Accessing the target object of an ProxyFactoryBean

[DJViking]

This topic has a little mix of different subjects, some Data Access and some AOP with a touch of Transaction.

I am using Hibernate for Data Access, and a HibernateTemplate. The HibernateTemplate is accessed through a EntityRepository interface implemented by HibernateEntityRepository.

The interface and the implementation is part of a different project and I do not have oppurtunity to change it.

The implementation HibernateEntityRepository does ha a method to perform delete, but the interface does not.

In my code I am accessing through the interface, not the implementation.

This presents a problem when I want to perform a delete. I would need to cast EntityRepository to an HibernateEntityRepository, but I can't. That is because the EntityRepository is configured as a ProxyFactoryBean to allow for Transaction.

When I try to cast it, it gives a ClassCastException: $Proxy1.

Anyone know a solution to this problem?

[Jörg Heinicke]

Scoped proxies implement an additional interface ScopedObject which provides the method getTargetObject(). For regular proxies a similar mechanism seems to exist: Cast the proxy to Advised, call getTargetSource() and getTarget() on the TargetSource. I have never used this though, so you have to try it out yourself.

Another alternative in your case seems to switch to class-based proxying using CGLib. It has some downsides or additional requirements though.

Joerg