Spring dependency check using @Required annotation example

By Atul Rai | Last Updated: July 25, 2018 Previous       Next

If you want to make parameters mandatory for setter-based dependency injection, you must need to use @Required annotation because dependency-check attribute of <bean/> tag is deprecated and no longer supported since Spring 3.x release.

Apply @Required annotation to all those setter methods that you want to make parameters mandatory or user have to pass it. Before preceding next, you just need to activate the @Required annotation. To activate it you need to create RequiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor class object.

<bean class="org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.RequiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor" />

Check the complete example.

Spring Beans

Create an Employee bean class that has multiple parameters like firstName, lastName, address, mobile, etc. and you want to make firstName and mobile must be passed by the user. To do this, apply the @Required annotation to the setter method of firstName and mobile.

package org.websparrow.beans;

import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Required;

public class Employee {

	// Generate setters method
	private String firstName;
	private String lastName;
	private String address;
	private int mobile;

	@Required
	public void setFirstName(String firstName) {
		this.firstName = firstName;
	}

	public void setLastName(String lastName) {
		this.lastName = lastName;
	}

	public void setAddress(String address) {
		this.address = address;
	}

	@Required
	public void setMobile(int mobile) {
		this.mobile = mobile;
	}

	// business logic
	public void displayData() {
		System.out.println("Employee details...\n");

		System.out.println("First Name: " + firstName);
		System.out.println("Last Name: " + lastName);
		System.out.println("Address: " + address);
		System.out.println("Mobile: " + mobile);

	}
}

Spring Beans Configuration

Now activate the @Required annotation by creating an object of RequiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor class in your configuration file.

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

	<!-- activate the @Required annotation -->
	<bean class="org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.RequiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor" />

	<!-- you must need to inject all those parameters value where you have applied @Required annotation -->
	<bean id="emp" class="org.websparrow.beans.Employee">
		<property name="firstName" value="Atul" />
		<property name="mobile" value="236181627" />
	</bean>

</beans>

Run it

Load configuration file and run it.

package org.websparrow.test;

import org.springframework.context.ApplicationContext;
import org.springframework.context.support.ClassPathXmlApplicationContext;
import org.websparrow.beans.Employee;

public class Client {
	public static void main(String[] args) {

		ApplicationContext applicationContext = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("spring.xml");
		Employee employee = (Employee) applicationContext.getBean("emp");
		employee.displayData();

	}
}

Here is the two possible output display on your console log.

1- It works fine and display all those parameters value that you have passed for mandatory parameters and rest will show null.

Employee details...

First Name: Atul
Last Name: null
Address: null
Mobile: 236181627

2- You will get the following exception because you have made some parameters mandatory but didn’t pass the value and Spring forces you to pass all those mandatory parameters value.

WARNING: Exception encountered during context initialization - cancelling refresh attempt: org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'emp' defined in class path resource [spring.xml]: Initialization of bean failed; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanInitializationException: Property 'mobile' is required for bean 'emp'
Exception in thread "main" org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'emp' defined in class path resource [spring.xml]: Initialization of bean failed; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanInitializationException: Property 'mobile' is required for bean 'emp'
	at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:591)
	at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:502)
	at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.lambda$doGetBean$0(AbstractBeanFactory.java:312)
	at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory$$Lambda$6/75457651.getObject(Unknown Source)
	at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.java:228)
	at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:310)
	at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:200)
	at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory.preInstantiateSingletons(DefaultListableBeanFactory.java:758)
	at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.finishBeanFactoryInitialization(AbstractApplicationContext.java:868)
	at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:549)
	at org.springframework.context.support.ClassPathXmlApplicationContext.<init>(ClassPathXmlApplicationContext.java:144)
	at org.springframework.context.support.ClassPathXmlApplicationContext.<init>(ClassPathXmlApplicationContext.java:85)
	at org.websparrow.test.Client.main(Client.java:10)
Caused by: org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanInitializationException: Property 'mobile' is required for bean 'emp'
	at org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.RequiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor.postProcessPropertyValues(RequiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor.java:156)
	at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.populateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1344)
	at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:582)
	... 12 more