Lazy Initialization and the DAO pattern with Hibernate and Spring (2)

Being Lazy in the Business Layer 

Even outside the view, the Spring Framework makes it easy to use lazy load initialization, through the AOP interceptor HibernateInterceptor. The hibernate interceptor transparently intercepts calls to any business object configured in the Spring application context, opening a hibernate session before the call, and closing the session afterward. Let's run through a quick example. Suppose we have an interface BusinessObject: 

public interface BusinessObject { public void doSomethingThatInvolvesDaos(); } The class BusinessObjectImpl implements BusinessObject: public class BusinessObjectImpl implements BusinessObject { public void doSomethingThatInvolvesDaos() { // lots of logic that calls // DAO classes Which access // data objects lazily } }
Through some configurations in the Spring application context, we can instruct the HibernateInterceptor to intercept calls to the BusinessObjectImpl allowing it's methods to lazily access data objects. Take a look at the fragment below: 

<beans> <bean id="hibernateInterceptor" class="org.springframework.orm.hibernate.HibernateInterceptor"> <property name="sessionFactory"> <ref bean="sessionFactory"/> </property> </bean> <bean id="businessObjectTarget" class="com.acompany.BusinessObjectImpl"> <property name="someDAO"><ref bean="someDAO"/></property> </bean> <bean id="businessObject" class="org.springframework.aop.framework.ProxyFactoryBean"> <property name="target"><ref bean="businessObjectTarget"/></property> <property name="proxyInterfaces"> <value>com.acompany.BusinessObject</value> </property> <property name="interceptorNames"> <list> <value>hibernateInterceptor</value> </list> </property> </bean> </beans>

When the businessObject bean is referenced, the HibernateInterceptor opens a hibernate session and passes the call onto the BusinessObjectImpl. When the BusinessObjectImpl has finished executing, the HibernateInterceptor transparently closes the session. The application code has no knowledge of any persistence logic, yet it is still able to lazily access data objects.