BeanFactory Spring Example

By Arvind Rai, August 16, 2013

BeanFactory is an interface and belongs to org.springframework.beans.factory package. BeanFactory is the container which manages beans, initializes and handles their dependencies. In the container, beans will interact with each other. BeanFactory has many implementations and one of them is org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.XmlBeanFactory.

XmlBeanFactory in Spring

XmlBeanFactory has been deprecated in Spring 3.1. XmlBeanFactory is the implementation of BeanFactory. XmlBeanFactory can be initialized with the help of ClassPathResource and FileSystemResource.

BeanFactory with ClassPathResource

ClassPathResource belongs to the org.springframework.core.io package. ClassPathResource acts as java.io.File in system. XmlBeanFactory is initialized by ClassPathResource as below.
BeanFactoryWithClassPathResource.java

package com.concretepage;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanFactory;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.XmlBeanFactory;
import org.springframework.core.io.ClassPathResource;
import org.springframework.core.io.Resource;
public class BeanFactoryWithClassPathResource {
    public static void main(String... args) {
    	Resource res = new ClassPathResource("spring-app.xml");
        BeanFactory factory = new XmlBeanFactory(res);
    	Entitlement ent = (Entitlement)factory.getBean("entitlement");
        System.out.println(ent.getName());
    } 
}

spring-app.xml

<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:util="http://www.springframework.org/schema/util"
  xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/util http://www.springframework.org/schema/util/spring-util-3.0.xsd">
    <bean id="entitlement" class="com.concretepage.Entitlement">
	    <constructor-arg name="name" value="Hello! My name is Ram"/>
	    <constructor-arg name="time" value="20"/>
    </bean>
</beans>

Entitlement.java

package com.concretepage;
public class Entitlement {
	private String name;
	private int time;
	public Entitlement(String name,int time){
		this.name=name;
		this.time=time;
	} 
	public String getName() {
		return name;
	}
	public int getTime() {
		return time;
	}
}

build.gradle

apply plugin: 'java'
apply plugin: 'eclipse'
archivesBaseName = 'SpringAOP'
version = '1' 
repositories {
    mavenCentral()
}
dependencies {
    compile 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter:1.2.7.RELEASE'
}

Output

Hello! My name is Ram

BeanFactory with FileSystemResource

FileSystemResource belongs to the org.springframework.core.io package. FileSystemResource acts as java.io.File and also as supports resolution for URL. XmlBeanFactory is initialized by FileSystemResource as below.
BeanFactoryWithFileSystemResource.java

package com.concretepage;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanFactory;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.XmlBeanFactory;
import org.springframework.core.io.FileSystemResource;
import org.springframework.core.io.Resource;
public class BeanFactoryWithFileSystemResource {
    public static void main(String... args) {
    	Resource res = new FileSystemResource("src/main/resources/spring-app.xml");
    	BeanFactory factory = new XmlBeanFactory(res); 
    	Entitlement ent = (Entitlement)factory.getBean("entitlement");
        System.out.println(ent.getName());
    } 
}

BeanFactory with ApplicationContext

BeanFactory can also be obtained by type casting ApplicationContext. Find the example below.
SpringDemo.java

package com.concretepage;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanFactory;
import org.springframework.context.ApplicationContext;
import org.springframework.context.support.ClassPathXmlApplicationContext;
public class SpringDemo {
    public static void main(String... args) {
    	ApplicationContext context = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("spring-app.xml");
    	BeanFactory factory = (BeanFactory) context;
    	Entitlement ent = (Entitlement)factory.getBean("entitlement");
        System.out.println(ent.getName());
    } 
}