Spring #Required properties when creating #Bean annotated beans - spring

Question

I'm developing a Spring Boot application and am trying out using Java annotation-based bean creation (using #Configuration and #Bean) rather than the familiar old XML-based bean creation. I'm puzzled though. If I attempt to create a bean in XML but fail to set an #Required property I get a BeanInitializationException when the application context is created. In my trials so far with annotation-based bean creation though this does not seem to be the case.
For example:
public class MyClass {
...
#Required
public void setSomeProp(String val){
}
}
Then in Spring XML:
<bean class="MyClass"/>
This will blow up during application startup (and IntelliJ flags it) because the required property is not set. But the same does not seem to be true of this:
#Configuration
public class MyConfig {
#Bean
public MyClass myClass() {
return new MyClass();
}
}
This application starts up just fine even though the required property is not ever set. I must be missing something here, because this seems like a pretty key feature in Spring.
UPDATE
I did some digging & debugging and it turns out that the bean definition is somehow being flagged to skip checking that #Required fields are set. In the Spring class 'RequiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor' the boolean method 'shouldSkip()' is returning true for beans created this way. When I used the debugger to force that method to return false bean creation did indeed blow up with the expected exception.
Seeing as I'm making a pretty basic Spring Boot application I'm inclined (as Zergleb suggests) to submit this as a bug.
UPDATE 2
Some further debugging has revealed that even if the field is getting set forcing the check still throws the same exception, as if it hadn't been set. So perhaps dunni is correct and there is no way for this to work with #Bean notation.

Answer 1

As you said I also could not get #Required to run as expected this may be a bug and needs to be reported. I have a few other suggestions that did work for me.
Class annotated with #Configuration
//With the bean set up as usual These all worked
#Bean
public MyClass myClass() {
return new MyClass();
}
When you annotate the class #Component and load using component scanning works as expected.(The component scanning part is important you either need your #Configuration class to either have #ComponentScan or perhaps remove #Configuration and replace with #SpringBootApplication and this will enable scanning for components without needing to wire them up using #Bean configs)
#Component // Added this
public class MyClass {
...
#Required //Failed as expected
public void setSomeProp(String val){
}
}
Use #Autowired(required=true) //Fails with BeanCreationException //No qualifying bean of type [java.lang.String] found for dependency
//No more #Component
public class MyClass {
...
#Autowired(required=true) //Fails
public void setSomeProp(String val){
}
}
#Autowired required=false //Does not crash
public class MyClass {
...
#Autowired(required=false) //Simply never gets called if missing
public void setSomeProp(String val){
}
}
#Value //Does not work if test.property is missing // Could not resolve placeholder 'test.property' in string value "${test.property}
public class MyClass {
#Value("${test.property}")
String someProp;
//This getter is not neccesary neither is a setter
public String getSomeProp() {
return this.someProp;
}
}
#Value with default value//Does not crash // When getSomeProp is called it returns "My Default Value"(Unless you have test.property=Anything in your application.properties file then it returns "Anything"
public class MyClass {
#Value("${test.property:My Default Value}")
String someProp;
//This getter is not neccesary neither is a setter
public String getSomeProp() {
return this.someProp; //Returns "My Default Value"
}
}
Inside your #Configuration file also fails if it cannot find anything to populate String someProp in the myClass method
#Bean
public MyClass myClass(String someProp) { //Fails being unable to populate this arg
MyClass myObj = new MyClass();
myObj.setSomeProp(someProp);
return ;
}

Answer 2

If course this won't work, since you create the object of MyClass yourself (new MyClass()), thus the annotations are not evaluated. If you create a bean with a #Bean method, the container will only make sure, that all dependencies are there (method parameters) and that the bean scope is adhered to, meaning if it's a singleton bean, only one bean is created per application context. The creation of the bean/object itself is solely the responsibility of the developer.
The equivalent of the xml <bean> tag is annotating the class with #Component, where the bean is created completely by the container, thus the annotations are evaluated.

Answer 3

As it is being said that when you are having your own #Configuration class where you are creating the bean by itself, #Required doesn't apply there.
When you already have a #Component, let Spring Boot do the component scan and at the required setter property you can add #Autowired and it will work fine.
Found this link on web- https://www.boraji.com/spring-required-annotation-example
For example:
I have a Component called Employee having Id and Name.
#Component
public class Employee {
int id;
String name;
public int getId() {
return id;
}
#Autowired
#Required
public void setId(int id) {
this.id = id;
}
public String getName() {
return name;
}
public void setName(String name) {
this.name = name;
}
}
I have a Configuration class called AppConfig.java
#Configuration
public class AppConfig {
#Bean
public int getId() {
return 1;
}
}
So now we see, that component Employee needs an Id property for binding during startup, so I wrote bean method of type Integer, which will get autowired during runtime. If you do not write a bean of type Integer, it will result a BeanCreationException.
And here is my main class file.
#SpringBootApplication
public class SingletonApplication {
public static void main(String[] args) {
ApplicationContext ctx =
SpringApplication.run(SingletonApplication.class, args);
Employee emp = (Employee)ctx.getBean(Employee.class);
System.out.println(emp.getId());
}
}