What's the difference between <mvc:annotation-driven /> and <context:annotation-config /> in servlet?

Question

I am migrating from Spring 2.5 to Spring 3.

They have introduced <mvc:annotation-driven /> which does some black magic. This is expected to be declared in servlet configuration file only.

In Spring 2.5 I have just used <context:annotation-config /> and <context:component-scan base='...'/> tags declared both in application-context.xml and dispatcher servlet configuration XML with appropriate base packages to scan.

So I wonder what is the difference between mvc:annotation-driven and context:annotation-config tags in servlet config and what can I eliminate in Spring 3 config files?

Answer 1

<context:annotation-config> declares support for general annotations such as @Required, @Autowired, @PostConstruct, and so on.

<mvc:annotation-driven /> declares explicit support for annotation-driven MVC controllers (i.e. @RequestMapping, @Controller, although support for those is the default behaviour), as well as adding support for declarative validation via @Valid and message body marshalling with @RequestBody/ResponseBody.

Answer 2

There is also some more detail on the use of <mvc:annotation-driven /> in the Spring docs. In a nutshell, <mvc:annotation-driven /> gives you greater control over the inner workings of Spring MVC. You don't need to use it unless you need one or more of the features outlined in the aforementioned section of the docs.

Also, there are other "annotation-driven" tags available to provide additional functionality in other Spring modules. For example, <transaction:annotation-driven /> enables the use of the @Transaction annotation, <task:annotation-driven /> is required for @Scheduled et al...

Answer 3

mvc:annotation-driven is a tag added in Spring 3.0 which does the following:

1. Configures the Spring 3 Type ConversionService (alternative to PropertyEditors)
2. Adds support for formatting Number fields with @NumberFormat
3. Adds support for formatting Date, Calendar, and Joda Time fields with @DateTimeFormat, if Joda Time is on the classpath
4. Adds support for validating @Controller inputs with @Valid, if a JSR-303 Provider is on the classpath
5. Adds support for support for reading and writing XML, if JAXB is on the classpath (HTTP message conversion with @RequestBody/@ResponseBody)
6. Adds support for reading and writing JSON, if Jackson is o n the classpath (along the same lines as #5)

context:annotation-config Looks for annotations on beans in the same application context it is defined and declares support for all the general annotations like @Autowired, @Resource, @Required, @PostConstruct etc etc.