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My Spring Professional 2021 certification study notes

The company I work for has a department called The School which allows employees to sign up for internal courses and obtain certifications if necessary.

The courses list is extensive, and this year I have chosen to take the Spring Professional training course to consolidate my knowledge of the framework.
The course allowed receiving a voucher to attend the VMware Spring Professional exam certification, so I decided to give it a try.

I don’t really believe in certifications, and I even tend to consider them a contraindication.
As expected the exam was full of nitty-gritty detail questions on Spring internals and stuff like that, But, I must admit that I’ve learned a lot while I was preparing for the exam.

Now I am aware of how Spring and Spring Boot work under the hood, and I better understand Spring features that I don’t use daily at work. I am satisfied with the choice.

Study material #

I spent 30 hours to prepare the exam, ~1 hour per weekday.
The most useful resource has been the official VMware Spring study guide.
It contains a list of questions that lead you through the topics addressed by the exam. Below the answers I wrote while studying.

Container, Dependency and IOC #

What is dependency injection and what are the advantages of using it? #

The dependency injection is the linking action between dependents and dependencies. The dependent component is not allowed to inject dependencies by itself. The DI is delegated to an external authority called Spring IoC container to achieve decoupling between components. This behaviour is commonly called Inversion of Control. The injection process happens at runtime, allowing flexibility because the application behaviour can be modified by an external configuration.

Other advantages are:

What is an interface and what are the advantages? #

A java interface specifies behaviour that the implementing class must implement and separates what the caller expects from the implementation.

What is an ApplicationContext? #

An application context is an instance of any class that implements the ApplicationContext interface.

How are you going to create a new instance of an ApplicationContext? #

To create a new instance of an application context you have to instantiate a class that implements the ApplicationContext interface, for example the AnnotationConfigApplicationContext class.
Spring boot expose a convenient method SpringApplication.run to bootstrap the application by creating an ApplicationContext instance.

Can you describe the lifecycle of a Spring Bean in an ApplicationContext? #

  1. Constructor is called
    • If the bean is created using the constructor DI the 1st and 2nd steps are a single step
  2. Dependencies are injected
  3. @PostConstruct (jsr-250) annoted method is called, it must be void with no arguments
  4. Call method setBeanName(name) declared in the BeanNameAware interface
  5. Call method postProcessBeforeInitialization(bean, beanName) declared in the BeanPostProcess interface
  6. Call method afterPropertiesSet declared in the InitializingBean interface
  7. Call the init method defined in @Bean.initMethod
  8. Call method postProcessAfterInitialization(bean, beanName) declared in the BeanPostProcess interface
  9. Call method postProcessBeforeDestruction(bean, beanName) declared DestructionAwareBeanPostProcessors interface
  10. @PreDestroy (jsr-250) annoted method is called
  11. Call method destroy() declared in the DisposableBean interface
  12. Call destroy method defined in @Bean.destroyMethod

How are you going to create an ApplicationContext in an integration test? #

  1. Annotate the test class with @RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class) if using JUnit4, or with @ExtendWith(SpringExtension.class) if using JUnit 5
  2. Annotate the test class with @ContextConfiguration to tell the runner where the definitionsof the beans are
    • @ContextConfiguration accepts the classes and locations attributes

In Spring Boot just annotate the test class with @SpringBootTest.

What is the preferred way to close an application context? Does Spring Boot do this for you? #

Spring Boot registers a shutdown hook with the JVM to make sure the application exits appropriately. Furthermore, it exposes an actuator endpoint to shutdown the context on demand.

Are beans lazily or eagerly instantiated by default? How do you alter this behaviour? #

Spring instantiate beans eagerly by default.

To make a bean lazy:

What is a property source? How would you use @PropertySource? #

A property source represents a source of name/value property pairs. The @PropertySource annotation is used for adding a property source to Spring’s Environment. It accepts the list of resource locations of the properties file to be loaded.

