how to reference a bean of another xml file in spring

Question

I have a Spring bean defined in an xml file. I want to reference it from another xml file. How can I go about it?

Answer 1

You have a couple of options:

Import

<import resource="classpath:config/spring/that-other-xml-conf.xml"/>  <bean id="yourCoolBean" class="org.jdong.MyCoolBean">     <property name="anotherBean" ref="thatOtherBean"/> </bean> 

Include in the ApplicationContext Construction

Make both files a part of your ApplicationContext when you create it => then no import is needed.

For example if you need it during testing:

@RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class) @ContextConfiguration({ "classpath:META-INF/conf/spring/this-xml-conf.xml",                     "classpath:META-INF/conf/spring/that-other-xml-conf.xml" }) public class CleverMoneyMakingBusinessServiceIntegrationTest {...} 

In case it is a web app, you'd do it in web.xml:

<context-param>      <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>     <param-value>WEB-INF/conf/spring/this-xml-conf.xml</param-value>     <param-value>WEB-INF/conf/spring/that-other-xml-conf.xml</param-value> </context-param>  <listener>      <listener-class>org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener</listener-class> </listener> 

If it is a stand alone app, library, etc.. you would load your ApplicationContext as:

new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext(      new String[] { "classpath:META-INF/conf/spring/this-xml-conf.xml",                    "classpath:META-INF/conf/spring/that-other-xml-conf.xml" } ); 

Answer 2

Just import the xml defining the bean with <import resource="otherXml.xml"> and you will be able to use the bean definition.

You can use classpath: in the resource attribute:

<import resource="classpath:anotherXXML.xml" />

See the "3.18. Importing Bean Definitions from One File Into Another" in this chapter of the Spring Reference

Answer 3

You reference it exactly as you would reference a bean in the same XML file. If a spring context is composed of several XML files, all the beans are part of the same context, and thus share a unique namespace.