Spring Boot

Interview Questions

By: Theepana Govintharajah

 Spring Boot

Spring Boot is an open-source Java-based

Spring framework that simplifies the
development of stand-alone, production-
grade applications.

It has embedded tomcat, jetty which

makes it just code and run the application.

Provide production-ready features such as

metrics, health checks and externalized
configurations.

Absolutely no requirement for XML

configuration. Only few annotations are
required to do the configuration.

By: Theepana Govintharajah

1) Key Components of Spring
Boot
1. Spring Boot Starters

2. Spring Boot Auto-Configuration

3. Spring Boot CLI

4. Spring Boot Actuator

Spring Boot Starters

Spring Boot Starters are a set of pre-

configured dependencies that make it easy
to add common features to your Spring
applications.

For example, there are Spring Boot

Starters for web development, data
access, Spring Security, and more.

By: Theepana Govintharajah

Key Components of Spring Boot

Spring Boot Auto-Configuration

Spring Boot Auto-Configuration feature

automatically configures many of the
dependencies and features that are
needed for a Spring application.

It analyzes the application's environment

and provides sensible defaults, eliminating
the need for explicit configuration in many
cases.

Auto-configuration can be customized or

disabled by specifying explicit
configuration if required.

By: Theepana Govintharajah

Key Components of Spring Boot

Spring Boot CLI

The Spring Boot CLI is a command-line

tool that provides a fast and convenient
way to develop and test Spring Boot
applications.

It allows you to write Groovy scripts with

embedded Spring Boot dependencies,
reducing the need for boilerplate code
(boilerplate code can refer to the
repetitive configuration and setup code ).

The CLI provides a built-in embedded

Groovy console for interactive
development and includes features like
auto-restart, dependency management,
and more.

By: Theepana Govintharajah

Key Components of Spring Boot

Spring Boot Actuator

Spring Boot Actuator provides a set of

features that allow you to monitor and
manage your Spring Boot application in a
production environment.

It exposes various endpoints that allow

you to gather application metrics, health
checks, and perform management tasks
like refreshing configuration, retrieving
thread dumps, and more.

Actuator endpoints can be customized,

secured, and used to integrate with
monitoring and management tools.

By: Theepana Govintharajah

 2) Why Spring Boot over Spring

Spring Boot provides a range of starter

dependencies, including common frameworks
and libraries used in modern Java
applications.

Spring Boot includes production-ready

features such as health monitoring, metrics,
auditing, and configuration management
through Spring Boot Actuator for monitoring
and managing applications in a production
environment.

Spring Boot minimizes the need for explicit

configuration by providing sensible defaults
and auto-configuration.

Spring Boot supports multiple embedded

servers, including Tomcat, Jetty, and
Undertow, among others.

By: Theepana Govintharajah

3) What does @SpringBootApplication
annotation do?

The @SpringBootApplication annotation is

a meta-annotation that combines three
other annotations: @Configuration,
@EnableAutoConfiguration, and
@ComponentScan.

The @SpringBootApplication annotation is

placed on the main class of the Spring Boot
application.

@Configuration:
This annotation indicates that the class
contains Spring bean configuration. Inside
a @Configuration class, you can define
beans using @Bean methods, and Spring
will manage those beans in the application
context.

By: Theepana Govintharajah

3) What does @SpringBootApplication
annotation do?

@EnableAutoConfiguration:
This annotation enables Spring Boot's auto-
configuration feature. Auto-configuration
simplifies the configuration process, as Spring
Boot can automatically set up beans, data
sources, security, and other components based
on the application's environment.

@ComponentScan:
This annotation enables component scanning
within the specified package(s) and their sub-
packages. Component scanning allows Spring to
automatically detect and register Spring
components (e.g., @Component, @Service,
@Repository, @Controller, etc.) as beans in the
application context. It helps in automatically
discovering and wiring beans without the need
for explicit bean registration.

By: Theepana Govintharajah

3) What does @SpringBootApplication
annotation do?

In other words, the @SpringBootApplication

annotation is a shortcut that allows you to do
all of the following with a single annotation:

Define beans

Enable autoconfiguration

Scan for components

import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;

@SpringBootApplication
public class MySpringBootApplication {
public static void main(String[] args) {
SpringApplication.run(MySpringBootApplication.class, args);
}
}

Spring Boot application must have a main

method. It serves as an entry point, which
invokes the SpringApplication #run method
to bootstrap the application.
By: Theepana Govintharajah
 4) What is Spring Initializer?