@Configuration
@PropertySource("classpath:/it/me/my.properties")
public class AppConfig {
  @Autowired
  Environment env;

  @Bean
  public TestBean testBean() {
    TestBean testBean = new TestBean();
    testBean.setName(env.getProperty("testbean.name"));
    return testBean;
  }
}

What is a BeanFactoryPostProcessor and what is it used for?
When is it invoked? #

BeanFactoryPostProcessor is an interface and beans that implement it can alter others bean definitions.
It is invoked during startup of the Spring context, after all bean definitions are loaded. For example, it is used by the property source mechanism to resolve @Value(${placeholder}) placeholders by injecting values read from the Spring environment and its set of property sources, declared using the @PropertySource annotation. The interface define the method postProcessBeanFactory(ConfigurableListableBeanFactory beanFactory).

public class CustomBeanFactory implements BeanFactoryPostProcessor {
  @Override
  public void postProcessBeanFactory(ConfigurableListableBeanFactory beanFactory) throws BeansException {
    for (String beanName : beanFactory.getBeanDefinitionNames()) {
      BeanDefinition beanDefinition = beanFactory.getBeanDefinition(beanName);
      // manipulate bean definition
    }
  }
}

What is a BeanPostProcessor and how is it different to a BeanFactoryPostProcessor? What do they do?
When are they called? #

BeanPostProcess is an interface that adds some processing logic before and after executing the bean initialization method after the Spring IoC Container instantiates the bean. The interface defines the methods postProcessBeforeInitialization(Object bean, String beanName) and postProcessAfterInitialization(Object bean, String beanName).

What does component scanning do? #

The process of searching the classpath for classes that can contribute to the application context is called component scanning. A class must be annotated with a Stereotype annotation in order to be scanned and registered by component scanning.

What is the behaviour of the annotation @Autowired with regards to field injection, constructor injection and method injection? #

@Autowired annotation populates the annotated attribute with the desired bean. The Bean Factory first looks for a bean of the annotated attribute type, then it tries using the name if none or more than one are returned it throws a NoSuchBeanDefinitionException exception.
If multiple matching it tries to match name and type. @Qualifier or @Primary annotations can be used to alter that behaviour.
When @Autowired is used on a field, Reflection is used to populate the field. @Autowired cannot be used to autowire primitive types.

How does the @Qualifier annotation complement the use of @Autowired? #

@Qualifier annotation is used to give a name to a bean. When Spring cannot decide what to autowire based on type, it looks for a bean named with @Qualifier annotation value.

What is a proxy object and what are the two different types of proxies Spring can create? #

A proxy is a wrapper around the target object, it is used to alter the behaviour of the target object. Spring has two types of proxy, the prefered one is the JDK Dynamic Proxy, the other one is the CGLIB. The former can only proxy by interface, the latter is used when the target class does not implement an interface, by subclassing it. The disadvantage of these proxies is that they can only intercept public methods, final classes and final methods are not supported too.

What does the @Bean annotation do? #

@Bean annotation indicates that a method produces a bean to be managed by the Spring container. Typically it is used in @Configuration classes, in this case the bean methods may reference other @Bean methods in the same class by calling them directly, this mechanism is called inter-bean references.

What is the default bean id if you only use @Bean? How can you override this? #

The default bean id is the name of the method. You can override it by using the name/value attribute of the @Bean annotation.

Why are you not allowed to annotate a final class with @Configuration #

Spring uses CGLIB to proxy the @Configuration annotated class, and CGLIB proxy does not support final classes because they cannot be subclassed.

How do you configure profiles? What are possible use cases where they might be useful? #

A profile can be configured by using the @Profile annotation. The set of profile names for which the annotated component should be registered is indicated by the value attribute of the annotation. The profile name may contain the NOT operator, !, the annotated component is registered if the profile is not active.
@Profile can be used:

To select the active profiles the property spring.profiles.active can be used. Profiles may also be activated in integration tests via the @ActiveProfile annotation.
Profiles are used to modify the application behaviour, like loading an implementation instead of another, by simple modifying the external configuration.

Can you use @Bean together with @Profile? #

Yes.

Can you use @Component together with @Profile? #

Sure.

How many profiles can you have? #

Many as you want.

