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Using the "auto-proxy" facility

So far, we have considered explicit creation of AOP proxies by using a ProxyFactoryBean or similar factory bean.

Spring also lets us use “auto-proxy” bean definitions, which can automatically proxy selected bean definitions. This is built on Spring’s “bean post processor” infrastructure, which enables modification of any bean definition as the container loads.

In this model, you set up some special bean definitions in your XML bean definition file to configure the auto-proxy infrastructure. This lets you declare the targets eligible for auto-proxying. You need not use ProxyFactoryBean.

There are two ways to do this:

  • By using an auto-proxy creator that refers to specific beans in the current context.

  • A special case of auto-proxy creation that deserves to be considered separately: auto-proxy creation driven by source-level metadata attributes.

Auto-proxy Bean Definitions

This section covers the auto-proxy creators provided by the org.springframework.aop.framework.autoproxy package.

BeanNameAutoProxyCreator

The BeanNameAutoProxyCreator class is a BeanPostProcessor that automatically creates AOP proxies for beans with names that match literal values or wildcards. The following example shows how to create a BeanNameAutoProxyCreator bean:

<bean class="org.springframework.aop.framework.autoproxy.BeanNameAutoProxyCreator">
	<property name="beanNames" value="jdk*,onlyJdk"/>
	<property name="interceptorNames">
		<list>
			<value>myInterceptor</value>
		</list>
	</property>
</bean>

As with ProxyFactoryBean, there is an interceptorNames property rather than a list of interceptors, to allow correct behavior for prototype advisors. Named “interceptors” can be advisors or any advice type.

As with auto-proxying in general, the main point of using BeanNameAutoProxyCreator is to apply the same configuration consistently to multiple objects, with minimal volume of configuration. It is a popular choice for applying declarative transactions to multiple objects.

Bean definitions whose names match, such as jdkMyBean and onlyJdk in the preceding example, are plain old bean definitions with the target class. An AOP proxy is automatically created by the BeanNameAutoProxyCreator. The same advice is applied to all matching beans. Note that, if advisors are used (rather than the interceptor in the preceding example), the pointcuts may apply differently to different beans.

DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator

A more general and extremely powerful auto-proxy creator is DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator. This automagically applies eligible advisors in the current context, without the need to include specific bean names in the auto-proxy advisor’s bean definition. It offers the same merit of consistent configuration and avoidance of duplication as BeanNameAutoProxyCreator.

Using this mechanism involves:

  • Specifying a DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator bean definition.

  • Specifying any number of advisors in the same or related contexts. Note that these must be advisors, not interceptors or other advice. This is necessary, because there must be a pointcut to evaluate, to check the eligibility of each advice to candidate bean definitions.

The DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator automatically evaluates the pointcut contained in each advisor, to see what (if any) advice it should apply to each business object (such as businessObject1 and businessObject2 in the example).

This means that any number of advisors can be applied automatically to each business object. If no pointcut in any of the advisors matches any method in a business object, the object is not proxied. As bean definitions are added for new business objects, they are automatically proxied if necessary.

Auto-proxying in general has the advantage of making it impossible for callers or dependencies to obtain an un-advised object. Calling getBean("businessObject1") on this ApplicationContext returns an AOP proxy, not the target business object. (The “inner bean” idiom shown earlier also offers this benefit.)

The following example creates a DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator bean and the other elements discussed in this section:

<bean class="org.springframework.aop.framework.autoproxy.DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator"/>

<bean class="org.springframework.transaction.interceptor.TransactionAttributeSourceAdvisor">
	<property name="transactionInterceptor" ref="transactionInterceptor"/>
</bean>

<bean id="customAdvisor" class="com.mycompany.MyAdvisor"/>

<bean id="businessObject1" class="com.mycompany.BusinessObject1">
	<!-- Properties omitted -->
</bean>

<bean id="businessObject2" class="com.mycompany.BusinessObject2"/>

The DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator is very useful if you want to apply the same advice consistently to many business objects. Once the infrastructure definitions are in place, you can add new business objects without including specific proxy configuration. You can also easily drop in additional aspects (for example, tracing or performance monitoring aspects) with minimal change to configuration.

The DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator offers support for filtering (by using a naming convention so that only certain advisors are evaluated, which allows the use of multiple, differently configured, AdvisorAutoProxyCreators in the same factory) and ordering. Advisors can implement the org.springframework.core.Ordered interface to ensure correct ordering if this is an issue. The TransactionAttributeSourceAdvisor used in the preceding example has a configurable order value. The default setting is unordered.