Spring in Action, Third Edition

Chapter 3. Minimizing XML configuration in Spring

 

This chapter covers

• Automatic bean wiring
• Automatic bean discovery
• Annotation-oriented bean wiring
• Java-based Spring configuration

 

So far, we’ve seen how to declare beans using the <bean> element and inject <bean> with values using either the <constructor-arg> or <property> element. That’s all well and good for a small application where you only have a handful of beans. But as your application grows, so will the amount of XML configuration you’ll write.

Fortunately, Spring offers a few tricks to help cut down on the amount of XML configuration required:

• Autowiring helps reduce or even eliminate the need for <property> and <constructor-arg> elements by letting Spring automatically figure ...