How do you inject scalar/literal values into Spring beans? #

To inject primitive types you must use the @Value annotation.
It supports SpEL language #{systemProperties.myProp}. Alternatively, values may be injected using ${my.app.myProp} style property placeholders.
The @Value processing is performed by a BeanPostProcessor, meaning that @Value annotation can’t be used within BeanPostProcessor or BeanFactoryPostProcessor types.

What is Spring Expression Language (SpEL for short)? #

SpEL is a powerful expression language that supports manipulating an object at runtime.
It supports the following functionality:

What is the Environment abstraction in Spring? #

The Spring Environment represents the environment in which the application is running. It unifies access to all types of property sources, such as property files, JVM system properties, system environment variables and servlet context parameters.

Where can properties in the environment come from – there are many sources for properties – check the documentation if not sure. Spring Boot adds even more. #

The Spring boot PropertySource order is:

What can you reference using SpEL? #

Beans.

What is the difference between $ and # in @Value expressions? #

The former is the property placeholder style, used to inject primitives types, the latter indicates that it is a SpEL expression.

Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) #

What is the concept of AOP? Which problem does it solve? What is a cross-cutting concern? #

AOP, Aspect-Oriented Programming, is a programming paradigm where is possible to alter the behaviour of the existing code without modification of the code itself.
AOP help to avoid tangling and scattering.

// tangling and scattering example, logging is mixed with business-logic
// and scattered across the codebase.
public void aMethodService() {
  logger.entering("MyService","aMethodService");
  anotherService.myMethod();
  logger.exiting("MyService","aMethodService");
}

public void anotherMethodService() {
  logger.entering("MyService","anotherMethodService");
  suchService.myMethod();
  logger.exiting("MyService","anotherMethodService");
}

A cross-cutting concern is a functionality shared across multiple application modules. Such as logging, because is something that can happen across our application.

What is a pointcut, a join point, an advice, an aspect, weaving? #

A pointcut is an expression that matches join points, for example the execution of a method with a certain name.

A join point is a point during the execution of a program, in Spring AOP is always a method execution.

An advice is the code to run by an aspect at a particular join point.

An aspect is the class that contains the cross-cutting concern logic. It is annotated with the @Aspect annotation.

The weaving is the mechanism used by Spring AOP to proxy the target object to create an advised object. Spring AOP only supports runtime weaving by using JDK Dynamic Proxy or CGLIB, the former is prefered, but you can switch to the latter by using @EnableAspectJAutoProxy(proxyTargetClass=true).

How does Spring solve (implement) a cross-cutting concern? #

Spring implement a cross-cutting concern by weaving the aspect to the target object, creating a proxy that can intercept the execution of the method as specified by the pointcuts.

Which are the limitations of the two proxy-types? #

JDK Dynamic Proxy limitations:

CGLIB limitations:

How many advice types does Spring support? Can you name each one? #

In Spring AOP there are multiple advice types:

If shown pointcut expressions, would you understand them? #

Possible pointcut expressions are:

The pointcut expression supports wildcards such as + and *, and logical operators like &&, || and !. The + wildcard indicates that the method can also be matched in subclasses it.manuel.+.helloWorld.

What is the JoinPoint argument used for? #

The JoinPoint type is the argument type used for all the advice annotated methods, except @Around, which argument type is ProceedingJoinPoint.

What is a ProceedingJoinPoint? Which advice type is it used with? #

The ProceedingJoinPoint is the argument type for @Around advice. It exposes the .proceed method used to call the method matched by the pointcut.

Data Management: JDBC, Transactions #

What is the difference between checked and unchecked exceptions? #

A checked exception is a compile-time exception that must be managed. An unchecked exception is a runtime exception, it’s not required to manage it. The latter is used by the data access mechanism to report errors, by throwing exceptions that extend the DataAccessException class.
Rollback is automatic only on unchecked exceptions.

How do you configure a DataSource in Spring? #

To access a database using JDBC, the following are needed:

A DataSource is created using the previous information, and each database library must implement it.

In Spring to programmatically create a DataSource you have to define a DataSource bean and return an instance of the implementation provided by the DB vendor you are using.

