multiple xml configuration files

[egauthier]

Hello,
Is it possible to use multiple xml configuration files for one context?
I have a very large config file that I would like to cut in separate parts but i need to make cross references between beans defined in the different parts.

thanks

[Ben Alex]

See Spring Reference Guide section 3.15, "Creating an ApplicationContext from a web application", for details on how to do this in a webapp.

In a non-webapp situation (eg unit test) you just do this:

private String[] configLocations = {"/appctx-datastore.xml", "/appctx-security-relaxed.xml"};
new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext(configLocations);

[davidr]

And can we reference beans from one file to another?

[davidr]

I found a post that indicatees that this is doable but when we tried it and we used <ref bean= instead of ref local, but we still got an error from Spring telling us:
"An element with the identifier "primaryDataSource" must appear in the document."

[rafeco]

It definitely works. You can reference beans from one file to another. You need to use "ref bean" instead of "ref local" and I think you also need to give your beans ids instead of names.

[davidr]

I have given the beans ids and not names and the error i am getting is from the XML parser. Perhaps it is the opposite, that i should use names instead of id's? I guess we can try that

[cmgharris]

It definitely works with id's. None of my beans have names and I can reference them from one file to another.

[davidr]

what xml parser are you using?

[cmgharris]

I'm afraid I don't know. I imagine it's whatever comes with jboss. If you can tell me how to find out, I'll be happy to do that.

[rafeco]

It sounds like something is set up wrong. If you're using "ref bean" then the XML content handler shouldn't even try to resolve those references -- it should be handled at the next level up, after all of the files have been parsed.