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Spring Boot - Custom Type Conversion with @ConfigurationProperties

[Last Updated: Oct 30, 2018]

As we saw in the last tutorial, Spring automatically converts the external properties to the target type when it binds to the @ConfigurationProperties beans. If we need custom type conversion, we can provide a custom Converter. We can register our custom converter as a bean by using Spring boot @ConfigurationPropertiesBinding annotation. Let's see an example how to do that.

Example

src/main/resources/application.properties

spring.main.banner-mode=off 
spring.main.logStartupInfo=false
app.exit-on-errors=true
app.trade-start-date=03-25-2016

From above properties, we will target app.trade-start-date to java.time.LocalDate:

@Component
@ConfigurationProperties("app")
public class MyAppProperties {
  private boolean exitOnErrors;
  private LocalDate tradeStartDate;
    .............
}

The Custom Converter

We are going to provide a custom converter which will do our desire conversion. This converter should be registered as a Spring Bean and should also be annotated with @ConfigurationPropertiesBinding which is a Qualifier annotation. The ConfigurationPropertiesBindingPostProcessor is responsible to bind all external properties to the beans annotated with @ConfigurationProperties. This BeanPostProcessor also detects custom converters (besides the default ones) annotated with @ConfigurationPropertiesBinding for type conversion.

@Component
@ConfigurationPropertiesBinding
public class LocalDateConverter implements Converter<String, LocalDate> {
  @Override
  public LocalDate convert(String source) {
      if(source==null){
          return null;
      }
      return LocalDate.parse(source, DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("MM-dd-yyyy"));
  }
}

The Main class

@SpringBootApplication
public class ExampleMain {

  public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException {
      ConfigurableApplicationContext context = SpringApplication.run(ExampleMain.class, args);
      MyAppProperties bean = context.getBean(MyAppProperties.class);
      System.out.println(bean);
  }
}

Output

2017-08-09 10:05:28.089  INFO 9316 --- [mpleMain.main()] o.s.j.e.a.AnnotationMBeanExporter        : Registering beans for JMX exposure on startup
MyAppProperties{exitOnErrors=false, tradeStartDate=2016-03-25}
2017-08-09 10:05:28.217 INFO 9316 --- [ Thread-2] o.s.j.e.a.AnnotationMBeanExporter : Unregistering JMX-exposed beans on shutdown

Notes

Other than using a Converter for our custom type conversion, we can use other options as well. From Spring boot reference doc:

If you need custom type conversion you can provide a ConversionService bean (with bean id conversionService) or custom property editors (via a CustomEditorConfigurer bean) or custom Converters (with bean definitions annotated as @ConfigurationPropertiesBinding).

Example Project

Dependencies and Technologies Used:

  • Spring Boot 1.5.6.RELEASE
    Corresponding Spring Version 4.3.10.RELEASE
  • spring-boot-starter : Core starter, including auto-configuration support, logging and YAML.
  • JDK 1.8
  • Maven 3.3.9

Custom Type Conversion with @ConfigurationProperties Select All Download
  • custom-config-properties-binding
    • src
      • main
        • java
          • com
            • logicbig
              • example
                • LocalDateConverter.java
          • resources

    See Also