Bean properties initialization in spring.xml

In this post, i am going to explain, how to create beans using spring ClassPathXmlApplicationContext and initialze bean properties in spring.xml file.

Step 1 : Create new maven project “spring_tuorial”. Project structure looks like below.

Step 2 : Update “pom.xml” file for maven dependencies.

pom.xml

<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
 xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd"> 
 <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion> 
 <groupId>spring_tutorial</groupId> 
 <artifactId>spring_tutorial</artifactId> 
 <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version> 
 <packaging>war</packaging> 
 <name>spring_tutorial</name> 
 <description>spring_tutorial</description> 
 <properties> 
  <org.springframework-version>4.1.5.RELEASE</org.springframework-version> 
 </properties> 

 <dependencies> 
  <dependency> 
   <groupId>org.springframework</groupId> 
   <artifactId>spring-context</artifactId> 
   <version>${org.springframework-version}</version> 
  </dependency> 

 </dependencies> 
</project>

Step 3: Create new package “com.springtutorial.model” under “src/main/java”.

Step 4: Create “Employee” class under the package “com.springtutorial.model”.

package com.springtutorial.model; 

public class Employee { 
  private String firstName; 
  private String lastName; 
  private int id; 

  public String getFirstName() { 
    return firstName; 
  } 

  public void setFirstName(String firstName) { 
    this.firstName = firstName; 
  } 
 
  public String getLastName() { 
    return lastName; 
  } 

  public void setLastName(String lastName) { 
    this.lastName = lastName; 
  } 

  public int getId() { 
    return id; 
  } 

  public void setId(int id) { 
    this.id = id; 
  } 

  @Override 
  public String toString() { 
    StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder(); 
    builder.append("Employee [firstName=").append(firstName).append(", lastName=").append(lastName) 
        .append(", id=").append(id).append("]"); 
    return builder.toString(); 
  } 

} 

Step 5 : Create “spring.xml” file in “src/main/resources”.

spring.xml

<?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-3.0.xsd"> 

   <bean id="employee1" class="com.springtutorial.model.Employee"> 
     <property name="firstName" value="Hari Krishna" /> 
     <property name="lastName" value="Gurram" /> 
     <property name="id" value="553" /> 
   </bean> 
   
   <bean id="employee2" class="com.springtutorial.model.Employee"> 
     <property name="firstName" value="Siva Krishna" /> 
     <property name="lastName" value="Ponnam" /> 
     <property name="id" value="512" /> 
   </bean> 
   
</beans>

"spring.xml" is used to assign unique IDs to different beans, to control the creation of objects with different values.

         <bean id="employee1" class="com.springtutorial.model.Employee">

                  <property name="firstName" value="Hari Krishna" />

                  <property name="lastName" value="Gurram" />

                  <property name="id" value="553" />

          </bean>

Above statement creates bean for Employee class, it can be accessed with id "employee1",properties of bean assigned to instance variables of class Employee.

You have to make sure that “spring.xml” file is available in CLASSPATH and use the same name in main application while creating application context as shown in Main.java file.

Step 6 : Create package “com.springtutorial.main” under “src/main/java”.

Step 7 : Create Main class under package “com.springtutorial.main”.

package com.springtutorial.main; 

package com.springtutorial.main; 

import org.springframework.context.ApplicationContext; 
import org.springframework.context.support.ClassPathXmlApplicationContext; 

import com.springtutorial.model.Employee; 

public class Main { 
  public static void main(String args[]) { 
    ApplicationContext context = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("spring.xml"); 

    Employee emp1 = (Employee) context.getBean("employee1"); 
    Employee emp2 = (Employee) context.getBean("employee2"); 

    System.out.println(emp1); 
    System.out.println(emp2); 
  } 
} 

ApplicationContext context = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("spring.xml");

Loads the definitions from the given XML file and automatically refreshing the context.

context.getBean("employee1");

Returns the instance of the bean configured in “spring.xml”.

Step 8 : Run Main.java,you will get output like below.

Mar 22, 2015 7:21:18 PM org.springframework.context.support.ClassPathXmlApplicationContext prepareRefresh 
INFO: Refreshing org.springframework.context.support.ClassPathXmlApplicationContext@1509f8b: startup date [Sun Mar 22 19:21:18 IST 2015]; root of context hierarchy 
Mar 22, 2015 7:21:18 PM org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.XmlBeanDefinitionReader loadBeanDefinitions 
INFO: Loading XML bean definitions from class path resource [spring.xml] 
Employee [firstName=Hari Krishna, lastName=Gurram, id=553] 
Employee [firstName=Siva Krishna, lastName=Ponnam, id=512] 

Final project structure looks like below.

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