Question

I have a dao jar file that contains all the domain objects and service classes. it has a config file dao-resource.xml with id=datasource.

I am using this jar file in another project which has its own app-context.xml, but i want to override the bean with id="datasource" in the jar file

how do i do this. I tried to add a bean with same id in app-context.xml and added both files to classpathxmlapplicat…. first dao-resource.xml then app-context.xml

but that did not seem to work.

how else can i override a bean

Answer 1

Having spring config files in jars makes things a bit harder to manage. If you have annotated your classes it would be easier.

But anyway, I’d suggest splitting the dao xml in two parts – your beans, and infrastructure-related beans (like the datasource). Then you can include only the ones you need in your app-context.xml.

Another way would be to use primary="true" on your overriding bean. This would mean all injection points that need a bean of type DataSource, would pick your primary bean. But that won’t work if you refer to your datasource in your dao xml.

So in short – you can’t override a bean, so split your xml file and include only the parts you need.