How can I access the ApplicationContext from within a JAX-WS web service?

Question

Similar to How can I access the ServletContext from within a JAX-WS web service?, is there a way to access applicationContext, easier than this?

import javax.annotation.Resource;
import javax.jws.WebService;
import javax.servlet.ServletContext;
import javax.xml.ws.WebServiceContext;
import javax.xml.ws.handler.MessageContext;

import org.springframework.web.context.WebApplicationContext;
import org.springframework.web.context.support.WebApplicationContextUtils;

@WebService
public class MyWebService {
    // boilerplate code begins :(

    @Resource
    private WebServiceContext context;
    private WebApplicationContext webApplicationContext = null;

    /**
     * @return
     * @throws IllegalStateException
     */
    private WebApplicationContext getWebApplicationContext()
            throws IllegalStateException {
        if (webApplicationContext != null)
            return webApplicationContext;
        ServletContext servletContext =
                (ServletContext) context.getMessageContext().get(
                        MessageContext.SERVLET_CONTEXT);
        webApplicationContext =
                WebApplicationContextUtils.getRequiredWebApplicationContext(servletContext);
        return webApplicationContext;
    }
}

Answer 1

import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Qualifier;
import org.springframework.web.context.support.SpringBeanAutowiringSupport;


@WebService( 
    endpointInterface = "Bla", 
    targetNamespace = "http://bla/v001", 
    wsdlLocation = "WEB-INF/wsdl/bla.wsdl",    
    serviceName = "BlaService",
    portName = "BlaPort")
public class BlaWs extends SpringBeanAutowiringSupport implements BlaPort {

  @Autowired
  @Qualifier("dao") 
  private Dao dao;
  ...
}

Answer 2

I don't think that the web service should have to know about web or servlet contexts or its application context. I don't see why it should have to know any of that. Shouldn't it be far more passive? Inject what it needs and let it do its work. The service interactions with a client should be based on a contract defined up front. If it has to get unknown values from a context of some kind, how will clients know what needs to be set or how to set it?

I'd go further and say that a web service should be a wrapper for a Spring service interface. It's just one more choice among all the possible ways to expose it. Your web service should do little more than marshal and unmarshal the XML request/response objects and collaborate with Spring services.

Answer 3

Make your web service bean extend a spring bean.

like this