• 

Spring helps JEE developers by:

• Your application code should not depend on Spring API’s

• Spring should not compete with good existing solutions, but

should foster integration

• Writing testable code is critical and the container should help not

interfere with

this objective

• Spring should be a pleasure to use

…while adhering to certain principals:

• What is it?

– A way of sorting out dependencies between objects and

automatically “injecting” references to collaborating objects on

demand

• Who determines how the objects should be injected?

– The IoC framework, usually via XML configuration files

• Benefits

– Removes the responsibility of finding or creating dependent objects

and moves it into configuration

– Reduces coupling between implementation objects and encourages

interface based design

– Allows an application to be reconfigured

outside of code

– Can encourage writing testable components

private AccountService accountService = null;

public void execute(HttpServletRequest req, ….) throws Exception {

Account account = createAccount(req);

AccountService service = getAccountService();

service.updateAccount(account);

}

private AccountService getAccountService() throws … {

if (accountService == null) {

Context ctx = new InitialContext();

Context env = (Context) ctx.lookup(“java:comp/env”);

Object obj = env.lookup(“ejb/AccountServiceHome”);

AccountServiceHome home = (AccountServiceHome)

PortableRemoteObject.narrow(env, AccountService.class);

accountService = home.create();

}

return accountService;

}

…

Traditional way of obtaining references….

private AccountService accountService = null;

public void setAccountService(AccountService accountService) {

this.accountService = accountService;

}

public void execute(HttpServletRequest req, ….) throws Exception {

Account account = createAccount(req);

accountService.updateAccount(account);

}

…

With Spring IoC the container will handle the

“injection” of an appropriate implementation ….

We will see how Spring does this in the next section

• Applications must be concerned with things like:

– Transaction management

– Logging

– Security

• Do these responsibilities belong to the

implementation classes?

– Should our AccountService class be responsible for

transaction management, logging, or security?

• These concerns are often referred to as “crosscutting”

concerns

• Code that implements systemwide

concerns is

duplicated across multiple components

• The business components become littered with

code that isn’t central to it’s responsibilities

Problems with traditional approach ….

• Separate these concerns and define them as

an “advice”

– Before Advice

– After Advice

– Around Advice

– Throws Advice

• Declaratively “weave” them into the application

based on certain criteria (“pointcuts”).

• Proxies then intercept relevant methods and

silently introduce the advice

Spring AOP allows us to:

• Static AOP

– Aspects are typically introduced in the byte code during the

build process or via a custom class loader at runtime

– AspectJ (byte code manipulation at compile time)

– JBoss 4, AspectWerkz (Class loader approach)

• Dynamic AOP

– Create “proxies” for all advised objects

– Slightly poorer performance

– Easier to configure

– Spring

Types of AOP:

THE

• Uses IoC to manage components that make up

an application

• Components are expressed as regular Java

Beans

• Container manages the relationships between

beans and is responsible for configuring them

• Manages the lifecycle of the beans

Bean container is core to the Spring framework:

• Bean Factory

– Provides basic support for dependency injection

– Configuration and lifecycle management

• Application Context

– Builds on Bean Factory and adds services for:

• Resolving messages from properties files for

internationalization,

• Loading generic resources

• Publishing events

Types of Bean Containers:

Loading a Bean Factory:

public interface Greeting {

String getGreeting();

}

public class WelcomeGreeting implements Greeting {

private String message;

public void setMessage(String message) {

this.message = message;

}

public String getGreeting() {

return message;

}

}

Loading a Bean Factory (cont):

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

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

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

<beans>

<bean id=“greeting” class=“WelcomeGreeting”>

<property name=“message”>

<value>Welcome</value>

</property>

</bean>

</beans>

… saved in a file called foo.xml:

Loading a Bean Factory (cont):

public static void main(String[] args) {

BeanFactory factory = new XmlBeanFactory(

new FileInputStream(“foo.xml”));

Greeting greeting = (Greeting) factory.getBean(“greeting”);

System.out.println(greeting.getGreeting());

}

Output:

Welcome

• Default to Singleton’s

• Properties can be set via dependency injection

– References to other managed beans

– Strings

– Primitive types

– Collections (lists, set, map, props)

– “Inner Beans”

• “Autowiring”

• Parameters may be externalized to property files

Features of Managed Beans:

• A layer of abstraction for persisting data via one or more of

the following technologies

– JDBC

– Hibernate, OJB

– JDO

– iBatis

• A robust infrastructure for declarative transaction

management that supports local transactions as well as

global transactions via JTA

• A simplifying layer for “remoting” technologies including

EJB, RMI, Hession/Burlap, and Web Services

• Useful support for JNDI, JMS, email, task scheduling

Spring supports the business tier by providing:

26

• A technology agnostic data access API that helps

isolate and streamline the way data is served by

the business tier

• A consistent and rich exception hierarchy that is

smart enough to map technology specific

exceptions to generalized exceptions

• A series of template and wrapper classes for

working with JDBC, Hibernate, JDO, etc.

