Why use @PostConstruct?

Jan picture Jan · Aug 4, 2010 · Viewed 235k times · Source

In a managed bean, @PostConstruct is called after the regular Java object constructor.

Why would I use @PostConstruct to initialize by bean, instead of the regular constructor itself?

Answer

Bozho picture Bozho · Aug 4, 2010
  • because when the constructor is called, the bean is not yet initialized - i.e. no dependencies are injected. In the @PostConstruct method the bean is fully initialized and you can use the dependencies.

  • because this is the contract that guarantees that this method will be invoked only once in the bean lifecycle. It may happen (though unlikely) that a bean is instantiated multiple times by the container in its internal working, but it guarantees that @PostConstruct will be invoked only once.