Spring SetFactoryBean example

The ‘SetFactoryBean‘ class provides developer a way to create a concrete Set collection (HashSet and TreeSet) in Spring’s bean configuration file.

Here’s a ListFactoryBean example, it will instantiate an HashSet at runtime, and inject it into a bean property

package com.tuts.heomi.netmon;

import java.util.Set;

public class Customer 
{
	private Set sets;
	//...
}

Spring’s bean configuration file.

<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
	xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
	http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.5.xsd">

	<bean id="CustomerBean" class="com.tuts.heomi.netmon.Customer">
		<property name="sets">
			<bean class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.SetFactoryBean">
				<property name="targetSetClass">
					<value>java.util.HashSet</value>
				</property>
				<property name="sourceSet">
					<list>
						<value>1</value>
						<value>2</value>
						<value>3</value>
					</list>
				</property>
			</bean>
		</property>
	</bean>

</beans>

Alternatively, you also can use util schema and <util:set> to achieve the same thing.

<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
	xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
	xmlns:util="http://www.springframework.org/schema/util"
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
	http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.5.xsd
	http://www.springframework.org/schema/util
	http://www.springframework.org/schema/util/spring-util-2.5.xsd">

	<bean id="CustomerBean" class="com.tuts.heomi.netmon.Customer">
		<property name="sets">
			<util:set set-class="java.util.HashSet">
				<value>1</value>
				<value>2</value>
				<value>3</value>
			</util:set>
		</property>
	</bean>

</beans>

Remember to include the util schema, else you will hit the following error

Caused by: org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: 
	The prefix "util" for element "util:set" is not bound.

Run it…

package com.tuts.heomi.netmon;

import org.springframework.context.ApplicationContext;
import org.springframework.context.support.ClassPathXmlApplicationContext;

public class App 
{
    public static void main( String[] args )
    {
    	ApplicationContext context = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("SpringBeans.xml");

    	Customer cust = (Customer)context.getBean("CustomerBean");
    	System.out.println(cust);
    	
    }
}

Ouput

Customer [sets=[3, 2, 1]] Type=[class java.util.HashSet]

You have instantiated HashSet and and injected it into Customer’s sets property at runtime.

Download Source Code

$ git clone https://github.com/favtuts/java-spring-tutorials.git
$ cd SpringBeanSetFactory

Reference

1. SetFactoryBean Javadoc