How to use Spring's ThreadPoolExecutorFactoryBean factory bean

Question

I would like to be able to inject an ExecutorService instance into my Spring services, and the Spring API suggest using ThreadPoolExecutorFactoryBean for this purpose. Very simple question; how the hell do I use the ThreadPoolExecutorFactoryBean to create an ExecutorService that I can wire into my other services?

I feel like a complete idiot for asking his question, but I can't seem to get this figured out.

Answer 1

To expand on skaffman's answer, here's a short and sweet example of what one needs to do:

<bean id="classNeedingExecutor" class="foo.Bar">
  <property name="executor" ref="threadExecutor" />
</bean>

<bean id="threadExecutor"
  class="org.springframework.scheduling.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutorFactoryBean">
  <property name="corePoolSize" value="1" />
  <property name="maxPoolSize" value="1" />
</bean>

Again, see the JavaDocs for an explanation of the other properties that can be set to configure the ExecutorService.

Answer 2

First off, you need to learn what a FactoryBean is - read section 3.8.3 of the spring docs.

Then, you read the Javadoc for ThreadPoolExecutorFactoryBean and understand what it does.

Next, you configure a ThreadPoolExecutorFactoryBean in your context. This will create an ExecutorService (since it's a FactoryBean, see above), which you can inject into your bean.