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Is it safe to use String as a return type of a bean in spring?

#Configuration
public class Product {
#Bean("xyz")
public String getMethod() {
return "abc";
}
}
#Component
public class Test {
String b;
Test(String xyz) {
this.b = xyz;
}
}
Is this any harm with this approach? I am trying to make change in the existing code where I am replacing the #Value with the getter as the method parameter. As I don't want to change the structure of the existing code I am trying to inject the method as bean as a replacement to #Value.

I suggest you to keep the #Value annotation instead of the whole #Bean configurations.
Why?
What if the getMethod()'s returned value needs to be changed very often? Everytime when you're changing something in the Product class, during build time it needs to be recompiled. What happens if the project is getting bigger and you're using this approach? It leads to longer build time and the more important thing is that this solution is not intuitive and it's hard to keep it clean. Don't think about complex solutions only to make the code look fancy. When you need to inject String values, the easiest approach is to create properties files (which won't get recompiled) and use the #Value annotation.
Now, if you want to add new methods without changing the structure of the existing code there are some patterns which you can apply like decorator pattern.
The main idea is simple: you're creating a decorator class which has an object of the type you need.
The easiest example (which you'll find everywhere on the internet) is the classic Shape example:
public interface Shape {
String someMethod();
}
#Component
public class CustomShape implements Shape { //implement the method here }
And here is the decorator:
public interface ShapeDecorator {
String someMethodExtended();
void someExtraMethod();
}
#Component
public class CustomShapeDecorator implements ShapeDecorator{
#Autowired
// #Qualifier - optional (only if you have more Shape implementations)
private Shape shape;
// now you can either:
// 1. provide new methods
#Override
public void someExtraMethod(){
System.out.println("Hello world!");
}
// 2. or you can EXTEND the Shape's "someMethod()" implementation
#Override
public String someMethodExtended(){
String oldString = this.shape.someMethod();
return oldString + " EXTENDED";
}
}

Can we have a factory class as spring bean and have a factory method returning multiple spring beans based on the condition?

I want to return multiple spring beans based on the condition in the factory class.
Is this a good practice?
Any better ways to write the following piece of code?.
Any other design patterns suitable here?
Below is the code snippet:
package com.test;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Component;
import javax.annotation.Resource;
#Component
public class InstanceFactory {
#Resource(name = "instance1")
private Instance instance1;
#Resource(name = "instance2")
private Instance instance2;
public Instance getService(Condition condition) {
if (condition.one() && condition.two()) {
return instance2;
} else {
return instance1;
}
}
}

It depends on what you want to achieve. Factory Pattern is meant to create objects but what you are returning are objects already create somewhere else (Spring in this case). If you want to create beans that will be managed by Spring there are several ways:
#Conditional(YourConditionImplementation.class): This annotation added on a method of a #Configuration annotated class will allow you to create a bean when the given condition is fullfilled. Example here: https://javapapers.com/spring/spring-conditional-annotation/
You can uses as well BeanFactory to inject the definition of your bean (DefinitionBean) into the container. Example here: https://www.logicbig.com/tutorials/spring-framework/spring-core/bean-definition.html
Now, if you want an object that determine what object of type Instance fits better for some need then your approach is ok, but it is not technically a factory :)

