OGNL support WAS: [Springframework-developer] Spring Enhancement

[Mike Cannon-B. <mi...@at...>]

Any thoughts on this guys? I can't find any replies to it :)

------ Forwarded Message
From: Mike Cannon-Brookes <mi...@at...>
Reply-To: spr...@li...
Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2003 16:02:58 +1100
To: Spring Developer <spr...@li...>
Subject: Re: [Springframework-developer] Spring Enhancement

Or an even better idea... how about supporting OGNL within the Spring config
files? (like Xwork does)

This would be _awesome_ and I just found a second use case for it (the very
minute Rob's email came in).

My use case - Maps.

The Map syntax is nice, but not very useful in practicality I'm finding as
the key and value of the map are usually related, for instance I often want
to put a list of referenced beans into a map, with ref.getName() (or some
method) called for the key.

At the moment I have to add a setBeans(List) method to my class, and then in
that setter iterate and add to a map - smelly!

If we allowed OGNL expressions, it would be very simple to do this in the
config file itself:

<property value="myMapProp">
  <map>
    <entry>
      <key>$referencedBean.name</key>
      <value><ref bean="referencedBean" /></value>
    </entry>
... More entries
  </map>
</property>

I'm sure there are a million other places where OGNL would be useful too,
but AFAIK the above can't be done _without_ it?

Or have I just been at this desk far too long?

M

On 2/12/03 8:32 AM, "Rob Butler" (rob...@ve...) penned the
words:

> Spring now provides the ability to instantiate an object using either a
> JavaBean no arg constructor, or any normal Java constructor.  But it does not
> support calling methods.
> 
> Also, Spring requires that a class implement the InitializingBean interface if
> it needs to perform some "setup" work after the setters have all been called.
> This means that any class that has this need is tied to the Springframework.
> 
> What if the ability to call any arbitrary method was added to Spring?  Then
> users could call "afterPropertiesSet" to do "setup" work without having to
> implement the InitializingBean interface.  Ideally method calls could be in
> any order along with calls to setters.  Spring would then call each in order.
> Thus, allowing some setters to be called, then some methods, then more setters
> if necessary.  If this is not possible, then methods should be called after
> setters.
> 
> This would allow complete decoupling of classes from Spring.  The
> InitializingBean & BeanFactoryAware interfaces would no longer be needed
> (although could remain for backwards compatibility).  This would be very
> useful when contributing code to other projects that do not want to have a
> dependency on Spring.  Also, it would allow virtually any class used by
> /developed for  another IOC framework / lightweight container to be used in
> Spring.
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> Later
> Rob
> 
> 
> 
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