<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<archive>
<manifest>
<mainClass>fully.qualified.MainClass</mainClass>
</manifest>
</archive>
<descriptorRefs>
<descriptorRef>jar-with-dependencies</descriptorRef>
</descriptorRefs>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
and you run it with
mvn clean compile assembly:single
Compile goal should be added before assembly:single or otherwise the code on your own project is not included.
See more details in comments.
Commonly this goal is tied to a build phase to execute automatically. This ensures the JAR is built when executing mvn install
or performing a deployment/release.
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<archive>
<manifest>
<mainClass>fully.qualified.MainClass</mainClass>
</manifest>
</archive>
<descriptorRefs>
<descriptorRef>jar-with-dependencies</descriptorRef>
</descriptorRefs>
</configuration>
<executions>
<execution>
<id>make-assembly</id> <!-- this is used for inheritance merges -->
<phase>package</phase> <!-- bind to the packaging phase -->
<goals>
<goal>single</goal>
</goals>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
I'm not entirely sure what you are trying to achieve. I don't think you can achieve exactly what you want without creating your own custom schema (which is non-trivial for nested structures), but the following example is probably pretty close without doing that.
First, define an abstract bean to use as a template for your outer bean (my example uses a Car as the outer bean and an Engine as the inner bean), giving it default values that all other beans can inherit:
<bean id="defaultCar" class="Car" abstract="true">
<property name="make" value="Honda"/>
<property name="model" value="Civic"/>
<property name="color" value="Green"/>
<property name="numberOfWheels" value="4"/>
<property name="engine" ref="defaultEngine"/>
</bean>
Since all Honda Civics have the same engine (in my world, where I know nothing about cars), I give it a default nested engine bean. Unfortunately, a bean cannot reference an abstract bean, so the default engine cannot be abstract. I've defined a concrete bean for the engine, but mark it as lazy-init
so it will not actually be instantiated unless another bean uses it:
<bean id="defaultEngine" class="Engine" lazy-init="true">
<property name="numberOfCylinders" value="4"/>
<property name="volume" value="400"/>
<property name="weight" value="475"/>
</bean>
Now I can define my specific car, taking all the default values by referencing the bean where they are defined via parent
:
<bean id="myCar" parent="defaultCar"/>
My wife has a car just like mine, except its a different model (again, I know nothing about cars - let's assume the engines are the same even though in real life they probably are not). Instead of redefining a bunch of beans/properties, I just extend the default car definition again, but override one of its properties:
<bean id="myWifesCar" parent="defaultCar">
<property name="model" value="Odyssey"/>
</bean>
My sister has the same car as my wife (really), but it has a different color. I can extend a concrete bean and override one or more properties on it:
<bean id="mySistersCar" parent="myWifesCar">
<property name="color" value="Silver"/>
</bean>
If I liked racing minivans, I might consider getting one with a bigger engine. Here I extend a minivan bean, overriding its default engine with a new engine. This new engine extends the default engine, overriding a few properties:
<bean id="supedUpMiniVan" parent="myWifesCar">
<property name="engine">
<bean parent="defaultEngine">
<property name="volume" value="600"/>
<property name="weight" value="750"/>
</bean>
</property>
</bean>
You can also do this more concisely by using nested properties:
<bean id="supedUpMiniVan" parent="myWifesCar">
<property name="engine.volume" value="600"/>
<property name="engine.weight" value="750"/>
</bean>
This will use the "defaultEngine". However, if you were to create two cars this way, each with different property values, the behavior will not be correct. This is because the two cars would be sharing the same engine instance, with the second car overriding the property settings set on the first car. This can be remedied by marking the defaultEngine as a "prototype", which instantiates a new one each time it is referenced:
<bean id="defaultEngine" class="Engine" scope="prototype">
<property name="numberOfCylinders" value="4"/>
<property name="volume" value="400"/>
<property name="weight" value="475"/>
</bean>
I think this example gives the basic idea. If your data structure is complex, you might define multiple abstract beans, or create several different abstract hierarchies - especially if your bean hierarchy is deeper than two beans.
Side note: my example uses properties, which I believe are much clearer to understand, both in Spring xml and in Java code. However, the exact same technique works for constructors, factory methods, etc.
Best Answer
Here is how I have done it in the past: running services which depend on configuration which can be changed on the fly implement a lifecycle interface: IRefreshable:
Controllers (or services) which can modify a piece of configuration broadcast to a JMS topic that the configuration has changed (supplying the name of the configuration object). A message driven bean then invokes the IRefreshable interface contract on all beans which implement IRefreshable.
The nice thing with spring is that you can automatically detect any service in your application context that needs to be refreshed, removing the need to explicitly configure them:
This approach works particularly well in a clustered application where one of many app servers might change the configuration, which all then need to be aware of. If you want to use JMX as the mechanism for triggering the changes, your JMX bean can then broadcast to the JMS topic when any of its attributes are changed.