Using PropertyEditors to create instances of objects from strings is fine in many situations but sometimes you need to inject a return value from a method call. As the method is responsible for creating the value we refer to it as a value factory. Hence the @ValueFactory annotation or <value-factory> element can be used in place of @StringValue or <value> to call a method and inject the returned value during deployment.

@ValueFactory(bean="SimpleBean",

              method="getFullName")

public void setName(String name) {

    ...

} 

<bean name="PropHolder" class="org.jboss.test.kernel.config.support.PropHolder">

    <property name="name">

        <value-factory bean="SimpleBean" method="getFullName"/>

    </property>

</bean> 

If you need to pass any parameters to the method then you can use multiple @Parameter annotations or nested <parameter> elements.

@ValueFactory(bean="SimpleBean",

              method="getFullName",

              parameters="{@Parameter(string=@StringValue("Bob")),

                           @Parameter(string=@StringValue("Smith"))}")

public void setName(String name) {

    ...

} 

<bean name="PropHolder" class="org.jboss.test.kernel.config.support.PropHolder">

    <property name="name">

        <value-factory bean="SimpleBean" method="getFullName">

            <parameter>Bob</parameter>

            <parameter>Smith</parameter>

        </value-factory>

    </property>

</bean> 

Alternatively if only one parameter is required then you can use the parameter attribute to create a shorthand version. However this only works for values that can be created from strings.

@ValueFactory(bean="SimpleBean",

              method="getFullName",

              parameter="@Parameter(string=@StringValue("Bob"))")

public void setName(String name) {

    ...

} 

<bean name="PropHolder" class="org.jboss.test.kernel.config.support.PropHolder">

    <property name="name">

        <value-factory bean="SimpleBean" method="getFullName" parameter="Bob"/>

    </property>

</bean> 

It is also possible to specify a default value to use in case the method returns null. This is done using the defaultValue/default attribute which like the parameter attribute only accepts values created using strings.

@ValueFactory(bean="SimpleBean",

              method="getFullName",

              defaultValue="Mark Newton")

public void setName(String name) {

    ...

} 

<bean name="PropHolder" class="org.jboss.test.kernel.config.support.PropHolder">

    <property name="name">

        <value-factory bean="SimpleBean" method="getFullName" default="Mark Newton"/>

    </property>

</bean>