Question

I have one class that has a list of objects of Daemon type.

class Xyz {    
    List<Daemon> daemons;
}

My spring configuration looks like this.

<bean id="xyz" class="package1.Xyz">
   <property name="daemons" ref="daemonsList">
</bean>

<bean id="daemon1" class="package1.DaemonImpl1"/>
<bean id="daemon2" class="package1.DaemonImpl2"/>

<bean id="daemonsList" class="java.util.ArrayList">
        <constructor-arg>
            <list>
                <ref bean="daemon1" />      
                <ref bean="daemon2" />
            </list>
        </constructor-arg>
</bean>

Now instead of explicitly wiring each daemon implementation in list, is it possible to autowire all beans of type Daemon automatically in list. Problem I am trying to solve is, If someone creates a bean of new implementation of Daemon class and forgets to wire it into list.

I have seen this question somewhere on stackoverflow but not able to find that again. Apologies for it.

Answer 1

It should work like this (remove the ArrayList bean from your XML):

public Class Xyz {    

    private List<Daemon> daemons;

    @Autowired
    public void setDaemons(List<Daemon> daemons){
        this.daemons = daemons;
    }

}

I don’t think there’s a way to do this in XML.

---

See:
3.9.2. @Autowired and @Inject:

It is also possible to provide all beans of a particular type from the
ApplicationContext by adding the annotation to a field or method that
expects an array of that type:

public class MovieRecommender {

  @Autowired
  private MovieCatalog[] movieCatalogs;

  // ...
}

The same applies for typed collections:

public class MovieRecommender {

  private Set<MovieCatalog> movieCatalogs;

  @Autowired
  // or if you don't want a setter, annotate the field
  public void setMovieCatalogs(Set<MovieCatalog> movieCatalogs) {
      this.movieCatalogs = movieCatalogs;
  }

  // ...
}

BTW, as of Spring 4.x, these lists can be ordered automatically using the @Ordered mechanism.