When designing something like that I would face that solution considering two design patterns:
Strategy pattern: In order to replace repetitive if else every time you need to evaluate more instances.
Decorator pattern: Trying to make every condition as configurable as possible. They can be composed (decorated) for one or more predicates.
Considering these two pattens you might achieve something like this:
First, define which conditions will identify a given instance:
public enum InstanceType {
INSTANCE_TYPE_1(Condition::isOne, Condition::isTwo),
INSTANCE_TYPE_2(Condition::isOne, Condition::isThree),
...;
private List<Predicate<Condition>> evaluators;
#SafeVarargs
InstanceType(final Predicate<Condition>... evaluators) {
this.evaluators = Arrays.asList(evaluators);
}
public boolean evaluate(final Condition condition) {
return evaluators.stream().allMatch(it -> it.test(condition));
}
}
Then, you should link every instance implementation to an specific instance type:
#Component
public class InstanceOne implements Instance {
#Override
public InstanceType getType() {
return InstanceType.INSTANCE_TYPE_1;
}
}
Finally, a class to config where defining the relation between types and instances as EnumMap
#Configuration
public class InstanceFactoryConfig {
#Autowired
private List<Instance> instances;
#Bean
public EnumMap<InstanceType, Instance> instancesMap() {
EnumMap<InstanceType, Instance> instanceEnumMap = new EnumMap<>(InstanceType.class);
instances.forEach(i -> instanceEnumMap.put(i.getType(), i));
return instanceEnumMap;
}
}
Thus, you InstanceFactory can be replaced to something like this:
public class InstanceFactory {
#Autowire
private final EnumMap<InstanceType, Instance> instancesMap;
public void getInstance(Condition condition) {
instancesMap.get(getInstanceType(condition)).doSomething();
}
private InstanceType getInstanceType(Condition condition) {
return Arrays.stream(InstancesType.values())
.filter(evaluator -> evaluator.evaluate(condition))
.findFirst().orElseThrow(() -> new RuntimeException("Instance type not found"));
}
}
As you can see, you InstanceFactory is less prone to be modified. This means, every time you need you add a new instance implementation you only need to modify the InstanceType enum. Hope this is helps.

You can use spring existing FactoryBean interface and implement your own logic
It’s one of the best approaches to create beans in spring framework
Here is the link with example :
https://www.baeldung.com/spring-factorybean

See:
Spring Profile
The active profile is set by properties and based on the value you assign to the profile, Spring will load different beans for the same interface.
So it might be exactly what you need.

Dynamic dependency injection for multiple implementations of the same interface with Spring MVC

I am working on a REST API where I have an interface that defines a list of methods which are implemented by 4 different classes, with the possibility of adding many more in the future.
When I receive an HTTP request from the client there is some information included in the URL which will determine which implementation needs to be used.
Within my controller, I would like to have the end-point method contain a switch statement that checks the URL path variable and then uses the appropriate implementation.
I know that I can define and inject the concrete implementations into the controller and then insert which one I would like to use in each particular case in the switch statement, but this doesn't seem very elegant or scalable for 2 reasons:
I now have to instantiate all of the services, even though I only need to use one.
The code seems like it could be much leaner since I am literally calling the same method that is defined in the interface with the same parameters and while in the example it is not really an issue, but in the case that the list of implementations grows ... so does the number of cases and redundant code.
Is there a better solution to solve this type of situation? I am using SpringBoot 2 and JDK 10, ideally, I'd like to implement the most modern solution.
My Current Approach
#RequestMapping(Requests.MY_BASE_API_URL)
public class MyController {
//== FIELDS ==
private final ConcreteServiceImpl1 concreteService1;
private final ConcreteServiceImpl2 concreteService2;
private final ConcreteServiceImpl3 concreteService3;
//== CONSTRUCTORS ==
#Autowired
public MyController(ConcreteServiceImpl1 concreteService1, ConcreteServiceImpl2 concreteService2,
ConcreteServiceImpl3 concreteService3){
this.concreteService1 = concreteService1;
this.concreteService2 = concreteService2;
this.concreteService3 = concreteService3;
}
//== REQUEST MAPPINGS ==
#GetMapping(Requests.SPECIFIC_REQUEST)
public ResponseEntity<?> handleSpecificRequest(#PathVariable String source,
#RequestParam String start,
#RequestParam String end){
source = source.toLowerCase();
if(MyConstants.SOURCES.contains(source)){
switch(source){
case("value1"):
concreteService1.doSomething(start, end);
break;
case("value2"):
concreteService2.doSomething(start, end);
break;
case("value3"):
concreteService3.doSomething(start, end);
break;
}
}else{
//An invalid source path variable was recieved
}
//Return something after additional processing
return null;
}
}

