Using Spring 3 autowire in a standalone Java application

Here is my code:

public class Main {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Main p = new Main();
        p.start(args);
    }

    @Autowired
    private MyBean myBean;
    private void start(String[] args) {
        ApplicationContext context = 
            new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("META-INF/config.xml");
        System.out.println("my beans method: " + myBean.getStr());
    }
}

@Service 
public class MyBean {
    public String getStr() {
        return "string";
    }
}

<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
 xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
 xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
 xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
     http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd
     http://www.springframework.org/schema/context
     http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.0.xsd"> 
    <context:annotation-config /> 
    <context:component-scan base-package="mypackage"/>
</beans>

Why doesn't this work? I get NullPointerException. Is it possible to use autowiring in a standalone application?

Solution 1:

Spring works in standalone application. You are using the wrong way to create a spring bean. The correct way to do it like this:

@Component
public class Main {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        ApplicationContext context = 
            new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("META-INF/config.xml");

        Main p = context.getBean(Main.class);
        p.start(args);
    }

    @Autowired
    private MyBean myBean;
    private void start(String[] args) {
        System.out.println("my beans method: " + myBean.getStr());
    }
}

@Service 
public class MyBean {
    public String getStr() {
        return "string";
    }
}

In the first case (the one in the question), you are creating the object by yourself, rather than getting it from the Spring context. So Spring does not get a chance to Autowire the dependencies (which causes the NullPointerException).

In the second case (the one in this answer), you get the bean from the Spring context and hence it is Spring managed and Spring takes care of autowiring.

Solution 2:

Spring is moving away from XML files and uses annotations heavily. The following example is a simple standalone Spring application which uses annotation instead of XML files.

package com.zetcode.bean;

import org.springframework.stereotype.Component;

@Component
public class Message {

   private String message = "Hello there!";

   public void setMessage(String message){

      this.message  = message;
   }

   public String getMessage(){

      return message;
   }
}

This is a simple bean. It is decorated with the @Component annotation for auto-detection by Spring container.

package com.zetcode.main;

import com.zetcode.bean.Message;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.context.ApplicationContext;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.AnnotationConfigApplicationContext;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.ComponentScan;

@ComponentScan(basePackages = "com.zetcode")
public class Application {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        ApplicationContext context
                = new AnnotationConfigApplicationContext(Application.class);

        Application p = context.getBean(Application.class);
        p.start();
    }

    @Autowired
    private Message message;
    private void start() {
        System.out.println("Message: " + message.getMessage());
    }
}

This is the main Application class. The @ComponentScan annotation searches for components. The @Autowired annotation injects the bean into the message variable. The AnnotationConfigApplicationContext is used to create the Spring application context.

My Standalone Spring tutorial shows how to create a standalone Spring application with both XML and annotations.

Solution 3:

For Spring 4, using Spring Boot we can have the following example without using the anti-pattern of getting the Bean from the ApplicationContext directly:

package com.yourproject;

@SpringBootApplication
public class TestBed implements CommandLineRunner {

    private MyService myService;

    @Autowired
    public TestBed(MyService myService){
        this.myService = myService;
    }

    public static void main(String... args) {
        SpringApplication.run(TestBed.class, args);
    }

    @Override
    public void run(String... strings) throws Exception {
        System.out.println("myService: " + MyService );
    }

}

@Service 
public class MyService{
    public String getSomething() {
        return "something";
    }
}

Make sure that all your injected services are under com.yourproject or its subpackages.