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Spring Web Application Context Example

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In this article, I will show you how to load spring application context XML for a web application. I will be using Maven as the build tool. You can read my Maven Web Application Example for setup details.

Dependencies

Add the following dependencies to pom.xml.

  1. javax.servlet-ap – Servlet API
  2. spring-context – Spring Context
  3. spring-web – Spring Web Application Context
  4. log4j for logging

pom.xml:

<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
	<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
	<groupId>com.javarticles.web</groupId>
	<artifactId>springWebappExample</artifactId>
	<packaging>war</packaging>
	<version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
	<name>Spring Web Application Context Example</name>
	<url>http://maven.apache.org</url>
	<dependencies>
		<dependency>
			<groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
			<artifactId>javax.servlet-api</artifactId>
			<version>3.1.0</version>
		</dependency>
		<dependency>
			<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
			<artifactId>spring-context</artifactId>
			<version>3.2.3.RELEASE</version>
		</dependency>
		<dependency>
			<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
			<artifactId>spring-web</artifactId>
			<version>3.2.3.RELEASE</version>
		</dependency>
		<dependency>
			<groupId>log4j</groupId>
			<artifactId>log4j</artifactId>
			<version>1.2.17</version>
		</dependency>
	</dependencies>
	<build>
		<finalName>springWebappExample</finalName>
	</build>
</project>

Configure application context in web.xml

In order to load the application context XML files you need to do the following in web.xml.

  1. Add spring provided listener class org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener.
  2. Specify the application context files in <context-param>.

web.xml:

<!DOCTYPE web-app PUBLIC
 "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD Web Application 2.3//EN"
 "http://java.sun.com/dtd/web-app_2_3.dtd" >

<web-app>
  <display-name>Spring Web Application Context Example</display-name>
	<context-param>
		<param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
		<param-value>
			classpath*:/applicationContext.xml,
		</param-value>
	</context-param>
	<listener>
		<listener-class>org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener</listener-class>
	</listener>	  
</web-app>

You need to add param-name with value contextConfigLocation and param-value containing the XML file names. If more than one XML, enter them space separated.

Sample Bean

SpringWebAppContextLoaderExample:

package com.javarticles.web;

import org.apache.log4j.Logger;

public class SpringWebAppContextLoaderExample {
    public String toString() {
        LOGGER.info("SpringWebAppContextLoaderExample is called");
        return "This is Spring Webapplication Context Loader Example";
    }
    private Logger LOGGER = Logger.getLogger(SpringWebAppContextLoaderExample.class);
}

applicationContext.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
	xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd
	http://www.springframework.org/schema/context http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-2.5.xsd"
	default-lazy-init="true">
	<context:annotation-config />
	<bean id="springWebApp" class="com.javarticles.web.SpringWebAppContextLoaderExample" scope="singleton"/>
</beans>

Let’s now modify index.jsp. It will load spring WebApplicationContext using the below:

WebApplicationContextUtils.getWebApplicationContext(application)

application is the jsp’s default variable to access the ServletContext.

Next, we will get our sample bean and print it.

index.jsp:

<%@page import="org.springframework.web.context.support.WebApplicationContextUtils"%>
<html>
<body>
<h2><%=WebApplicationContextUtils.getWebApplicationContext(application).getBean("springWebApp")%></h2>
</body>
</html>

Run the application

Right click on the project. Click on ‘Run AS’->”Run on Server’.

Spring web application context example

Spring web application context example

Download the source code

This was an example about loading spring web application context. You can download the source code here: springWebAppContextExample.zip

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