In Spring you can get all implementations of an interface (say T) by injecting a List<T> or a Map<String, T> field. In the second case the names of the beans will become the keys of the map. You could consider this if there are a lot of possible implementations or if they change often. Thanks to it you could add or remove an implementation without changing the controller.
Both injecting a List or a Map have some benefits and drawbacks in this case. If you inject a List you would probably need to add some method to map the name and the implementation. Something like :
interface MyInterface() {
(...)
String name()
}
This way you could transform it to a Map<String, MyInterface>, for example using Streams API. While this would be more explicit, it would polute your interface a bit (why should it be aware that there are multiple implementations?).
When using the Map you should probably name the beans explicitly or even introduce an annotation to follow the principle of least astonishment. If you are naming the beans by using the class name or the method name of the configuration class you could break the app by renaming those (and in effect changing the url), which is usually a safe operation to do.
A simplistic implementation in Spring Boot could look like this:
#SpringBootApplication
public class DynamicDependencyInjectionForMultipleImplementationsApplication {
public static void main(String[] args) {
SpringApplication.run(DynamicDependencyInjectionForMultipleImplementationsApplication.class, args);
}
interface MyInterface {
Object getStuff();
}
class Implementation1 implements MyInterface {
#Override public Object getStuff() {
return "foo";
}
}
class Implementation2 implements MyInterface {
#Override public Object getStuff() {
return "bar";
}
}
#Configuration
class Config {
#Bean("getFoo")
Implementation1 implementation1() {
return new Implementation1();
}
#Bean("getBar")
Implementation2 implementation2() {
return new Implementation2();
}
}
#RestController
class Controller {
private final Map<String, MyInterface> implementations;
Controller(Map<String, MyInterface> implementations) {
this.implementations = implementations;
}
#GetMapping("/run/{beanName}")
Object runSelectedImplementation(#PathVariable String beanName) {
return Optional.ofNullable(implementations.get(beanName))
.orElseThrow(UnknownImplementation::new)
.getStuff();
}
#ResponseStatus(BAD_REQUEST)
class UnknownImplementation extends RuntimeException {
}
}
}
It passes the following tests:
#RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
#SpringBootTest
#AutoConfigureMockMvc
public class DynamicDependencyInjectionForMultipleImplementationsApplicationTests {
#Autowired
private MockMvc mockMvc;
#Test
public void shouldCallImplementation1() throws Exception {
mockMvc.perform(get("/run/getFoo"))
.andExpect(status().isOk())
.andExpect(content().string(containsString("foo")));
}
#Test
public void shouldCallImplementation2() throws Exception {
mockMvc.perform(get("/run/getBar"))
.andExpect(status().isOk())
.andExpect(content().string(containsString("bar")));
}
#Test
public void shouldRejectUnknownImplementations() throws Exception {
mockMvc.perform(get("/run/getSomethingElse"))
.andExpect(status().isBadRequest());
}
}

Regarding two of your doubts :
1. Instantiating the service object should not be an issue as this is one time job and controller gonna need them to serve all type of request.
2. You can use the exact Path mapping to get rid of switch case. For e.g. :
#GetMapping("/specificRequest/value1")
#GetMapping("/specificRequest/value2")
#GetMapping("/specificRequest/value3")
All of the above mapping will be on separate method which would deal with specific source value and invoke respective service method.
Hope this will help to make code more cleaner and elegant.
There is one more option of separating this on service layer and having only one endpoint to serve all types of source but as you said there is different implementation for each source value then it says that source is nothing but a resource for your application and having separate URI/separate method makes the perfect sense here. Few advantages that I see here with this are :
Makes it easy to write the test cases.
Scaling the same without impacting any other source/service.
Your code dealing the each source as separate entity from other sources.
The above approach should be fine when you have limited source values. If you have no control over source value then we need further redesign here by making source value differentiate by one more value like sourceType etc. and then having separate controller for each group type of source.

