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Spring ListFactoryBean example

The ‘ListFactoryBean‘ class provides developer a way to create a concrete List collection class (ArrayList and LinkedList) in Spring’s bean configuration file.

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


package com.mkyong.common;

import java.util.List;

public class Customer 
{
	private List lists;
	//...
}

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="lists">
			<bean class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.ListFactoryBean">
				<property name="targetListClass">
					<value>java.util.ArrayList</value>
				</property>
				<property name="sourceList">
					<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:list> 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="lists">
			<util:list list-class="java.util.ArrayList">
				<value>1</value>
				<value>2</value>
				<value>3</value>
			</util:list>
		</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:list" 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 [lists=[1, 2, 3]] Type=[class java.util.ArrayList]

You have instantiated ArrayList and injected it into Customer’s lists property at runtime.

Download Source Code

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

Reference

  1. ListFactoryBean 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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Prithvi
9 years ago

good………

Jim
11 years ago

Great, short, easy to learn tutorials. Well done.

ramakrishna
11 years ago

instead of value tag use ref tag in list tag

Ângelo
11 years ago

Hi i do enjoy these tutorial very much. How can i set a project of this tutorial in eclipse indigo? where do i get the necessary jars? in wich folder the jar files must be in ?

Shay Zamir
11 years ago

Howdy! Someone in my Facebook group shared this website with us so I came to give it a look. I’m definitely loving the information. I’m bookmarking and will be tweeting this to my followers! Great blog and superb design and style.

pratap
11 years ago

I need to set the list of class object to array list, can you give example.

below one is not working–

ramakrishna
11 years ago
Reply to  pratap

use ref tag instead of value tag in list tag

ramakrishna
11 years ago
Reply to  pratap

Instead of tag in tag,use tag and add the values