org.springframework.context.event.EventListener Maven / Gradle / Ivy

/*
 * Copyright 2002-2015 the original author or authors.
 *
 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
 * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 * You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 */

package org.springframework.context.event;

import java.lang.annotation.Documented;
import java.lang.annotation.ElementType;
import java.lang.annotation.Retention;
import java.lang.annotation.RetentionPolicy;
import java.lang.annotation.Target;

import org.springframework.context.ApplicationEvent;
import org.springframework.core.annotation.AliasFor;

/**
 * Annotation that marks a method as a listener for application events.
 *
 * If an annotated method supports a single event type, the method may
 * declare a single parameter that reflects the event type to listen to.
 * If an annotated method supports multiple event types, this annotation
 * may refer to one or more supported event types using the {@code classes}
 * attribute. See the {@link #classes} javadoc for further details.
 *
 * 
Events can be {@link ApplicationEvent} instances as well as arbitrary
 * objects.
 *
 * 
Processing of {@code @EventListener} annotations is performed via
 * the internal {@link EventListenerMethodProcessor} bean which gets
 * registered automatically when using Java config or manually via the
 * {@code } or {@code }
 * element when using XML config.
 *
 * 
Annotated methods may have a non-{@code void} return type. When they
 * do, the result of the method invocation is sent as a new event. If the
 * return type is either an array or a collection, each element is sent
 * as a new individual event.
 *
 * 
It is also possible to define the order in which listeners for a
 * certain event are to be invoked. To do so, add Spring's common
 * {@link org.springframework.core.annotation.Order @Order} annotation
 * alongside this event listener annotation.
 *
 * 
While it is possible for an event listener to declare that it
 * throws arbitrary exception types, any checked exceptions thrown
 * from an event listener will be wrapped in an
 * {@link java.lang.reflect.UndeclaredThrowableException}
 * since the event publisher can only handle runtime exceptions.
 *
 * @author Stephane Nicoll
 * @since 4.2
 * @see EventListenerMethodProcessor
 */
@Target({ElementType.METHOD, ElementType.ANNOTATION_TYPE})
@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@Documented
public @interface EventListener {

	/**
	 * Alias for {@link #classes}.
	 */
	@AliasFor("classes")
	Class[] value() default {};

	/**
	 * The event classes that this listener handles.
	 * 
If this attribute is specified with a single value, the
	 * annotated method may optionally accept a single parameter.
	 * However, if this attribute is specified with multiple values,
	 * the annotated method must not declare any parameters.
	 */
	@AliasFor("value")
	Class[] classes() default {};

	/**
	 * Spring Expression Language (SpEL) attribute used for making the
	 * event handling conditional.
	 * Default is "", meaning the event is always handled.
	 */
	String condition() default "";

}