CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaspringmavenspring-mvctomcat
Karan
Karan

Reputation: 1380

Spring boot could not resolve placeholder in string

I am running spring-boot on an embedded tomcat server through maven with mvn clean install spring-boot:run. But every time I run it I get this error:

 Caused by: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Could not resolve placeholder 'language' in string value "${language}"
    at org.springframework.util.PropertyPlaceholderHelper.parseStringValue(PropertyPlaceholderHelper.java:174) ~[spring-core-4.3.6.RELEASE.jar:4.3.6.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.util.PropertyPlaceholderHelper.replacePlaceholders(PropertyPlaceholderHelper.java:126) ~[spring-core-4.3.6.RELEASE.jar:4.3.6.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.core.env.AbstractPropertyResolver.doResolvePlaceholders(AbstractPropertyResolver.java:236) ~[spring-core-4.3.6.RELEASE.jar:4.3.6.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.core.env.AbstractPropertyResolver.resolveRequiredPlaceholders(AbstractPropertyResolver.java:210) ~[spring-core-4.3.6.RELEASE.jar:4.3.6.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.context.support.PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer$2.resolveStringValue(PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer.java:172) ~[spring-context-4.3.6.RELEASE.jar:4.3.6.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.resolveEmbeddedValue(AbstractBeanFactory.java:831) ~[spring-beans-4.3.6.RELEASE.jar:4.3.6.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory.doResolveDependency(DefaultListableBeanFactory.java:1086) ~[spring-beans-4.3.6.RELEASE.jar:4.3.6.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory.resolveDependency(DefaultListableBeanFactory.java:1066) ~[spring-beans-4.3.6.RELEASE.jar:4.3.6.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.AutowiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor$AutowiredFieldElement.inject(AutowiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor.java:585) ~[spring-beans-4.3.6.RELEASE.jar:4.3.6.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.InjectionMetadata.inject(InjectionMetadata.java:88) ~[spring-beans-4.3.6.RELEASE.jar:4.3.6.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.AutowiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor.postProcessPropertyValues(AutowiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor.java:366) ~[spring-beans-4.3.6.RELEASE.jar:4.3.6.RELEASE]
    ... 35 common frames omitted

That error is regarding these two lines of code:

@Value("${language}")
private String language;

That language flag is specified in my application.properties like this:

application.properties

language=java
logging.level.org.springframework=TRACE

This is the confusing part: When I run the build without the spring-boot:run command, it builds properly and I can run the built jar with no issues at all. It is only when I try to run on the embedded tomcat server I run into this issue.

I can sort of bypass this by doing this in my code:

@Value("${language:java}")
private String language;

But that doesn't make sense to me since spring is supposed to read the default value from the application.properties file automatically.

EDIT: as people have pointed out, it is not reading application.properties at all when run on the embedded tomcat server. Any way to force it to read the file or a reason why it may not be reading it? It works fine when deployed to an external app server instead of the embedded one.

Upvotes: 38

Views: 240846

Answers (15)

Carlos Britos
Carlos Britos

Reputation: 61

If you have multiple .properties files, you can force a specific one with the annotation @PropertySource("classpath:yourProperty.properties") at the beginning of the class declaration, or define an array of configurations to look for in order, like this: @PropertySources({ @PropertySource("classpath:application.properties"), @PropertySource("classpath:application2.properties") })

Upvotes: 0

Lijo
Lijo

Reputation: 6778

I was missing the below dependency

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.springframework.cloud</groupId>
  <artifactId>spring-cloud-starter-config</artifactId>
</dependency>

I need read config values for ceneralized config server .