Is it possible to use the Multibinder within Guice to construct dynamic sets based on application configuration?

I have an application which relies on Properties configuration to determine whether to mix in various components or not.
For example, the configuration has boolean flags like "componentX.enabled" etc which determine whether these components should be active or not.
Currently I am using these flags in my provider methods like so:
#Provides
#Singleton
#Nullable
public ComponentX provideComponentX(Properties props) {
if (props.isComponentXEnabled()) {
return new ComponentX();
} else {
return null;
}
}
#Provides
#Singleton
public Set<Component> provideComponentSet(
#Nullable ComponentX compX,
ComponentY compY,
ComponentZ compZ
) {
Set<Component> comps = new HashSet<>();
if (compX != null) {
comps.add(compX);
}
comps.add(compY);
comps.add(compZ);
return comps;
}
This approach seems a little clunky (it relies on possible injecting null)- but is there a better way?
The only other way I can think of doing it is by using a parent injector to obtain the application Properties into my module, and then using the set Multibinder.
Then use the create child injector with the new module to complete the bootstrap process.
public class Module extends AbstractModule {
Properties props;
public Module(Properties props) {
this.props = props;
}
public void configure() {
Multibinder<Component> compBinder = Multibinder.newSetBinder(binder(), Component.class);
if (props.isComponentXEnabled()) {
compBinder.addBinding().to(ComponentX.class);
}
compBinder.addBinding().to(ComponentY.class);
compBinder.addBinding().to(ComponentZ.class);
}
}
This also seems a little clunky because it requires the use of a child injector etc.
Again, is there a better way?
Maybe I could use Netflix's Governator (https://github.com/Netflix/governator/wiki/Configuration-Mapping) to inject Configuration values into my module (not sure if that is possible or not)?
How do other people approach this problem?

The applications I've been working with recently have a properties file (or other configuration) that is used to decide which parts of the application are relevant. Our typical approach is parse those properties immediately (just to a Properties object) and construct the application module(s) from that, and they will then conditionally include other modules based on the values specified.
In a couple of places, this has grown into an "init parameters" set, with an enumeration of possible parameters:
enum InitParam {
PricesQueue("prices.queue")
}
Each enum instance is related to a property key and there is a method to get a basic string value for each parameter from Properties:
boolean presentIn(Properties props) { return props.containsKey(propertyKey); }
String valueIn(Properties props) { return props.getProperty(propertyKey); }
So this can be used like so:
public AppModule extends AbstractModule {
private final Properties config;
protected void configure() {
if (InitParam.PricesQueue.presentIn(config)) {
install(new PricesQueueConsumerModule(config));
}
}
}
Additionally, there is a module to bind all the values in the config properties to String, Optional<String> etc, allowing:
#Inject
public PricesQueueConsumer(#FromInitParam(InitParam.PricesQueue) String queueName) {
}
This will trap the queue consumer being referenced when the configuration isn't available (the module won't bind a string if the value isn't present in the config file) while still allowing the behaviour for when the value isn't present to be deferred to later (by injecting Optional<String> instead)
So this is somewhat similar to your second approach, except that I'd not considered the using-Guice-to-inject-Guice-modules approach, which seems a bit convoluted. Although probably it's essentially the same. Maybe rather than a parent/child injector you could simply create a "bootstrapping" injector to build your top-level application module, and then use that to build a completely separate injector?

Guice: is it possible to inject modules?

