Closing a Spring ApplicationContext

Question

When I create a new Spring ApplicationContext, for example via

final ApplicationContext ac = new AnnotationConfigApplicationContext(AppConfiguration.class);

Eclipse (STS 3.2.0) will mark it as a potential resource leak, complaining it is never closed ('Resource leak: 'ac' is never closed).

So far, so good. Then I tried to look into the issue, and was not able to find a close() or shutdown() or similar method that would even allow me to close the ApplicationContext . Is this an Eclipse warning go haywire, intended design or am I missing something?

Answer 1

You declare ac as ApplicationContext which doesn't define a close() method. Instead of that use any super-type of AnnotationConfigApplicationContext that extends Closeable (eg ConfigurableApplicationContext ) providing the close() method you need to release all resources.

Answer 2

If you use Java 7 you can use the try-with-resources statement to do the work for you

try (AnnotationConfigApplicationContext ac = new AnnotationConfigApplicationContext(...))
{
  ...
}

Answer 3

Yes, interface ApplicationContext doesn't have close() method, but child classes AbstractApplicationContext and GenericApplicationContext have close() and destroy() . So, I suggest to use them instead. Also there is useful method registerShutdownHook() .

Answer 4

Downcast your ApplicationContext to ConfigurableApplicationContext which defines close() method:

((ConfigurableApplicationContext)appCtx).close();

see https://stackoverflow.com/a/14424009/466363