Is it possible to make Spring #Import or #Configuration parametrized? - java

I've created a lot of common small bean-definition containers (#Configuration) which I use to rapidly develop applications with Spring Boot like:
#Import({
FreemarkerViewResolver.class, // registers freemarker that auto appends <#escape etc.
ConfigurationFromPropertiesFile.class, // loads conf/configuration.properties
UtfContentTypeResponse.class, // sets proper Content-language and Content-type
LocaleResolverWithLanguageSwitchController // Locale resolver + switch controller
);
class MySpringBootApp ...
For example, one of such #Configurations can set up session storage for locale cookie with web controller to switch to selected language etc.
They are very fun to work with and reuse, but it would be really great to make it parametrized, which could allow lot more reusege. I mean something like:
Pseudo code:
#Imports( imports = {
#FreemarkerViewResolver( escapeHtml = true, autoIncludeSpringMacros = true),
#ConfigurationFromProperties( path = "conf/configuration.properties" ),
#ContentTypeResponse( encoding = "UTF-8" ),
#LocaleResolver( switchLocaleUrl = "/locale/{loc}", defaultLocale = "en"
})
So, I basically mean "configurable #Configurations". What would be the best way to make the configuration that way?
Maybe something more like this (again, pseudo code):
#Configuration
public class MyAppConfiguration {
#Configuration
public FreemarkerConfiguration freemarkerConfiguration() {
return FreemarkerConfigurationBuilder.withEscpeAutoAppend();
}
#Configuration
public ConfigurationFromPropertiesFile conf() {
return ConfigurationFromPropertiesFile.fromPath("...");
}
#Configuration
public LocaleResolverConfigurator loc() {
return LocaleResolverConfigurator.trackedInCookie().withDefaultLocale("en").withSwitchUrl("/switchlocale/{loc}");
}

Let me quote Spring Boot Reference Guide - Externalized Configuration:
"Spring Boot allows you to externalize your configuration so you can work with the same application code in different environments."
In my opinion the customization is not done at import time via annotation parameters like in your 2nd pseudo code block, instead the customization happens at run time e.g. in the configuration classes. Let me adapt your 3rd code block (only one function):
#Configuration
public class MyAppConfiguration {
#Autowired
private Environment env;
// Provide a default implementation for FreeMarkerConfigurer only
// if the user of our config doesn't define her own configurer.
#Bean
#ConditionalOnMissingBean(FreeMarkerConfigurer.class)
public FreeMarkerConfigurer freemarkerConfig() {
FreeMarkerConfigurer result = new FreeMarkerConfigurer();
result.setTemplateLoaderPath("/WEB-INF/views/");
return result;
}
...
#Bean
public LocaleResolverConfigurator loc() {
String defaultLocale = env.getProperty("my.app.config.defaultlocale", "en");
String switchLocale = env.getProperty("my.app.config.switchlocale", "/switchlocale/{loc}");
return LocaleResolverConfigurator.trackedInCookie().withDefaultLocale(defaultLocale).withSwitchUrl(switchLocale);
}
For LocaleResolverConfigurator the configuration is read from the environment, meaningful default values are defined. It is easy to change the default value(s) by providing a different value for a config parameter in any of the supported ways (documented in the first link) - via command line or a yaml file. The advantage over annotation parameters is that you can change the behavior at run time instead of compile time.
You could also inject the config parameters (if you prefer to have them as instance variable) or use a lot of other conditions, e.g. #ConditionalOnMissingBean, #ConditionalOnClass, #ConditionalOnExpression and so on. For example with #ConditionalOnClass you could check if a particular class is on your class path and provide a setting for the library identified by this class. With #ConditionalOnMissingClass you could provide an alternative implementation. In the example above I used ConditionalOnMissingBean to provide a default implementation for the FreeMarkerConfigurer. This implementation is only used when no FreeMarkerConfigurer bean is available thus can be overridden easily.
Take a look at the starters provided by Spring Boot or the community. A good read is also this blog entry. I learned a lot from spring-boot-starter-batch-web, they had an article series in a German Java magazine, but parts are also online, see Boot your own infrastructure – Extending Spring Boot in five steps (MUST READ) and especially the paragraph "Make your starter configurable by using properties".

Though I like the idea of having imports be parameterized, I think that as it stands now using #Import and #Configuration not a good fit.
I can think of two ways to use dynamic configurations, that don't rely on PropertySource style configuration.
Create a custom #ImportConfig annotation and annotation processor that accepts configuration properties that are hard-coded into the generated source files.
Use a BeanFactoryPostProcessor or BeanPostProcessor to add or manipulate your included beans respectively.
Neither is particularly simple IMO, but since it looks like you have a particular way of working. So it could be worth the time invested.

Related

is it possible to have Spring configuration relying only on annotations apart from being spring boot application?

