Question

I am using Spring 3.0.3.

I would like to use the applicationContextProvider so I declared:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
     xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
     xmlns:aop="http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop"
     xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context" 
     xmlns:tx="http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx"
     xsi:schemaLocation="
     http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans 
     http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd
     http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx
     http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx/spring-tx-3.0.xsd 
     http://www.springframework.org/schema/context
     http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.0.xsd 
     http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop 
     http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop/spring-aop-3.0.xsd">
    <bean id="applicationContextProvider" class="com.mycompany.util.ApplicationContextProvider"></bean>
    <context:annotation-config/>
    <tx:annotation-driven/>
</beans>

and my ApplicationContextProvider:

public class ApplicationContextProvider implements ApplicationContextAware {

    private static ApplicationContext applicationContext = null;

    public static ApplicationContext getApplicationContext() {
        return applicationContext;
    }
    public void setApplicationContext(ApplicationContext _applicationContext) throws BeansException {
        applicationContext = _applicationContext;

    }

}

But the set is never being called!

and whenever I am using ApplicationContextProvider.getApplicationContext() returns null.

why is it?

Answer 1

Part of the problem may be that your getter is static. So its possible for you to call it before Spring has created an instance of ApplicationContextProvider.

You need to refer to the bean ‘applicationContextProvider’ that Spring has created for you when Spring is “ready” for you to use it. See Bean lifecycle

E.g. via a Junit test with your bean in ‘app-context.xml’ in src/test/resources

package com.mycompany.util;

import static org.junit.Assert.*;

import org.junit.Test;
import org.junit.runner.RunWith;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.context.ApplicationContext;
import org.springframework.test.context.ContextConfiguration;
import org.springframework.test.context.junit4.SpringJUnit4ClassRunner;

@ContextConfiguration(locations="classpath:app-context.xml")
@RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class)
public class ApplicationContextProviderTest {

    @Autowired // Injected by Spring when bean is "ready"
    ApplicationContextProvider contextProvider;


    @Test
    public void testContext() {
        assertNotNull(contextProvider);
        ApplicationContext context = ApplicationContextProvider.getApplicationContext();
        assertNotNull(context);

        System.out.println("My context has " + context.getBeanDefinitionCount() + " beans");
    }
}

Then this gets a green bar for applicationContext being set.

Example output (don’t leave System.out in the test btw).

INFO : org.springframework.test.context.TestContextManager - @TestExecutionListeners is not present for class [class com.mycompany.util.ApplicationContextProviderTest]: using defaults.
INFO : org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.XmlBeanDefinitionReader - Loading XML bean definitions from class path resource [app-context.xml]
INFO : org.springframework.context.support.GenericApplicationContext - Refreshing org.springframework.context.support.GenericApplicationContext@4c331059: startup date [Sun Feb 27 13:38:13 GMT 2011]; root of context hierarchy
INFO : org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory - Pre-instantiating singletons in org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory@4b1c2b67: defining beans [applicationContextProvider,org.springframework.context.annotation.internalConfigurationAnnotationProcessor,org.springframework.context.annotation.internalAutowiredAnnotationProcessor,org.springframework.context.annotation.internalRequiredAnnotationProcessor,org.springframework.context.annotation.internalCommonAnnotationProcessor]; root of factory hierarchy
My context has 5 beans
INFO : org.springframework.context.support.GenericApplicationContext - Closing org.springframework.context.support.GenericApplicationContext@4c331059: startup date [Sun Feb 27 13:38:13 GMT 2011]; root of context hierarchy
INFO : org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory - Destroying singletons in org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory@4b1c2b67: defining beans [applicationContextProvider,org.springframework.context.annotation.internalConfigurationAnnotationProcessor,org.springframework.context.annotation.internalAutowiredAnnotationProcessor,org.springframework.context.annotation.internalRequiredAnnotationProcessor,org.springframework.context.annotation.internalCommonAnnotationProcessor]; root of factory hierarchy

app-context.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd">

    <bean id="applicationContextProvider" class="com.mycompany.util.ApplicationContextProvider"></bean>


</beans>