Question

Is it possible to do this ? Currently it is done like this :

<bean id="resource" class="org.springframework.context.support.ResourceBundleMessageSource">
    <property name="basenames">
        <list>
            <value>content.Language</value> 
        </list>
    </property>
</bean>

@Autowired
protected MessageSource resource;

protected String getMessage(String code, Object[] object, Locale locale) {
    return resource.getMessage(code, object, locale);
}

Is there a way for it to be like getting properties via @Value annotation ?

<util:properties id="generals" location="classpath:portlet.properties" />

    @Value("#{generals['supported.lang.codes']}")
    public String langCodes;

Because having to call the method is usually fine, but for instance when unit testing, this is pain in … … Well in some cases, webdriver’s PageObject pattern where objects don’t have no initialization, this would be really helpful

Answer 1

The point is that this is really useful only for Unit Testing. In real application, Locale is a runtime information that cannot be hardcoded in the annotation. Locale is decided based on Users locales in Runtime.

Btw you can easily implement this by yourself, something like :

@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@Target({ElementType.FIELD})
public @interface Localize {

    String value();

}

And

public class CustomAnnotationBeanPostProcessor implements BeanPostProcessor {

    public Object postProcessAfterInitialization(Object bean, String beanName) {
        return bean;
    }

    public Object postProcessBeforeInitialization(Object bean, String beanName) {
        Class clazz = bean.getClass();
        do {
            for (Field field : clazz.getDeclaredFields()) {
                if (field.isAnnotationPresent(Localize.class)) {
                    // get message from ResourceBundle and populate the field with it
                }
            }
            clazz = clazz.getSuperclass();
        } while (clazz != null);
        return bean;
    }