Where do I put my XML beans in a Spring Boot application?

Question

I'm getting back into Spring (currently v4). It's all wonderful now with @SpringBootApplication and the other annotations but all the documentation seems to forget to mention how I define other beans in XML!

For example I'd like to create an "SFTP Session Factory" as defined at: http://docs.spring.io/spring-integration/reference/html/sftp.html

There is a nice bit of XML to define the bean but where on earth do I put it and how do I link it in? Previously I did a:

ApplicationContext context = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext(
                "classpath:applicationContext.xml");

to specify the file name and location but now that I'm trying to use:

ApplicationContext ctx = SpringApplication.run(Application.class);

Where do I put the XML file? Is there a magic spring name to call it?

score 46 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 28 '15 at 13:29

46

As long as you're starting with a base @Configuration class to begin with, which it maybe sounds like you are with @SpringBootApplication, you can use the @ImportResource annotation to include an XML configuration file as well.

@SpringBootApplication
@ImportResource("classpath:spring-sftp-config.xml")
public class SpringConfiguration {
  //
}

answered Jul 28 '15 at 13:29

bvulaj

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Do I have to put @ImportResource on top of every spring application and test case I write or is there a default name/location that spring automatically looks in? – David Newcomb Jul 28 '15 at 13:37
@DavidNewcomb You just need to make sure that a configuration class with the annotation is reachable from your configuration root. If it's something you use all the time, you might even add your own autoconfiguration class for it. – chrylis -cautiouslyoptimistic- Jul 28 '15 at 13:39
@DavidNewcomb you traditionally only want one `@SpringBootApplication` in your application, as it itself is a combination of `@Configuration` and a few other must-haves. Your `@ImportResource` only needs to be on a single `@Configuration` class that gets scanned by Spring, just like the auto-scanning that happens / happened in XML land. – bvulaj Jul 28 '15 at 13:43
you saved my day. – Parasu Mar 08 '19 at 15:04
I read that the one thing `Spring Boot` is very good at is making the "configuration" process easy and that it can be used without involving configuration `xml` at all, but `xml` can join the configuration process by applying what @bvulaj mentioned. Is it possible to fully configure my application without the use of any `xml`? – Mike Jul 21 '19 at 18:11
@Mike I would say that most modern Spring Boot apps use zero xml. – bvulaj Jul 22 '19 at 19:03

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 28 '15 at 13:37

You also can translate the XML config to a Java config. In your case it would look like:

@Bean
public DefaultSftpSessionFactory sftpSessionFactory() {
    DefaultSftpSessionFactory factory = new DefaultSftpSessionFactory();
    factory.setHost("localhost");
    factory.setPrivateKey(new ClassPathResource("classpath:META-INF/keys/sftpTest"));
    factory.setPrivateKeyPassphrase("springIntegration");
    factory.setPort(22);
    factory.setUser("kermit");
    return factory;
}

You can put this method in the class with the @SpringBootApplication annotation.

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Jan 31 '18 at 11:42

0

Spring boot ideal concept is avoid xml file. but if you want to keep xml bean, you can just add @ImportResource("classPath:beanFileName.xml").

I would recommend remove the spring-sftp-config.xml file. And, convert this file to spring annotation based bean. So, whatever class has been created as bean. Just write @Service or @Component annotation before class name. for example:

XML based:

<bean ID="id name" class="com.example.Employee">

Annotation:

@Service or @Component
class Employee{
}

And, add @ComponentScan("Give the package name"). This is the best approach.

edited Jan 31 '18 at 11:42

David Newcomb

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answered Dec 27 '17 at 06:59

Md Jalal

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2

The question was "How do I link in existing xml files?" and not "How do I convert all my beans to annotations?". Your answer is the same as bvulaj's. – David Newcomb Jan 31 '18 at 11:46
Please add this is a ~comment~ if you are pro-annotation vs xml. By the way, not everyone agrees with you. http://literatejava.com/spring/explicit-vs-implicit-configuration-spring/ #justSayin #notHatin – granadaCoder Feb 26 '19 at 20:53
1

Nope. Avoiding XML is not ideal. I have SQL, SAS scripts, HTML blocks in String beans in XML context files, exploiting the the context variable substitution feature. – Blessed Geek Jul 08 '19 at 00:26
Add @ImportResource("classpath:beanFileName.xml"), not @ImportResource("classPath:beanFileName.xml") – sunzy Feb 14 '21 at 14:40

Where do I put my XML beans in a Spring Boot application?

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