Spring lifecycle start method not working

Question

I thought I set up a spring bean so that when my web application context gets initialized the start method runs, but it isn't running. When I start my application in debug mode I never hit the breakpoint in the start method. Here's how I have the class set up:

@Transactional
@Service
public class ServerStartup implements Lifecycle {

    @Autowired
    private EmpireService es;

    /**
     * sets up the server the first time. Should only be called once
     */
    private boolean setup() {
            [... sets stuff up, saves the empire]
    }

    /**
     * initializes the Empire with its necessary value
     */
    @Override
    public void start() {
        Empire empire = es.getEmpire();
        if (empire == null) {
            //initialize all data as there is no "empire"
            this.setup();
            empire = es.getEmpire();
        }
        Empire.setEmpireGold(empire.getInstanceEmpireGold());

    }

    /**
     * does nothing
     */
    @Override
    public void stop() {
    }

    /**
     * does nothing
     */
    @Override
    public boolean isRunning() {
        return false;
    }       
}

The reason I need to do this is that when my program starts up, it needs to check if a map has been built. If it hasn't, it needs to build one. Also, it is essentially setting up a cached value, the Empire's empireGold.

If there's a better, more efficient way to do this than implementing Lifecycle I'd be open to suggestions. Otherwise I just want this to work!

Answer 1

There is more than one way to instruct Spring to run some initialization logic after a bean has been created. My personal preference is to use the @PostConstruct annotation, because it's a standard (defined in the javax.annotation package) independent from Spring or any other container.

If you go for this solution and annotate your start() method with @PostConstruct , don't forget to include <context:annotation-config/> in your configuration, otherwise it will be ignored.

See the Spring documentation on this annotation here .
For alternative solutions for the same problem check out the section on "Customizing the nature of a bean" .

Answer 2

使用@PostConstruct注释您的start方法