CODEWITHSUNDEEP
springspring-mvcapplicationcontext
Shantanu Tomar
Shantanu Tomar

Reputation: 1712

When to use Application context in Springs.

I have to develop a full fledged project. by full fledged i mean need to insert, update delete values in a database, Performing operations on values. Its like i have set of model classes for every object. Employee, products etc. its a web application developed using Spring MVC. I know when a user enters a data in a form , the request goes to dispatcher servlet from there to a particular handler(Controller) and then to view. But i don't know what application Context or web Application Context does ? its like is it necessary to have that xml file. ? What all it contains. thanks ...

Upvotes: 2

Views: 248

Answers (1)

Tomasz Nurkiewicz
Tomasz Nurkiewicz

Reputation: 340983

You are right in your assumptions. What you don't know is that DispatcherServlet has its own context, defined in *-servlet.xml. This context is typically a child of a main application context, typically defined in applicationContext.xml. Child can access all beans defined in parent context but not the other way around.

Theoretically you can live with just a single DispatcherServlet context and have all beans there (DAOs, services, transaction demarcation). But this is a poor practice in a bigger projects. Also two context allow you to draw a line between business logic and web layer.

Practical implication - if you have two DispatcherServlets there is no way of sharing beans between them if they don't have a common parent context.

Upvotes: 3

Related Questions