The ProxyFactoryBean, like other Spring FactoryBean implementations, introduces a level of indirection. If you define a ProxyFactoryBean with name foo, what objects referencing foo see is not the ProxyFactoryBean instance itself, but an object created by the ProxyFactoryBean's implementation of the getObject() method. This method will create an AOP proxy wrapping a target object.

One of the most important benefits of using a ProxyFactoryBean or another IoC-aware class to create AOP proxies, is that it means that advices and pointcuts can also be managed by IoC. This is a powerful feature, enabling certain approaches that are hard to achieve with other AOP frameworks. For example, an advice may itself reference application objects (besides the target, which should be available in any AOP framework), benefiting from all the pluggability provided by Dependency Injection.

In common with most FactoryBean implementations provided with Spring, the ProxyFactoryBean class is itself a JavaBean. Its properties are used to:

Some key properties are inherited from org.springframework.aop.framework.ProxyConfig (the superclass for all AOP proxy factories in Spring). These key properties include:

Other properties specific to ProxyFactoryBean include:

This section serves as the definitive documentation on how the ProxyFactoryBean chooses to create one of either a JDK- and CGLIB-based proxy for a particular target object (that is to be proxied).

	Note
	The behavior of the ProxyFactoryBean with regard to creating JDK- or CGLIB-based proxies changed between versions 1.2.x and 2.0 of Spring. The ProxyFactoryBean now exhibits similar semantics with regard to auto-detecting interfaces as those of the TransactionProxyFactoryBean class.

If the class of a target object that is to be proxied (hereafter simply referred to as the target class) doesn't implement any interfaces, then a CGLIB-based proxy will be created. This is the easiest scenario, because JDK proxies are interface based, and no interfaces means JDK proxying isn't even possible. One simply plugs in the target bean, and specifies the list of interceptors via the interceptorNames property. Note that a CGLIB-based proxy will be created even if the proxyTargetClass property of the ProxyFactoryBean has been set to false. (Obviously this makes no sense, and is best removed from the bean definition because it is at best redundant, and at worst confusing.)

If the target class implements one (or more) interfaces, then the type of proxy that is created depends on the configuration of the ProxyFactoryBean.

If the proxyTargetClass property of the ProxyFactoryBean has been set to true, then a CGLIB-based proxy will be created. This makes sense, and is in keeping with the principle of least surprise. Even if the proxyInterfaces property of the ProxyFactoryBean has been set to one or more fully qualified interface names, the fact that the proxyTargetClass property is set to true will cause CGLIB-based proxying to be in effect.

If the proxyInterfaces property of the ProxyFactoryBean has been set to one or more fully qualified interface names, then a JDK-based proxy will be created. The created proxy will implement all of the interfaces that were specified in the proxyInterfaces property; if the target class happens to implement a whole lot more interfaces than those specified in the proxyInterfaces property, that is all well and good but those additional interfaces will not be implemented by the returned proxy.

If the proxyInterfaces property of the ProxyFactoryBean has not been set, but the target class does implement one (or more) interfaces, then the ProxyFactoryBean will auto-detect the fact that the target class does actually implement at least one interface, and a JDK-based proxy will be created. The interfaces that are actually proxied will be all of the interfaces that the target class implements; in effect, this is the same as simply supplying a list of each and every interface that the target class implements to the proxyInterfaces property. However, it is significantly less work, and less prone to typos.

Let's look at a simple example of ProxyFactoryBean in action. This example involves:

<bean id="personTarget" class="com.mycompany.PersonImpl">
    <property name="name"><value>Tony</value></property>
    <property name="age"><value>51</value></property>
</bean>

<bean id="myAdvisor" class="com.mycompany.MyAdvisor">
    <property name="someProperty"><value>Custom string property value</value></property>
</bean>

<bean id="debugInterceptor" class="org.springframework.aop.interceptor.DebugInterceptor">
</bean>

<bean id="person" 
    class="org.springframework.aop.framework.ProxyFactoryBean">
    <property name="proxyInterfaces"><value>com.mycompany.Person</value></property>

    <property name="target"><ref local="personTarget"/></property>
    <property name="interceptorNames">
        <list>
            <value>myAdvisor</value>
            <value>debugInterceptor</value>
        </list>
    </property>
</bean>

Note that the interceptorNames property takes a list of String: the bean names of the interceptor or advisors in the current factory. Advisors, interceptors, before, after returning and throws advice objects can be used. The ordering of advisors is significant.