The Spring DAO module includes:

Traditional JDBC coding techniques:

public void updateCustomer(Customer customer) {

Connection conn = null;

PreparedStatement ps = null;

try {

conn = getConnection();

ps = conn.prepareStatement(“update customer set “ +

“firstName = ?, lastName = ?, …);

ps.setString(1, customer.getFirstName());

ps.setString(2, customer.getLastName());

ps.executeUpdate();

} catch SQLException e) {

log.error(e);

} finally {

try { if (ps != null) ps.close(); }

catch (SQLException e) {log.error(e);}

try {if (conn != null) conn.close();}

catch (SQLException e) {log.error(e);}

}

}

private Connection getConnection() {

… more plumbing code here

}

Using Spring JDBC template:

public void updateCustomer(Customer customer) {

String sql = “update customer set “ +

“firstName = ?, lastName = ?, …);

Object[] params = new Object[] {

customer.getFirstName(),

customer.getLastName(),

… };

int[] types = new int[] {

Types.VARCHAR,

Types.VARCHAR,

… };

jdbcTemplate.update(sql, params, types);

}

jdbcTemplate can be injected by container…

Operations can also be modeled as objects:

public class UpdateCustomer extends SqlUpdate {

public UpdateCustomer(DataSource ds) {

setDataSource(ds);

setSql(“update customer set… values (?,?..)”);

declareParameter(new SqlParameter(Types.VARCHAR));

declareParameter(new SqlParameter(Types.VARCHAR));

compile();

}

public int update(Customer customer) {

Object[] params = new Object[] {

customer.getFirstName(),

customer.getLastName()

};

return update(params);

}

}

Using the UpdateCustomer object :

public class JdbcCustomerDao extends JdbcDaoSupport

implements CustomerDao {

private UpdateCustomer updateCustomer;

protected void initDao() throws Exception {

super.initDao();

updateCustomer = new UpdateCustomer(getDataSource());

}

public void updateCustomer(Customer customer) {

updateCustomer.update(customer);

}

}

We may even choose to make the UpdateCustomer object an inner class!

• Spring provides a SessionFactory bean that simplifies

configuration and session management for business

objects

• A HibernateTemplate class is provided to reduce need

for boilerplate code

• HibernateDaoSupport class that can be extended for

further abstraction

• HibernateException management and mapping

• Seamlessly plugs into Spring transaction framework

Hibernate Support :

Hibernate configuration example :

…

<beans>

<bean id=“sessionFactory” class=“org.springframework.orm.

hibernate.LocalSessionFactoryBean”>

<property name=“dataSource”>

<ref bean=“dataSource”/>

</property>

<property name=“hibernateProperties”>

<props>

<prop key=“hibernate.dialect”>

net.sf.hibernate.dialect.MySQLDialect

</prop>

</props>

</property>

<property name=“mappingResources”>

<list><value>Customer.hbm.xml</value></list>

</property>

</bean>

continued…

33

Hibernate configuration example (cont) :

…

<bean id=“customerDao” class=“HibernateCustomerDao”>

<property name=“sessionFactory”>

<ref bean=“sessionFactory”/>

</property>

</bean>

<bean id=“dataSource” class=“org.springframework.jndi.

JndiObjectFactoryBean”>

<property name=“jndiName”>

<value>java:comp/env/jdbc/myDataSource</value>

</property>

</bean>

</beans>

The CustomerDao is simply:

public class HibernateCustomerDao extends HibernateDaoSupport

implements CustomerDao {

public void updateCustomer(Customer customer) {

getHibernateTemplate().update(customer);

}

}

Similar integration exists for iBatis, JDO, and OJB

• Support for both programmatic and declarative

transaction management

• Local transactions delegated by Spring to the

underlying data source transaction manager

• When multiple resources are involved, Spring

delegates to the JTA transaction manager

obtained via JNDI

• Only minor configuration changes are required

when switching between local and JTA

Spring support for transactions :