In Spring Boot, is possible to define a DataSource by setting properties

app.datasource.url=jdbc:h2:mem:hello
app.datasource.username=hello
app.datasource.password=world

Spring Boot also provide a class builder named DataSourceBuilder, it auto-detect the driver based on what is available on the classpath or based on the JDBC URL.

What is the Template design pattern and what is the JDBC template? #

The template design pattern is one of the most popular, it enables the developer to implement a complex functionality by encapsulating the logic in a single method, the so-called template method. The effective implementation is defined later or delegated to subclasses.

public abstract class MyTemplateBuilder {
  public final JdbcTemplate buildHouse() {
    setupFoundation();
    buildWalls();
    buildRoof();
    paintWalls();
  }

  public abstract setupFoundation();
  public abstract buildWalls();
  public abstract buildRoof();
  public abstract paintWalls();
}

The JDBC Template is the central class to manage DB operations. Under the hood it manages all the repetitive actions to execute a query, such as opening and closing the connection, handling exceptions and transactions, leaving application code to only provide SQL and extract results.

What is a callback? What are the JdbcTemplate callback interfaces that can be used with queries? What is each used for? (You would not have to remember the interface names in the exam, but you should know what they do if you see them in a code sample). #

A callback is a method called by another method when this one finished the execution, usually, the callback method argument is the return value of the former.

The JdbcTemplate query method accepts 3 callback interface types:

ResultSetExtractor is supposed to extract the whole ResultSet, it may contain multiple rows, while RowMapper is fed with a row at a time. Both are typically stateless.

RowCallbackHandler is fed with a row at time, and it is tipically stateful.

Can you execute a plain SQL statement with the JDBC template? #

JdbcTemplate execute plain SQL queries.

When does the JDBC template acquire (and release) a connection, for every method called or once per template? Why? #

JDBC template acquire a connection for every method called.

How does the JdbcTemplate support queries? How does it return objects and lists/maps of objects? #

JdbcTemplate support queries for any type.
It exposes many overloaded methods:

What is a transaction? What is the difference between a local and a global transaction? #

In a DB context, a transaction is an atomic set of operations, when all operations have completed successfully the changes are persisted, else if one operation fails, the transaction is rolled back leaving the database pristine.

A local transaction is a transaction that involves only local operations, whereas a global transaction involves external operations, such as an external database operation or a message on an external queue.

What does declarative transaction management mean? #

Declarative transaction management is a non-invasive approach for managing transactions provided by Spring AOP. It means that you can enable and tag a class or a method transactional by using annotations.
To use transactions is sufficient to add @EnableTransactionManagement to your configuration and annotate your classes or methods with the @Transactional annotation.

What is the default rollback policy? How can you override it? #

By default, a transaction is rolled back when an unchecked exception occurs within the transactional code.
It is possible to override that policy by configuring the @Transactional annotation parameters:

What is the default rollback policy in a JUnit test, when you use the @RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class) in JUnit 4 or ExtendWith(SpringExtension. class) in JUnit 5, and annotate your @Test annotated method with @Transactional? #

By default tests do not commit, they always require a rollback. That behaviour can be altered by using the @Rollback(false) annotation or the @Commit annotation.

Are you able to participate in a given transaction in Spring while working with JPA? #

Yes, by using the TransactionAwareDataSourceProxy class.

Which PlatformTransactionManager(s) can you use with JPA? #

What do you have to configure to use JPA with Spring? How does Spring Boot make this easier? #

To enable JPA must be used the @EnableJpaRepositories annotation, it will scan the package of the annotated configuration class for Spring Data repositories by default. To change the package to scan the basePackages or basePackageClasses attributes can be used.

To configure JPA an EntityManagerFactory instance must be provided, for example by using the LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean class. The FactoryBean reads configuration settings from the META-INF/persistence.xml config file.

Spring Boot automagically setup JPA and transactions if the spring-boot-starter-data-jpa module is on the classpath.

