Question

There are compound property names in Spring XML but I can’t find compound property values.

Suppose I have Person getter with the following prototype:

class Person {
   Person getFather();
   void setFather(Person value);
   String getAge();
   void setAge(String value);
   ...
}

The Company prototype is like follows:

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

Can I connect these with something like

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

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

Above does not works saying “no bean with Bob.father id”.

The following also does not work

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

saying can’t convert String to Person.

How to accomplish?

UPDATE

Suppose I want to set age of company owner. Apparently I should write this:

<bean id="Barnyard" class="Company">
   <property name="owner" value="#{Bob.father}"/>
   <property name="owner.age" value="38"/>
</bean>

Isn’t this a bad design when I CAN use properties of properties at LEFT but CANNOT do the same at RIGHT??

Answer 1

Spring EL will work here also, even more concise than the question you had previously –

<bean id="Barnyard" class="Company">
   <property name="owner" value="#{Bob.father}"/>
</bean>