How to inject value into bean properties in Spring

In Spring, there are three ways to inject value into bean properties.

• Normal way
• Shortcut
• “p” schema

See a simple Java class, which contains two properties – name and type. Later you will use Spring to inject value into the bean properties.

package com.mkyong.common;
public class FileNameGenerator { 
    private String name; 
    private String type; 
    public String getName() { 
        return name; 
    } 
    public void setName(String name) { 
        this.name = name; 
    } 
    public String getType() { 
        return type; 
    } 
    public void setType(String type) {  
        this.type = type; 
    }
}

1. Normal way

Inject value within a ‘value’ tag and enclosed with ‘property’ tag.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<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="FileNameGenerator" class="com.mkyong.common.FileNameGenerator">
        <property name="name">
            <value>mkyong</value>
        </property>
        <property name="type">
            <value>txt</value>
        </property>
    </bean>
</beans>

2. Shortcut

Inject value with “value” attribute.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<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="FileNameGenerator" class="com.mkyong.common.FileNameGenerator">
        <property name="name" value="mkyong" />
        <property name="type" value="txt" />
    </bean>
</beans>

3. “p” schema

Inject value by using “p” schema as an attributes.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:p="http://www.springframework.org/schema/p" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.5.xsd">
    <bean id="FileNameGenerator" class="com.mkyong.common.FileNameGenerator" p:name="mkyong" p:type="txt" />
</beans>

Remember declares the xmlns:p=”http://www.springframework.org/schema/p in the Spring XML bean configuration file.

Conclusion

Which methods to use is totally base on personal preference, it will not affect the value inject into the bean properties.