DZone
Thanks for visiting DZone today,
Edit Profile
  • Manage Email Subscriptions
  • How to Post to DZone
  • Article Submission Guidelines
Sign Out View Profile
  • Post an Article
  • Manage My Drafts
Over 2 million developers have joined DZone.
Log In / Join
Refcards Trend Reports Events Over 2 million developers have joined DZone. Join Today! Thanks for visiting DZone today,
Edit Profile Manage Email Subscriptions Moderation Admin Console How to Post to DZone Article Submission Guidelines
View Profile
Sign Out
Refcards
Trend Reports
Events
Zones
Culture and Methodologies Agile Career Development Methodologies Team Management
Data Engineering AI/ML Big Data Data Databases IoT
Software Design and Architecture Cloud Architecture Containers Integration Microservices Performance Security
Coding Frameworks Java JavaScript Languages Tools
Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance Deployment DevOps and CI/CD Maintenance Monitoring and Observability Testing, Tools, and Frameworks
Culture and Methodologies
Agile Career Development Methodologies Team Management
Data Engineering
AI/ML Big Data Data Databases IoT
Software Design and Architecture
Cloud Architecture Containers Integration Microservices Performance Security
Coding
Frameworks Java JavaScript Languages Tools
Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance
Deployment DevOps and CI/CD Maintenance Monitoring and Observability Testing, Tools, and Frameworks
  1. DZone
  2. Coding
  3. Frameworks
  4. Spring WebApplicationInitializer and ApplicationContextInitializer confusion

Spring WebApplicationInitializer and ApplicationContextInitializer confusion

Biju Kunjummen user avatar by
Biju Kunjummen
·
Sep. 30, 14 · Interview
Like (14)
Save
Tweet
Share
97.58K Views

Join the DZone community and get the full member experience.

Join For Free

These are two concepts that I mix up occasionally - a WebApplicationInitializer and an ApplicationContextInitializer, and wanted to describe each of them to clarify them for myself. 

I have previously blogged about WebApplicationInitializerhere and here. It is relevant purely in a Servlet 3.0+ spec compliant servlet container and provides a hook to programmatically configure the servlet context. How does this help - you can have a web application without potentially any web.xml file, typically used in a Spring based web application to describe the root application context and the Spring web front controller called theDispatcherServlet. An example of using WebApplicationInitializer is the following:

public class CustomWebAppInitializer extends AbstractAnnotationConfigDispatcherServletInitializer {
 @Override
 protected Class<?>[] getRootConfigClasses() {
  return new Class<?>[]{RootConfiguration.class};
 }

 @Override
 protected Class<?>[] getServletConfigClasses() {
  return new Class<?>[]{MvcConfiguration.class};
 }

 @Override
 protected String[] getServletMappings() {
  return new String[]{"/"};
 }
}

Now, what is an ApplicationContextInitializer. It is essentially code that gets executed before the Spring application context gets completely created. A good use case for using an ApplicationContextInitializer would be to set a Spring environment profile programmatically, along these lines:

public class DemoApplicationContextInitializer implements ApplicationContextInitializer<ConfigurableApplicationContext> {

 @Override
 public void initialize(ConfigurableApplicationContext ac) {
  ConfigurableEnvironment appEnvironment = ac.getEnvironment();
  appEnvironment.addActiveProfile("demo");

 }
}

If you have a Spring-Boot based application then registering an ApplicationContextInitializer is fairly straightforward:

@Configuration
@EnableAutoConfiguration
@ComponentScan
public class SampleWebApplication {
 
 public static void main(String[] args) {
  new SpringApplicationBuilder(SampleWebApplication.class)
    .initializers(new DemoApplicationContextInitializer())
    .run(args);
 }
}

For a non Spring-Boot Spring application though, it is a little more tricky, if it is a programmatic configuration of web.xml, then the configuration is along these lines:

public class CustomWebAppInitializer implements WebApplicationInitializer {

 @Override
 public void onStartup(ServletContext container) {
  AnnotationConfigWebApplicationContext rootContext = new AnnotationConfigWebApplicationContext();
  rootContext.register(RootConfiguration.class);
  ContextLoaderListener contextLoaderListener = new ContextLoaderListener(rootContext);
  container.addListener(contextLoaderListener);
  container.setInitParameter("contextInitializerClasses", "mvctest.web.DemoApplicationContextInitializer");
  AnnotationConfigWebApplicationContext webContext = new AnnotationConfigWebApplicationContext();
  webContext.register(MvcConfiguration.class);
  DispatcherServlet dispatcherServlet = new DispatcherServlet(webContext);
  ServletRegistration.Dynamic dispatcher = container.addServlet("dispatcher", dispatcherServlet);
  dispatcher.addMapping("/");
 }
}

If it a normal web.xml configuration then the initializer can be specified this way:

<context-param>
<param-name>contextInitializerClasses</param-name>
<param-value>com.myapp.spring.SpringContextProfileInit</param-value>
</context-param>

<listener>
<listener-class>org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener</listener-class>
</listener>

So to conclude, except for the Initializer suffix, both WebApplicationInitializer and ApplicationContextInitializer serve fairly different purposes. Whereas the WebApplicationInitializer is used by a Servlet Container at startup of the web application and provides a way for programmatic creating a web application(replacement for a web.xml file), ApplicationContextInitializer provides a hook to configure the Spring application context before it gets fully created.

Spring Framework Web application

Published at DZone with permission of Biju Kunjummen, DZone MVB. See the original article here.

Opinions expressed by DZone contributors are their own.

Popular on DZone

  • The Future of Cloud Engineering Evolves
  • Better Performance and Security by Monitoring Logs, Metrics, and More
  • Kubernetes vs Docker: Differences Explained
  • OpenID Connect Flows

Comments

Partner Resources

X

ABOUT US

  • About DZone
  • Send feedback
  • Careers
  • Sitemap

ADVERTISE

  • Advertise with DZone

CONTRIBUTE ON DZONE

  • Article Submission Guidelines
  • Become a Contributor
  • Visit the Writers' Zone

LEGAL

  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy

CONTACT US

  • 600 Park Offices Drive
  • Suite 300
  • Durham, NC 27709
  • support@dzone.com
  • +1 (919) 678-0300

Let's be friends: