Bean definition is abstract Error on a Standalone Java application

Question

Im trying to create a ParentDao that will handle all the connection details for my Standalone Java application.
When I run my program I get the Error below

Exception in thread "main" org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanIsAbstractException: Error creating bean with name 'parentDao': Bean definition is abstract

What am I doing wrong? I know its an abstract class I was just following this examples which also used abstract classes. abstract ParentDao Class and this one DRY your Spring Bean Im totally lost specially on how to do it on a Standalone application. And where do I initialize the ApplicationContext and how.

Below is my Connection Properties (bean.xml)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd">

    <bean id="dataSource" destroy-method="close"
        class="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource">
        <property name="driverClassName" value="oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver" />
        <property name="url" value="jdbc:oracle:thin:@ipaddress:1521:habagat" />
        <property name="username" value="username" />
        <property name="password" value="password" />
    </bean>

    <bean id="parentDao" class="com.mercury.dao.ParentDAO" abstract="true">
        <property name="dataSource" ref="dataSource" />
    </bean>
    <bean id="childDao" class="com.mercury.dao.ChildDAOImpl" parent="parentDao"/>        
</beans>

BELOW IS MY MAIN METHOD

public static void main(String[] args) {
    ApplicationContext context = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext(
        "beans.xml");
ParentDAO parentDao = (ParentDAO) context.getBean("parentDao");
}

AND MY PARENT DAO CLASS

   public abstract class ParentDAO<T> extends JdbcDaoSupport {

        public abstract void insert(T object) throws Exception;

        public abstract void delete(int id) throws Exception;

        public abstract void update(T object) throws Exception;

        public abstract T select(int id) throws Exception;
}

MY SERVICE

public class myService {

    ChildDAO childDao;

    public String getChildrenCount() {


        return int totalCount = childDao.getRecordCount();
    }
}

Answer 1

Well, the Parent DAO is abstract. Why would you try to pull that bean out of the context? You want to get the childDao bean.