load servlet on startup

[imbali]

Hi, I´m really new to the Spring Framework, so I might be making some very silly questions, but here goes:

Im working on an existing application that uses the Spring Framework. So here´s the thing, I would like to read some data from the db and perform some alterations to some of the data in it, but I wanted to do this when the web application was loaded.

I was thinking of creating a servlet that would deal with the alterations to the db and then in the web.xml define the "load-on-startup" and putting a smaller value than the value indicated to load the dispatcher servlet. So here´s my problem, I wont be able to access the db before the dispatcher servlet because then I wont be able to access the db, because all the hibernate configurations, datasource configuration are all done in the dispatcher serlvet.

[jfredrickson]

I know this reply is coming a month late, so I hope it's still of some use to you or anyone who comes along with the same question...

You could create a bean that handles your startup actions, then define that bean in your servlet config. Off the top of my head, it'd be something like:

<bean id="appInit" class="myapp.AppInit" scope="singleton" lazy-init="false" init-method="startup"/>

Then perform your startup actions (DB updates, etc) in AppInit's startup method. As long as your servlet is configured to load on startup in web.xml, this should work.

[brismith]

Great tip. Thanks.

[gregd]

I think a BeanFactoryPostProcessor should be a better approach.
Otherwise you have to make sure your special bean (and consequently its init method) will be created after all your other beans to be able to use them.

[brismith]

I'll take a look at that too. I needed to do something almost identical to what imbali described, and jfredickson's suggestion worked for me. (I'm learning too.)