[java] Add Bean Programmatically to Spring Web App Context

Because of a plug-in architecture, I'm trying to add a bean programmatically to my webapp. I have a Spring bean created through the @Component annotation, and i am implementing the ApplicationContextAware interface.

My override function looks like this:

@Override
public void setApplicationContext(ApplicationContext applicationContext)
        throws BeansException {

    // this fails
    this.applicationContext = (GenericWebApplicationContext) applicationContext;
 }

Basically, I can't figure out how to add a bean to the applicationContext object given to setApplicationContext. Can anyone tell me how I am going about this the wrong way?

Ok, this is what i ended up with as the solution:

@Override
public void postProcessBeanDefinitionRegistry(BeanDefinitionRegistry bdr)
        throws BeansException {
    BeanDefinition definition = new RootBeanDefinition(
            <My Class>.class);

    bdr.registerBeanDefinition("<my id>", definition);
}

First initialize Property values

MutablePropertyValues mutablePropertyValues = new MutablePropertyValues();
mutablePropertyValues.add("hostName", details.getHostName());
mutablePropertyValues.add("port", details.getPort());

DefaultListableBeanFactory context = new DefaultListableBeanFactory();
GenericBeanDefinition connectionFactory = new GenericBeanDefinition();
connectionFactory.setBeanClass(Class);
connectionFactory.setPropertyValues(mutablePropertyValues);

context.registerBeanDefinition("beanName", connectionFactory);

Add to the list of beans

ConfigurableListableBeanFactory beanFactory = ((ConfigurableApplicationContext) applicationContext).getBeanFactory();
beanFactory.registerSingleton("beanName", context.getBean("beanName"));

Here is a simple code:

ConfigurableListableBeanFactory beanFactory = ((ConfigurableApplicationContext) applicationContext).getBeanFactory();
beanFactory.registerSingleton(bean.getClass().getCanonicalName(), bean);

Actually AnnotationConfigApplicationContext derived from AbstractApplicationContext, which has empty postProcessBeanFactory method left for override

/**
 * Modify the application context's internal bean factory after its standard
 * initialization. All bean definitions will have been loaded, but no beans
 * will have been instantiated yet. This allows for registering special
 * BeanPostProcessors etc in certain ApplicationContext implementations.
 * @param beanFactory the bean factory used by the application context
 */
protected void postProcessBeanFactory(ConfigurableListableBeanFactory beanFactory) {
}

To leverage this, Create AnnotationConfigApplicationContextProvider class which may look like following(given for Vertx instance example, you can use MyClass instead)...

public class CustomAnnotationApplicationContextProvider {
private final Vertx vertx;

public CustomAnnotationApplicationContextProvider(Vertx vertx) {
    this.vertx = vertx;
}

/**
 * Register all beans to spring bean factory
 *
 * @param beanFactory, spring bean factory to register your instances
 */
private void configureBeans(ConfigurableListableBeanFactory beanFactory) {
    beanFactory.registerSingleton("vertx", vertx);
}

/**
 * Proxy method to create {@link AnnotationConfigApplicationContext} instance with no params
 *
 * @return {@link AnnotationConfigApplicationContext} instance
 */
public AnnotationConfigApplicationContext get() {
    return new AnnotationConfigApplicationContext() {

        @Override
        protected void postProcessBeanFactory(ConfigurableListableBeanFactory beanFactory) {
            super.postProcessBeanFactory(beanFactory);
            configureBeans(beanFactory);
        }
    };
}

/**
 * Proxy method to call {@link AnnotationConfigApplicationContext#AnnotationConfigApplicationContext(DefaultListableBeanFactory)} with our logic
 *
 * @param beanFactory bean factory for spring
 * @return
 * @see AnnotationConfigApplicationContext#AnnotationConfigApplicationContext(DefaultListableBeanFactory)
 */
public AnnotationConfigApplicationContext get(DefaultListableBeanFactory beanFactory) {
    return new AnnotationConfigApplicationContext(beanFactory) {

        @Override
        protected void postProcessBeanFactory(ConfigurableListableBeanFactory beanFactory) {
            super.postProcessBeanFactory(beanFactory);
            configureBeans(beanFactory);
        }
    };
}

/**
 * Proxy method to call {@link AnnotationConfigApplicationContext#AnnotationConfigApplicationContext(Class[])} with our logic
 *
 * @param annotatedClasses, set of annotated classes for spring
 * @return
 * @see AnnotationConfigApplicationContext#AnnotationConfigApplicationContext(Class[])
 */
public AnnotationConfigApplicationContext get(Class<?>... annotatedClasses) {
    return new AnnotationConfigApplicationContext(annotatedClasses) {

        @Override
        protected void postProcessBeanFactory(ConfigurableListableBeanFactory beanFactory) {
            super.postProcessBeanFactory(beanFactory);
            configureBeans(beanFactory);
        }
    };
}

/**
 * proxy method to call {@link AnnotationConfigApplicationContext#AnnotationConfigApplicationContext(String...)} with our logic
 *
 * @param basePackages set of base packages for spring
 * @return
 * @see AnnotationConfigApplicationContext#AnnotationConfigApplicationContext(String...)
 */
public AnnotationConfigApplicationContext get(String... basePackages) {
    return new AnnotationConfigApplicationContext(basePackages) {

        @Override
        protected void postProcessBeanFactory(ConfigurableListableBeanFactory beanFactory) {
            super.postProcessBeanFactory(beanFactory);
            configureBeans(beanFactory);
        }
    };
}
}

While creating ApplicationContext you can create it using

Vertx vertx = ...; // either create or for vertx, it'll be passed to main verticle
ApplicationContext context = new CustomAnnotationApplicationContextProvider(vertx).get(ApplicationSpringConfig.class);

Why do you need it to be of type GenericWebApplicationContext?
I think you can probably work with any ApplicationContext type.

Usually you would use an init method (in addition to your setter method):

@PostConstruct
public void init(){
    AutowireCapableBeanFactory bf = this.applicationContext
        .getAutowireCapableBeanFactory();
    // wire stuff here
}

And you would wire beans by using either

AutowireCapableBeanFactory.autowire(Class, int mode, boolean dependencyInject)

or

AutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(Object existingbean, String beanName)