initializing beans through instance factory-method

[Ranadhir Nag]

I have a bean which I am trying to create through a instance factory method ,which takes in parameters.The bean and factory class are given below along with the metadata.

public class AddEmployee implements ICommand,ApplicationContextAware {
    private ApplicationContext applicationContext;
    public AddEmployee(String name,int ID){
        //this.emp=createEmployee(name,ID);
    }
    @Override
    public void setApplicationContext(ApplicationContext arg0)
            throws BeansException {
        // TODO Auto-generated method stub
        this.applicationContext=arg0;
    }

}

public class commandManager implements ApplicationContextAware {
    private ApplicationContext applicationContext;
    @Override
    public void setApplicationContext(ApplicationContext arg0)
            throws BeansException {
        // TODO Auto-generated method stub
        this.applicationContext=arg0;   
    }
    public AddEmployee createAddServiceInstance(String name,Integer id){
        return (AddEmployee) this.applicationContext.getBean("add", AddEmployee.class,name,id);
    }
}

spring-context.xml:

    
        <bean id="add" scope="prototype" class="com.payroll.execute.AddEmployee"
           factory-bean="commands" factory-method="createAddServiceInstance">
        <constructor-arg type="String" value=""/>
        <constructor-arg type="Integer" value=""/>
        </bean>
   <bean id="commands" class="com.payroll.execute.commandManager"/>

When I execute the following test ,i get a null-pointer - need help in understanding the issue

@Autowired
@Qualifier("commands")
private commandManager commands;
@Test
public void testCreateAddService() {
addservice=commands.createAddServiceInstance("Haven",90897);
assertNotNull(addservice);
}

Testcase: testCreateAddService took 0.5 sec Caused an ERROR null java.lang.NullPointerException at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.ConstructorResolver.instantiateUsingFactoryMethod(ConstructorResolver.java:517) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.instantiateUsingFactoryMethod(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1029) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBeanInstance(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:925) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:490) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:461) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:314)

[Mark Spritzler]

Try removing

class="com.payroll.execute.AddEmployee"

And what happens?

Actually, that code makes no sense. You are basically asking the bean named add to call its own method to return itself. So it is a paradox. The code

his.applicationContext.getBean("add", AddEmployee.class,name,id);

is trying to get a bean of itself which hasn't been instantiated yet because it is returning itself???

That is really never going to work.

Mark