How to use YamlPropertiesFactoryBean to load YAML files using Spring Framework 4.1?

Question

I have a spring application that is currently using *.properties files and I want to have it using YAML files instead.

I found the class YamlPropertiesFactoryBean that seems to be capable of doing what I need.

My problem is that I'm not sure how to use this class in my Spring application (which is using annotation based configuration). It seems I should configure it in the PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer with the setBeanFactory method.

Previously I was loading property files using @PropertySource as follows:

@Configuration
@PropertySource("classpath:/default.properties")
public class PropertiesConfig {

    @Bean
    public static PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer placeholderConfigurer() {
        return new PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer();
    }
}

How can I enable the YamlPropertiesFactoryBean in the PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer so that I can load YAML files directly? Or is there another way of doing this?

Thanks.

My application is using annotation based config and I'm using Spring Framework 4.1.4. I found some information but it always pointed me to Spring Boot, like this one.

Answer 1

With XML config I've been using this construct:

<context:annotation-config/>

<bean id="yamlProperties" class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.YamlPropertiesFactoryBean">
    <property name="resources" value="classpath:test.yml"/>
</bean>

<context:property-placeholder properties-ref="yamlProperties"/>

Of course you have to have the snakeyaml dependency on your runtime classpath.

I prefer XML config over the java config, but I recon it shouldn't be hard to convert it.

edit:
java config for completeness sake

@Bean
public static PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer properties() {
  PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer propertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer = new PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer();
  YamlPropertiesFactoryBean yaml = new YamlPropertiesFactoryBean();
  yaml.setResources(new ClassPathResource("default.yml"));
  propertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer.setProperties(yaml.getObject());
  return propertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer;
}