Dependency-inject "dynamically specified" beans based on annotation arguments - spring

Question

I have a use case where it would be extraordinarily nice to dynamically instantiate beans (using some kind of factory approach) based on annotation-arguments at the injection point. Specifically, I need to be able to specify a type-argument to the bean-creating factory.
A pretty relevant example would be a JSON deserializer that needs the type which it needs to deserialize to.
I envision either:
#Inject
#DeserializeQualifier(Car.class)
private Deserializer<Car> _carDeserializer;
#Inject
#DeserializeQualifier(Bus.class)
private Deserializer<Bus> _busDeserializer;
.. or simply, if it was possible to sniff the type from the generic type argument:
#Inject
private Deserializer<Car> _carDeserializer;
#Inject
private Deserializer<Bus> _busDeserializer;
The big point here is that I would not know beforehand which types was needed in the project, as this would be a generic tool that many projects would include. So you would annotate your #Configuration class with #EnableDeserializer and could then inject any type deserializer (The factory that makes these deserializers can handle any type, but to be able create one, it would need to know the desired type of the deserialized object - plain generics would not cut it, since Java ain't using reified generics).
So, I'd need to be able to inject into the spring context, or using any other Spring magic tricks, some kind of DeserializerFactory that takes the type argument.
Basically, I need to have Spring invoke the following method based based on either, as in the first example, the qualifier argument (or the entire DeserializeQualifier-instance for that matter), or as in the second example, the generic type argument:
DeserializerFactory {
<T> Deserializer<T> createDeserializer(Class<T> type) { ... }
}

Answer 1

You could create a BeanFactoryPostProcessor to set attributes annotated with a custom annotation. I've set up a small Spring Boot project to play around:
// Custom annotation
#Target(ElementType.FIELD)
#Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
public #interface InjectSomeClassHere {
Class value();
}
// Demo bean
#Component
public class SomeBean {
#InjectSomeClassHere(String.class)
private Class someValue;
public Class getInjectedClass() {
return someValue;
}
}
// The BeanFactoryPostProcessor
#Component
public class SomeBeanFactoryPostProcessor implements BeanFactoryPostProcessor {
#Override
public void postProcessBeanFactory(ConfigurableListableBeanFactory beanFactory) throws BeansException {
Arrays
.stream(beanFactory.getBeanDefinitionNames())
.filter(beanName -> hasAnnotatedField(beanFactory, beanName))
.forEach(beanName -> {
Object bean = beanFactory.getBean(beanName);
Stream.of(bean.getClass().getDeclaredFields()).forEach(field -> setFieldValue(bean, field));
});
}
private boolean hasAnnotatedField(ConfigurableListableBeanFactory beanFactory, String beanName) {
try {
String className = beanFactory.getBeanDefinition(beanName).getBeanClassName();
if (className == null) {
return false;
}
return Arrays.stream(Class.forName(className).getDeclaredFields())
.anyMatch(field -> field.isAnnotationPresent(InjectSomeClassHere.class));
} catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
// Error handling here
return false;
}
}
private void setFieldValue(Object filteredBean, Field field) {
try {
// Note: field.isAccessible() is deprecated
if (!field.isAccessible()) {
field.setAccessible(true);
}
// Retrieve the value from the annotation and set the field
// In your case, you could call `createDeserializer(fieldValue);` and set the field using the return value.
// Note that you should change the type of `SomeBean#someValue` accordingly.
Class fieldValue = field.getAnnotation(InjectSomeClassHere.class).value();
field.set(filteredBean, fieldValue);
} catch (IllegalAccessException e) {
// Error handling here
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
// A small test to verify the outcome of the BeanFactoryPostProcessor
#RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
#SpringBootTest
public class SomeBeanTests {
#Autowired
private SomeBean someBean;
#Test
public void getInjectedClass_shouldHaveStringClassInjected() {
Assert.assertEquals(String.class, someBean.getInjectedClass());
}
}
Please note that this is a very naive implementation and requires further fine tuning. For instance, it scans all attributes in all spring components for the presence of an annotation.
Good luck with your project!