Spring Initializer is a web-based tool

provided by the Spring team that helps you
to create an initial spring boot project
structure and provides a maven or gradle
file to build your code.

It solves the problem of setting up a

framework when you are starting a project
from the scratch (by generating a project
structure with the required dependencies,
build configurations, and initial code).

Key features of Spring Initializer

include:

Project Configuration:
Developers can select various project
options, such as the build tool (Maven or
Gradle), programming language (Java or
Kotlin), and Spring Boot version.

By: Theepana Govintharajah

 4) What is Spring Initializer?

Dependency Selection:
Spring Initializer offers a list of starter
dependencies that developers can choose
from. Starter dependencies are curated
sets of related dependencies for specific
functionalities like web applications, data
access, security, testing, and more.

Customization:
Developers can further customize the
generated project by modifying the
pom.xml (for Maven) or build.gradle (for
Gradle) to include additional dependencies
or make specific configuration changes.

By: Theepana Govintharajah

 5) Basic annotations used in
Spring Boot

@SpringBootApplication:
This is the main annotation used to
bootstrap a Spring Boot application.
It is a combination of three annotations:
@Configuration,
@EnableAutoConfiguration,
@ComponentScan.

@RestController:
This annotation is used to mark a class
as a RESTful controller in Spring Boot
applications.
It combines the @Controller and
@ResponseBody annotations, making it
convenient to create RESTful APIs that
return JSON or XML responses.

By: Theepana Govintharajah

 5) Basic annotations used in
Spring Boot

@RequestMapping:
This annotation is used to map HTTP
requests to controller methods in Spring
Boot applications.
It defines the URL path and the HTTP
method for which the method should
handle incoming requests.

@Autowired:
This annotation is used to perform
dependency injection in Spring Boot
applications.
It allows Spring to automatically wire
(inject) dependencies into a bean's
property, constructor, or setter method.

By: Theepana Govintharajah

 5) Basic annotations used in
Spring Boot

@Component:
This annotation marks a class as a Spring
component.
Components are auto-detected during
component scanning and registered in
the Spring application context as beans.

@Service:
This annotation is a specialization of
@Component used to mark a class as a
service in Spring Boot applications.
Services typically represent business
logic or services that can be injected
into other components.

By: Theepana Govintharajah

 5) Basic annotations used in
Spring Boot

@Repository:
This annotation is a specialization of
@Component used to mark a class as a
data repository in Spring Boot
applications.
It is commonly used for classes that
interact with the database through
Spring Data.

@Bean:
This annotation is used to define a bean
manually in a Spring Boot configuration
class.
The method annotated with @Bean
returns an object that is managed as a
bean by Spring.

By: Theepana Govintharajah

 6) Tomcat server in Spring Boot

In Spring Boot, the Tomcat server is the

default embedded web server used to
run web applications. An embedded web
server means that the web server is
included as part of the application itself,
and you don't need to install and
configure an external web server
separately to run your Spring Boot
application.

By default, Spring Boot configures and

uses the Tomcat server to serve HTTP
requests. However, Spring Boot also
supports other embedded web servers
like Jetty and Undertow, which you can
choose as alternatives if needed.

By: Theepana Govintharajah

 6) Tomcat server in Spring Boot

In Spring Boot, the Tomcat server is the

default embedded web server used to
run web applications. An embedded web
server means that the web server is
included as part of the application itself,
and you don't need to install and
configure an external web server
separately to run your Spring Boot
application.

By default, Spring Boot configures and

uses the Tomcat server to serve HTTP
requests. However, Spring Boot also
supports other embedded web servers
like Jetty and Undertow, which you can
choose as alternatives if needed.

By: Theepana Govintharajah

 7) What is @RestController annotation
in Spring boot and how it differs from
@controller?

@Controller:
The @Controller annotation is a
fundamental annotation in the Spring
Framework used to mark a class as a
controller in a web application.

Controllers are responsible for

processing user requests and returning
appropriate responses.

In traditional Spring MVC applications,

controllers are used to handle requests
and return views (HTML pages) that are
rendered by a view resolver.

