Spring Basics: What Is a Dependency?

The most important feature of the Spring Framework is dependency injection. To understand dependency injection, you first need to understand the concept of dependencies.

We Will Learn

• What is a dependency?
• How are applications built? How is one layer dependent on another?
• How is a class dependent on another?
• How does the Spring Framework perform dependency injection?

In this article, we have a look at what a dependency is in general and in the context of the Spring Framework.

Dependencies at a High Level

We build enterprise applications in multiple layers:

A typical Java application will have three layers in its architecture: web, business, and data.

• The web layer
• The business layer
• The data layer

In the above scenario:

• The web layer depends on the business layer. The business layer is a dependency of the web layer.
• The business layer depends on the data layer. The data layer is a dependency of the business layer.

Dependencies at Class Level

Let’s look at an example:

@Service
public class ClientBOImpl implemented ClientBO {
@Autowired
ProductDO productDO;
@Autowired
ClientDO clientDo;

@Override
public Amount getClientProductsSum(long cliendId) {
//...
}

@Override
public void saveChangedProducts(long clientId,
List<Product> userEnteredProducts) {
//...
}

//...
}

ClientBOImpl is the business class, and it makes use of two data layer classes — ProductDO and ClientDO.

Let’s now have a look at the business logic within  ````ClientBOImpl```:

• getClientProductsSum(): This returns the sum of all products for a given client.
• saveChangedProducts(): When products are modified on the application page, this method is called.

Both methods in ClientBOImpl need either ProductDO or ClientDO. ProductDO and ClientDO are dependencies of ClientBOImpl.

Inputs/Outputs Are Not Dependencies

If you look at public Amount getClientProductsSum(long clientId), clientId is merely an input, not a dependency. Similarly, the total calculated amount returned by getClientProductsSum is an output, not a dependency.

A Few More Examples of Dependencies

Example 1

Have a look at the following code:

@Component
public class ComplexAlgorithmImpl {
@Autowired
private SortAlgorithm sortAlgorithm;
//...
}

public interface SortAlgorithm {
public int[] sort(int[] numbers);
}

@Component
public class QuickSortAlgorithm implements SortAlogrithm {
//...
}

ComplexAlgorithmImpl performs a lot of complex logic, and sorting is one of the steps.

The SortAlgorithm is a dependency of ComplexAlgorithmImpl.

Since SortAlgorithm is an interface, you can easily change the actual sort algorithm used by ComplexAlgorithmImpl without changing its code.

Example 2

Consider the following code:

import java.sql.ResultSet;

@Repository
public class PersonJdbcDao {
@Autowired
JdbcTemplate jdbcTemplate;

class PersonRowMapper implements RowMapper<Person> {
@Override
public Person mapRow(ResultSet rs, int rowNum) throws SQLException {
//...
}
//...
}
}

To execute a query on the database, PersonJdbcDao needs JdbcTemplate. Therefore, JdbcTemplate is a dependency of PersonJdbcDao.

Let’s look at a simple method:

public Person findById(int id) {
return jdbcTemplate.queryForObject(//...);
}

id is the input for this method, and the output returned is of type Person.

In the above method, we are making use of the dependency jdbcTemplate . The inputs and outputs are not dependencies.

Do check out our video on the same topic:

Summary

In this article, we focused on the most important concept in Spring Framework — dependency.

Stay tuned for more posts on Spring Framework basics!