@Autowired does not work with my SOAP handler class. Throws a nullPointerException?

[sachin.nayak]

This is my SOAP Handler class to generate security service handlers for a CRM. Everything was working fine as I hard coded my credentials - Username & Password. Now I tried to remove the hard-coding by defining the credentials in a properties file and autowiring it in this class. This method is not working and Spring throws a NullPointerExc (autowiring not happening I guess!) everytime I try to access my CRM. Why does @Autowired not work here while it works perfectly well my @Service, @Controller classes? Here is my code:

package com.myPortlet.crmService;

import java.util.Properties;

import javax.xml.namespace.QName;
import javax.xml.soap.SOAPElement;
import javax.xml.soap.SOAPEnvelope;
import javax.xml.soap.SOAPFactory;
import javax.xml.soap.SOAPHeader;
import javax.xml.ws.handler.MessageContext;
import javax.xml.ws.handler.soap.SOAPHandler;
import javax.xml.ws.handler.soap.SOAPMessageContext;

import org.slf4j.Logger;
import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Component;

@Component
public class ECMClientHeaderHandler implements SOAPHandler<SOAPMessageContext> {

final static Logger logger = LoggerFactory
        .getLogger(ECMClientHeaderHandler.class);
private static final String AUTH_NS = "http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2002/12/secext";
private static final String AUTH_PREFIX = "wss";

public ECMClientHeaderHandler() {
}

public boolean handleFault(SOAPMessageContext smc) {
    return true;
}

public void close(MessageContext mc) {
}

@Autowired
private Properties applicationProperties;

public boolean handleMessage(SOAPMessageContext smc) {
    boolean direction = ((Boolean) smc
            .get(SOAPMessageContext.MESSAGE_OUTBOUND_PROPERTY))
            .booleanValue();

    String userName = applicationProperties.getProperty("myCRM.userName");  /*previously hard-coded*/
    String password = applicationProperties.getProperty("myCRM.password"); /*previously hard-coded*/
    logger.info("This is USERNAME:"+ userName);
    logger.info("This is PASSWORD:"+ password);

    if (direction) {
        try {
            SOAPEnvelope envelope = smc.getMessage().getSOAPPart()
                    .getEnvelope();
            SOAPFactory soapFactory = SOAPFactory.newInstance();

            // WSSecurity <Security> header
            SOAPElement wsSecHeaderElm = soapFactory.createElement(
                    "Security", AUTH_PREFIX, AUTH_NS);
            SOAPElement userNameTokenElm = soapFactory.createElement(
                    "UsernameToken", AUTH_PREFIX, AUTH_NS);
            SOAPElement userNameElm = soapFactory.createElement("Username",
                    AUTH_PREFIX, AUTH_NS);
            userNameElm.addTextNode(userName);

            SOAPElement passwdElm = soapFactory.createElement("Password",
                    AUTH_PREFIX, AUTH_NS);
            passwdElm.addTextNode(password);

            userNameTokenElm.addChildElement(userNameElm);
            userNameTokenElm.addChildElement(passwdElm);

            // add child elements to the root element
            wsSecHeaderElm.addChildElement(userNameTokenElm);

            // create SOAPHeader instance for SOAP envelope
            SOAPHeader sh;
            if(envelope.getHeader()==null){
                logger.info("SOAPHeader null.Add header");
                sh = envelope.addHeader();
            }else{
                logger.info("SOAPHeader already present");
                 sh = envelope.getHeader();
            }   

            // add SOAP element for header to SOAP header object
            sh.addChildElement(wsSecHeaderElm);

        } catch (Exception ex) {
            ex.printStackTrace();
            throw new RuntimeException(ex);
        }
    }
    return true;
}

public java.util.Set<QName> getHeaders() {
    return null;
}}

The "myCRM.userName" & "myCRM.password" is defined in my application.properties file. And the classPath of application.properties is defined in applicationContext.xml:

<util:properties id="applicationProperties" location="classpath:/i18n/application.properties"/>

I've tried declaring the class as a bean in my applicationContext.xml; Declaring my class to spring as @Component + <component-scan...> in my xml;passing values explicitly using @Value; Still it doesn't work. Throws null pointer Exception everytime!

What is going wrong?

[Marten Deinum]

What is going wrong?

Nothing...

The SoapHandler isn't managed by spring at least not the instance used that is constructed by Jax-WS and as such spring has no control. If you want spring to manage your handlers you also need spring to manage your jax-ws endpoint or make the SoapHandler @Configurable and use loadtime weaving to get the depenencies injected.