By: Theepana Govintharajah

7) What is @RestController annotation
in Spring boot and how it differs from
@controller?
@RestController:
The @RestController annotation is a
specialized version of @Controller
introduced in Spring 4.0. (@Controller +
@ResponseBody)

It is used to define a RESTful web service

controller that returns data in a
serialized format, such as JSON or XML,
instead of rendering views.

When you use @RestController, every

method in the class is automatically
annotated with @ResponseBody, which
means the return values of those
methods are directly serialized and sent
as the HTTP response body.

By: Theepana Govintharajah

 8) What is the difference between
RequestMapping and GetMapping?

@RequestMapping:
@RequestMapping is a general-purpose
annotation used to map HTTP requests
to controller methods in Spring
applications.

It allows you to specify various

attributes to define the mapping, such
as the URL path, the HTTP method (GET,
POST, PUT, DELETE, etc.), headers,
parameters, and more.

You can use @RequestMapping to handle

any HTTP method and provide fine-
grained control over the request
mapping.

By: Theepana Govintharajah

 8) What is the difference between
RequestMapping and GetMapping?

@RequestMapping:
@Controller
public class MyController {
@RequestMapping(value="/hello", method=
RequestMethod.GET)
public String hello() {
return "hello"; // Returns the view name "hello" to
be rendered as HTML
}
}

For handling specific HTTP methods (e.g., GET,

POST, PUT, DELETE), you can use the
corresponding annotations like @GetMapping,
@PostMapping, @PutMapping, and
@DeleteMapping, which are also specialized
versions of @RequestMapping tailored for
specific HTTP methods

By: Theepana Govintharajah

 8) What is the difference between
RequestMapping and GetMapping?

@GetMapping:
@GetMapping is a specialized version of
@RequestMapping introduced in Spring
4.3.

It is a convenience annotation that is

specifically designed for mapping HTTP
GET requests.

With @GetMapping, you don't need to

specify the method attribute separately,
as it is pre-configured for HTTP GET
requests only.

By: Theepana Govintharajah

 8) What is the difference between
RequestMapping and GetMapping?

@GetMapping:

@Controller
public class MyController {
@GetMapping("/hello")
public String hello() {
return "hello"; // Returns the view name
"hello" to be rendered as HTML
}
}

By: Theepana Govintharajah

 9) What is Spring Actuator?
What are its advantages?
An actuator is an additional feature of
Spring that helps you to monitor and
manage your application when you push it
to production.

These actuators include auditing, health,

CPU usage, HTTP hits and metric gathering
and many more that are automatically
applied to your application.

To enable the Spring actuator feature, we

need to add the dependency of "Spring-
boot-starter-actuator" in pom.xml. Once
you have added the dependency, you can
start using Spring Actuator's features by
accessing the actuator endpoints.

By: Theepana Govintharajah

 9) Spring Actuator
Here are some of the actuator endpoints
that are available by default:
/health: This endpoint provides health
information about the application.
/metrics: This endpoint provides metrics
about the application, such as memory
usage, CPU usage, and number of
requests.
/info: This endpoint provides
information about the application, such
as the version number and the
environment.

Spring Actuator allows you to create

custom endpoints to expose application-
specific information or perform custom
management tasks.

By: Theepana Govintharajah

 10) What is dependency Injection?

Dependency injection (DI) is a software

design pattern that helps to achieve loose
coupling between software components and
promotes modular, maintainable, and
testable code.

The key concept in Dependency Injection is

that a class does not create its
dependencies directly but instead relies on
an external mechanism to provide them.
This allows you to change the dependencies
or their implementations without modifying
the dependent class, making the code more
flexible and easier to maintain.

By: Theepana Govintharajah

 10) What is dependency Injection?

There are three main types of Dependency

Injection:

Constructor Injection:
Dependencies are provided through the
class constructor.
This is the most common type of
dependency injection.

public class MyClass {

private final MyDependency myDependency;

public MyClass(MyDependency myDependency) {

this.myDependency = myDependency;
}

// Class logic using myDependency

}

By: Theepana Govintharajah

 10) What is dependency Injection?

Setter Injection:
Dependencies are provided through the
setter methods.

public class MyClass {

private MyDependency myDependency;

public void setMyDependency(MyDependency myDependency) {

this.myDependency = myDependency;
}

// Class logic using myDependency

}

Interface Injection:
Rarely used
Dependent class implements an
interface that defines methods for
setting its dependencies.

By: Theepana Govintharajah

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By: Theepana Govintharajah