What is the difference between beanfactory and applicationcontext in spring

Saral, Great summary. I use ApplicationContext by default, but from interview point of view, it's good to remember these differences. Hi, do you have any guide when to use which XmlApplicationContext?

Ariady, you need ClassPathXmlApplicationContext because mostly you keep your application context file in Classpath and if you use this context then Spring will look for that file in classpath only.

Post a Comment. The difference between BeanFactory and ApplicationContext in Spring framework is another frequently asked Spring interview question mostly asked Java programmers with 2 to 4 years experience in Java and Spring. Both BeanFactory and ApplicationContext provide a way to get a bean from the Spring IOC container by calling getBean "bean name" , but there is some difference in their working and features provided by them.

One difference between the bean factory and application context is that the former only instantiates bean when you call getBean method while ApplicationContext instantiates Singleton bean when the container is started, It doesn't wait for the getBean to be called.

These interview questions are third on my list of frequently asked spring questions e. Setter vs Constructor Injection and What is the default scope of Spring bean. Before seeing the difference between ApplicationContext and BeanFactory, let see some similarity between both of them. Both of them are configuration using XML configuration files , now application context also allows Java configuration.

Apart from these, here are a few more differences between BeanFactory and ApplicationContext which is mostly based upon features supported by them. Internationalization i18n. BeanFactory doesn't provide support for internationalization i. Event Publishing. Thus, use an ApplicationContext unless you have a good reason for not doing so. You can find the source code of this post on Github.

Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Spring BeanFactory vs ApplicationContext. Major Differences between BeanFactory and ApplicationContext Following are few differences : BeanFactory instantiates a bean when you call the getBean method while ApplicationContext instantiates a Singleton bean as soon as the container starts.

BeanFactory supports lazy loading unlike ApplicationContext that support default eager loading. Here is an example of how to get a bean through both ways. Maven Dependency to define Spring Injection Container To work with beans and bean instantiation, you will require spring-context dependency to add in your pom. Running the Application This is the code for the Main class. The proceeding figure shows the console output.

Summary The BeanFactory is usually preferred where the resources are limited like mobile devices or applet-based applications. Share 0. The RequestBody Annotation. You May Also Like. By jt Java , Lombok , Spring. By jt Docker , Spring Boot.

By jt Java , Spring. By jt Spring Boot. By jt Spring Framework 5. BeanFactory Container is basic container, it can only create objects and inject Dependencies.

BeanFactory doesn't provide support for internationalization i. Beanfactory Container will not create a bean object until the request time. It means Beanfactory Container loads beans lazily. While ApplicationContext Container creates objects of Singleton bean at the time of loading only. It means there is early loading. But ApplicationContext Container supports all the beans scope. Because the ApplicationContext includes all functionality of the BeanFactory, it is generally recommended over the BeanFactory, except for a few situations such as in an Applet where memory consumption might be critical and a few extra kilobytes might make a difference.

However, for most typical enterprise applications and systems, the ApplicationContext is what you will want to use. Spring 2. If you use only a plain BeanFactory, a fair amount of support such as transactions and AOP will not take effect, at least not without some extra steps on your part. This situation could be confusing because nothing is actually wrong with the configuration.

ApplicationContext is a big brother of BeanFactory and this would all thing that BeanFactory are provide plus many other things.

In addition to standard org. BeanFactory will create objects for the beans i. ApplicationContext: Eager container because of creating the objects of all singleton beans while loading the spring.

Technically, using ApplicationContext is recommended because in real-time applications, the bean objects will be created while the application is getting started in the server itself. This reduces the response time for the user request as the objects are already available to respond. I think it is worth mentioning that since Spring 3, if you want to create a factory, you can also use the configuration annotation combined with the proper scope.

Your factory should be visible by Spring container using the ComponentScan annotation or xml configuration. Spring bean scopes article from baeldung site. While ApplicationContext container does support all the bean-scopes so you should use it for web applications. The ApplicationContext includes all functionality of the BeanFactory.

It is generally recommended to use the former. There are some limited situations such as in a Mobile application, where memory consumption might be critical. In that scenarios, It can be justifiable to use the more lightweight BeanFactory. However, in the most enterprise applications, the ApplicationContext is what you will want to use.

There is basic client view of a bean container. That interface is implemented by the object class that holds the number of beans definitions, and each uniquely identify by the String name Depending the Bean definition the factory will return the instance that instance may be the instance of contained object or a single shared instance. Which type of instance will be return depends of bean factory configuration. Normally Bean factory will load the all the all the beans definition, which stored in the configuration source like XML Application Context Application context is a central interface with in the spring application that provide the configuration information to the application.

It implements the Bean Factory Interface. Application context is an advance container its add advance level of enterprise specific functionality such as ability to resolve the textual message from the property file Bean factory methods for accessing application components. Inherited from ListableBeanFactory. The ability to load file resources in a generic fashion. Inherited from the ResourceLoader interface.

The ability to publish events to registered listeners. Inherited from the ApplicationEventPublisher interface. The ability to resolve messages, supporting internationalization. Inherited from the MessageSource interface. Inheritance from a parent context. Definitions in a descendant context will always take priority. This means, for example, that a single parent context can be used by an entire web application, while each servlet has its own child context that is independent of that of any other servlet.

The BeanFactory means spring container which lazily instantiates bean objects after getBean method is invoked at runtime. The ApplicationContext means spring framework which eagerly instantiates bean objects during deployment time without or before invoking getBean method at runtime.

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