What is the difference between spring factory-method and factory-bean?

Question

I am new Springs. In Bean tag I found factory-method and factory-bean Attributes. What is the difference between factory-method and factory-bean?

I am using factory-meth

Answer 1

factory-method:
As everyone has already explained, factory-method is used to tell the spring to use the factory method to instantiate the object.

Note: static method is mandatory else throws an exception.

factory-bean:
When there is no static method and still you want to create the object using non static method, here is the trick can be done using factory-bean:

Note: no class attribute required in the above spring definition.

Class:

public class ServiceFactory {

    public static ServiceFactory getServiceFacrotyWithStaticMethod(){
        return new ServiceFactory();
    }

    public SdCard getInstanceWithOutStaticMethod(){
        return new AdaptorSlot("laptop");
    }
}