Autowire a bean within Spring's Java configuration

Question

Is it possible to use Spring's @Autowired annotation within a Spring configuration written in Java?

For example:

@Configuration public class SpringConfiguration{     @Autowired     DataSource datasource;     @Bean    public DataSource dataSource(){        return new dataSource();    }     // ...  } 

Obviously a DataSource interface cannot be directly instantiated but I directly instantiated it here for simplification. Currently, when I try the above, the datasource object remains null and is not autowired by Spring.

I got @Autowired to work successfully with a Hibernate SessionFactory object by returning a FactoryBean<SessionFactory>.

So my question specifically: is there a way to do that with respect to a DataSource? Or more generally, what is the method to autowire a bean within a Spring Java Configuration?

I should note I am using Spring version 3.2.

Answer 1

If you need a reference to the DataSource bean within the same @Configuration file, just invoke the bean method.

@Bean public OtherBean someOtherBean() {     return new OtherBean(dataSource()); } 

or have it autowired into the @Bean method

@Bean public OtherBean someOtherBean(DataSource dataSource) {     return new OtherBean(dataSource); } 

The lifecycle of a @Configuration class sometimes prevents autowiring like you are suggesting.