8.9 Using the "autoproxy" facility

8.9 Using the "autoproxy" facility
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So far we've considered explicit creation of AOP proxies using a ProxyFactoryBean or similar factory bean.

Spring also allows us to use "autoproxy" bean definitions, which can automatically proxy selected bean definitions. This is built on Spring "bean post processor" infrastructure, which enables modification of any bean definition as the container loads.

In this model, you set up some special bean definitions in your XML bean definition file to configure the auto proxy infrastructure. This allows you just to declare the targets eligible for autoproxying: you don't need to use ProxyFactoryBean.

There are two ways to do this:

Using an autoproxy creator that refers to specific beans in the current context.
A special case of autoproxy creation that deserves to be considered separately; autoproxy creation driven by source-level metadata attributes.

8.9.1 Autoproxy bean definitions

The org.springframework.aop.framework.autoproxy package provides the following standard autoproxy creators.

8.9.1.1 BeanNameAutoProxyCreator

The BeanNameAutoProxyCreator class is a BeanPostProcessor that automatically creates AOP proxies for beans with names matching literal values or wildcards.

<bean class="org.springframework.aop.framework.autoproxy.BeanNameAutoProxyCreator">
  <property name="beanNames" value="jdk*,onlyJdk"/>
  <property name="interceptorNames">
    <list>
      <value>myInterceptor</value>
    </list>
  </property>
</bean>

As with ProxyFactoryBean, there is an interceptorNames property rather than a list of interceptors, to allow correct behavior for prototype advisors. Named "interceptors" can be advisors or any advice type.

As with auto proxying in general, the main point of using BeanNameAutoProxyCreator is to apply the same configuration consistently to multiple objects, with minimal volume of configuration. It is a popular choice for applying declarative transactions to multiple objects.

Bean definitions whose names match, such as "jdkMyBean" and "onlyJdk" in the above example, are plain old bean definitions with the target class. An AOP proxy will be created automatically by the BeanNameAutoProxyCreator. The same advice will be applied to all matching beans. Note that if advisors are used (rather than the interceptor in the above example), the pointcuts may apply differently to different beans.

8.9.1.2 DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator

A more general and extremely powerful auto proxy creator is DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator. This will automagically apply eligible advisors in the current context, without the need to include specific bean names in the autoproxy advisor's bean definition. It offers the same merit of consistent configuration and avoidance of duplication as BeanNameAutoProxyCreator.

Using this mechanism involves:

Specifying a DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator bean definition.
Specifying any number of Advisors in the same or related contexts. Note that these must be Advisors, not just interceptors or other advices. This is necessary because there must be a pointcut to evaluate, to check the eligibility of each advice to candidate bean definitions.

The DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator will automatically evaluate the pointcut contained in each advisor, to see what (if any) advice it should apply to each business object (such as "businessObject1" and "businessObject2" in the example).

This means that any number of advisors can be applied automatically to each business object. If no pointcut in any of the advisors matches any method in a business object, the object will not be proxied. As bean definitions are added for new business objects, they will automatically be proxied if necessary.

Autoproxying in general has the advantage of making it impossible for callers or dependencies to obtain an un-advised object. Calling getBean("businessObject1") on this ApplicationContext will return an AOP proxy, not the target business object. (The "inner bean" idiom shown earlier also offers this benefit.)

<bean class="org.springframework.aop.framework.autoproxy.DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator"/>

<bean class="org.springframework.transaction.interceptor.TransactionAttributeSourceAdvisor">
  <property name="transactionInterceptor" ref="transactionInterceptor"/>
</bean>

<bean id="customAdvisor" class="com.mycompany.MyAdvisor"/>

<bean id="businessObject1" class="com.mycompany.BusinessObject1">
  <!-- Properties omitted -->
</bean>

<bean id="businessObject2" class="com.mycompany.BusinessObject2"/>

The DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator is very useful if you want to apply the same advice consistently to many business objects. Once the infrastructure definitions are in place, you can simply add new business objects without including specific proxy configuration. You can also drop in additional aspects very easily - for example, tracing or performance monitoring aspects - with minimal change to configuration.

The DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator offers support for filtering (using a naming convention so that only certain advisors are evaluated, allowing use of multiple, differently configured, AdvisorAutoProxyCreators in the same factory) and ordering. Advisors can implement the org.springframework.core.Ordered interface to ensure correct ordering if this is an issue. The TransactionAttributeSourceAdvisor used in the above example has a configurable order value; the default setting is unordered.

8.9.1.3 AbstractAdvisorAutoProxyCreator

This is the superclass of DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator. You can create your own autoproxy creators by subclassing this class, in the unlikely event that advisor definitions offer insufficient customization to the behavior of the framework DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator.

8.9.2 Using metadata-driven auto-proxying

A particularly important type of autoproxying is driven by metadata. This produces a similar programming model to .NET ServicedComponents. Instead of using XML deployment descriptors as in EJB, configuration for transaction management and other enterprise services is held in source-level attributes.