Spring Data JPA #

What is a Spring Data Repository interface? #

How do you define a Spring Data Repository interface? Why is it an interface not a class? #

A Spring Data Repository interface typically extends one of the interfaces in the Repository<T, ID extends Serializable> hierarchy. Such interfaces expose a ready-to-use set of methods to manipulate entities. Beans of this type are called instant repositories, because Spring looks for these interfaces types and implements them at runtime to create beans.

Alternatively can be used the @RepositoryDefinition annotation to create a repository, passing to the domainClass attribute the type of entity and to the idClass attribute the id type.

What is the naming convention for finder methods in a Spring Data Repository interface? #

The supported query keywords are

To specify the number of returned records:

To return only unique results:

How are Spring Data repositories implemented by Spring at runtime? #

Spring uses a factory bean named RepositoryFactorySupport to create instances of a given repository interface. It creates a JDK Dynamic proxy implementing the repository interface and apply an advice handling the control to the QueryExecutorMethodInterceptor class.

What is @Query used for? #

The Query annotation is used to declare finder queries directly on repository methods. It accepts both JPQL (only JPA) and native SQL queries. The @Query annotation takes precedence over @NamedQuery annotation. To create update queries add the @Modifying annotation to the @Query annotated method.

Spring MVC Basics #

What is the @Controller annotation used for? #

The @Controller stereotype annotation is used to indicate that the annotated class provides handler methods for HTTP requests. Typically it is used in combination with handler methods annotated with @RequestMapping.

How is an incoming request mapped to a controller and mapped to a method? #

The Spring Web MVC entry point is the DispatcherServlet class, it dispatches HTTP requests to handlers that match the request pattern.

What is the difference between @RequestMapping and @GetMapping? #

The @GetMapping is equal to @RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.GET).

What is @RequestParam used for? #

The @RequestParam annotation is used to indicate a query parameter in the request URL. To indicate an optional query parameter set to false the required attribute. A default value can be provided by using the defaultValue attribute.

What are the differences between @RequestParam and @PathVariable? #

The @PathVariable annotation is used to indicate a path parameter in the request URL.

What are the ready-to-use argument types you can use in a controller method? #

The signatures of the handler methods are very flexible, they can receive almost any type-specific to a web application. The following are some parameters types:

What are some of the valid return types of a controller method? #

Spring MVC REST #

What does REST stand for? #

REpresentational
State
Transfer

What is a resource? #

A REST resource is something referenced by an URL. I can get the apple number 1 by using the url /api/apple/1.

Is REST secure? What can you do to secure it? #

It is secure if used safely. For example by using the HTTPS protocol and require some credentials to access a protected resource.

Is REST scalable and/or interoperable? #

Yes, it is scalable and interoperable. It does not mandate a specific technology either for the client or server.

Which HTTP methods does REST use? #

REST use the following methods

What is an HttpMessageConverter? #

The HttpMessageConverter is the interface used for converting from and to HTTP requests and responses.
By default the following converters are enabled:

Is @Controller a stereotype? Is @RestController a stereotype? #

@Controller is a stereotype annotation. @RestController is a specialization of the @controller annotation, but it can’t be considered a stereotype annotation.

What is the difference between @Controller and @RestController? #

When do you need to use @ResponseBody? #

@RestController is meta-annotated with @ResponseBody annotation to indicate that the value returned by a handler method needs to be bind to the response body, thus serialized.

What are the HTTP status return codes for a successful GET, POST, PUT or DELETE operation? #

When do you need to use @ResponseStatus? #

The @ResponseStatus annotation is used to specify the response status:

Where do you need to use @ResponseBody? What about @RequestBody? #

The @RequestBody annotation is used to indicate a method parameter should be bound to the body of the request. The @ResponseBody annotation indicates the return value should be bound to the web response body.

What Spring Boot starter would you use for a Spring REST application? #

spring-boot-starter-web

Security #

What are authentication and authorization? Which must come first? #

Authentication is the process used to check if the credentials provided by the user are valid. Authorization is the process used to check if the authenticated user has the permissions to access the requested resource.

Is security a cross-cutting concern? How is it implemented internally? #

Security is a cross-cutting concern, it is applied across multiple modules of our application. Spring uses AOP to implement the security mechanism.

