Scripting the container configuration file.

[alruiz15]

Hello everyone,
Are there any plans to add support for scripting languages for the configuration file of the Spring container? For example, use Jython instead of XML to write the configuration file.

Thanks,
Alex.

[Alef Arendsen]

Yes there are...

We're currently thinking about Groovy, Java an possibly also Jython... But this won't be done before at the earliest release 1.2 I guess

alef

[klr8]

Java configuration would be using BeanShell I guess?

Erwin

[Yan Weng]

Alex,

Inspired by this blog http://www.almaer.com/blog/archives/000356.html, I tried to implement a basic JythonBeanFactory in the last weekend. By reading the source code of Jython utility package, I finally make this BeanFactory work.

Basically, the configuraiton(ApplicaitionContext.py) looks like this:

from JythonContextUtil import getBeansList
beans_list = {}

# Real Configuration. 
from java import util
d = util.Date()
beans_list["d"] = d

from org.apache.commons.dbcp import BasicDataSource 
myDataSource = BasicDataSource(
	driverClassName = "com.mysql.jdbc.Driver",
	url="jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/xplanner",
	username="test",
	password="test"
)
beans_list["datasource"] = myDataSource

#	convert beans_list to java Map
beanlist = getBeansList(beans_list)

From Java side, we can use "getBean" method to get the real java instance.

BeanFactory factory = new JythonBeanFactory("ApplicaitionContext.py");
Date d = (Date)factory.getBean("d");
System.out.println(d);
        
DataSource datasource = (DataSource) factory.getBean("datasource");

The way I implement the BeanFactory is using a PyDictionary object to store PyObjects or Java instances created in Jython file, then convert it to Java Map object in the JythonBeanFactory. In the above "ApplicaitionContext.py" file, we actually get two beans, whose names are "d" and "datasource".

cheers,

Yan

[alruiz15]

Thank you very much Yan!! Your post is very helpful and I'm going to follow your approach.

Best regards,
Alex.