Spring: Cannot autowire beans from parent context - spring

Question

I have a Spring Boot (1.4.0) application, which, during initialization, starts a 2nd context (I need that because I have to publish a web service using a specific kind of authorization while the parent context publishes a different service).
I created a child context like so:
#Configuration
#ConditionalOnClass({Servlet.class, DispatcherServlet.class})
#ConditionalOnWebApplication
public class ChildContextConfiguration implements ApplicationContextAware, ApplicationListener<ContextRefreshedEvent> {
private final Logger logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(ChildContextConfiguration.class);
private ApplicationContext applicationContext;
#Override
public void setApplicationContext(ApplicationContext applicationContext) throws BeansException {
this.applicationContext = applicationContext;
}
private void createChildContext() {
final AnnotationConfigEmbeddedWebApplicationContext childContext = new AnnotationConfigEmbeddedWebApplicationContext(ChildConfiguration.class);
childContext.setParent(this.applicationContext);
childContext.setId(this.applicationContext.getId() + ":child");
}
#Override
public void onApplicationEvent(ContextRefreshedEvent contextRefreshedEvent) {
logger.info("creating child context");
createChildContext();
}
}
The child context's configuration class looks like this:
#Configuration
#ComponentScan(basePackages = {"com.example.child"})
#PropertySource("file:some-config.properties")
#ConfigurationProperties(prefix = "child")
#EnableAutoConfiguration(exclude = {DataSourceAutoConfiguration.class, HibernateJpaAutoConfiguration.class})
public class ChildConfiguration {
private Integer port;
private String keyStore;
private String keyStorePass;
private String keyPass;
private String trustStore;
private String trustStorePass;
private String packageBase;
public void setPort(Integer port) {
this.port = port;
}
public void setKeyStore(String keyStore) {
this.keyStore = keyStore;
}
public void setKeyStorePass(String keyStorePass) {
this.keyStorePass = keyStorePass;
}
public void setKeyPass(String keyPass) {
this.keyPass = keyPass;
}
public void setTrustStore(String trustStore) {
this.trustStore = trustStore;
}
public void setTrustStorePass(String trustStorePass) {
this.trustStorePass = trustStorePass;
}
public void setPackageBase(String packageBase) {
this.packageBase = packageBase;
}
#Bean
public Jaxb2Marshaller swpMarshaller() {
Jaxb2Marshaller marshaller = new Jaxb2Marshaller();
marshaller.setPackagesToScan(packageBase);
return marshaller;
}
#Bean
public Unmarshaller swpUnmarshaller() throws JAXBException {
JAXBContext jaxbContext = JAXBContext.newInstance(packageBase);
return jaxbContext.createUnmarshaller();
}
#Bean
public Filter encodingFilter() {
CharacterEncodingFilter encodingFilter = new CharacterEncodingFilter();
encodingFilter.setEncoding("UTF-8");
return encodingFilter;
}
#Bean
public ServerProperties serverProperties() {
ServerProperties props = new ServerProperties();
props.setPort(port);
props.setSsl(ssl());
return props;
}
private Ssl ssl() {
Ssl ssl = new Ssl();
ssl.setEnabled(true);
ssl.setKeyStore(keyStore);
ssl.setKeyStorePassword(keyStorePass);
ssl.setKeyStoreType("JKS");
ssl.setKeyPassword(keyPass);
ssl.setTrustStore(trustStore);
ssl.setTrustStorePassword(trustStorePass);
ssl.setClientAuth(Ssl.ClientAuth.NEED);
return ssl;
}
}
So far, this works. But when I try to autowire a bean from the parent context, I get an error stating that there is no candidate.
Another interesting thing is, when I inject the (child)context into one of my child context's beans using the ApplicationContextAware interface, the getParent() property of that context is null at that time.
What I have done now is implementing getter functions like these:
private SomeBean getSomeBean() {
if (this.someBean == null) {
this.someBean = applicationContext.getParent().getBean(SomeBean.class);
}
return this.someBean;
}
To summarize this: During construction of the child context's beans, the parent context is not set, so I cannot use autowire.
Is there some way to make autowire work with my setup?

Answer 1

Constructor taking classes to register refreshes context internally - try to set class and refresh manually after setting parent context.
private void createChildContext() {
final AnnotationConfigEmbeddedWebApplicationContext childContext = new AnnotationConfigEmbeddedWebApplicationContext();
childContext.setParent(this.applicationContext);
childContext.setId(this.applicationContext.getId() + ":child");
childContext.register(ChildConfiguration.class);
childContext.refresh();
}