Simplify Audit Fields in Spring Boot with AOP: Auto‑Fill Creator & Timestamps

Background

During database design, common fields like creator, createTime, updater, and updateTime are often added to every table for logging. Manually setting these fields in SQL is tedious, especially with many tables. Spring's AOP can automate this process. This article shows how to use Spring Boot AOP to automatically fill these audit fields.

Core Code

@Aspect
@Component
@Configuration
public class CommonDaoAspect {
    private static final String creater = "creater";
    private static final String createTime = "createTime";
    private static final String updater = "updater";
    private static final String updateTime = "updateTime";

    @Pointcut("execution(* com.xx.xxxx.*.dao.*.update*(..))")
    public void daoUpdate() {}

    @Pointcut("execution(* com.xx.xxxx.*.dao.*.insert*(..))")
    public void daoCreate() {}

    @Around("daoUpdate()")
    public Object doDaoUpdate(ProceedingJoinPoint pjp) throws Throwable {
        ServletRequestAttributes attributes = (ServletRequestAttributes) RequestContextHolder.getRequestAttributes();
        if (attributes == null) {
            return pjp.proceed();
        }
        HttpServletRequest request = attributes.getRequest();
        String token = request.getHeader("token");
        String username = getUserName();
        if (token != null && username != null) {
            Object[] objects = pjp.getArgs();
            if (objects != null && objects.length > 0) {
                for (Object arg : objects) {
                    BeanUtils.setProperty(arg, updater, username);
                    BeanUtils.setProperty(arg, updateTime, new Date());
                }
            }
        }
        Object object = pjp.proceed();
        return object;
    }

    @Around("daoCreate()")
    public Object doDaoCreate(ProceedingJoinPoint pjp) throws Throwable {
        ServletRequestAttributes attributes = (ServletRequestAttributes) RequestContextHolder.getRequestAttributes();
        if (attributes == null) {
            return pjp.proceed();
        }
        Object[] objects = pjp.getArgs();
        if (objects != null && objects.length > 0) {
            for (Object arg : objects) {
                String username = getUserName();
                if (username != null) {
                    if (StringUtils.isBlank(BeanUtils.getProperty(arg, creater))) {
                        BeanUtils.setProperty(arg, creater, username);
                    }
                    if (StringUtils.isBlank(BeanUtils.getProperty(arg, createTime))) {
                        BeanUtils.setProperty(arg, createTime, new Date());
                    }
                }
            }
        }
        Object object = pjp.proceed();
        return object;
    }

    private String getUserName() {
        return UserUtils.getUsername();
    }
}

Code Explanation and Annotation Details

1. Code Overview

The aspect class CommonDaoAspect defines pointcuts for DAO update and insert methods and around advice to set creator/updater and timestamps. It obtains the current username from a utility class and uses BeanUtils to set properties on method arguments before proceeding.

2. Annotation Explanation

@Aspect

: declares the class as an aspect containing pointcuts and advice. @Component: registers the class as a Spring-managed bean. @Pointcut: defines where the advice should be applied; here it matches methods in the DAO package whose names start with insert or update. @Around: surrounds the matched method, allowing pre‑ and post‑processing to inject audit information.

Note: The pointcut expression execution(* com.xx.xxxx.*.dao.*.update*(..)) matches any method in the dao package that starts with "update". Similarly, execution(* com.xx.xxxx.*.dao.*.insert*(..)) matches methods starting with "insert".