How can I create two beans of same class in a Spring Context?

Question

I can declare a bean in Spring using @Bean annotation. Let's say I declare two beans of String type in my Application Context.

@Bean
public String country(){ return "India";}

@Bean
public String continent(){ return "Asia";}

In this case what will happen when the Spring Container will boot strap? Would there be any error?

Answer 1

You can have beans of the same type in the same context. Both beans will have a different name ( country and continent ) derived from the method names:

@Configuration
public class Config {
    @Bean
    public String country() {
        return "Germany";
    }
    @Bean
    public String continent() {
        return "Europe";
    }
}

Therefore you can wire the beans by name:

@Autowired
String country;

@Autowired
String continent;

You can also define a name explicitly if needed:

@Bean(name = "myContinent")
public String continent() {
    return "Europe";
}

And then wire using the @Qualifier :

@Qualifier("myContinent")
@Autowired
String continent;

Answer 2

Two spring beans can be created in same context. But they need to be created in separate @Configuration files and separate access.