What is the delegating filter proxy? #

The DelegatingFilterProxy acts as an interceptor for secured request, delegating the calls to the chained security filter beans, called SpringSecurityFilterChain.

What is the security filter chain? #

The SecurityFilterChain is a list of filters, each one with a particular responsibility. The filters are added or removed from the chain depending on which services are required. The filters ordering is important as there are dependencies between them. It is used by the FilterChainProxy to match the url with the filters to apply.

What is a security context? #

The security context is where are stored the details of the current security context, such as the details of the Principal that is using the application.

What does the ** pattern in an antMatcher or mvcMatcher do? #

Taking the following pattern example /admin/user/**, they both matches any path that starts with /admin/user/, farther the mvcMatcher also matches the /admin/user/123.json path.

mvcMatcher is considered more secure than antMatcher. That is because mvcMatcher use the same rules that Spring MVC uses for matching.

Does Spring Security support password encoding? #

Yes, just define a bean of the encoder type you want to use and use it.

Why do you need method security? What type of object is typically secured at the method level (think of its purpose not its Java type). #

To protect sensitive resources, for example the resource that represents the users.

What do @PreAuthorize and @RolesAllowed do? What is the difference between them? #

The @PreAuthorize annotation is used to run a check before a method invocation to decide if the user has the permissions to call the method. I can decide to deny a method execution to users which names start with an m.
The @RolesAllowed annotation is used to check if the Principal role is one of the roles specified by the annotation. The @Secured and @RolesAllowed annotations are equivalent, the latter is part of the JSR 250 spec.

To enable the security annotations the @EnableGlobalMethodSecurity annotation must be used. It exposes some properties:

How are these annotations implemented? #

Spring AOP.

In which security annotation, are you allowed to use SpEL? #

Yes, all the @pre and @post annotations support SpEL:

Testing #

What type of tests typically use Spring? #

Tipically, a Spring application has unit and integration tests. Unit tests are used to test the smallest testable parts of an application, isolated from any others units. The dependencies are replaced by stubs and mocks to reproduce the expected behaviour. By default Spring Boot uses Junit 5, but it supports Junit 4 too. Integration tests are used to test the multiple units interactions of an application.

How can you create a shared application context in a JUnit integration test? #

The so-called TestContext encapsulates the context of each test, and provide context management and caching support for the test instance.
By default, the ApplicationContext is not accessible by the test instances. To expose the ApplicationContext to the test instances the test class must implement the ApplicationContextAware interface. As an alternative to implementing the ApplicationContextAware interface, it is possible to inject the application context through the @Autowired annotation.
Once a TestContext loads an ApplicationContext, that context is cached and reused for all subsequent tests within the same test suite.

When and where do you use @Transactional in testing? #

The @Transactional annotation can be used on the test class or directly on the method. By default a rollback occurs after completition of the test. To change that behaviour you can use the @Rollback(false) annotation or the @Commit annotation. Also, the defaultRollback property of the @TransactionConfiguration annotation can be used to change that behaviour.

How are mock frameworks such as Mockito or EasyMock used? #

To run a test that uses Mockito you have to:

  1. Declare the mock by using the @Mock annotation
  2. Inject the mock in the tested unit by using the @InjectMocks annotation
  3. Configure the mock by using the when statement
  4. Run test
  5. Assert results

Mockito provides a Junit 5 extension class MockitoExtension that automatically initialize mocks. In alternative, you can use the static method MockitoAnnotations.initMocks.

Spring Boot simplifies the mocking process by providing the @MockBean annotation. It adds the mock to the Spring ApplicationContext. Can be used directly on the test class or @Configuration classes and fields. When used on a field of the test class, the mock is injected into the field.

How is @ContextConfiguration used? #

The @ContextConfiguration annotation is used on a test class to specify the components classes to use to configure the ApplicationContext.
A component class is:

When @ContextConfiguration is used without properties it searches for a file named testClassName-context.xml in the same location of the test class.

