Defining a list in a Spring application context file

Question

Can you create a List in a Spring application-context.xml file without using the element?

I have a bean whose constructor takes a Col

Answer 1

<bean name="myBean" class="com.company.MyClass">
  <constructor-arg>
    <bean class="org.springframework.util.StringUtils" factory-method="commaDelimitedListToSet">
        <constructor-arg type="java.lang.String" value="${the.value}"/>
    </bean>
  </constructor-arg>
</bean>

Answer 2

This works. You can use SPEL.

In the bean config,

<property name="collection" value="#{{'item1','item2','item3'}}"/>

Answer 3

A possible solution for your problem is to pass a single string to your constructor and then parse the list inside the constructor using String.split().

Answer 4

I don't believe so, but you could have a constructor that built the list from a string.

(Actually, not entirely sure I'm correct--you could probably play significant games with custom placeholder configurators, although whether or not you should is probably debatable :)