Question

Is there a notion of “string-indexed” getters in spring context setup XML language? Suppose I have Person getter with the following prototype:

class Person {
   Person getRelative(String relativeName);
   ...
}

Can I access it with something like

<bean id="Bob" class="Person"/>

<bean id="Barnyard" class="Company">
   <property name="owner" ref="Bob.relative.father"/>
</bean>

saying that Bob’s father is the owner of Barnyard company.

The Company prototype is like follows:

class Company {
   Person getOwner();
   void setOwner(Person value);
   ...
}

Answer 1

You can use Spring-El for this:

<bean id="Barnyard" class="Company">
   <property name="owner" value="#{Bob.getRelative('father')"/>
</bean>