Spring can you autowire inside an abstract class?

Question

Spring is failing to autowire my object? Is it possible to autowire an object within an abstract class. Assume all schemas are supplied in application-context.xml

Question: What annotation should be on the base and extending classes (if any) @Service @Component?

Example

abstract class SuperMan {

    @Autowire
    private DatabaseService databaseService;

    abstract void Fly();

    protected void doSuperPowerAction(Thing thing) {

        //busy code

        databaseService.save(thing);

    }
}

Extending class

public class SuperGirl extends SuperMan {

    @Override
    public void Fly() {
        //busy code
    }

    public doSomethingSuperGirlDoes() {

        //busy code

        doSuperPowerAction(thing)

    }

application-context.xml

<context:component-scan base-package="com.baseLocation" />
<context:annotation-config/>

Answer 1

I have that kind of spring setup working

an abstract class with an autowired field

public abstract class AbstractJobRoute extends RouteBuilder {

    @Autowired
    private GlobalSettingsService settingsService;

and several children defined with @Component annotation.

Answer 2

Normally, Spring should do the autowiring, as long as your abstract class is in the base-package provided for component scan.

See this and this for further reference.

@Service and @Component are both stereotypes that creates beans of the annotated type inside the Spring container. As Spring Docs state,

This annotation serves as a specialization of @Component, allowing for implementation classes to be autodetected through classpath scanning.

Answer 3

What if you need any database operation in SuperGirl you would inject it again into SuperGirl.

I think the main idea is using the same object reference in different classes. So what about this:

//There is no annotation about Spring in the abstract part.
abstract class SuperMan {


    private final DatabaseService databaseService;

    public SuperMan(DatabaseService databaseService) {
     this.databaseService = databaseService;
    }

    abstract void Fly();

    protected void doSuperPowerAction(Thing thing) {

        //busy code

        databaseService.save(thing);

    }
}

---

@Component
public class SuperGirl extends SuperMan {

private final DatabaseService databaseService;

@Autowired
public SuperGirl (DatabaseService databaseService) {
     super(databaseService);
     this.databaseService = databaseService;
    }

@Override
public void Fly() {
    //busy code
}

public doSomethingSuperGirlDoes() {

    //busy code

    doSuperPowerAction(thing)

}

In my opinion, inject once run everywhere :)