What's the difference between Spring BeanFactoryAware and ApplicationContextAware?

up vote8down votefavorite 3	Both can be used to get bean instance, but which one is better to be used to implement? java spring share|improve this question edited Jan 8 '10 at 11:54 skaffman 173k27349435 asked Jan 8 '10 at 11:23 Matt 420823
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If you need a reference to the BeanFactory, then use BeanFactoryAware. If you need a reference to the ApplicationContext, then use ApplicationContextAware. Note that the ApplicationContext interface is a subclass of BeanFactory, and provides additional methods on top of the basic BeanFactory interface. If all you need to do is call getBean(), then BeanFactory is sufficient. Note also that Spring 2.5+ provides a nicer way of getting yourself wired with a BeanFactory orApplicationContext, e.g. private @Autowired ApplicationContext appContext; private @Autowired BeanFactory beanFactory; No need for the XyzAware interfaces. share|improve this answer edited Jan 8 '10 at 14:26 answered Jan 8 '10 at 14:10 skaffman 173k27349435

In autowired case is it possible to catch appContext/beanFactory set event? In constructor appContext/beanFactory has not set yet... –  Simi Mar 12 '12 at 15:43 add comment

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An ApplicationContext is an extended version of a BeanFactory and therefore offers additional functionalities. So whether to use ApplicationContextAware or BeanFactoryAware boils down to the question: Do you explicitely need any of the additional ApplicationContext functionalities? If you do implementApplicationContextAware otherwise stick to BeanFactoryAware. share|improve this answer edited Jan 8 '10 at 14:19 answered Jan 8 '10 at 14:09 perdian 1,1501123

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Do you require access to the additional features available on an ApplicationContext? If so, then you should of course use ApplicationContextAware. If not, BeanFactoryAware will be sufficient. Amongst many other things, an ApplicationContext has additional methods for inspecting the beans e.g.containsBeanDefinition, getBeanDefinitionCount, getBeanDefinitionNames,getBeanNamesForType, getBeansOfType that may be useful to you and which are not available onBeanFactory I usually implement ApplicationContextAware share|improve this answer