What's the difference between <mvc:annotation-driven /> and <context:annotation-config /> in servlet?

glaz666_59692 0
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I am migrating from Spring 2.5 to Spring 3.

They have introduced <mvc:annotation-driven /> which does some black magic. This is expected to be declared in servlet configuration file only.

In Spring 2.5 I have just used <context:annotation-config /> and <context:component-scan base='...'/> tags declared both in application-context.xml and dispatcher servlet configuration XML with appropriate base packages to scan.

So I wonder what is the difference between mvc:annotation-driven and context:annotation-config tags in servlet config and what can I eliminate in Spring 3 config files?

spring-3 spring-mvc spring
3 Answers

mvc:annotation-driven is a tag added in Spring 3.0 which does the following:

  1. Configures the Spring 3 Type ConversionService (alternative to PropertyEditors)
  2. Adds support for formatting Number fields with @NumberFormat
  3. Adds support for formatting Date, Calendar, and Joda Time fields with @DateTimeFormat, if Joda Time is on the classpath
  4. Adds support for validating @Controller inputs with @Valid, if a JSR-303 Provider is on the classpath
  5. Adds support for support for reading and writing XML, if JAXB is on the classpath (HTTP message conversion with @RequestBody/@ResponseBody)
  6. Adds support for reading and writing JSON, if Jackson is o n the classpath (along the same lines as #5)

context:annotation-config Looks for annotations on beans in the same application context it is defined and declares support for all the general annotations like @Autowired, @Resource, @Required, @PostConstruct etc etc.

user_58198770
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