiceLocator">
    <!-- inject any dependencies required by this locator bean -->
</bean>

<bean id="clientService"
    factory-bean="serviceLocator"
    factory-method="createClientServiceInstance"/>

<bean id="accountService"
    factory-bean="serviceLocator"
    factory-method="createAccountServiceInstance"/>

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.

	Note
	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.

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. 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...

}

package x.y;

public class Foo {

    public Foo(Bar bar, Baz baz) {
        // ...
    }

}

<beans>
    <bean id="foo" class="x.y.Foo">
        <constructor-arg ref="bar"/>
        <constructor-arg ref="baz"/>
    </bean>

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

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

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;
    }

}

<bean id="exampleBean" class="examples.ExampleBean">
    <constructor-arg type="int" value="7500000"/>
    <constructor-arg type="java.lang.String" value="42"/>
</bean>

<bean id="exampleBean" class="examples.ExampleBean">
    <constructor-arg index="0" value="7500000"/>
    <constructor-arg index="1" value="42"/>
</bean>

<bean id="exampleBean" class="examples.ExampleBean">
    <constructor-arg name="years" value="7500000"/>
    <constructor-arg name="ultimateAnswer" value="42"/>
</bean>

package examples;

public class ExampleBean {

    // Fields omitted

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

}

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...

}

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.

The container performs bean dependency resolution as follows:

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.

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 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.

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">
    <!-- setter injection using the nested ref element -->
    <property name="beanOne">
        <ref bean="anotherExampleBean"/>
    </property>

    <!-- setter injection using the neater ref attribute -->
    <property name="beanTwo" ref="yetAnotherBean"/>
    <property name="integerProperty" value="1"/>
</bean>

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

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 injection using the nested ref element -->
    <constructor-arg>
        <ref bean="anotherExampleBean"/>
    </constructor-arg>

    <!-- constructor injection using the neater ref attribute -->
    <constructor-arg ref="yetAnotherBean"/>

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

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

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"/>
<bean id="yetAnotherBean" class="examples.YetAnotherBean"/>

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.

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">
    <!-- results in a setDriverClassName(String) call -->
    <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.

<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xmlns:p="http://www.springframework.org/schema/p"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd">

    <bean id="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:

<bean id="mappings"
    class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer">

    <!-- typed as a java.util.Properties -->
    <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="...">
    <property name="targetName">
        <idref bean="theTargetBean" />
    </property>
</bean>

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

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

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

	Note
	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.

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.

<ref bean="someBean"/>

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.

<!-- in the parent context -->
<bean id="accountService" class="com.foo.SimpleAccountService">
    <!-- insert dependencies as required as here -->
</bean>

<!-- in the child (descendant) context -->
<bean id="accountService" <!-- bean name is the same as the parent bean -->
    class="org.springframework.aop.framework.ProxyFactoryBean">
    <property name="target">
        <ref parent="accountService"/> <!-- notice how we refer to the parent bean -->
    </property>
    <!-- insert other configuration and dependencies as required here -->
</bean>