• Not as popular as declarative approach

• When finegrained

control is required

– Similar to manually controlling JTA UserTransactions

• Available via the Spring TransactionTemplate

class

– Reference typically passed to the business object via DI

– Transaction template holds a property of type

PlatformTransactionManager

– PlatformTransactionManager can be an implementation of

Hibernate, JDO, JDBC, or JTA transaction manager

Programmatic Transaction Management :

• Uses AOP to wrap calls to transactional objects

with code to begin and commit transactions

• Transaction propagation behavior

– Mandatory, Never, Not Supported, Required, Requires New,

Support, Nested

– Similar to EJB style behaviors

• Also supports isolation levels

– Default, Read Uncommitted, Read Committed, Repeatable

Read, Serializable

Declarative Transaction Management :

Declaring transaction attributes:

PROPAGATION, ISOLATION, readOnly, -Exceptions, +Exception

Propagation Behavior

Isolation Level

[optional]

Is transaction Read Only?

[optional]

Rollback Rules

[optional]

Attributes are declared in bean definition file

Declarative Transaction Example:

…

<beans>

<bean id=“customerService” class=“org.springframework.transaction.

interceptor.TransactionProxyFactoryBean”>

<property name=“transactionManager”>

<ref bean=“transactionManager”/>

</property>

<property name=“target”>

<ref bean=“customerServiceTarget”/>

</property>

<property name=“transactionAttributes”>

<props>

<prop key=“get*”>PROPAGATION_REQUIRED, readOnly</prop>

<prop key=“store*”>PROPAGATION_REQUIRED</prop>

</props>

</property>

<bean>

continued

Declarative Transaction Example (cont):

…

<bean id=“customerServiceTarget” class=“CustomerServiceImpl”>

<property name=“customerDao”>

<ref bean=“customerDao”/>

</property>

</bean>

<bean id=“transactionManager” class=“org.springframework.orm.

hibernate.HibernateTransactionManager”>

<property name=“sessionFactory”>

<ref bean=“sessionFactory”/>

</property>

</bean>

<bean id=“customerDao” class=“HibernateCustomerDao”>

<property name=“sessionFactory”>

<ref bean=“sessionFactory”/>

</property>

</bean>

…

<beans>

• RMI

– Provides a RmiProxyFactoryBean that can be configured to

connect to an RMI service

– Provides a RmiServiceExporter that can be configured to expose

any Spring managed bean as an RMI service

• Caucho (Hessian/Burlap)

– Provides a Hession(Burlap)ProxyFactoryBean and ServiceExporter

to connect to and expose Caucho remote services respectively

– Also requires configuration of web application context and mapping

of appropriate servlet url

• Spring Http Invoker

– Similar to Caucho except using nonproprietary

object serialization

techniques

Spring provides support for remoting:

• EJB

– Spring allows EJB’s to be declared as beans within the

Spring configuration file making it possible to inject

references to them in other beans

– Spring provides the ability to write EJB’s that wrap Spring

configured Java Beans

• Web Services via JAXRPC

– Client side support via the JaxRpcPortProxyFactoryBean

– ServletEndpointSupport class allows services that sit behind

a servlet to access the Spring Application Context

(cont):

• LocalStatelessSessionProxyFactoryBean

– Proxy for local SLSB

• Finds and caches the EJB Home upon first access

• Intercepts method calls and invokes corresponding method on ejb

• SimpleRemoteStatelessSessionProxyFactoryBean

– Proxy for remote SLSB

• Will also catch Remote Exceptions and rethrow

as unchecked

exceptions

• Stateful session beans are NOT proxied

– Simplified lookup via Spring JndiObjectFactoryBean

Accessing EJB’s in Spring Apps:

Looking up remote SLSB using Spring:

…

<bean id=“customerService” class=“org.springframework.ejb.

access.SimpleRemoteStatelessSessionProxyFactoryBean”

lazy-init=“true”>

<property name=“jndiName”>

<value>customerService</value>

</property>

<property name=“businessInterface”>

<!-- fully qualified name of interface class -->

<value>CustomerService</value>

</property>

</bean>

…

<!-- in some web tier bean definition file… -->

<bean id=“someWebTierController” class=“…”>

<property name=“customerService”>

<ref bean=“customerService”/>

</property>

</bean>

• Strategy based on “Business Interface” design

pattern

– Create a super interface that defines business methods

– Let local/remote interface extends this interface

– Bean class implements the super (business) interface

• Spring provides a set of abstract base classes

– For SLSB, SFSB, and MDB

– Provides access to a Spring Bean Factory from within EJB!

