Extending spring's default component factory

Question

This is a short one: I want to modify the way spring instantiates my beans (in this case, by creating a proxy instead of simply instantiating it).

I can't use Jdk Dynamic Proxies nor cglib to generate the proxies (if this was the case, I could use spring aop).

In my opinion, the best way to do this would be to extend spring's bean factory(and tell spring to use my factory), but I can't find how to do it on Google.

Any thoughts about this?

edit:

Actually, looks like the most standard way to do this is to use a BeanPostProcessor(http://static.springsource.org/spring/docs/2.5.x/api/org/springframework/beans/factory/config/BeanPostProcessor.html), and make that PostProcessor wrap the bean on a proxy.

If we can't get to a better solution around here (and we decide this is a valuable question), I'll post this as the answer.

Answer 1

You just have to extend AbstractApplicationContext.

That's the easy part.

The hard part that I'm having trouble with is: If you can't use dynamic proxies or CGLIB, what method do you plan to use?

My advice? Don't. The "special need" that you're imagining is a fiction, and you won't be able to come up with a better way than Rod Johnson has already provided for you.

If you can post a lucid explanation that convinces me I'll delete my answer.

Answer 2

The way to go here is to implement a BeanPostProcessor(http://static.springsource.org/spring/docs/2.5.x/api/org/springframework/beans/factory/config/BeanPostProcessor.html), and make that BeanPostProcessor wrap the bean on a proxy, on 'postProcessBeforeInitialization'.