Spring AOP - XML Based After Advice

After is an advice type which ensures that an advice runs after the method execution. Following is the syntax of after advice.

Syntax

<aop:config>
   <aop:aspect id = "log" ref = "logging">
      <aop:PointCut id = "PointCut-id" expression = "execution( expression )"/>    
      <aop:after PointCut-ref = "PointCut-id" method = "methodName"/>
   </aop:aspect>
</aop:config>

Where,

• PointCut-id − id of the PointCut.

• methodName − Method name of the function to be called after a called function.

To understand the above-mentioned concepts related to After Advice, let us write an example which will implement After Advice. To write our example with few advices, let us have a working Eclipse IDE in place and use the following steps to create a Spring application.

Following is the content of Logging.java file. This is actually a sample of aspect module, which defines the methods to be called at various points.

package com.howcodex;

public class Logging {

   /** 
    * This is the method which I would like to execute
    * after a selected method execution.
    */
   public void afterAdvice(){
      System.out.println("Student profile setup complete.");
   }   
}

Following is the content of the Student.java file.

package com.howcodex;

public class Student {
   private Integer age;
   private String name;

   public void setAge(Integer age) {
      this.age = age;
   }
   public Integer getAge() {
      System.out.println("Age : " + age );
      return age;
   }

   public void setName(String name) {
      this.name = name;
   }
   public String getName() {
      System.out.println("Name : " + name );
      return name;
   }
   
   public void printThrowException(){
      System.out.println("Exception raised");
      throw new IllegalArgumentException();
   }
}

Following is the content of the MainApp.java file.

package com.howcodex;

import org.springframework.context.ApplicationContext;
import org.springframework.context.support.ClassPathXmlApplicationContext;

public class MainApp {
   public static void main(String[] args) {
      ApplicationContext context = 
         new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("Beans.xml");

      Student student = (Student) context.getBean("student");

      student.getName();
      student.getAge();     
   }
}

Following is the configuration file Beans.xml.

<?xml version = "1.0" encoding = "UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns = "http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
   xmlns:xsi = "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
   xmlns:aop = "http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop"
   xsi:schemaLocation = "http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd 
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop 
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop/spring-aop-3.0.xsd ">

   <aop:config>
      <aop:aspect id = "log" ref = "logging">
         <aop:PointCut id = "selectAll" 
            expression = "execution(* com.howcodex.Student.getAge(..))"/>
         <aop:after PointCut-ref = "selectAll" method = "afterAdvice"/>
      </aop:aspect>
   </aop:config>

   <!-- Definition for student bean -->
   <bean id = "student" class = "com.howcodex.Student">
      <property name = "name"  value = "Zara" />
      <property name = "age"  value = "11"/>      
   </bean>

   <!-- Definition for logging aspect -->
   <bean id = "logging" class = "com.howcodex.Logging"/> 
      
</beans>

Run Project

Once you are done creating source and configuration files, run your application. Right-click on MainApp.java in your application and use run as Java Application command. If everything is fine with your application, this will print the following message.

Name : Zara
Age : 11
Student profile setup complete.