Spring difference in using bean id and bean name in configuration file

Question

Hi , please tell me if is there any difference in using bean id and bean name in configuration files

Answer 1

From the Spring reference, 3.2.3.1 Naming Beans:

Every bean has one or more ids (also called identifiers, or names; these terms refer to the same thing). These ids must be unique within the container the bean is hosted in. A bean will almost always have only one id, but if a bean has more than one id, the extra ones can essentially be considered aliases.

When using XML-based configuration metadata, you use the 'id' or 'name' attributes to specify the bean identifier(s). The 'id' attribute allows you to specify exactly one id, and as it is a real XML element ID attribute, the XML parser is able to do some extra validation when other elements reference the id; as such, it is the preferred way to specify a bean id. However, the XML specification does limit the characters which are legal in XML IDs. This is usually not a constraint, but if you have a need to use one of these special XML characters, or want to introduce other aliases to the bean, you may also or instead specify one or more bean ids, separated by a comma (,), semicolon (;), or whitespace in the 'name' attribute.

So basically the id attribute confirms to the XML id attribute standards whereas name is a little more flexible. Generally speaking, I use name pretty much exclusively. It just seems more "Spring-y".

Answer 2

Either one would work. It depends on your needs:
If your bean identifier contains special character(s) for example (/viewSummary.html), it wont be allowed as the bean id, because it's not a valid XML ID. In such cases you could skip defining the bean id and supply the bean name instead.
The name attribute also helps in defining aliases for your bean, since it allows specifying multiple identifiers for a given bean.