Can I have the META-INF folder into src/main/resources of a Spring command line application?

java spring applicationcontext meta-inf
AndreaNobili picture AndreaNobili · Jul 5, 2016 · Viewed 15k times · Source

I am working on a batch aplication implemented using Spring.

In this application I found the following structure:

BATCH PROJECT
      |
      |
      |------> src/main/java (containing the packages)
      |
      |------> src/main/resources
                      |
                      |----------> META-INF
                                      |
                                      |--------> applicationContext.xml (Spring configuration file)

So, as you can see in the previous schema, into the src/main/resources I found the META-INF folder that contain the applicationContext.xml file that contains the Spring configuration (the beans definition).

This batch works fine but I have some doubt: can this place considered the correct place where to put the applicationContext.xml file ?

I always see the META-INF directory into web application (and not batch application as this) into the following folder that I don't have in this project (because it is not a web application):

webapp
|
|_src
|
|_WebContent
  |
  |__WEB-INF
  |
  |__META-INF

Is it correct or can I do better?

Answer

ck1 picture ck1 · Jul 6, 2016

This batch works fine but I have some doubt: can this place considered the correct place where to put the applicationContext.xml file ?

Yes, this is fine. Here is a Spring Boot example that is doing precisely this.

META-INF is intended to contain the MANIFEST.MF file and the services subdirectory related to the ServiceLoader class, but other frameworks, including Spring, use it as well.

References:

http://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/technotes/guides/jar/jar.html#The_META-INF_directory

http://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/util/ServiceLoader.html

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