'Parent' attribute on Beans - Please define

[penny]

Sorry if this has knowledge has already been conveyed, but I'm trying
to get the definition of what exactly the 'parent' attribute on the
Bean definition does - as I'm getting into a 'configSettings' bean
which contains dsn settings etc, and am currently having it be
injected into most all beans that need it - and trying to determine if
'parent=configsettings' is a better approach.

Thanks (awaiting the documentation update on this attribute)

Kevin Penny
Jobs2Web, Inc.

[Brian Kotek]

The parent attributes lets you specify a parent bean definition to augment dependency or configuration settings. So say you have a UserGateway and a ProductGateway, and you want to inject a Config bean into both of them. Instead of specifying a Config bean as a dependency to each one, you can create a third bean definition (maybe named "ParentGateway" or "AbstractGateway") with class="" and abstract="true", and specify the Config bean there. Then your gateways can specify parent="AbstractGateway" and both your gateways will have the Config bean wired into them.

In other words, it is simply a way to reduce XML by specifying common properties in one place rather than having to duplicate them in all of the necessary bean definitions. Make sense?

[penny]

Sure does - i'm going to paste an example here then and play with a
small implementation of it for a firm understanding.

[penny]

Ok I think I have it:

coldspring.xml definitions...
<!-- Regular Bean in need of some config settings (and specifies the
configGateway as the parent) -->
<bean id="regularBean" class="com.regularBean" parent="configGateway">

</bean>
<!-- Configuration Bean which holds config settings -->
<bean id="configSettings" class="com.configSettings">
<constructor-arg name="dsn">
<value>odbcdsn</value>
</constructor-arg>
</bean>
<!-- mock configGateway which has reference to the ConfigSettings -->
<bean id="configGateway" class="" abstract="true">
<property name="configSettings">
<ref bean="configSettings" />
</property>
</bean>

Then in my 'RegularBean' I need the methods for configSettings i.e.:
<!--- Author: penny - Date: 7/30/2008 --->
<!--- getter and setter for configSettings --->
<cffunction name="getconfigSettings" access="public" output="false"
returntype="com.configSettings">
<cfreturn variables.instance.configSettings/>
</cffunction>
<cffunction name="setconfigSettings" access="public" output="false"
returntype="void">
<cfargument name="configSettings" type="com.configSettings"
required="true"/>
<cfset variables.instance.configSettings=arguments.configSettings/>
</cffunction>

When calling Regular Bean -
application.serviceFactory.getBean('regularBean').getConfigSettings().getDSN()
for example - and voila I have the data -

This the best approach? So I will still require the 'stubbed' getter/
setter for configSettings in the Objects - but it slims down the xml
declaration a bit.