Should I use @EJB or @Inject

LuckyLuke picture LuckyLuke · Nov 15, 2011 · Viewed 106k times · Source

I have found this question: What is the difference between @Inject and @EJB but I did not get any wiser. I have not done Java EE before nor do I have experience with dependency injection so I do not understand what I should use?

Is @EJB an old way of injecting? Is the injection done by the EJB container when using this annotation while using @Inject use the new CDI framework? Is that the difference and should I be using @Inject instead of @EJB if this is the case?

Answer

Piotr Nowicki picture Piotr Nowicki · Nov 15, 2011

The @EJB is used to inject EJB's only and is available for quite some time now. @Inject can inject any managed bean and is a part of the new CDI specification (since Java EE 6).

In simple cases you can simply change @EJB to @Inject. In more advanced cases (e.g. when you heavily depend on @EJB's attributes like beanName, lookup or beanInterface) than in order to use @Inject you would need to define a @Producer field or method.

These resources might be helpful to understand the differences between @EJB and @Produces and how to get the best of them:

Antonio Goncalves' blog:
CDI Part I
CDI Part II
CDI Part III

JBoss Weld documentation:
CDI and the Java EE ecosystem

StackOverflow:
Inject @EJB bean based on conditions