Spring Bean Scopes

Question

Can someone explain what the scopes are in Spring beans I\'ve always just used \'prototype\' but are there other parameters I can put in place of that?

Example of wh

Answer 1

From the spring specs, there are five types of bean scopes supported :

1. singleton(default*)

Scopes a single bean definition to a single object instance per Spring IoC container.

2. prototype

Scopes a single bean definition to any number of object instances.

3. request

Scopes a single bean definition to the lifecycle of a single HTTP request; that is each and every HTTP request will have its own instance of a bean created off the back of a single bean definition. Only valid in the context of a web-aware Spring ApplicationContext.

4. session

Scopes a single bean definition to the lifecycle of a HTTP Session. Only valid in the context of a web-aware Spring ApplicationContext.

5. global session

Scopes a single bean definition to the lifecycle of a global HTTP Session. Typically only valid when used in a portlet context. Only valid in the context of a web-aware Spring ApplicationContext.

*default means when no scope is explicitly provided in the <bean /> tag. read more about them here: http://static.springsource.org/spring/docs/3.0.0.M3/reference/html/ch04s04.html

Answer 2

Just want to update, that in Spring 5, as mentioned in Spring docs, Spring supports 6 scopes, four of which are available only if you use a web-aware ApplicationContext.

singleton (Default) Scopes a single bean definition to a single object instance per Spring IoC container.

prototype Scopes a single bean definition to any number of object instances.

request Scopes a single bean definition to the lifecycle of a single HTTP request; that is, each HTTP request has its own instance of a bean created off the back of a single bean definition. Only valid in the context of a web-aware Spring ApplicationContext.

session Scopes a single bean definition to the lifecycle of an HTTP Session. Only valid in the context of a web-aware Spring ApplicationContext.

application Scopes a single bean definition to the lifecycle of a ServletContext. Only valid in the context of a web-aware Spring ApplicationContext.

websocket Scopes a single bean definition to the lifecycle of a WebSocket. Only valid in the context of a web-aware Spring ApplicationContext.

Answer 3

According to the documentation of Spring-Cloud-Config there is one extra scope next to the existing five. It is @RefreshScope.

This is the short description of RefreshScope:

When there is a configuration change, a Spring @Bean that is marked as @RefreshScope gets special treatment. This feature addresses the problem of stateful beans that only get their configuration injected when they are initialized. For instance, if a DataSource has open connections when the database URL is changed via the Environment, you probably want the holders of those connections to be able to complete what they are doing. Then, the next time something borrows a connection from the pool, it gets one with the new URL.

Sometimes, it might even be mandatory to apply the @RefreshScope annotation on some beans which can be only initialized once. If a bean is "immutable", you will have to either annotate the bean with @RefreshScope or specify the classname under the property key spring.cloud.refresh.extra-refreshable.

Refresh scope beans are lazy proxies that initialize when they are used (that is, when a method is called), and the scope acts as a cache of initialized values. To force a bean to re-initialize on the next method call, you must invalidate its cache entry.

The RefreshScope is a bean in the context and has a public refreshAll() method to refresh all beans in the scope by clearing the target cache. The /refresh endpoint exposes this functionality (over HTTP or JMX). To refresh an individual bean by name, there is also a refresh(String) method.