Exception starting Spring application from Java

Question

I am able to compile and start my Spring project using Maven:

mvn -e clean compile exec:java -Dexec.mainClass=de.fraunhofer.fkie.tet.vmware.manager.Test

However, when I assemble all jars in a single file using the maven-assembly-plugin (including applicationContext.xml), I always get an Exception during the java execution:

java -cp target/test-jar-with-dependencies.jar:. de.fraunhofer.fkie.tet.vmware.manager.Test

  INFO: Loading XML bean definitions from class path resource [applicationContext.xml]
  Sep 6, 2010 10:37:21 AM org.springframework.util.xml.SimpleSaxErrorHandler warning
  WARNING: Ignored XML validation warning
  org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: schema_reference.4: Failed to read schema document 'http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context.xsd', because 1) could not find the document; 2) the document could not be read; 3) the root element of the document is not <xsd:schema>.
  ...
  Exception in thread "main" org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.XmlBeanDefinitionStoreException: 
  Line 10 in XML document from class path resource [applicationContext.xml] is invalid; nested exception is org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: cvc-complex-type.2.4.c: 
  The matching wildcard is strict, but no declaration can be found for element 'context:annotation-config'.
  ...
  Caused by: org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: cvc-complex-type.2.4.c: 
  The matching wildcard is strict, but no declaration can be found for element 'context:annotation-config'.

I also tried to attach the schema definitions, i.e. spring-context.xsd etc., directly to the classpath, but without any success.

less src/main/resources/applicationContext.xml

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
  <beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
                             http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd
                             http://www.springframework.org/schema/context 
                             http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context.xsd">

      <context:annotation-config />   <!-- wegen '@PostConstruct' -->
  <!--<context:component-scan base-package="de.fraunhofer" />     -->
  ...
  </beans>

Answer 1

Spring namespace handlers are resolved using files /META-INF/spring.schemas and /META-INF/spring.handlers. Because files with these names exist in different Spring jars, probably only one of them remains in target jar after maven-assembly-plugin.

Perhaps you may merge these files manually and somehow configure maven-assembly-plugin to overwrite file in target jar with this merged file.

Answer 2

I suspect your spring config file is missing the context XML namespace. It should be added to the root element of your spring config file like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
    xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans 
           http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd
           http://www.springframework.org/schema/context
           http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.0.xsd">

    <context:annotation-config />
    <context:component-scan base-package="com.abc.xyz" />

</beans>

Answer 3

I've found the root problem for this as per the reply of axtavt, and I've reported it as a ?bug? in Spring: https://jira.springsource.org/browse/SPR-8368 - a workaround to generate your own merged copies of these files is included there. For posterity the code is here as well:

//IOUtils and FileUtils come from Apache Commons IO
for(String s : new String[] {"spring.schemas", "spring.handlers", "spring.tooling"}) {
    Enumeration<?> e = Test.class.getClassLoader().getResources("META-INF/"+s);
    StringBuilder out = new StringBuilder();
    while(e.hasMoreElements()) {
        URL u = (URL) e.nextElement();
        out.append(IOUtils.toString(u.openStream())).append("\n");
    }
    File outf = new File(s);
    FileUtils.writeStringToFile(outf, out.toString(), "UTF-8");
}

Answer 4

I believe there are 3 solutions to this problem

1. The tx jar file should be included in the classpath/buildpath of the project. (most common error)
2. Mentioned by "axtavt" above
3. Try this before "axtaxt" solution: go to your war directory (specified in GWT compile's advanced tab) and put the spring-tx.jar file in the lib folder under your war directory, refresh and run again.