The @Required annotation applies to bean property setter methods, as in the following example:

public class SimpleMovieLister {

    private MovieFinder movieFinder;

    @Required
    public void setMovieFinder(MovieFinder movieFinder) {
        this.movieFinder = movieFinder;
    }

    // ...
}

This annotation simply indicates that the affected bean property must be populated at configuration time, through an explicit property value in a bean definition or through autowiring. The container throws an exception if the affected bean property has not been populated; this allows for eager and explicit failure, avoiding NullPointerExceptions or the like later on. It is still recommended that you put assertions into the bean class itself, for example, into an init method. Doing so enforces those required references and values even when you use the class outside of a container.

As expected, you can apply the @Autowired annotation to "traditional" setter methods:

	Note
	JSR 330's @Inject annotation can be used in place of Spring's @Autowired in the examples below. @Inject does not have a required property unlike Spring's @Autowire annotation which as a required property to indicate if the value being injected is optional. This behavior is enabled automatically if you have the JSR 330 jar on the classpath.

public class SimpleMovieLister {

    private MovieFinder movieFinder;

    @Autowired
    public void setMovieFinder(MovieFinder movieFinder) {
        this.movieFinder = movieFinder;
    }

    // ...
}

You can also apply the annotation to methods with arbitrary names and/or multiple arguments:

public class MovieRecommender {

    private MovieCatalog movieCatalog;

    private CustomerPreferenceDao customerPreferenceDao;

    @Autowired
    public void prepare(MovieCatalog movieCatalog,
                        CustomerPreferenceDao customerPreferenceDao) {
        this.movieCatalog = movieCatalog;
        this.customerPreferenceDao = customerPreferenceDao;
    }

    // ...
}

You can apply @Autowired to constructors and fields:

public class MovieRecommender {

    @Autowired
    private MovieCatalog movieCatalog;
    
    private CustomerPreferenceDao customerPreferenceDao;

    @Autowired
    public MovieRecommender(CustomerPreferenceDao customerPreferenceDao) {
        this.customerPreferenceDao = customerPreferenceDao;
    }

    // ...
}

It is also possible to provide all beans of a particular type from the ApplicationContext by adding the annotation to a field or method that expects an array of that type:

public class MovieRecommender {

    @Autowired
    private MovieCatalog[] movieCatalogs;

    // ...
}

The same applies for typed collections:

public class MovieRecommender {

    private Set<MovieCatalog> movieCatalogs;
    
    @Autowired
    public void setMovieCatalogs(Set<MovieCatalog> movieCatalogs) {
        this.movieCatalogs = movieCatalogs;
    }

    // ...
}

Even typed Maps can be autowired as long as the expected key type is String. The Map values will contain all beans of the expected type, and the keys will contain the corresponding bean names:

public class MovieRecommender {

    private Map<String, MovieCatalog> movieCatalogs;
    
    @Autowired
    public void setMovieCatalogs(Map<String, MovieCatalog> movieCatalogs) {
        this.movieCatalogs = movieCatalogs;
    }

    // ...
}

By default, the autowiring fails whenever zero candidate beans are available; the default behavior is to treat annotated methods, constructors, and fields as indicating required dependencies. This behavior can be changed as demonstrated below.

public class SimpleMovieLister {

    private MovieFinder movieFinder;

    @Autowired(required=false)
    public void setMovieFinder(MovieFinder movieFinder) {
        this.movieFinder = movieFinder;
    }

    // ...
}

Note

Only one annotated constructor per-class can be marked as required, but multiple non-required constructors can be annotated. In that case, each is considered among the candidates and Spring uses the greediest constructor whose dependencies can be satisfied, that is the constructor that has the largest number of arguments. @Autowired's required attribute is recommended over the @Required annotation. The required attribute indicates that the property is not required for autowiring purposes, the property is ignored if it cannot be autowired. @Required, on the other hand, is stronger in that it enforces the property that was set by any means supported by the container. If no value is injected, a corresponding exception is raised.