In this case, you use the DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator, in combination with Advisors that understand metadata attributes. The metadata specifics are held in the pointcut part of the candidate advisors, rather than in the autoproxy creation class itself.

This is really a special case of the DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator, but deserves consideration on its own. (The metadata-aware code is in the pointcuts contained in the advisors, not the AOP framework itself.)

The /attributes directory of the JPetStore sample application shows the use of attribute-driven autoproxying. In this case, there's no need to use the TransactionProxyFactoryBean. Simply defining transactional attributes on business objects is sufficient, because of the use of metadata-aware pointcuts. The bean definitions include the following code, in /WEB-INF/declarativeServices.xml. Note that this is generic, and can be used outside the JPetStore:

<bean class="org.springframework.aop.framework.autoproxy.DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator"/>

<bean class="org.springframework.transaction.interceptor.TransactionAttributeSourceAdvisor">
  <property name="transactionInterceptor" ref="transactionInterceptor"/>
</bean>

<bean id="transactionInterceptor"
    class="org.springframework.transaction.interceptor.TransactionInterceptor">
  <property name="transactionManager" ref="transactionManager"/>
  <property name="transactionAttributeSource">
    <bean class="org.springframework.transaction.interceptor.AttributesTransactionAttributeSource">
      <property name="attributes" ref="attributes"/>
    </bean>
  </property>
</bean>

<bean id="attributes" class="org.springframework.metadata.commons.CommonsAttributes"/>

The DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator bean definition (the name is not significant, hence it can even be omitted) will pick up all eligible pointcuts in the current application context. In this case, the "transactionAdvisor" bean definition, of type TransactionAttributeSourceAdvisor, will apply to classes or methods carrying a transaction attribute. The TransactionAttributeSourceAdvisor depends on a TransactionInterceptor, via constructor dependency. The example resolves this via autowiring. The AttributesTransactionAttributeSource depends on an implementation of the org.springframework.metadata.Attributes interface. In this fragment, the "attributes" bean satisfies this, using the Jakarta Commons Attributes API to obtain attribute information. (The application code must have been compiled using the Commons Attributes compilation task.)

The /annotation directory of the JPetStore sample application contains an analogous example for auto-proxying driven by JDK 1.5+ annotations. The following configuration enables automatic detection of Spring's Transactional annotation, leading to implicit proxies for beans containing that annotation:

<bean class="org.springframework.aop.framework.autoproxy.DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator"/>

<bean class="org.springframework.transaction.interceptor.TransactionAttributeSourceAdvisor">
  <property name="transactionInterceptor" ref="transactionInterceptor"/>
</bean>

<bean id="transactionInterceptor"
    class="org.springframework.transaction.interceptor.TransactionInterceptor">
  <property name="transactionManager" ref="transactionManager"/>
  <property name="transactionAttributeSource">
    <bean class="org.springframework.transaction.annotation.AnnotationTransactionAttributeSource"/>
  </property>
</bean>

The TransactionInterceptor defined here depends on a PlatformTransactionManager definition, which is not included in this generic file (although it could be) because it will be specific to the application's transaction requirements (typically JTA, as in this example, or Hibernate, JDO or JDBC):

<bean id="transactionManager" 
    class="org.springframework.transaction.jta.JtaTransactionManager"/>

	Tip
	If you require only declarative transaction management, using these generic XML definitions will result in Spring automatically proxying all classes or methods with transaction attributes. You won't need to work directly with AOP, and the programming model is similar to that of .NET ServicedComponents.

This mechanism is extensible. It's possible to do autoproxying based on custom attributes. You need to:

Define your custom attribute.
Specify an Advisor with the necessary advice, including a pointcut that is triggered by the presence of the custom attribute on a class or method. You may be able to use an existing advice, merely implementing a static pointcut that picks up the custom attribute.

It's possible for such advisors to be unique to each advised class (for example, mixins): they simply need to be defined as prototype, rather than singleton, bean definitions. For example, the LockMixin introduction interceptor from the Spring test suite, shown above, could be used in conjunction with an attribute-driven pointcut to target a mixin, as shown here. We use the generic DefaultPointcutAdvisor, configured using JavaBean properties:

<bean id="lockMixin" class="org.springframework.aop.LockMixin"
    scope="prototype"/>

<bean id="lockableAdvisor" class="org.springframework.aop.support.DefaultPointcutAdvisor"
    scope="prototype">
  <property name="pointcut" ref="myAttributeAwarePointcut"/>
  <property name="advice" ref="lockMixin"/>
</bean>

<bean id="anyBean" class="anyclass" ...

If the attribute aware pointcut matches any methods in the anyBean or other bean definitions, the mixin will be applied. Note that both lockMixin and lockableAdvisor definitions are prototypes. The myAttributeAwarePointcut pointcut can be a singleton definition, as it doesn't hold state for individual advised objects.

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