How does Spring Boot simplify writing tests? #

Spring Boot provides all the libraries needed to run a well-rounded test by just using the spring-boot-starter-test dependency:

What does @SpringBootTest do? How does it interact with @SpringBootApplication and @SpringBootConfiguration? #

Spring Boot exposes the @SpringBootTest annotation to configure an ApplicationContext by using the SpringBootContextLoader loader class.
It provides the following features:

Spring Boot Basics #

What is Spring Boot? #

Spring Boot is a way to ease create production-ready, stand-alone Spring-based applications. It provides an opinionated starter configuration for code and annotation, to quickly start new Spring projects with no time with minimal or zero configurations.

What are the advantages of using Spring Boot? #

What things affect what Spring Boot sets up? #

Spring Boot attempts to automatically configure the Spring application based on which libraries are available in the classpath. The auto-configuration is enabled by adding the @EnableAutoConfiguration or @SpringBootApplication annotations to one of the @Configuration classes.

What is a Spring Boot starter? Why is it useful? #

A starter is a set of convenient dependency descriptors that can be included in a Spring application. For example, if you want to get started using Spring and JPA for database access, include the spring-boot-starter-data-jpa dependency in the project. All Spring starters follow the naming pattern spring-boot-starter-*.

Can you control logging with Spring Boot? How? #

The default auto-configured logger in Spring Boot is logback. Appropriate logback routing is also included to ensure that dependant libraries that use others providers work correctly.
Logging can be configured by using some well-known properties in the logging.* group:

Another option to configure logging is to use a dedicated configuration file:

Where does Spring Boot look for application.properties file by default? #

Ordered by precedence:

  1. In the classpath root
  2. In the /config package classpath
  3. In the current directory
  4. In the /config subdirectory in the current directory
  5. In the immediate child directories of the /config subdirectories

How do you define profile specific property files? #

Spring Boot attempt to load profile-specific files using the naming convention application-<profile>. For example, if the dev profile is enabled, then both application.yml and application-dev.yml will be considered. Profile specific files always override the non-specific ones. If several profiles are specified, a last-wins strategy applies. If no profiles are activated, the properties from application-default are considered.

How do you access the properties defined in the property files? #

You can access to properties values defined in property files by:

What properties do you have to define in order to configure external MySQL? #

  1. spring.datasource.url=jdbc:mysql://mysql-hostname/db-name
  2. spring.datasource.username=hello
  3. spring.datasource.password=world

How do you configure default schema and initial data? #

Spring Boot loads SQL from the standard root classpath locations:

In addition it processes the files:

Spring Boot automatically creates the schema for embedded data sources. This behaviour can be customized by using the spring.datasource.initialization-mode property.

What is a fat jar? How is it different from the original jar? #

A fat jar is a jar that contains all the application dependencies.

What embedded containers does Spring Boot support? #

Spring Boot Auto Configuration #

How does Spring Boot know what to configure? #

Spring auto-configuration attempts to automatically configure the Spring application based on the jar dependencies that are present in the classpath.

What does @EnableAutoConfiguration do? #

It enables the Spring auto-configuration of the Spring Application Context. Auto-configuration classes are usually applied based on the classpath content and what beans are available. Auto-configuration classes are Spring @Configuration beans located by the SpringFactoriesLoadeer mechanism. Those beans are usually @Conditional beans, most often using @ConditionalOnClass and @ConditionalOnMissingBean annotations.

What does @SpringBootApplication do? #

The @SpringBootApplication annotation is meta-annotated with

Does Spring Boot do component scanning? Where does it look by default? #

The @SpringBootApplication enable component scanning for the current package and all its sub-packages.

How are DataSource and JdbcTemplate auto-configured? #

Spring Boot automatically creates a JdbcTemplate. The DataSource is auto-configured only if in the classpath is present an in-memory database dependency.

What is spring.factories file for? #

The spring.factories file is used by Spring Boot to locate the auto-configuration candidates and to register ApplicationListeners.

