What is the difference between spring factory-method and factory-bean?

Question

I am new Springs. In Bean tag I found factory-method and factory-bean Attributes. What is the difference between factory-method and factory-bean?

I am using factory-meth

Answer 1

factory-method: represents the factory method that will be invoked to inject the bean.
factory-bean: represents the reference of the bean by which factory method will be invoked. It is used if factory method is non-static.

Printable.java

package com.javatpoint;  
public interface Printable {  
    void print();  
}  

A.java

package com.javatpoint;  
public class A implements Printable{  
    @Override  
    public void print() {  
        System.out.println("hello a");  
    }      
} 

B.java

package com.javatpoint;  
public class B implements Printable{  
    @Override  
    public void print() {  
        System.out.println("hello b");  
    }  
}  

PrintableFactory.java

package com.javatpoint;  
public class PrintableFactory {  
    //non-static factory method  
    public Printable getPrintable(){  
        return new A();//return any one instance, either A or B  
    }  
}  

applicationContext.xml

Notice that public Printable getPrintable() of PrintableFactory.java is a non-static method. Generally if we want access/call method or other resources of the a class we have to create it's instance. Similarly in that we created it bean. using bean's reference variable pfactory we are calling the factory method getPrintable.