This article describes the difference between ApplicationContext and BeanFactory in Spring framework.
- BeanFactory is recommended for lightweight framework like — Mobile and Applet.
- BeanFactory is core component of Spring IoC container.
- As ApplicationContext extends BeanFactory so ApplicationContext is more powerful than BeanFactory (like AOP, Internationalization etc.)
- You can configure your beans in the Spring IoC container through XML files, properties files, annotations, or even APIs.
- Container reads these beans by using BeanFactory (or ApplicationContext)
- Let’s say you define the beans in XML file, say applicationcontext.xml.
- Now BeanFactory has to read applicationcontext.xml to load the beans in container.
- For this BeanFactory needs an interface that can provide the xml file o BeanFactory.
- This interface called resource object.
- Sample:
- In case of ApplicationContext, the resource object is implemented internally, so as use We don’t need of resource object.
Hope this will clarify the basic difference.
Happy Reading,
Nirbhaya Bhava!!
Tagged: Spring
