Spring AOP

Spring AOP defaults to using standard J2SE dynamic proxies for AOP proxies. This enables any interface (or set of interfaces) to be proxied.

Spring AOP can also use CGLIB proxies. This is necessary to proxy classes, rather than interfaces. CGLIB is used by default if a business object does not implement an interface

Spring AOP uses either JDK dynamic proxies or CGLIB (Code generated Libraries) to create the proxy for a given target object. (JDK dynamic proxies are preferred whenever you have a choice).

If the target object to be proxied implements at least one interface then a JDK dynamic proxy will be used. All of the interfaces implemented by the target type will be proxied. If the target object does not implement any interfaces then a CGLIB proxy will be created.

If you want to force the use of CGLIB proxying (for example, to proxy every method defined for the target object, not just those implemented by its interfaces) you can do so. However, there are some issues to consider:

• final methods cannot be advised, as they cannot be overriden.
• You will need the CGLIB 2 binaries on your classpath, whereas dynamic proxies are available with the JDK. Spring will automatically warn you when it needs CGLIB and the CGLIB library classes are not found on the classpath.
• The constructor of your proxied object will be called twice. This is a natural consequence of the CGLIB proxy model whereby a subclass is generated for each proxied object. For each proxied instance, two objects are created: the actual proxied object and an instance of the subclass that implements the advice. This behavior is not exhibited when using JDK proxies. Usually, calling the constructor of the proxied type twice, is not an issue, as there are usually only assignments taking place and no real logic is implemented in the constructor.

To force the use of CGLIB proxies set the value of the proxy-target-class attribute of the <aop:config> element to true:

<aop:config proxy-target-class="true">
    <!-- other beans defined here... -->
</aop:config>

To force CGLIB proxying when using the @AspectJ autoproxy support, set the 'proxy-target-class' attribute of the <aop:aspectj-autoproxy> element totrue:

<aop:aspectj-autoproxy proxy-target-class="true"/>