Note

You might be wondering why the list doesn't hold bean references. The reason for this is that if the ProxyFactoryBean's singleton property is set to false, it must be able to return independent proxy instances. If any of the advisors is itself a prototype, an independent instance would need to be returned, so it's necessary to be able to obtain an instance of the prototype from the factory; holding a reference isn't sufficient.

The "person" bean definition above can be used in place of a Person implementation, as follows:

Person person = (Person) factory.getBean("person");

Other beans in the same IoC context can express a strongly typed dependency on it, as with an ordinary Java object:

<bean id="personUser" class="com.mycompany.PersonUser">
  <property name="person"><ref local="person" /></property>
</bean>

The PersonUser class in this example would expose a property of type Person. As far as it's concerned, the AOP proxy can be used transparently in place of a "real" person implementation. However, its class would be a dynamic proxy class. It would be possible to cast it to the Advised interface (discussed below).

It's possible to conceal the distinction between target and proxy using an anonymous inner bean, as follows. Only the ProxyFactoryBean definition is different; the advice is included only for completeness:

<bean id="myAdvisor" class="com.mycompany.MyAdvisor">
  <property name="someProperty"><value>Custom string property value</value></property>
</bean>

<bean id="debugInterceptor" class="org.springframework.aop.interceptor.DebugInterceptor"/>

<bean id="person" class="org.springframework.aop.framework.ProxyFactoryBean">
  <property name="proxyInterfaces"><value>com.mycompany.Person</value></property>
  <!-- Use inner bean, not local reference to target -->
  <property name="target">
    <bean class="com.mycompany.PersonImpl">
      <property name="name"><value>Tony</value></property>
      <property name="age"><value>51</value></property>
    </bean>
  </property>
  <property name="interceptorNames">
    <list>
      <value>myAdvisor</value>
      <value>debugInterceptor</value>
    </list>
  </property>
</bean>

This has the advantage that there's only one object of type Person: useful if we want to prevent users of the application context from obtaining a reference to the un-advised object, or need to avoid any ambiguity with Spring IoC autowiring. There's also arguably an advantage in that the ProxyFactoryBean definition is self-contained. However, there are times when being able to obtain the un-advised target from the factory might actually be an advantage: for example, in certain test scenarios.

What if you need to proxy a class, rather than one or more interfaces?

Imagine that in our example above, there was no Person interface: we needed to advise a class called Person that didn't implement any business interface. In this case, you can configure Spring to use CGLIB proxying, rather than dynamic proxies. Simply set the proxyTargetClass property on the ProxyFactoryBean above to true. While it's best to program to interfaces, rather than classes, the ability to advise classes that don't implement interfaces can be useful when working with legacy code. (In general, Spring isn't prescriptive. While it makes it easy to apply good practices, it avoids forcing a particular approach.)

If you want to, you can force the use of CGLIB in any case, even if you do have interfaces.

CGLIB proxying works by generating a subclass of the target class at runtime. Spring configures this generated subclass to delegate method calls to the original target: the subclass is used to implement the Decorator pattern, weaving in the advice.

CGLIB proxying should generally be transparent to users. However, there are some issues to consider:

There's little performance difference between CGLIB proxying and dynamic proxies. As of Spring 1.0, dynamic proxies are slightly faster. However, this may change in the future. Performance should not be a decisive consideration in this case.

By appending an asterisk to an interceptor name, all advisors with bean names matching the part before the asterisk, will be added to the advisor chain. This can come in handy if you need to add a standard set of 'global' advisors:

<bean id="proxy" class="org.springframework.aop.framework.ProxyFactoryBean">
  <property name="target" ref="service"/>
  <property name="interceptorNames">
    <list>
      <value>global*</value>
    </list>
  </property>
</bean>

<bean id="global_debug" class="org.springframework.aop.interceptor.DebugInterceptor"/>
<bean id="global_performance" class="org.springframework.aop.interceptor.PerformanceMonitorInterceptor"/>