Introduction to

Spring Framework
and Dependency Injection
Aaron Zeckoski
[email protected]

Sakai Montreal CRIM Workshop

Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Sakai Programmer's Café
2.5 License
 Spring Framework
• A popular and stable Java application
framework for enterprise development
– Ubiquitous for Java development
– Well established in enterprise Java apps
– Time tested and proven reliable
• A primary purpose is to reduce
dependencies and even introduce
negative dependencies
– Different from almost every other framework out there
– Part of the reason it has been adopted so quickly

URL: http://www.springframework.org/ 2
 Spring code structure

• Spring code base is proven to be well

structured (possibly the best)
– http://chris.headwaysoftware.com/2006/07/springs_structu.html
• Analysis using Structure 101
• 139 packages
• No dependency cycles

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 More Spring
• Considered an alternative / replacement
for the Enterprise JavaBean (EJB) model
• Flexible
– Programmers decide how to program
• Not exclusive to Java (e.g. .NET)
• Solutions to typical coding busywork
– JDBC
– LDAP
– Web Services

URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_framework 4
 What does Spring offer?

• Dependency Injection
– Also known as IoC (Inversion of Control)
• Aspect Oriented Programming
– Runtime injection-based
• Portable Service Abstractions
– The rest of spring
• ORM, DAO, Web MVC, Web, etc.
• Allows access to these without knowing how they
actually work

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 Dependency Injection defined
• Method to create needed dependencies or look
them up somehow without doing it in the
dependent code
– Often called Inversion of Control (IoC)
• IoC injects needed dependencies into the object
instead
– Setters or Contructor
• Primary goal is reduction of dependencies in
code
– an excellent goal in any case
– This is the central part of Spring

URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inversion_of_Control 6
 Aspect Oriented Programming
defined
• Attempts to separate concerns, increase
modularity, and decrease redundancy
– Separation of Concerns (SoC)
• Break up features to minimize overlap
– Don’t Repeat Yourself (DRY)
• Minimize code duplication
– Cross-Cutting Concerns
• Program aspects that affect many others (e.g. logging)
• AspectJ is the top AOP package
– Java like syntax, IDE integration

URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect-oriented_programming 7
 Portable Service Abstractions
defined
• Services that easily move between
systems without heavy reworking
– Ideally easy to run on any system
– Abstraction without exposing service
dependencies
• LDAP access without knowing what LDAP is
• Database access without typical JDBC hoops
• Basically everything in Spring that is not
IoC or AOP
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 What is a bean?
• Typical java bean with a unique id
• In spring there are basically two types
– Singleton
• One instance of the bean created and referenced
each time it is requested
– Prototype (non-singleton)
• New bean created each time
• Same as new ClassName()
• Beans are normally created by Spring as
late as possible
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 What is a bean definition?
• Defines a bean for Spring to manage
– Key attributes
• class (required): fully qualified java class name
• id: the unique identifier for this bean
• configuration: (singleton, init-method, etc.)
• constructor-arg: arguments to pass to the constructor at
creation time
• property: arguments to pass to the bean setters at creation
time
• Collaborators: other beans needed in this bean (a.k.a
dependencies), specified in property or constructor-arg
• Typically defined in an XML file
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 Sample bean definition
<bean id="exampleBean" class=”org.example.ExampleBean">
<property name="beanOne"><ref bean="anotherExampleBean"/></property>
<property name="beanTwo"><ref bean="yetAnotherBean"/></property>
<property name="integerProperty"><value>1</value></property>
</bean>

public class ExampleBean {

private AnotherBean beanOne;
private YetAnotherBean beanTwo;
private int i;
public void setBeanOne(AnotherBean beanOne) {
this.beanOne = beanOne; }
public void setBeanTwo(YetAnotherBean beanTwo) {
this.beanTwo = beanTwo; }
public void setIntegerProperty(int i) {
this.i = i; }
…
}
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 What is a bean factory?
• Often seen as an ApplicationContext
– BeanFactory is not used directly often
– ApplicationContext is a complete superset of bean
factory methods
• Same interface implemented
• Offers a richer set of features
• Spring uses a BeanFactory to create, manage
and locate “beans” which are basically instances
of a class
– Typical usage is an XML bean factory which allows
configuration via XML files
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 How are beans created?
• Beans are created in order based on the dependency
graph
– Often they are created when the factory loads the definitions
– Can override this behavior in bean
<bean class=“className” lazy-init=“true” />
– You can also override this in the factory or context but this is
not recommended
• Spring will instantiate beans in the order required by
their dependencies
1. app scope singleton - eagerly instantiated at container startup
2. lazy dependency - created when dependent bean created
3. VERY lazy dependency - created when accessed in code

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 How are beans injected?
• A dependency graph is constructed based
on the various bean definitions
• Beans are created using constructors
(mostly no-arg) or factory methods
• Dependencies that were not injected via
constructor are then injected using setters
• Any dependency that has not been
created is created as needed

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 Multiple bean config files
• There are 3 ways to load multiple bean config files
(allows for logical division of beans)
– Load multiple config files from web.xml
<context-param>
<param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
<param-value>classpath:/WEB-INF/spring-config.xml,
classpath:/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml</param-value>
</context-param>