You can also use @Autowired for interfaces that are well-known resolvable dependencies: BeanFactory, ApplicationContext, ResourceLoader, ApplicationEventPublisher, and MessageSource. These interfaces and their extended interfaces, such as ConfigurableApplicationContext or ResourcePatternResolver, are automatically resolved, with no special setup necessary.

public class MovieRecommender {

    @Autowired
    private ApplicationContext context;

    public MovieRecommender() {
    }

    // ...
}

Because autowiring by type may lead to multiple candidates, it is often necessary to have more control over the selection process. One way to accomplish this is with Spring's @Qualifier annotation. You can associate qualifier values with specific arguments, narrowing the set of type matches so that a specific bean is chosen for each argument. In the simplest case, this can be a plain descriptive value:

	Note
	Note that the JSR 330 @Qualifier annotation can only be applied as a meta-annotation unlike Spring's @Qualifier which takes a string property to discriminate among multiple injection candidates and can be placed on annotation as well as types, fields, methods, contstructors and parameters.

public class MovieRecommender {

    @Autowired
    @Qualifier("main")
    private MovieCatalog movieCatalog;

    // ...
}

The @Qualifier annotation can also be specified on individual constructor arguments or method parameters:

public class MovieRecommender {

    private MovieCatalog movieCatalog;
    
    private CustomerPreferenceDao customerPreferenceDao;

    @Autowired
    public void prepare(@Qualifier("main") MovieCatalog movieCatalog,
                        CustomerPreferenceDao customerPreferenceDao) {
        this.movieCatalog = movieCatalog;
        this.customerPreferenceDao = customerPreferenceDao;
    }

    // ...
}

The corresponding bean definitions appear as follows. The bean with qualifier value "main" is wired with the constructor argument that is qualified with the same value.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans 
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/context 
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.0.xsd">

    <context:annotation-config/>

    <bean class="example.SimpleMovieCatalog">
        <qualifier value="main"/>
        <!-- inject any dependencies required by this bean -->
    </bean>

    <bean class="example.SimpleMovieCatalog">
        <qualifier value="action"/>
        <!-- inject any dependencies required by this bean -->
    </bean>

    <bean id="movieRecommender" class="example.MovieRecommender"/>

</beans>

For a fallback match, the bean name is considered a default qualifier value. Thus you can define the bean with an id "main" instead of the nested qualifier element, leading to the same matching result. However, although you can use this convention to refer to specific beans by name, @Autowired is fundamentally about type-driven injection with optional semantic qualifiers. This means that qualifier values, even with the bean name fallback, always have narrowing semantics within the set of type matches; they do not semantically express a reference to a unique bean id. Good qualifier values are "main" or "EMEA" or "persistent", expressing characteristics of a specific component that are independent from the bean id, which may be auto-generated in case of an anonymous bean definition like the one in the preceding example.

Qualifiers also apply to typed collections, as discussed above, for example, to Set<MovieCatalog>. In this case, all matching beans according to the declared qualifiers are injected as a collection. This implies that qualifiers do not have to be unique; they rather simply constitute filtering criteria. For example, you can define multiple MovieCatalog beans with the same qualifier value "action"; all of which would be injected into a Set<MovieCatalog> annotated with @Qualifier("action").

Tip

If you intend to express annotation-driven injection by name, do not primarily use @Autowired, even if is technically capable of referring to a bean name through @Qualifier values. Instead, use the JSR-250 @Resource annotation, which is semantically defined to identify a specific target component by its unique name, with the declared type being irrelevant for the matching process. As a specific consequence of this semantic difference, beans that are themselves defined as a collection or map type cannot be injected through @Autowired, because type matching is not properly applicable to them. Use @Resource for such beans, referring to the specific collection or map bean by unique name. @Autowired applies to fields, constructors, and multi-argument methods, allowing for narrowing through qualifier annotations at the parameter level. By contrast, @Resource is supported only for fields and bean property setter methods with a single argument. As a consequence, stick with qualifiers if your injection target is a constructor or a multi-argument method.

You can create your own custom qualifier annotations. Simply define an annotation and provide the @Qualifier annotation within your definition:

	Note
	You can use JSR 330's @Qualifier annotation in the manner described below in place of Spring's @Qualifier annotation. This behavior is enabled automatically if you have the JSR 330 jar on the classpath.

