@Configuration imported via ImportBeanDefinitionRegistrar is not processed as configuration [SPR-11430]

[spring-projects-issues]

Dave Syer opened SPR-11430 and commented

@Configuration imported via ImportBeanDefinitionRegistrar is not processed as configuration. Actually it seems to get proxied OK, but the @Beans inside it are not instantiated or registered with the bean factory.

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Affects: 4.0.1

Issue Links:

• Doc: @Bean methods on @Configuration class returned from another @Bean method do not work [SPR-14602] #19171 Doc: @Bean methods on @Configuration class returned from another @Bean method do not work
• @Configuration imported via @ImportResource is not processed [SPR-11723] #16345 @Configuration imported via @ImportResource is not processed

Referenced from: commits 71c6eb2

[spring-projects-issues]

Dave Syer commented

Repro test case: https://github.com/dsyer/spring-framework-issues/tree/SPR-11430

[spring-projects-issues]

Juergen Hoeller commented

Since ImportBeanDefinitionRegistrars kick in during the configuration class processing phase, I'm not surprised that they can't register configuration classes themselves properly.

If this is important to you, Dave, we can try to make it work. Do you have any specific use cases for it, in particules ones that can't be expressed any other way?

Juergen

[spring-projects-issues]

Dave Syer commented

I do think it's important. I want to write an @Enable* annotation that pulls in a load of beans that are already encapsulated in a @Configuration (or an XML file I guess). It seems that the only way I can do it is to duplicate all the bean definitions and register them manually. It would be very fragile (not to mention unreadable). I'm surprised no-one asked for this before, actually, since it seems like an obvious thing to do.

[spring-projects-issues]

Juergen Hoeller commented

I'm afraid we can only properly address this in the 4.1 timeframe, since the required changes are rather involved in terms of lifecycle implications. 4.1 is just half a year away though, with an RC1 due in 3 months and a bit...

Juergen

[spring-projects-issues]

Juergen Hoeller commented

Finally addressed through reiterating the configuration class detection algorithm until no new configuration bean definitions are being found in the registry, similar to how we do it for BeanDefinitionRegistryPostProcessors (#15258).

Juergen