Spring @Value annotation in @Controller class not evaluating to value inside properties file

Question

I am new to Spring and trying to inject a string with a value using the @Value("${loginpage.message}") annotation inside of a controller annotated with the @Controller annotation and the value of my string is being evaluated as the string "${loginpage.message}" and not what is inside my properties file.

Below is my controller with the string 'message' that I want to inject.

@Controller
public class LoginController extends BaseController {
    @Value("${loginpage.message}")
    private String message;

    @RequestMapping("/")
    public String goToLoginPage(Model model) {
        model.addAttribute("message", message);

        return "/login";
    }
}

My application context looks like this:

<context:property-placeholder location="classpath:properties/application.properties" />

<context:annotation-config />

<context:component-scan base-package="com.me.application" />

My properties file has the line:

loginpage.message=this is a test message

Spring must be picking up the value at some point because whenever I change @Value("${loginpage.message}") to a value not in the properties file like @Value("${notInPropertiesFile}"), I get an exception.

Answer 1

It seems that the question has been already asked Spring 3.0.5 doesn't evaluate @Value annotation from properties

The difference between web app root and servlet application contexts is one of the top sources of confusion in Spring, see Difference between applicationContext.xml and spring-servlet.xml in Spring Framework

From @Value javadoc :

Note that actual processing of the @Value annotation is performed by a BeanPostProcessor

From Spring documentation:

BeanPostProcessor interfaces are scoped per-container. This is only relevant if you are using container hierarchies. If you define a BeanPostProcessor in one container, it will only do its work on the beans in that container. Beans that are defined in one container are not post-processed by a BeanPostProcessor in another container, even if both containers are part of the same hierarchy.

Answer 2

Yea I am having same issue with Spring 3. It doesn't seem to work inside Controllers. To fix the issue I created a another bean with @Service and injected that into the controller. It did work for me. Hope this would be helpful to someone as I spent all day to figure it out.

Answer 3

You can @Autowire Environment and then environment.getProperty("name"). See https://stackoverflow.com/a/15562319/632293

Answer 4

You need to use PropertySourcePlaceHolder if you are using @Value annotation because it can extract the value from a properties file. If you are using java config base you need to create a bean like this

@Bean
public static PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer propertyConfigInDev() {
    return new PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer();
}

Or if you are using xml based then declare the bean accordingly.

Answer 5

I had similar issue in my spring project, but specifically spring BATCH one. I built initially my config as below

@Configuration
public class BatchConfig   
{
  @Bean
  public Job job(@Autowired Step stepMulti, @Autowired Step stepMultiDiff,  @Autowired Step stepMultiPolling
        ){

    Job job = jobBuilders.get("job")
                .start(init0())
                    .on("POLLING").to(stepMultiPolling)
                .from(init0()).on("*").to(stepMulti).next(stepMultiDiff).end()
                .build();
    return job;
  }

  @Bean
  public Step init0(){
    return stepBuilders.get("init0")
            .tasklet(new MyDecider())
            .build();
  }

  ...
}

with MyDecider shortly as below

public class MyDecider implements StepExecutionListener , Tasklet{ 

  @Autowired ThreadPoolTaskScheduler taskScheduler;
  @Value("${read.chunk.size}") private Integer pagesize;

@Override
public RepeatStatus execute(StepContribution stepContribution, ChunkContext chunkContext) throws Exception {
    return RepeatStatus.FINISHED;
}

@Override
public ExitStatus afterStep(StepExecution exe) {
    String type = exe.getJobParameters().getString("mode");

    log.info("SPRING BATCH props:");
    log.info("    READ chunk size:  {}", pagesize);


    if (StringUtils.equals(type, "send")) {
        log.info("MODE batch SENDING...");

        if (taskScheduler !=null) taskScheduler.shutdown();
        else log.info("      Not able to stop scheduler (is null)");

        return new ExitStatus("SEND");
    } else  {
        log.info("MODE batch POLLING...");
        return new ExitStatus("POLLING");
    } 

}

But in this way neither taskScheduler was wired nor pagesize was injected; both null. Thanks to Boris answer, after some try, I changed BatchConfig as below perfectly working

...

@Bean
public Step init0(){
    return stepBuilders.get("init0")
            .tasklet(decider())
            .build();
}

@Bean
public Tasklet decider() {
    return new MyDecider();
}

...

Reason: having MyDecider construction closer to a Bean annotation in BatchConfig (the one of decider()), make spring understand that MyDecider has to be injected properly, with values found in application.property values, and wired with TaskScheduler used (because I tried also to have SpringScheduler activation, but I wanted to swith it off if jar starting option was 'send').

NOTE: with option mode="send" spring batch job takes the way towards stepMulti and not stepMultiPolling, because MyDecider exit status was SEND and not POLLING; but that is just an explanation out of this topic, so I skip further details.

Hope this spring batch case can be helpful for someone!