What is difference between class path , file system?

Question

I know that:

1. ApplicationContext context = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("bean.xml");

   loads context definition from an XML file located in the classpath, treating context definitions as classpath resources.

2. ApplicationContext context = new FileSystemXmlApplicationContext("bean.xml");

   loads context definition from an XML file in the filesystem.

3. XmlWebApplicationContext

   loads context definition from an XML file contained within a web application.

But, what does it exactly mean??

Thanks :)

Answer 1

• ClassPathXmlApplicationContext will read files from your classpath. They must be in classes folder of your web application or in a jar in your libfolder.

• FileSystemXmlApplicationContext can access all your file system, for example c:/config/applicationContext.xml.

• XmlWebApplicationContext certainly can access to files contained in your web application, but this is not the most important thing. It implements WebApplicationContext and this means that it will detect ServletContextAware beans, register custom scopes (request, session, ...) among other things.

Answer 2

FileSystemXmlApplicationContext- You need to provide complete full path of xml bean ClassPathXmlApplicationContext - In this case you DONOT need to set full path, as long as classpath is set