Spring Dynamic Factory Bean

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• 1- FileConverterFactory
• Summary
• Next Steps

Introduction

In this tutorial, we illustrate how to create a dynamic factory bean in Spring.

Suppose we have a file converter application which converts files based on a specific conversion type selected by the users. Our application would hold several conversion mechanisms and should be implemented in a way that dynamically instantiates the corresponding converter based on the selected conversion type.

1- FileConverterFactory

To prevent using several if/else statements each time we convert a file, we create a dynamic factory bean which instantiates all the converter beans at the startup of the application and saves them in a cached HashMap, each bean paired with its conversion type.

Now each time an application receives a conversion request, it gets the corresponding converter bean from the factory using the requested conversion type.

Our factory bean would look like the following:

@Service
public class FileConverterFactory {
 
    @Autowired
    private List<FileConverter> converters;
 
    private static final Map<String, FileConverter> fileConverterCache = new HashMap<String, FileConverter>();
 
    @PostConstruct
    public void initConverterCache() {
        
        System.out.println("Existing converters are: ");
        for (FileConverter converter : converters) {
                System.out.println(converter.getConversionType());
                fileConverterCache.put(converter.getConversionType(), converter);
        }
    }
 
    public FileConverter getConverter(String type) {
        FileConverter converter = fileConverterCache.get(type.toLowerCase());
        if (converter == null) {
            throw new RuntimeException("Unknown converter type: " + type);
        }
        return converter;
    }
 
}

Annotating the converters field with @Autowired informs the Spring framework to instantiate all the implementation classes of type FileConverter at the startup of the application.

Annotating the initConverterCache() method with @PostConstruct, instructs the Spring framework to call this method just after executing the @Autowired annotation, this method iterates over the converters and saves them in a cached HashMap called fileConverterCache, each paired with its conversion type.

The getConverter() method is exposed publicly to other classes which need to get an instance of a converter based on a specific conversion type.

Summary

In this tutorial, we illustrate how to create a dynamic factory bean in Spring.

Next Steps

If you're interested in learning more about the basics of Java, coding, and software development, check out our Coding Essentials Guidebook for Developers, where we cover the essential languages, concepts, and tools that you'll need to become a professional developer.

Thanks and happy coding! We hope you enjoyed this article. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to reach out to jacob@initialcommit.io.