Spring FactoryBean and scopes working together

Question

I\'d like to use FactoryBeans and scopes together. Specifically, I\'d like the object created and returned by a FactoryBean to be placed into a specified (perhaps custom) scope.

Answer 1

You can't easily use a custom scope on a bean returned from a FactoryBean.

From Spring's Java documentation:

FactoryBeans can support singletons and prototypes

If you want the FactoryBean's returned bean to have the prototype scope, then you must implement the isSingleton() method like this:

public class TestFactoryBean implements FactoryBean {

  // the rest of the required methods are removed for simplicity reasons..

  public boolean isSingleton() {
        return false;
    }
}

To support a custom scope, you have to implement the logic yourself and it will not be very intuitive, since the FactoryBean only provides the isSingleton() method. I will rather recommend using another solution than FactoryBean for beans with custom scope.

Hope this helps!