How to get the setting value (property value) from the database in Spring Framework

When handling setting values in Spring Framework, setting values can be specified in property files, system properties (values specified by -D), OS environment variables, JNDI (Web application environment only), etc., and on the application side It can be obtained via @ Value or ʻEnvironment`.

For example, it looks like the following.

Setting value specification example(properties file)

services.user.url=http://user.service.com/{id}
services.company.url=http://company.service.com/{id}

Reference example of setting value

@Service
public class MyService {

  private final RestTemplate restTemplate = new RestTemplate();
  private final Environment environment;

  @Value("${services.user.url}") //Injection of setting value at bean generation
  private String userServiceUrl;

  public MyService(Environment environment) {
    this.environment = environment;
  }

  public User getUser(String id) {
    User user = restTemplate.getForObject(userServiceUrl, User.class, id);
    return user;
  }

  public Company getCompany(String id) {
    String companyServiceUrl = environment.getProperty("services.company.url"); //Get the set value at runtime
    Company company = restTemplate.getForObject(companyServiceUrl, User.class);
    return company;
  }

}

In Spring Boot, instead of "@Value", "[Type-safe Configuration Properties](https://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/docs/2.1.7.RELEASE/reference/htmlsingle/#" I think it is common to use "boot-features-external-config-typesafe-configuration-properties)", but here ** intentionally ** " @ Value"is used as a property placeholder (" Specifies to use$ {...}` ”). (Although I will not explain it, the method introduced here is also applicable to "Type-safe Configuration Properties")

Spring Framwork does not provide a class to get the setting value from the database (unfortunately?), But the setting value is saved from the database because it is abstracted by a class called PropertySource. If you create a PropertySource to get the and apply it to ʻEnvironment`, you can refer to it from your application.

Creating a PropertySource to get the settings from the database

Let's create a class that gets the setting value from the database at startup, caches it, and updates the cache at any time (though thread safety seems suspicious ...).

package com.example.demo;

import org.springframework.beans.factory.InitializingBean;
import org.springframework.core.env.EnumerablePropertySource;
import org.springframework.jdbc.core.JdbcTemplate;

import javax.sql.DataSource;
import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.Map;
import java.util.stream.Collectors;
import java.util.stream.Stream;

public class JdbcPropertySource extends EnumerablePropertySource<DataSource> implements InitializingBean {

  private final JdbcTemplate jdbcTemplate;
  private final String[] tableNames;
  private Map<String, Object> properties = Collections.emptyMap();

  public JdbcPropertySource(String name, DataSource dataSource, String... tableNames) {
    super(name, dataSource);
    this.jdbcTemplate = new JdbcTemplate(dataSource);
    this.tableNames = tableNames.length == 0 ? new String[]{"t_properties"} : tableNames;
  }

  @Override
  public String[] getPropertyNames() {
    return properties.keySet().toArray(new String[0]);
  }

  @Override
  public Object getProperty(String name) {
    Map<String, Object> currentProperties = properties;
    return currentProperties.get(name);
  }

  @Override
  public void afterPropertiesSet() {
    load();
  }

  public void load() {
    Map<String, Object> loadedProperties = Stream.of(tableNames)
        .flatMap(tableName -> jdbcTemplate.queryForList("SELECT name, value FROM " + tableName).stream())
        .collect(Collectors.toMap(e -> (String) e.get("name"), e -> e.get("value")));
    this.properties = loadedProperties;
  }

}

Application to ʻEnvironment`

package com.example.actuatordemo;

import org.springframework.beans.factory.config.BeanFactoryPostProcessor;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;
import org.springframework.context.support.PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer;
import org.springframework.core.env.ConfigurableEnvironment;
import org.springframework.core.env.StandardEnvironment;
import org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.embedded.EmbeddedDatabaseBuilder;
import org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.embedded.EmbeddedDatabaseType;

import javax.sql.DataSource;

@Configuration
public class MyConfiguration {

  //DataSource settings
  @Bean
  DataSource dataSource() {
    return new EmbeddedDatabaseBuilder()
        .setType(EmbeddedDatabaseType.H2)
        .setName("demo")
        .addScript("classpath:init-db.sql")
        .build();
  }

  //Setting of JdbcPropertySource created this time
  @Bean
  JdbcPropertySource jdbcPropertySource(DataSource dataSource) {
    return new JdbcPropertySource("jdbcProperties", dataSource);
  }

  //Bean definition to apply the JdbcPropertySource created this time to Environment
  @Bean
  static BeanFactoryPostProcessor environmentPropertySourcesCustomizer() {
    return bf -> {
      ConfigurableEnvironment environment = bf.getBean(ConfigurableEnvironment.class);
      JdbcPropertySource propertySource = bf.getBean(JdbcPropertySource.class);
      //Apply according to the following priority of OS environment variables (priority is determined according to requirements)
      environment.getPropertySources()
          .addAfter(StandardEnvironment.SYSTEM_ENVIRONMENT_PROPERTY_SOURCE_NAME, propertySource);
    };
  }

  //Bean definition to enable property placeholders
  @Bean
  static PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer propertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer() {
    return new PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer();
  }

}

This time, I applied it to ʻEnvironment using the mechanism of BeanFactoryPostProcessor`. Is this the best method? Is not very confident. I would appreciate it if you could comment if there is a better way.

Database preparation

Since this entry uses the embedded database, prepare the SQL to input the table and data.

src/main/resources/init-db.sql

drop table t_properties if exists;
create table t_properties (
  name varchar(512) not null primary key,
  value text
);

insert into t_properties (name, value) values ('services.user.url','http://dev01/services/user/{id}');
insert into t_properties (name, value) values ('services.company.url','http://dev01/services/company/{id}');

Summary

In the project I'm currently working on (non-Spring Boot project ...), it may be required (possibly) to have some setting values in the database (from a system operation point of view), so what can I do technically? I thought about it and made a prototype. There seems to be some room for improvement such as guaranteeing thread safety, but I am relieved to know that it can be realized by using the extension points of Spring Framework.