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Spring SetFactoryBean example

The ‘SetFactoryBean‘ class provides developer a way to create a concrete Set collection (HashSet and TreeSet) in Spring’s bean configuration file.

Here’s a ListFactoryBean example, it will instantiate an HashSet at runtime, and inject it into a bean property


package com.mkyong.common;

import java.util.Set;

public class Customer 
{
	private Set sets;
	//...
}

Spring’s bean configuration file.


<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
	xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
	http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.5.xsd">

	<bean id="CustomerBean" class="com.mkyong.common.Customer">
		<property name="sets">
			<bean class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.SetFactoryBean">
				<property name="targetSetClass">
					<value>java.util.HashSet</value>
				</property>
				<property name="sourceSet">
					<list>
						<value>1</value>
						<value>2</value>
						<value>3</value>
					</list>
				</property>
			</bean>
		</property>
	</bean>

</beans>

Alternatively, you also can use util schema and <util:set> to achieve the same thing.


<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
	xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
	xmlns:util="http://www.springframework.org/schema/util"
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
	http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.5.xsd
	http://www.springframework.org/schema/util
	http://www.springframework.org/schema/util/spring-util-2.5.xsd">

	<bean id="CustomerBean" class="com.mkyong.common.Customer">
		<property name="sets">
			<util:set set-class="java.util.HashSet">
				<value>1</value>
				<value>2</value>
				<value>3</value>
			</util:set>
		</property>
	</bean>

</beans>

Remember to include the util schema, else you will hit the following error

 
Caused by: org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: 
	The prefix "util" for element "util:set" is not bound.

Run it…


package com.mkyong.common;

import org.springframework.context.ApplicationContext;
import org.springframework.context.support.ClassPathXmlApplicationContext;

public class App 
{
    public static void main( String[] args )
    {
    	ApplicationContext context = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("SpringBeans.xml");

    	Customer cust = (Customer)context.getBean("CustomerBean");
    	System.out.println(cust);
    	
    }
}

Ouput


Customer [sets=[3, 2, 1]] Type=[class java.util.HashSet]

You have instantiated HashSet and and injected it into Customer’s sets property at runtime.

Download Source Code

Download It – Spring-SetFactoryBean-Example.zip (5KB)

Reference

  1. SetFactoryBean Javadoc

About Author

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Founder of Mkyong.com, love Java and open source stuff. Follow him on Twitter. If you like my tutorials, consider make a donation to these charities.

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Ashok Kumar
6 years ago

Thanks sir
It is Helpful Example.

Rohan Dongre
7 years ago

How to print “Type=[class java.util.HashSet]”

amit sharma
10 years ago

here is one small typing mistake in this line-
Here’s a ListFactoryBean example, it will instantiate an HashSet at runtime, and inject it into a bean property

in place of ListFactoryBean example, SetFactoryBean example is right thing to type.

Leon
11 years ago

Hi Mr. Yong,

I was curious why the setFactoryBean prints out 3,2,1 but list and map can followed the the order 1,2,3 which was the order we set for them?

Thank you,
Leon

tommy
11 years ago
Reply to  Leon

Hi Leon,
This is property of java collections. Order of printing is undermined for set. List and Map iterator prints data in order they were inserted.