Is constructor injection possible in Spring configuration classes?

Question

If I have a Spring configuration class (i.e. a class annotated with @Configuration) can I use constructor injection ?

As it stands if I add one I get a no default constructor message, and if I add a default constructor it uses that rather than the overloaded one, which doesn't really help.

Answer 1

There is a bug report about this limitation. It will be fixed with Spring 4.3.

Please note that another bug report (not fixed yet today fixed in 4.3-RC1) report a problem when using this very new feature and injecting generics in constructor of a @Configuration class.

Answer 2

In Spring 4.3, you can use org.springframework.beans.factory.ObjectProvider in @Configuration annotated class constructors to inject beans. for example:

@Configuration
public class SimpleBean {
  private final InnerBean prop1;
  public Simple Bean(ObjectProvider<InnerBean> innerBeanProvider) {
     prop1 = innerBeanProvider.getObject();
  }      
}