This version is still in development and is not considered stable yet. For the latest stable version, please use Spring Batch Documentation 5.2.1!

The Delegate Pattern and Registering with the Step

Note that the CompositeItemWriter is an example of the delegation pattern, which is common in Spring Batch. The delegates themselves might implement callback interfaces, such as StepListener. If they do and if they are being used in conjunction with Spring Batch Core as part of a Step in a Job, then they almost certainly need to be registered manually with the Step. A reader, writer, or processor that is directly wired into the Step gets registered automatically if it implements ItemStream or a StepListener interface. However, because the delegates are not known to the Step, they need to be injected as listeners or streams (or both if appropriate).

  • Java

  • XML

The following example shows how to inject a delegate as a stream in Java:

Java Configuration
@Bean
public Job ioSampleJob(JobRepository jobRepository, Step step1) {
	return new JobBuilder("ioSampleJob", jobRepository)
				.start(step1)
				.build();
}

@Bean
public Step step1(JobRepository jobRepository, PlatformTransactionManager transactionManager) {
	return new StepBuilder("step1", jobRepository)
				.<String, String>chunk(2, transactionManager)
				.reader(fooReader())
				.processor(fooProcessor())
				.writer(compositeItemWriter())
				.stream(barWriter())
				.build();
}

@Bean
public CustomCompositeItemWriter compositeItemWriter() {

	CustomCompositeItemWriter writer = new CustomCompositeItemWriter();

	writer.setDelegate(barWriter());

	return writer;
}

@Bean
public BarWriter barWriter() {
	return new BarWriter();
}

The following example shows how to inject a delegate as a stream in XML:

XML Configuration
<job id="ioSampleJob">
    <step name="step1">
        <tasklet>
            <chunk reader="fooReader" processor="fooProcessor" writer="compositeItemWriter"
                   commit-interval="2">
                <streams>
                    <stream ref="barWriter" />
                </streams>
            </chunk>
        </tasklet>
    </step>
</job>

<bean id="compositeItemWriter" class="...CustomCompositeItemWriter">
    <property name="delegate" ref="barWriter" />
</bean>

<bean id="barWriter" class="...BarWriter" />