This version is still in development and is not considered stable yet. For the latest stable version, please use Spring Framework 6.0.25!

Context Hierarchy

DispatcherServlet expects a WebApplicationContext (an extension of a plain ApplicationContext) for its own configuration. WebApplicationContext has a link to the ServletContext and the Servlet with which it is associated. It is also bound to the ServletContext such that applications can use static methods on RequestContextUtils to look up the WebApplicationContext if they need access to it.

For many applications, having a single WebApplicationContext is simple and suffices. It is also possible to have a context hierarchy where one root WebApplicationContext is shared across multiple DispatcherServlet (or other Servlet) instances, each with its own child WebApplicationContext configuration. See Additional Capabilities of the ApplicationContext for more on the context hierarchy feature.

The root WebApplicationContext typically contains infrastructure beans, such as data repositories and business services that need to be shared across multiple Servlet instances. Those beans are effectively inherited and can be overridden (that is, re-declared) in the Servlet-specific child WebApplicationContext, which typically contains beans local to the given Servlet. The following image shows this relationship:

The following example configures a WebApplicationContext hierarchy:

Java
Kotlin

public class MyWebAppInitializer extends AbstractAnnotationConfigDispatcherServletInitializer {

	@Override
	protected Class<?>[] getRootConfigClasses() {
		return new Class<?>[] { RootConfig.class };
	}

	@Override
	protected Class<?>[] getServletConfigClasses() {
		return new Class<?>[] { App1Config.class };
	}

	@Override
	protected String[] getServletMappings() {
		return new String[] { "/app1/*" };
	}
}

class MyWebAppInitializer : AbstractAnnotationConfigDispatcherServletInitializer() {

	override fun getRootConfigClasses(): Array<Class<*>> {
		return arrayOf(RootConfig::class.java)
	}

	override fun getServletConfigClasses(): Array<Class<*>> {
		return arrayOf(App1Config::class.java)
	}

	override fun getServletMappings(): Array<String> {
		return arrayOf("/app1/*")
	}
}

If an application context hierarchy is not required, applications can return all configuration through getRootConfigClasses() and null from getServletConfigClasses().

The following example shows the web.xml equivalent:

<web-app>

	<listener>
		<listener-class>org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener</listener-class>
	</listener>

	<context-param>
		<param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
		<param-value>/WEB-INF/root-context.xml</param-value>
	</context-param>

	<servlet>
		<servlet-name>app1</servlet-name>
		<servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
		<init-param>
			<param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
			<param-value>/WEB-INF/app1-context.xml</param-value>
		</init-param>
		<load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
	</servlet>

	<servlet-mapping>
		<servlet-name>app1</servlet-name>
		<url-pattern>/app1/*</url-pattern>
	</servlet-mapping>

</web-app>

If an application context hierarchy is not required, applications may configure a “root” context only and leave the contextConfigLocation Servlet parameter empty.