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Spring’s PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer as a PropertiesFactoryBean

For a couple of past days I have been struggling with a problem with Spring’s PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer. I coudn’t get it to work in a way PropertiesFactoryBean is working. I wanted it to act in a similar way:

    <bean id="properties" class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer">
        <property name="location" value="classpath:MaNaWa.properties" />
    </bean>

    <bean id="config" class="com.netia.manawa.Config">
        <constructor-arg ref="properties" />
    </bean>

Unfortunately this code does not work. Everything you get is just an exception saying PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer can’t be cast to java.util.Properties. So, for a good deal of time I have been doing something ugly:

    <bean id="properties" class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertiesFactoryBean">
        <property name="location" value="classpath:MaNaWa.properties" />
    </bean>  

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

    <bean id="config" class="com.netia.manawa.Config">
        <constructor-arg ref="properties" />
    </bean>

Which, of course, resulted in a properties file being loaded two times.

Then, while I was sleeping, came a solution. I dreamed I could use a PropertiesFactoryBean in a PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer and guess what… it works. Just like that. See for yourselves:

    <bean id="properties" class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertiesFactoryBean">
        <property name="location" value="classpath:MaNaWa.properties" />
    </bean>

    <bean id="placeholder"  class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer">
        <property name="properties" ref="properties" />
    </bean>

    <bean id="config" class="com.netia.manawa.Config">
        <constructor-arg ref="properties" />
    </bean>

Gee. Now, to think about code while sleeping? That’s geeky, isn’t it? Well, I guess I have to live with that :)