Upvotes: 2

Jaypee Tan
Jaypee Tan

Reputation: 101

I have similar issue with you, I fixed it by going

In your pom.xml if you have multiple profile or properties, select 1 profile to be default selected

<profiles>
  <profile>
    <id>dev</id>
    <properties>
      <activatedProperties>dev</activatedProperties>
    </properties>
    <activation>
      <activeByDefault>true</activeByDefault>
    </activation>
  </profile>
  <profile>
    <id>prod</id>
    <properties>
      <activatedProperties>prod</activatedProperties>
    </properties>
  </profile>
</profiles>

Then go to your application.properties then insert this code

spring.profiles.active=@activatedProperties@

Upvotes: 3

vvauban
vvauban

Reputation: 475

I had a missing property of the SpringApplication defaultProperties.

I had to add the property "spring.profiles.default" with the value "dev".

Upvotes: 0

aga menor
aga menor

Reputation: 11

Happened with me too. in my case the problem was caused because I put the value in wrong file. wrong BIN/src/main/resource/application.properties right src/main/resource/application.properties

Upvotes: 1

Monish Sen
Monish Sen

Reputation: 1888

In my case I had set an OS environment variable spring.config.location for some other purpose. This was over-riding the project path for spring config in eclipse.

After removing the environment variable, rebooting and re-importing projects in eclipse the above issue was resolved

Upvotes: 0

pserimer
pserimer

Reputation: 293

In my case changing this:

@Value("${files.root}")

to this:

@Value("${files.root:default}")

worked.

See following for my solution: https://www.bswen.com/2019/06/springboot-How-to-resolve-IllegalArgumentException-Could-not-resolve-placeholder-when-use-@Value-in-Spring-or-SpringBoot-app.html

Upvotes: 8

flopoe
flopoe

Reputation: 184

Got the same issue with IntelliJ. Invalidating caches from File -> Invalidate Caches / Restart ... fixed it for me.

Upvotes: 14

SamA
SamA

Reputation: 43

If you have set the values properly, then check if your resources folder is acting as "resources" identified by the IDE. In intelliJ you can right click on resources and select "Mark as resources root".

Upvotes: 1

jkim
jkim

Reputation: 188

Here I have simplest solution that worked in my case.

Whether it be from Java command prompt, or VM options from IDE such as eclipse or IntelliJ, try supplying the following:

-Dspring.profiles.active=<env>

This is alternative to modifying/touching the pom file mentioned above.

Upvotes: 0

Suman
Suman

Reputation: 868

I too faced a similar issue when running from IntelliJ. This worked for me : Build -> Rebuild Project.

Upvotes: 25

dobrivoje
dobrivoje

Reputation: 982

In my case, in IntelliJ, I used a different profile. So choosing a dev profile in my case, solved an issue.

Upvotes: 3

Paul Croarkin
Paul Croarkin

Reputation: 14675

Were you, by chance, running this from Eclipse?

I had the same issue and noticed that the project did not have the Maven nature. Right-clicking on the project ->Configure->Convert to Maven Project. Then right-click on the project ->Maven->Update Project solved the issue.

Upvotes: 5

HA S
HA S

Reputation: 1247

If the above changes in pom.xml file still doesn't solve the problem try below option.

Add the @PropertySource annotation at the top of your class

@PropertySource(
    {
            "classpath:/application.properties",
            "classpath:/${spring.profiles.active}/application-${spring.profiles.active}.properties"
    }

)

If that still doesn't solve try adding the following annotation

@EnableAutoConfiguration

Salam

Upvotes: -4

Karan
Karan

Reputation: 1380

Fixed by adding these lines to the pom under the <resources> section

<resource>
     <directory>src/main/resources</directory>
     <filtering>true</filtering>
     <includes>
          <include>**/*.properties</include>
     </includes>
</resource>

What I don't fully understand is the need for doing this.

a) I can run this on an external app server without having to add this line and the app reads application.properties just fine.

b) I can run the app as a standalone java application in eclipse (i.e., without having to build the app through maven) and it reads application.properties just fine

c) isn't spring-boot supposed to read it by default regardless? (as shown by the two cases above?)

Thanks everyone for their help. hopefully this will help others.

Upvotes: 40

Related Questions