• Must place EJB specific bean definition xml file(s) in ejbjar

• Declare name as environment entry in ejbjar

Building EJB’s with help from Spring:

CustomerService SLSB using Spring:

public class CustomerServiceEJB extends AbstractStatelessSessionBean

implements CustomerService {

private static final String BEAN_NAME = “customerService”;

private CustomerService customerService;

public void storeCustomer(Customer customer) {

customerService.storeCustomer(customer);

}

protected void onEjbCreate() throws CreateException {

customerService = (CustomerService)

getBeanFactory().getBean(BEAN_NAME);

}

}

• JNDI Lookup

– Moves verbose lookup code into the framework

• Sending Email

– Template classes that support COS mail (Hunter/O’Reilly) and

JavaMail

• Event Scheduling

– Support JDK Timer

– OpenSymphony Quartz events

Other Enterprise Features:

• Spring MVC

– Spring’s own implementation of the Model 2 MVC architecture

– Flexible request mapping and handling

– Full forms support

– Supports multiple view technologies

– JSP Tag Library

• Support for Existing Web Frameworks

– Struts

– Tapestry

– JavaServerFaces

– WebWork

Spring offers rich support in the Web Tier:

Spring MVC Lifecycle:

• Configure web.xml to map requests to Spring Front Controller

– Similar to Struts setup

• Configure web.xml to have Spring read additional bean definition

files, if necessary ([servlet name]servlet.

xml loaded automatically)

– Spring supports either 2.3 (listeners) or 2.2 (startup servlet)

– Allows multiple bean configuration files to be loaded into single Application

Context

• Write Controller classes and configure them in xml file

– Must map the controller to one or more URLs via an implementation of a

HandlerMapping object

• Configure one or more view resolvers to tie controllers to views

(JSP, Velocity template, etc.)

• Write the JSPs or other view artifacts to render the user interface

Setting up a typical Spring MVC:

Controllers in Spring MVC:

…

public class ListCustomersController implements Controller {

private CustomerService customerService;

public void setCustomerService(CustomerService customerService) {

this.customerService = customerService;

}

public ModelAndView handleRequest(HttpServletRequest req,

HttpServletResponse res) throws Exception

{

return new ModelAndView(“customerList”, “customers”,

customerService.getCustomers());

}

}

ModelAndView object is simply a combination of a named

view and a Map of objects that are introduced into the

request by the dispatcher

• Interface based

– Do not have to extend any base classes (as in Struts)

• Have option of extending helpful base classes

– MultiAction

Controllers

– Command Controllers

• Dynamic binding of request parameters to POJO (no ActionForms!)

• Use PropertyEditor features of JavaBeans to map complex types

– Form Controllers

• Hooks into cycle for overriding binding, validation, and inserting reference

data

• Validation (including support for Commons Validation)

• Wizard style controller

Controllers in Spring:

Resolving the Url via a HandlerMapping :

…

<beans>

<bean id=“simpleUrlMapping” class=“org.springframework.web.servlet.

handler.SimpleUrlHandlerMapping”>

<property name=“mappings”>

<props>

<prop key=“/admin/listCustomers.htm”>

listCustomersController</prop>

</props>

</property>

</bean>

<bean id=“listCustomersController” class=“ListCustomersController”>

<property name=“customerService”>

<ref bean=“customerService”/>

</property>

</bean>

…

</beans>

Resolving the view names in Spring:

…

<beans>

<bean id=“viewResolver”

class=“org.springframework.web.servlet.

view.ResourceBundleViewResolver”>

<property name=“basename”>

<value>views</value>

</property>

</bean>

…

</beans>

… in views.properties

customerList.class=com.springframework.web.servlet.view.JstlVie

w

customerList.url=/WEB-INF/jsp/customerList.jsp

The view class can be any implementation of a View object!

Spring includes hooks (via abstract base classes) to create your

own view classes for rendering PDF and Excel using iText and POI libraries

• Spring Rich Client

– Develop Swingbased

application using Spring concepts

• Spring IDE

– Eclipse Plugin

for managing bean definition files and visualizing

bean relationships

• Acegi Security

– Security framework based upon the Spring framework

• Sandbox

– Scripting support for bean dependencies (BeanShell, Groovy)

– J2SE 5.0 annotations metadata

support

– Spring JMX for exposing beans as JMX managed resources