@Target({ElementType.FIELD, ElementType.PARAMETER})
@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@Qualifier
public @interface Genre {

    String value();
}

Then you can provide the custom qualifier on autowired fields and parameters:

public class MovieRecommender {

    @Autowired
    @Genre("Action")
    private MovieCatalog actionCatalog;
    
    private MovieCatalog comedyCatalog;
    
    @Autowired
    public void setComedyCatalog(@Genre("Comedy") MovieCatalog comedyCatalog) {
        this.comedyCatalog = comedyCatalog;
    }

    // ...
}

Next, provide the information for the candidate bean definitions. You can add <qualifier/> tags as sub-elements of the <bean/> tag and then specify the type and value to match your custom qualifier annotations. The type is matched against the fully-qualified class name of the annotation. Or, as a convenience if no risk of conflicting names exists, you can use the short class name. Both approaches are demonstrated in the following example.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans 
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/context 
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.0.xsd">

    <context:annotation-config/>

    <bean class="example.SimpleMovieCatalog">
        <qualifier type="Genre" value="Action"/>
        <!-- inject any dependencies required by this bean -->
    </bean>

    <bean class="example.SimpleMovieCatalog">
        <qualifier type="example.Genre" value="Comedy"/>
        <!-- inject any dependencies required by this bean -->
    </bean>
    
    <bean id="movieRecommender" class="example.MovieRecommender"/>

</beans>

In Section 3.10, “Classpath scanning and managed components”, you will see an annotation-based alternative to providing the qualifier metadata in XML. Specifically, see Section 3.10.7, “Providing qualifier metadata with annotations”.

In some cases, it may be sufficient to use an annotation without a value. This may be useful when the annotation serves a more generic purpose and can be applied across several different types of dependencies. For example, you may provide an offline catalog that would be searched when no Internet connection is available. First define the simple annotation:

@Target({ElementType.FIELD, ElementType.PARAMETER})
@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@Qualifier
public @interface Offline {

}

Then add the annotation to the field or property to be autowired:

public class MovieRecommender {

    @Autowired
    @Offline
    private MovieCatalog offlineCatalog;

    // ...
}

Now the bean definition only needs a qualifier type:

<bean class="example.SimpleMovieCatalog">
    <qualifier type="Offline"/>
    <!-- inject any dependencies required by this bean -->
</bean>

You can also define custom qualifier annotations that accept named attributes in addition to or instead of the simple value attribute. If multiple attribute values are then specified on a field or parameter to be autowired, a bean definition must match all such attribute values to be considered an autowire candidate. As an example, consider the following annotation definition:

@Target({ElementType.FIELD, ElementType.PARAMETER})
@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@Qualifier
public @interface MovieQualifier {

    String genre();

    Format format();
}

In this case Format is an enum:

public enum Format {

    VHS, DVD, BLURAY
}

The fields to be autowired are annotated with the custom qualifier and include values for both attributes: genre and format.

public class MovieRecommender {

    @Autowired
    @MovieQualifier(format=Format.VHS, genre="Action")
    private MovieCatalog actionVhsCatalog;

    @Autowired
    @MovieQualifier(format=Format.VHS, genre="Comedy")
    private MovieCatalog comedyVhsCatalog;

    @Autowired
    @MovieQualifier(format=Format.DVD, genre="Action")
    private MovieCatalog actionDvdCatalog;

    @Autowired
    @MovieQualifier(format=Format.BLURAY, genre="Comedy")
    private MovieCatalog comedyBluRayCatalog;
   
    // ...
}

Finally, the bean definitions should contain matching qualifier values. This example also demonstrates that bean meta attributes may be used instead of the <qualifier/> sub-elements. If available, the <qualifier/> and its attributes take precedence, but the autowiring mechanism falls back on the values provided within the <meta/> tags if no such qualifier is present, as in the last two bean definitions in the following example.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans 
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/context 
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.0.xsd">

    <context:annotation-config/>

    <bean class="example.SimpleMovieCatalog">
        <qualifier type="MovieQualifier">
            <attribute key="format" value="VHS"/>
            <attribute key="genre" value="Action"/>
        </qualifier>
        <!-- inject any dependencies required by this bean -->
    </bean>

    <bean class="example.SimpleMovieCatalog">
        <qualifier type="MovieQualifier">
            <attribute key="format" value="VHS"/>
            <attribute key="genre" value="Comedy"/>
        </qualifier>
        <!-- inject any dependencies required by this bean -->
    </bean>

    <bean class="example.SimpleMovieCatalog">
        <meta key="format" value="DVD"/>
        <meta key="genre" value="Action"/>
        <!-- inject any dependencies required by this bean -->
    </bean>
    
    <bean class="example.SimpleMovieCatalog">
        <meta key="format" value="BLURAY"/>
        <meta key="genre" value="Comedy"/>
        <!-- inject any dependencies required by this bean -->
    </bean>

</beans>

The CustomAutowireConfigurer is a BeanFactoryPostProcessor that enables you to register your own custom qualifier annotation types even if they are not annotated with Spring's @Qualifier annotation.

