Injecting a Groovy Grails-service into a Java class

Question

I have a Grails-service implemented in Groovy, which I'd like to inject into a Java class, in the web application. I know I can get the bean in Java via applicationContext.getBean("exampleService"), but the type ExampleService is unknown at compile time.

Can I simply import the service? It doesn't seem to declare a typical package.

(I'm fairly new to Grails and the Java Web so anything to help my understanding of what's going on behind the scenes here is greatly appreciated.)

Answer 1

The recommended approach is to extract the Grails service into an interface, and then inject this service into your java class via Spring. See the user guide - http://www.grails.org/doc/1.3.x/guide/8.%20The%20Service%20Layer.html#8.4%20Using%20Services%20from%20Java

Answer 2

If you want to inject the Grails service into the Java class without using applicationContext.getBean("exampleService"), the Java class must itself be a Spring bean, and you should wire the two together in either resources.groovy or resources.xml.

If the above doesn't make a lot of sense to you, you might want to read up on the basics of Spring dependency injection.