Spring property placeholder not working

java spring maven tomcat properties

20,711

Solution 1

Property placeholders in imports are resolved against enviroment variables or system properties only.

Since version 3.1 you can use an ApplicationContextInitializer to add PropertySources to the Enviroment that will solve your problem.

see http://blog.springsource.org/2011/02/15/spring-3-1-m1-unified-property-management/

Other option to do the same is using profiles: http://blog.springsource.org/2011/02/14/spring-3-1-m1-introducing-profile/

Edit

For example:

Add the initializer to web.xml

<context-param>
    <param-name>contextInitializerClasses</param-name>
    <param-value>foo.bar.AppContextInitializer</param-value>
</context-param>

And the initializer:

public class AppContextInitializer implements ApplicationContextInitializer<ConfigurableWebApplicationContext> {

        @Override
        public void initialize(ConfigurableWebApplicationContext applicationContext) {
            Properties props;
            try {
                props = PropertiesLoaderUtils.loadAllProperties("/some/path");
                PropertiesPropertySource ps = new PropertiesPropertySource("profile", props);
                applicationContext.getEnvironment().getPropertySources().addFirst(ps);
            } catch (IOException e) {
                // handle error
            }
        }
    }

Solution 2

Is this properties file format valid? I think you should use following contents for app.properties:

#possible values: dev test prod
mode=dev

20,711

Author by

Alexandr

Updated on July 12, 2022

Comments

Alexandr almost 2 years
I've read similar issues on the stackoverflow.com, but none of the solutions helped me. The following configuration I use (maven project structure): the src/main/resources/properties/app.properties file
```
#possible values: dev test prod
mode: dev
```
In the Spring configuration:
```
<context:property-placeholder location="classpath:properties/app.properties"/>
<import resource="classpath:/spring/db/${mode}-datasource-config.xml"/>
```
Based on the value of ${mode} I want to import the corresponding datasource configuration file.

When I run the embedded tomcat7 using the mvn clean install tomcat7:run command I'm getting the error:
```
10, 2013 5:52:29 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext loadOnStartup
SEVERE: Servlet /SpringWebFlow threw load() exception
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Could not resolve placeholder 'mode' in string value "classpath:/spring/db/${mode}-datasource-config.xml"
```
The target/classes/properties/app.properties file exists.

I'm using IntelliJ IDEA and in the editor I can click on the "${mode}" in <import resource="classpath:/spring/db/${mode}-datasource-config.xml"/> and see its value in the property file. Also the editor itself change ${mode} onto the grey colored dev showing it can recognize the property value. In the editor I see: <import resource="classpath:/spring/db/dev-datasource-config.xml"/>

Any ideas why I'm getting the error and how it can be resolved?
Alexandr almost 11 years

I'm not strong in Spring. Can I setup ApplicationContextInitializer declatively in the Spring config file? I don't think one need to implement it for property files loading only. Cannot find any example. I can see only java implementations.
Jose Luis Martin almost 11 years

No, you can't do it declaratively. PropertyPlaceHolderConfigurer or PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer are BeanFactoryPostProcessors so imports are parsed before.
Ralph almost 11 years

+1: for the link blog.springsource.org/2011/02/15/…
Alexandr over 10 years

@JoseLuisMartin, please tell me, how can I setup ApplicationContextInitializer in the java-based configuration within web environment. When Disptacher servlet is created
Jose Luis Martin over 10 years

For JavaConfig, look at @PropertySource annotation