Spring context does not initialize with @ContextConfiguration but does initialize with new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext

Question

I'm new to Spring and here's what I'm trying to do:

I'm using a maven based library which has its own Spring context and autowired fields.
Its beans config file is src/test/resources/cucumber.xml
I have a class like this in the library:

@Component
public class ConfigContainer {
   @Value("${lc.service.uri}")
   private String lcServiceUri;
   @Value("${lc.service.port}")
   private Integer lcServicePort;   
   }
}

Then I have a test application (based on maven and cucumber) where I want to use autowired fields from the library.
The beans config file of my application is src/test/resources/cucumber.xml
I'm using @RunWith(Cucumber.class) to run the cucumber test.
I have the following maven dependencies:

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>junit</groupId>
        <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
        <version>3.8.1</version>
        <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>info.cukes</groupId>
        <artifactId>cucumber-java</artifactId>
        <version>1.2.4</version>
        <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>info.cukes</groupId>
        <artifactId>cucumber-junit</artifactId>
        <version>1.2.4</version>
        <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>info.cukes</groupId>
        <artifactId>cucumber-spring</artifactId>
        <version>1.2.4</version>
        <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>theInternalLibrary</groupId>
        <artifactId>internal-api-tests</artifactId>
        <version>1.0.15-SNAPSHOT</version>
        <exclusions>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
                <artifactId>slf4j-log4j12</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>info.cukes</groupId>
                <artifactId>cucumber-java</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>info.cukes</groupId>
                <artifactId>cucumber-junit</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>info.cukes</groupId>
                <artifactId>cucumber-spring</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
        </exclusions>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-test</artifactId>
        <version>4.1.6.RELEASE</version>
        <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

When I try to inject this ConfigContainer into my application using the @ContextConfiguration and @Autowired annotations, the object value is null .

@ContextConfiguration(locations = {"classpath:cucumber.xml"})
public class CleanupTest {
   @Autowired
   protected ConfigContainer configContainer;
}

But if I inject it using new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("cucumber.xml") , then the object is correctly initialized with the expected values.

public class CleanupTest {
   protected ApplicationContext context = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("cucumber.xml");
   private ConfigContainer configContainer = (ConfigContainer)context.getBean("configContainer");
}

Could you please explain to me why this is happening and what to do to be able to inject the field using spring annotations?
Thanks.

Answer 1

You need to annotate your test classes with @RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class) . Otherwise JUnit just creates an instance of the test class, with the default constructor.

Answer 2

I was actually missing the cucumber-spring dependency:

<dependency>
    <groupId>info.cukes</groupId>
    <artifactId>cucumber-spring</artifactId>
    <version>1.2.4</version>
    <scope>test</scope>
</dependency>

It works fine with spring annotations after adding this dependency.
Thanks @Grogi for pointing me in the right direction.