Can one define a placeholder within configuration file

[dustoff]

Is it possible to define a placeholder within the Spring configuration file, say simliar to the Ant "property".

I understand how PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer works, but it is not always a beans property value that I want to shortcut.

I would like to shortcut a classname that I use repeatedly within the config.

Just some psuedo of what I am looking for:

<define property="thisclass" value="com.xyz.MyClass" />

<bean id="myId" class="${thisclass}" >
...
</bean>

Thanks for any info/solutions!

[Robert Schmelzer]

Hi,

I just had the same problem. I did not find a direct solution, but a I think I found a good work arround:

I implemented a BeanFactory, creating a class per Reflection. The class name can be set using a property. Of course, my simple implementation does only work with bean having no constructor parameter.

public class ReflectionFactory extends AbstractFactoryBean implements
    FactoryBean {

  private String className;

  public void setClassName(String className) {
    this.className = className;
  }

  protected Object createInstance() throws Exception {
    return getObjectType().newInstance();
  }

  public Class getObjectType() {
    try {
      return Class.forName(className);
    } catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
      throw new IllegalArgumentException("Given Classname " + className
          + " not found.", e);
    }
  }

}

greetings
Robert

[Robert Schmelzer]

I forgot:

Then you can use the factory bean in following way:

<bean id="namingStrategy" class="ReflectionFactory">
		<property name="className" value="$&#123;tas.namingStrategy&#125;" />
   </bean>

Robert

[ram_2000]

You can always use the parent attribute.

<bean id="baseId" class="yourpkg.yourclass" abstract="true"> 
...can specify any properties that should be reused... 
</bean> 

<bean id="myId" parent="baseId" > 
... can override properties from the base..
</bean>