Accessing ApplicationContext / Beanfactory

[sneumi]

Hi,

my question can be nearly summarized by this thread: http://forum.springframework.org/showthread.php?t=27884

What we need to do is to get a bean which cannot be injected since the class is instantiated by a 3rd party tool. Therefore we need to have a BeanFactory. Since we don't want to create a new BeanFactory by writing

BeanFactory bf = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("applicationContext.xml");
bf.getBean("userDAO");

But one ApplicationContext is created in a tomcat application server:

<context-param>
  <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
  <param-value>/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml</param-value>
</context-param>

<listener>
  <listener-class>
     org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener
   </listener-class>
</listener>

<servlet>
  <servlet-name>jobs</servlet-name>
  <servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
    <init-param>
      <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
      <param-value>/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml</param-value>
    </init-param>			
  <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>

How can I access the BeanFactory, which is only _once_ created?

[cwilkes]

What we need to do is to get a bean which cannot be injected since the class is instantiated by a 3rd party tool.

I'm not sure what you mean by that. How are you normally supposed to get this class created by this third party tool? What tool is it?

[sneumi]

I'm not sure what you mean by that. How are you normally supposed to get this class created by this third party tool? What tool is it?

We have several 3rd party tools, which just remember the class and instantiate these by themself.

eg.:

* Hibernate Validator

We need to write an validator, which access the database to validate a unique username.

* Quartz

(I guess you know) Jobs, which write data into the database.

[Marten Deinum]

Let the Spring configured class which needs access to the ApplicationCOntext implement the ApplicationContextAware interface, the context will be automatically injected.

[sneumi]

Let the Spring configured class which needs access to the ApplicationCOntext implement the ApplicationContextAware interface, the context will be automatically injected.

The thing is, the class is not spring configured. It is just a class, which will be instantiated by a 3rd party tool, but still needs to access a DAO.

But still, the ApplicationContextAware is a quite useful hint. What my Solution would be:

public class BeanFactoryAccessor implements ApplicationContextAware , InitializingBean{
	
	private static final Log LOG = LogFactory.getLog(BeanFactoryAccessor.class);
	
	private static BeanFactory _ctx = null;
	
	public BeanFactoryAccessor() {
		LOG.info("Creating BeanFactoryAccessor...");
	}

	public static BeanFactory getBeanFactory() {
		if (_ctx==null){
			BeanFactory bf = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("applicationContext.xml");
			bf.getBean("userDAO");
			LOG.fatal("Have no beanfactoy.... something must be wrong here");
			throw new RuntimeException("Have no beanfactoy.... something must be wrong here");
		}
		return _ctx;
	}

	/* (non-Javadoc)
	 * @see org.springframework.context.ApplicationContextAware#setApplicationContext(org.springframework.context.ApplicationContext)
	 */
	public void setApplicationContext(ApplicationContext applicationContext) throws BeansException {
		LOG.info("Setting required ApplicationContext...");
		_ctx=applicationContext;
	}

	/* (non-Javadoc)
	 * @see org.springframework.beans.factory.InitializingBean#afterPropertiesSet()
	 */
	public void afterPropertiesSet() throws Exception {
		Assert.notNull(_ctx);
	}

}

So now, I could do something like:

UserDAO userDAO = (UserDAO) BeanFactoryAccessor.getBeanFactory().getBean("userDAO");

What do think abaout that?

[karldmoore]

No that won't work, you'll be creating another instance of the ApplicationContext. If you look back at the original thread, there was already a good way of solving it!

[sneumi]

For the quartz problem, there would be this solution:

http://forum.springframework.org/arc...p/t-22499.html

In case of the hibernate validation, I only see the BeaFactorySolution ....

[sneumi]

Summarize because a bit confusing:

Solutions

1) http://forum.springframework.org/showthread.php?t=27884

But I guess, it would create 2 ApplicationContexts

2) http://forum.springframework.org/sho...27&postcount=5

(In this thread above, the BeanFactoryAccessor solution)
I would guess, only one ApplicationContext is created

3) http://forum.springframework.org/arc...p/t-22499.html
not a real solution, but it would help for quartz since the jobs, that were created by quartz can be replaced by an own solution, which can access the ApllicationContext.

I hope, I made the point a bit clearer