I'm new in Spring applications, and see the big difference between configurations in springBoot and spring. So my questin is: apart from spring-boot, is there a way to setup a proper spring application(with web mvc, security, aop, ...), without any xml config file (ie : config relying only on annotations).
Yes, there is a way to do this in Spring. Spring Boot is after all an enhanced, autoconfigured Spring (with other cool features). That means that everything there is in Spring Boot should be achievable in Spring as well, but you would have do a bit/a lot of Your own extra work.
Moving straight to the point, in order to achieve what you want, you would need to undertake the following steps:
Create a class, which will store all the configuration (basically the properties you would store in the xml file) - let's call it AppConfig.class
Annotate the AppConfig.class with #Configuration - this will inform Spring that this class is the source of configuration;
Annotate the AppConfig.class with #ComponentScan("com.app") - here, You need to provide a package, from which Spring has to start component scanning in order to find Beans to be registered in Spring Container. Important note is, that it will scan the package and it's subpackages, so you would mostly want to provide here the top level package;
If you need some data to be injected into your beans, you would want to use the #PropertySource("classpath:application.properties") - I have provided here the default value, which Spring Boot uses internally in case you want to inject some data into your beans at runtime. For this to work, you need to inject into AppConfig.class an Environment.class
To show it on the example:
#Configuration
#ComponentScan("com.app")
#PropertySource("classpath:application.properties")
public class AppConfig {
// it will help to pull the properties incorporated in the file you have provided in the #PropertySource annotation
private Environment environment;
//inject it
public AppConfig(Environment environment) {
this.environment = environment;
}
// build your beans - the getProperty method accepts the key from application.properties
// file and return a value as a String. You can provide additional arguments to convert
//the value and a default value if the property is not found
#Bean
public Product product() {
return new Product(
environment.getProperty("product.name", "XXX"),
environment.getProperty("product.price", BigDecimal.class, BigDecimal.ZERO),
environment.getProperty("product.quantity", Integer.class, 10)
);
}
}
I hope that it helps

Spring default bean candidate

I'm writing a library that uses spring, for others to use. In my library, I have class A that has an interface B as a field (with #Autowired).
I have a default implementation of that field, but the user can implement a custom implementation by himself. What I want to happen is the following:
If the user implemented B, I want that bean to be injected to A, otherwise I want my default implementation to be injected.
Something like the opposite of #Primary
I know that the user can add the #Primary annotation in order for that to happen, but I don't want him to add any other annotation besides #Component (because it is not clear for the user why he must add the #Primary annotation)
Is there a way to achieve this behavior? I've also tried #Order and #Priority, but no luck - the user must add another annotation.
Thanks!
You should create your own auto configuration. Auto configuration classes are always processed last so user's own configuration is processed first and when using #Conditional... annotations user's beans will take precedence.
Your auto configuration class should look like this:
#Configuration
public class MyAutoConfiguration {
#ConditionalOnMissingBean(B.class)
#Bean
public B defaultImplementation() { return A(); }
#Bean
public UsesB classThatUsesB(B b) { return UsesB(b); }
}
In this case if the user of your library defines a bean of type B it will always be used first and if they don't the bean created by the defaultImplementation method will be used.
I don't believe so. Spring's #Autowired is rather specific. Making it perform differently without any configuration changes (either to XML or the Spring configuration class) is pretty much impossible.

Less verbose #Bean

We use #Configuration classes with lots of #Bean annotated methods that essentially read like this:
#Bean
public TeamContactIndexer teamContactIndexer(GroupService groupService, ContactCrudService contactCrudService, ContactRetrieveService contactRetrieveService) {
return new TeamContactIndexer(groupService, contactCrudService, contactRetrieveService);
}
So this returns a new bean and injects other spring declared things via method arguments into the constructor by name.
The only way I know to reduce verbosity is to annotate the beans with #Component and constructor with #Autowired.
For many this is perfectly acceptable but I prefer to not litter my code with Spring annotations just to facilitate plumbing and keep a clean separation between completely spring free business logic and plumbing code in #Configuration annotated classes. I treat them as a more type safe, less verbose replacement for what we used to do in xml.
However, wouldn't it be nice if I could just go ...
#Bean
public TeamContactIndexer teamContactIndexer;
... and have spring figure out that it needs to autowire the constructor of that class (100% spring free) to produce the bean. This is not currently supported in Spring as far as I can see even though it should be quite easy to do as far as I can see. Am I missing something or is there really no way around me micromanaging constructor calls in my #Configuration classes (other than littering my code with annotations)? The vast majority of my #Bean methods should be easily replaced like this.
UPDATE
#bezmax has provided a workable approach here which is to use a component scan annotation.
#Configuration
#ComponentScan(
basePackages={"com.github.jsonj.tools"},
includeFilters = { #Filter(type = FilterType.ASSIGNABLE_TYPE, value = {JsonParser.class})})
public class JsonParserConfig {
}
I've used the above to provide a bean definition for a bean without annotations in a library that I use. This replaces the #Bean annotated factory method I had earlier. It's still somewhat verbose but at least you can put in a comma separated list of classes. The default for type is wrong for this usecase so you must specify it; likewise the package defintion is required even though it could be deduced from the class on the filter.
IMHO there is room for an obvious improvement in Spring, which is to provide an annotation that simply takes a comma separated list of classes. So, instead of scanning a package, simply list the bean classes you want initialized. There are probably still a few hairy issues with autowiring via the constructor.
This feature is implemented in Spring 4.3 (not yet released).
You can read more about that in the changelog (see 6.1)
Added:
As about registering your unannotated classes automatically, there seems to be a flexible way to achieve this using #ComponentScan annotation. This annotation allows you to specify a set of include filters, which, when matched on classes, are automatically registered as beans. I had not actually tried using more complex rules with this filter, and it seems that you have several options there (check out the documentation on #ComponentScan) but the easiest one would be something like this:
#Configuration
#ComponentScan(
value = "some.package.path",
includeFilters = {
#Filter(type = ASSIGNABLE_TYPE, value = {
MyClass1.class,
MyClass2.class,
MyClass3.class
})
})
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {
...