I have a Module that requires some Depedency. Is there a way Modules themselves can be injected? I realize this is a bit of a chicken and egg situation...
Example:
public class MyModule implements Module {
private final Dependency d_;
#Inject public MyModule(Dependency d) {
d_ = d;
}
public void configure(Binder b) { }
#Provides Something provideSomething() {
// this requires d_
}
}
I suppose in this case the solution would be to turn the #Provides method into a full-fledged Provider<Something> class. This is clearly a simplified example; the code I'm dealing with has many such #Provides methods so cutting them each into individual Provider<...> classes and introducing a module to configure them adds a fair amount of clutter - and I thought Guice was all about reducing boilerplate clutter?
Perhaps it's a reflection of my relative noobyness to Guice but I've come across a fair few cases where I've been tempted to do the above. I must be missing something...

#Provides methods can take dependencies as parameters just like parameters to an #Inject annotated constructor or method:
#Provides Something provideSomething(Dependency d) {
return new Something(d); // or whatever
}
This is documented here, though perhaps it could be made to stand out more.

Using a provider or #Provides methods are great if you need a dependency to manually construct an object. However, what if you need something to help you decide how to configure the bindings themselves? It turns out you can use Guice to create (and configure) your module.
Here is a (contrived) example. First, the module we want to configure:
/**
* Creates a binding for a Set<String> which represents the food in a pantry.
*/
public class PantryModule extends AbstractModule {
private final boolean addCheese;
#Inject
public ConditionalModule(#Named("addCheese") boolean addCheese) {
this.addCheese = addCheese;
}
#Override
protected void configure() {
Multibinder<String> pantryBinder = Multibinder
.newSetBinder(binder(), String.class);
pantryBinder.addBinding().toInstance("milk");
if (addCheese) {
pantryBinder.addBinding().toInstance("cheese");
}
pantryBinder.addBinding().toInstance("bread");
}
}
The PantryModule expects a boolean value to be injected to decide whether or not it should include cheese in the pantry.
Next, we'll use Guice to configure the module:
// Here we use an anonymous class as the "configuring" module. In real life, you would
// probably use a standalone module.
Injector injector = Guice.createInjector(new AbstractModule() {
#Override
protected void configure() {
// No cheese please!
bindConstant().annotatedWith(Names.named("addCheese")).to(false);
bind(PantryModule.class);
}
});
Module configuredConditionalModule = injector.getInstance(PantryModule.class);
Now that we have a configured module, we'll update our injector to use it...
//...continued from last snippet...
injector = injector.createChildInjector(configuredConditionalModule);
And finally we'll get the set of strings that represent our pantry:
//...continued from last snippet...
Set<String> pantry = injector.getInstance(new Key<Set<String>>() {});
for (String food : pantry) {
System.out.println(food);
}
If you put all the pieces together in a main method and run it, you'll get the following output:
milk
bread
If you change the binding to the "addCheese" boolean to true, you'll get:
milk
cheese
bread
This technique is cool, but probably only useful when you have control over the Injector instance and only when the module requires complex dependencies. Nonethless, I found a real need for this on a real project at work. If I did, then someone else might too.

The question is already well answered, but I just wanted to add a variation to Colin's example:
class MyModule extends AbstractModule {
public void configure() {
bind(Something.class).toProvider(new Provider<Something>() {
#Inject Dependency d;
Something get() { return d.buildSomething(); }
}
}
}
The #Provides method approach is clearer than what I have above for this simple case, but I've found that instantiating an actual Provider can be useful in some situations too. Something I stole from the mailing list; wouldn't have occurred to me on my own ;)

What is the problem with initializing the module just by calling new MyModule(d) or by creating a Provider<Something> that has an injected Injector? Those would appear to be the standard ways of handling this sort of problem. As has been mentioned, you can also use #Provides methods with arguments.
If the dependency is optional then you can create the module and then call a setter to initialize the value if needed (e.g., com.google.inject.persist.jpa.JpaPersistModule does this with properties, while using new JpaPersistModule(String) to load the correct configuration).
Otherwise I suppose it might be possible to do so (and then call createChildInjector(Modules... modules)), but I'd almost always prefer one of the other approaches to that one.