A sample of the spring.factories file is:

org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.EnableAutoConfiguration=\
com.mycorp.libx.autoconfigure.LibXAutoConfiguration,\
com.mycorp.libx.autoconfigure.LibXWebAutoConfiguration

How do you customize Spring Boot auto configuration? #

The @EnableAutoConfiguration annotation supports the following properties:

Alternatively:

What are the examples of @Conditional annotations? How are they used? #

Conditional annotations are used to skip beans definitions under certain conditions. For example the JdbcTemplateAutoConfiguration is annotated with the following annotations:

 @ConditionalOnClass(value={javax.sql.DataSource.class,org.springframework.jdbc.core.JdbcTemplate.class})
 @ConditionalOnSingleCandidate(value=javax.sql.DataSource.class)

Meaning that a JdbcTemplate is auto-configured only if:

Spring Boot Actuator #

What value does Spring Boot Actuator provide? #

It provides production-ready features to help you monitor and manage the Spring Boot application.

What are the two protocols you can use to access actuator endpoints? #

What are the actuator endpoints that are provided out of the box? #

An actuator endpoint can be enabled and exposed, when both are true then the actuator endpoint is available.

By default all endpoints except for shutdown are enabled. To enable/disable an actuator use the property pattern management.endpoint.<name>.enabled.
To disable all endpoints by default use the property management.endpoints.enabled-by-default=false.

All jmx endpoints are exposed out-of-the-box. Instead only few http endpoints are exposed by default:

Additional endpoints are enabled if the application is a web application:

To change which endpoints are exposed, use the the following properties:

You can customize the actuator web endpoints path by using the following properties

What is info endpoint for? How do you supply data? #

The info endpoint exposes arbitrary data. Spring Boot by default exposes the following data:

You can create a component class that implements the InfoContributor interface to add additional data to the info endpoint.

How do you change logging level of a package using loggers endpoint? #

By doing a POST to the /actuator/loggers endpoint with the following body:

{
  "configuredLevel": "DEBUG"
}

Pass null to reset the logger level.

How do you access an endpoint using a tag? #

What is metrics for? #

Spring Boot provides a metrics endpoint that can be used to gather the metrics collected by the application.
Navigating to the /actuator/metrics display the list of available metrics. Provide the metric name to retrieve the data of a particular metric, e.g. /actuator/metrics/jvm.memory.max. You can use tags to drill down a specific metric data, e.g. /actuator/metrics/jvm.memory.max?tag=area:nonheap.

How do you create a custom metric? #

Inject the MeterRegistry bean in your component and use it to register a custom metric.

What is Health Indicator? #

It provides the health status of the current application.

What is the Health Indicator status? #

The HTTP status code in the response reflects the overall health status.

What are the Health Indicator statuses that are provided out of the box? #

By default it supports the following statuses:

Any unmapped health status map to 200.

How do you change the Health Indicator status severity order? #

Using the management.endpoint.health.status.order property

Spring Boot Testing #

When do you want to use @SpringBootTest annotation? #

The @SpringBootTest annotation is an alternative to the spring-test @ContextConfiguration annotation when you need Spring Boot features. The annotation works by creating the ApplicationContext used by the tests through SpringApplication.
By default it will not start a server. You can use the webEnvironment property to configure the test class web environment:

What does @SpringBootTest auto-configure? #

What dependencies does spring-boot-starter-test brings to the classpath? #

How do you perform integration testing with @SpringBootTest for a web application? #

When do you want to use @WebMvcTest? What does it auto-configure? #

The @WebMvcTest annotation is used for tests that focus only on Spring MVC components. Using this annotation the auto-configuration is disabled and only MVC related configurations are configured. Tests annotated with @WebMvcTest annotation will also auto-configure Spring Security and MockMvc. Use the @WithMockUser annotation on a test method to mock the Principal used by the mockMvc requests. The @WithMockUser annotation supports the following properties:

What are the differences between @MockBean and @Mock? #

When do you want @DataJpaTest for? What does it auto-configure? #

Like @WebMvcTest it disables the full auto-configuration, and apply only configurations relevant to JPA. By default tests annotated with @DataJpaTest are transactional and roll back at the end of each test execution. It forces the use of an embedded in-memory database.

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