– Use the import tag

<import resource="services.xml"/>
– Load multiple config files using Resources in the
application context constructor
• Recommended by the spring team
• Not always possible though
ClassPathXmlApplicationContext appContext = new
ClassPathXmlApplicationContext( new String[] {"applicationContext.xml",
"applicationContext-part2.xml"});
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 Bean properties?
• The primary method of dependency injection
• Can be another bean, value, collection, etc.
<bean id="exampleBean" class="org.example.ExampleBean">
<property name="anotherBean">
<ref bean="someOtherBean" />
</property>
</bean>

• This can be written in shorthand as follows

<bean id="exampleBean" class="org.example.ExampleBean">
<property name="anotherBean" ref="someOtherBean" />
</bean>

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 Anonymous vs ID
• Beans that do not need to be referenced
elsewhere can be defined anonymously
• This bean is identified (has an id) and can be
accessed to inject it into another bean
<bean id="exampleBean" class="org.example.ExampleBean">
<property name="anotherBean" ref="someOtherBean" />
</bean>

• This bean is anonymous (no id)

<bean class="org.example.ExampleBean">
<property name="anotherBean" ref="someOtherBean" />
</bean>

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 What is an inner bean?
<bean id="outer" class="org.example.SomeBean">
<property name="person">
<bean class="org.example.PersonImpl">
<property name="name"><value>Aaron</value></property>
<property name="age"><value>31</value></property>
</bean>
</property>
</bean>

• It is a way to define a bean needed by

another bean in a shorthand way
– Always anonymous (id is ignored)
– Always prototype (non-singleton)

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 Bean init-method
• The init method runs AFTER all bean
dependencies are loaded
– Constructor loads when the bean is first instantiated
– Allows the programmer to execute code once all
dependencies are present

<bean id="exampleBean" class=”org.example.ExampleBean"

init-method=”init” />

public class ExampleBean {

public void init() {
// do something
}
}

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 Bean values
• Spring can inject more than just other beans
• Values on beans can be of a few types
– Direct value (string, int, etc.)
– Collection (list, set, map, props)
– Bean
– Compound property

Example of injecting a string value

<bean class="org.example.ExampleBean">
<property name="email">
<value>[email protected]</value>
</property>
</bean>
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 Abstract (parent) beans
• Allows definition of part of a bean which can be
reused many times in other bean definitions

<bean id="abstractBean" abstract="true" The parent bean

class="org.example.ParentBean"> defines 2 values (name,
<property name="name" value="parent-AZ"/> age)
<property name="age" value="31"/> The child bean uses the
</bean> parent age value (31)
The child bean
<bean id="childBean" overrides the parent
class="org.example.ChildBean" name value (from parent-
parent="abstractBean" init-method="init"> AZ to child-AZ)
<property name="name" value="child-AZ"/> Parent bean could not
</bean> be injected, child could

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 AOP in Spring
• Provides way to create declarative services
and custom aspects
• Transaction management is the most
common aspect (or concern)
• Spring handles AOP via advisors or
interceptors
– Interception point is a joinpoint
– A set of joinpoints are called a pointcut
• pointcuts are key to Spring AOP, they allow intercepts
without explicit knowledge of the OO hierarchy
– Action taken by an interceptor is called advice

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 AOP advice types
• Around
– Most common and powerful
– Execute code before and after joinpoint
• Before
– Executes before joinpoint, cannot stop execution
• Throws
– Executes code if exception is thrown
• After return
– Executes code after normal joinpoint execution

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 Spring AOP key points
• Pure java implementation
• Allows method interception
– No field or property intercepts yet
• AOP advice is specified using typical
bean definitions
– Closely integrates with Spring IoC
• Proxy based AOP
– J2SE dynamic proxies or CGLIB proxies
• Not a replacement for AspectJ
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 Example transaction proxy
• This wraps a transaction interceptor around a DAO

<bean id="daoBeanTarget" class="org.example.dao.impl.DaoImpl">

<property name="sessionFactory"><ref bean="mySessionFactory"/></property>
</bean>

<bean id="daoBean"
class="org.springframework.transaction.interceptor.TransactionProxyFactoryBean">
<property name="transactionManager" ref="transactionManager"/>
<property name="target" ref="daoBeanTarget"/>
<property name="transactionAttributes">
<props>
<prop key="*">PROPAGATION_REQUIRED</prop>
</props>
</property>
</bean>

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 Working example

• Let’s look at some example code pre and

post spring
– Simple application that allows a user to add,
remove, and list a set of strings
• Pre spring code
– Programmers Cafe - Example App
• Post spring code
– Programmers Cafe - Example App Spring

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 Example App

• The example app is a simple command

line Java app which is meant to
demonstrate a reasonable dependency
structure
• This app allows a user to save, delete,
and list a set of strings associated with
their username

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 Example App Structure
• Alpha is the main class Alpha
• Bravo handles user
interaction Bravo

• Charlie handles
Charlie
application logic
• Delta handles data
access
• Dependency graph is DeltaImpl Delta

non-cyclical
– No A => B => C => A A B = A depends on B

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 Non-spring version
• Involves using new to create needed
dependencies
• Each class must know about the
dependencies that it needs
• Singletons have to be created and handed to
the classes that need them at the same time
or you need a static way to access them (or a
framework)
• Tightly coupled code structure

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 Spring version

• No more new use

• Classes only have to know about the
interface
– or class if no interface available
• Singletons easy to handle
• Loose coupling allows flexible changes

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 Questions?

• Spring framework
– http://www.springframework.org/

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