Inside Spring 6 Bean Creation: A Step‑by‑Step Deep Dive

Environment: Spring 6.1.2

1. Introduction

To avoid interference from other classes (BeanPostProcessor), we use a clean GenericApplicationContext that does not register built‑in BeanPostProcessors.

public class Person {}
public static void main(String[] args) {
    try (GenericApplicationContext context = new GenericApplicationContext()) {
        context.registerBean(Person.class);
        context.refresh();
        System.out.println(context.getBean(Person.class));
    }
}

2. Core Entry Point

The container initialization starts at ConfigurableApplicationContext#refresh, which performs a series of steps.

public abstract class AbstractApplicationContext {
    public void refresh() throws BeansException, IllegalStateException {
        try {
            // 1. Prepare refresh (initialize Environment, validate properties)
            prepareRefresh();
            // 2. Obtain fresh BeanFactory
            ConfigurableListableBeanFactory beanFactory = obtainFreshBeanFactory();
            // 3. Prepare BeanFactory (register special post‑processors)
            prepareBeanFactory(beanFactory);
            // 4. Post‑process BeanFactory
            postProcessBeanFactory(beanFactory);
            // 5. Invoke BeanFactoryPostProcessors
            invokeBeanFactoryPostProcessors(beanFactory);
            // 6. Register BeanPostProcessors
            registerBeanPostProcessors(beanFactory);
            // 7. Initialize message source
            initMessageSource();
            // 8. Initialize event multicaster
            initApplicationEventMulticaster();
            // 9. Refresh (subclass‑specific logic)
            onRefresh();
            // 10. Register listeners
            registerListeners();
            // 11. Instantiate all non‑lazy singleton beans
            finishBeanFactoryInitialization(beanFactory);
            // 12. Finish refresh (publish ContextRefreshedEvent)
            finishRefresh();
        }
    }
}

This article focuses on step 11 – the bean creation process.

3. Bean Creation Process

3.1 Traversing BeanDefinitions

protected void finishBeanFactoryInitialization(ConfigurableListableBeanFactory beanFactory) {
    beanFactory.preInstantiateSingletons();
}

DefaultListableBeanFactory preInstantiateSingletons iterates over all bean definitions and obtains each bean.

public class DefaultListableBeanFactory {
    public void preInstantiateSingletons() {
        List<String> beanNames = new ArrayList<>(this.beanDefinitionNames);
        for (String beanName : beanNames) {
            RootBeanDefinition bd = getMergedLocalBeanDefinition(beanName);
            if (!bd.isAbstract() && bd.isSingleton() && !bd.isLazyInit()) {
                if (isFactoryBean(beanName)) {
                    Object bean = getBean(FACTORY_BEAN_PREFIX + beanName);
                    if (bean instanceof SmartFactoryBean<?> smartFactoryBean && smartFactoryBean.isEagerInit()) {
                        getBean(beanName);
                    }
                } else {
                    getBean(beanName);
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

3.2 Getting Instance from Singleton Pool

protected <T> T doGetBean(String name, @Nullable Class<T> requiredType,
                           @Nullable Object[] args, boolean typeCheckOnly) {
    String beanName = transformedBeanName(name);
    Object sharedInstance = getSingleton(beanName);
    if (sharedInstance != null && args == null) {
        // return existing instance
    } else {
        if (mbd.isSingleton()) {
            sharedInstance = getSingleton(beanName, () -> {
                try {
                    return createBean(beanName, mbd, args);
                } catch (Throwable ex) {
                    throw new BeansException("Failed to create bean", ex);
                }
            });
        } else if (mbd.isPrototype()) {
            // prototype handling
        } else {
            // other scopes
        }
    }
    return (T) sharedInstance;
}

3.3 Creating the Instance

3.3.1 Property Population

protected void populateBean(String beanName, RootBeanDefinition mbd, @Nullable BeanWrapper bw) {
    for (InstantiationAwareBeanPostProcessor bp : getBeanPostProcessorCache().instantiationAware) {
        if (!bp.postProcessAfterInstantiation(bw.getWrappedInstance(), beanName)) {
            return;
        }
    }
    // Autowiring (byName, byType) omitted for brevity
    for (InstantiationAwareBeanPostProcessor bp : getBeanPostProcessorCache().instantiationAware) {
        PropertyValues pvsToUse = bp.postProcessProperties(pvs, bw.getWrappedInstance(), beanName);
        if (pvsToUse == null) {
            return;
        }
        pvs = pvsToUse;
    }
}

Example: CommonAnnotationBeanPostProcessor processes @Resource fields.

public class CommonAnnotationBeanPostProcessor {
    public PropertyValues postProcessProperties(PropertyValues pvs, Object bean, String beanName) {
        InjectionMetadata metadata = findResourceMetadata(beanName, bean.getClass(), pvs);
        try {
            metadata.inject(bean, beanName, pvs);
        } catch (Throwable ex) {
            // handle exception
        }
        return pvs;
    }
}

3.3.2 Initializing Bean

protected Object initializeBean(String beanName, Object bean, @Nullable RootBeanDefinition mbd) {
    invokeAwareMethods(beanName, bean);
    Object wrappedBean = bean;
    wrappedBean = applyBeanPostProcessorsBeforeInitialization(wrappedBean, beanName);
    // invoke init methods (afterPropertiesSet, custom init-methods)
    invokeInitMethods(beanName, wrappedBean, mbd);
    wrappedBean = applyBeanPostProcessorsAfterInitialization(wrappedBean, beanName);
    return wrappedBean;
}

3.3.3 Registering DisposableBean

protected void registerDisposableBeanIfNecessary(String beanName, Object bean, RootBeanDefinition mbd) {
    if (!mbd.isPrototype() && requiresDestruction(bean, mbd)) {
        if (mbd.isSingleton()) {
            registerDisposableBean(beanName,
                new DisposableBeanAdapter(bean, beanName, mbd, getBeanPostProcessorCache().destructionAware));
        }
    }
}

The DisposableBeanAdapter checks for DisposableBean, destroy methods, AutoCloseable, etc., to ensure proper cleanup.

Thus the complete bean initialization flow in Spring 6 is demonstrated.