Spring FAQs

13. How is a typical spring implementation look like ?
   For a typical Spring Application we need the following files:

• An interface that defines the functions.
• An Implementation that contains properties, its setter and getter methods, functions etc.,
• Spring AOP (Aspect Oriented Programming)
• A XML file called Spring configuration file.
• Client program that uses the function.

14.  What is the typical Bean life cycle in Spring Bean Factory Container ?
   Bean life cycle in Spring Bean Factory Container is as follows:

• The spring container finds the bean’s definition from the XML file and instantiates the bean.
• Using the dependency injection, spring populates all of the properties as specified in the bean definition
• If the bean implements the BeanNameAware interface, the factory calls setBeanName() passing the bean’s ID.
• If the bean implements the BeanFactoryAware interface, the factory calls setBeanFactory(), passing an instance of itself.
• If there are any BeanPostProcessors associated with the bean, their post- ProcessBeforeInitialization() methods will be called.
• If an init-method is specified for the bean, it will be called.
• Finally, if there are any BeanPostProcessors associated with the bean, their postProcessAfterInitialization() methods will be called.

15. What do you mean by Bean wiring ?
The act of creating associations between application components (beans) within the Spring container is reffered to as Bean wiring.

16. What do you mean by Auto Wiring?
   The Spring container is able to autowire relationships between collaborating beans. This means that it is possible to automatically let Spring resolve collaborators (other beans) for your bean by inspecting the contents of the BeanFactory. The autowiring functionality has five modes.

• no
• byName
• byType
• constructor
• autodirect

17. What is DelegatingVariableResolver?
       Spring provides a custom JavaServer Faces VariableResolver implementation that extends the standard Java Server Faces managed beans mechanism which lets you use JSF and Spring together. This variable resolver is called as DelegatingVariableResolver

18. How to integrate  Java Server Faces (JSF) with Spring?
   JSF and Spring do share some of the same features, most noticeably in the area of IOC services. By declaring JSF managed-beans in the faces-config.xml configuration file, you allow the FacesServlet to instantiate that bean at startup. Your JSF pages have access to these beans and all of their properties.We can integrate JSF and Spring in two ways:

• DelegatingVariableResolver: Spring comes with a JSF variable resolver that lets you use JSF and Spring together.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE beans PUBLIC "-//SPRING//DTD BEAN//EN"

   "http://www.springframework.org/dtd/spring-beans.dtd">

<faces-config>

   <application>

      <variable-resolver>

         org.springframework.web.jsf.DelegatingVariableResolver

      </variable-resolver>

   </application>

</faces-config>

The DelegatingVariableResolver will first delegate value lookups to the default resolver of the underlying JSF implementation, and then to Spring's 'business context' WebApplicationContext. This allows one to easily inject dependencies into one's JSF-managed beans.

• FacesContextUtils:custom VariableResolver works well when mapping one's properties to beans in faces-config.xml, but at times one may need to grab a bean explicitly. The FacesContextUtils class makes this easy. It is similar to WebApplicationContextUtils, except that it takes a FacesContext parameter rather than a ServletContext parameter.

ApplicationContext ctx = FacesContextUtils.getWebApplicationContext(FacesContext.getCurrentInstance());