How do you handle configuration on spring framework when developing custom libraries intended to be consumed by other applications?

I'm working on building a custom "event" library that encapsulates the technical details of an event buffer we are planning to share with multiple consumers. Ideally, we want this library to use the spring framework (note: not spring boot), and be environmentally aware. Something I am not groking from the current docs is how to make the library environmentally aware.
For example, we want to include with the library a static configuration for the queue end points the library will publish / consume from; however, we want to enable "overriding" these queues when in the development or integration environments. Ideally, I do not want to make multiple builds that swap out what the config file is, but include them all and know to read the "right" one.
Some of the things I am not understanding;
How to pass in a "profile" when debugging (it seems the Environment object won't honor the -Dspring.active.profiles property).
How to structure the #Configuration classes so that you do not hard code #Profile(prod).
Total Spring n00b, thanks in advance!
---UPDATE: Trying to provide a more concrete example.
So I have create a basic configuration class to hold the details that would be populated by configuration files:
#Configuration
public class EventConfiguration implements EnvironmentAware{
private static Environment env = null;
#Value("${events.queue1}")
private String queue1;
#Value("${events.queue2}")
private String queue2;
#Bean
public EventDispatcher eventDispatcher() {
return new EventDispatcher(this);
}
#Override
public void setEnvironment(Environment environment) {
env = environment;
}
... getters and setters
Essentially I want to either go the yaml approach and define the queues by environment "dev", "integration", "prod"; or have 3 different files following the application-{env}.properties convention.
Then, to help me understand how this works, I threw together a quick test so I can inspect the configuration / environment:
#Test
public void testContext() {
AnnotationConfigApplicationContext ctx =
new AnnotationConfigApplicationContext();
Environment env = ctx.getEnvironment();
ctx.scan("com...events");
ctx.refresh();
EventDispatcher dispatcher = ctx.getBean(EventDispatcher.class);
}
I started the debugger with a -Dspring.profiles.active=dev, after having created an application-dev.profile available on the class path.
Am I on the right track? Seems weird to have to have that type of boiler plate code to instantiate the objects, plus it didnt work. The Environment object only showed "default" as the active profile.

Spring Boot: Change property placeholder signifier

What is the easiest way to change the prefix and suffix for the property placeholder in Spring Boot?
The default is #Value("${some.property}"), however this looks ugly in Kotlin, since it needs to be escaped - ${something} is a language feature in Kotlin for String templates.
It is possible to customize the prefix used by declaring the following beans in your configuration:
#Bean
fun propertyConfigurer() = PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer().apply {
setPlaceholderPrefix("%{")
}
if you have any existing code (like Spring Boot actuators or #LocalServerPort) that is using the ${...} syntax, you should declare:
#Bean
fun kotlinPropertyConfigurer() = PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer().apply {
setPlaceholderPrefix("%{")
setIgnoreUnresolvablePlaceholders(true)
}
#Bean
fun defaultPropertyConfigurer() = PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer()
Escaping the dollar like in #Value("\${some.property}") is another possible option that require no #Bean declaration.
For Spring Boot tests configured with #SpringBootTest(webEnvironment = WebEnvironment.RANDOM_PORT) you can use #LocalServerPort instead of #Value("\${local.server.port}").
#ConfigurationProperties would be a better alternative, especially with Kotlin data classes, but currently you have to use Kotlin classes with nullable var properties since only getter/setter are supported. You can vote for this issue or comment to show your interest in getting that supported in Spring Boot 2.x.
They have a new feature using java classes annotated with #ConfigurationProperties. This looks nice in Kotlin and is refactoring save. You should give it a try:
https://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/docs/current/reference/htmlsingle/#boot-features-external-config-typesafe-configuration-properties
Using advice from answer provided by dox, I ended up going with something like:
public interface TokenAuthenticationConfig {
public fun apiKey() : String
}
#Component
#ConfigurationProperties(prefix = "service.api")
public open class TokenAuthenticationConfigImpl : TokenAuthenticationConfig
{
public var apiKey : String
constructor() {
this.apiKey = ""
}
override fun apiKey(): String
{
return this.apiKey
}
}
In Spring #ConfigurationProperties objects are required to follow the Java Beans pattern and be, therefore, mutable. To me configuration seems as though it should be generally static throughout app life-cycle, and so rather than add the complexity of reasoning about state, injected the immutable interface instead.

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