<bean id="customAutowireConfigurer"
       class="org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.CustomAutowireConfigurer">
    <property name="customQualifierTypes">
        <set>
            <value>example.CustomQualifier</value>
        </set>
    </property>
</bean>

The particular implementation of AutowireCandidateResolver that is activated for the application context depends on the Java version. In versions earlier than Java 5, the qualifier annotations are not supported, and therefore autowire candidates are solely determined by the autowire-candidate value of each bean definition as well as by any default-autowire-candidates pattern(s) available on the <beans/> element. In Java 5 or later, the presence of @Qualifier annotations and any custom annotations registered with the CustomAutowireConfigurer will also play a role.

Regardless of the Java version, when multiple beans qualify as autowire candidates, the determination of a "primary" candidate is the same: if exactly one bean definition among the candidates has a primary attribute set to true, it will be selected.

Spring also supports injection using the JSR-250 @Resource annotation on fields or bean property setter methods. This is a common pattern in Java EE 5 and Java 6, for example, in JSF 1.2 managed beans or JAX-WS 2.0 endpoints. Spring supports this pattern for Spring-managed objects as well.

@Resource takes a name attribute, and by default Spring interprets that value as the bean name to be injected. In other words, it follows by-name semantics, as demonstrated in this example:

public class SimpleMovieLister {

    private MovieFinder movieFinder;

    @Resource(name="myMovieFinder")
    public void setMovieFinder(MovieFinder movieFinder) {
        this.movieFinder = movieFinder;
    }
}

If no name is specified explicitly, the default name is derived from the field name or setter method. In case of a field, it takes the field name; in case of a setter method, it takes the bean property name. So the following example is going to have the bean with name "movieFinder" injected into its setter method:

public class SimpleMovieLister {

    private MovieFinder movieFinder;

    @Resource
    public void setMovieFinder(MovieFinder movieFinder) {
        this.movieFinder = movieFinder;
    }
}

	Note
	The name provided with the annotation is resolved as a bean name by the ApplicationContext of which the CommonAnnotationBeanPostProcessor is aware. The names can be resolved through JNDI if you configure Spring's SimpleJndiBeanFactory explicitly. However, it is recommended that you rely on the default behavior and simply use Spring's JNDI lookup capabilities to preserve the level of indirection.

In the exclusive case of @Resource usage with no explicit name specified, and similar to @Autowired, @Resource finds a primary type match instead of a specific named bean and resolves well-known resolvable dependencies: the BeanFactory, ApplicationContext, ResourceLoader, ApplicationEventPublisher, and MessageSource interfaces.

Thus in the following example, the customerPreferenceDao field first looks for a bean named customerPreferenceDao, then falls back to a primary type match for the type CustomerPreferenceDao. The "context" field is injected based on the known resolvable dependency type ApplicationContext.

public class MovieRecommender {

    @Resource
    private CustomerPreferenceDao customerPreferenceDao;

    @Resource
    private ApplicationContext context;

    public MovieRecommender() {
    }

    // ...
}

The CommonAnnotationBeanPostProcessor not only recognizes the @Resource annotation but also the JSR-250 lifecycle annotations. Introduced in Spring 2.5, the support for these annotations offers yet another alternative to those described in initialization callbacks and destruction callbacks. Provided that the CommonAnnotationBeanPostProcessor is registered within the Spring ApplicationContext, a method carrying one of these annotations is invoked at the same point in the lifecycle as the corresponding Spring lifecycle interface method or explicitly declared callback method. In the example below, the cache will be pre-populated upon initialization and cleared upon destruction.

public class CachingMovieLister {

    @PostConstruct
    public void populateMovieCache() {
        // populates the movie cache upon initialization...
    }
    
    @PreDestroy
    public void clearMovieCache() {
        // clears the movie cache upon destruction...
    }
}

	Note
	For details about the effects of combining various lifecycle mechanisms, see Section 3.6.1.4, “Combining lifecycle mechanisms”.