Spring @Qualifier Annotation with example

         In Previous post, we learned the Autowiring, its modes and limitations. In this, we can discuss about @Qualifier annotation uses and examples.

    The @Qualifier annotation is used to resolve the autowiring conflict, when there are multiple beans of same type. This annotation is used with @Autowired annotation.

      The @Qualifier annotation can be used on any class annotated with @Component or 
on method annotated with @Bean. This annotation can also be applied on constructor 
arguments or method parameters.
  
     If two or more beans of same type declared in the configuration file then autowiring conflict will occur if you use only @Autowired, will throw NoSuchBeanDefinitionException.

See below example,

Student.java,

package com.test;
public class Student {

     private String name;

     public String getName() {
          return name;
     }
     public void setName(String name) {
          this.name = name;
     }
}

Bean.xml

<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-3.0.xsd">

<bean
class ="org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.AutowiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor"/>

  <bean id="school" class="com.test.School" >

  <bean id="student1" class="com.test.Student" >
       <property name="name" value="Mahesh" />
  </bean>

  <bean id="student2" class="com.test.Student" >
       <property name="name" value="Rajesh" />
  </bean>

</beans>

School.java,

package com.test;

import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;

public class School{

     @Autowired
     private Student student;
 
     // other property and setter and getters
}

If you run the above code, it will throw NoSuchBeanDefinitionException  as below,

Caused by: org.springframework.beans.factory.NoSuchBeanDefinitionException:
No unique bean of type [com.test.Student] is defined:
expected single matching bean but found 2: [student1, student2]

Because Spring doesn't know which bean should autowire.

To avoid this confusion or exception, should use @Qualifier annotation.

School.java,

package com.test;

import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Qualifier;

public class School{

        @Autowired
        @Qualifier("student1")
        private Student student;
 
        // other property and setter and getters
}

Related Posts:--
1) What is Autowiring in Spring ? Explain Autowiring modes and limitations with examples
2) What is IOC Container in Spring? Difference between BeanFactory and ApplicationContext
3) Spring MVC with Hibernate CRUD Example
4) Spring Annotations
5) String Interview Questions and Answers