Spring Boot Profiles Tutorial

YatinJuly 29th, 2020Last Updated: July 27th, 2020

0 549 5 minutes read

Welcome readers, in this tutorial, we will see how to load profiles (such as DEV, QA, or PROD) in a simple spring boot application.

1. Introduction

Before going further in this tutorial we will take a look at the common terminology such as introduction to Spring Boot and Profiles in the spring framework.

1.1 What is Spring boot?

Spring boot is a module that provides rapid application development feature to the spring framework including auto-configuration, standalone-code, and production-ready code
It creates applications that are packaged as jar and are directly started using embedded servlet container (such as Tomcat, Jetty or Undertow). Thus, no need to deploy the war files
It simplifies the maven configuration by providing the starter template and helps to resolve the dependency conflicts. It automatically identifies the required dependencies and imports them in the application
It helps in removing the boilerplate code, extra annotations, and xml configurations
It provides a powerful batch processing and manages the rest endpoints
It provides an efficient jpa-starter library to effectively connect the application with the relational databases
It offers a Microservice architecture and cloud configuration that manages all the application related configuration properties in a centralized manner.

1.2 What are Profiles in Spring boot?

Profiles in simple term can be termed as the different environments which every application comprises of. For example – DEV, QA, or PROD. Each environment has its own specific requirement i.e. database connection, pipeline, and deployment configuration. In spring we maintain profiles with the help of properties and file files.

In this article, we will create a QA profile to enable environment-specific configuration properties. But before going any further I’m assuming that readers are aware of the concepts of creating and running a basic spring boot application.

2. Spring Boot Profiles Tutorial

Here is a systematic guide for implementing this tutorial.

2.1 Tools Used and Project Structure

We are using Eclipse, JDK 8, and Maven. In case you’re confused about where you should create the corresponding files or folder, let us review the project structure of the spring boot application.

spring boot profiles - Project structure — Fig. 1: Project structure

Let us start building the application!

3. Creating a Spring boot application

Below are the steps involved in developing the application.

3.1 Maven Dependency

Here, we specify the dependency for the Spring boot. Maven will automatically resolve the other dependencies. The updated file will have the following code.

pom.xml

<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 https://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
 
    <groupId>com.springboot.profiles</groupId>
    <artifactId>Springbootprofiles</artifactId>
    <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
 
    <name>Profiles in springboot</name>
 
    <parent>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
        <version>2.3.1.RELEASE</version>
    </parent>
 
    <properties>
        <java.version>1.8</java.version>
    </properties>
 
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
        </dependency>
 
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
 
    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>
 
</project>

3.2 Application Properties file

Create a new properties file at the location: Springbootprofiles/src/main/resources/ and add the application configuration to this file. Here we will also define the profile which needs to be picked during the application startup

application.properties

## Spring boot application name
spring.application.name=Profiles
 
## Profiles are activated using this property
## Tells Spring which profiles to use
## E.g. - Here we set the profile as "qa"
#spring.profiles.active=dev
spring.profiles.active=qa
#spring.profiles.active=prod
 
spring.message=Hello world from localhost environment
 
## If we want to run the application on the same port for all the environments, then we specify the port in the application.properties or application.yml
server.port=9091

3.3 YML file for Profile(s)

Add the following code the QA yml file (i.e. the profile) and this will be picked during the application startup due the spring.profiles.active property defined in the application.properties file.

application-qa.yml

spring:
  message: Hello world from testing environment
   
## profile specific port.
server:
  port: 10092

Similarly, we can create multiple profile yml files like DEV, PROD, STAGE, etc. Remember to change the application port number.

3.4 Java Classes

Let us write all the java classes involved in this application.

3.4.1 Implementation/Main class

Add the following code to the main class to bootstrap the application from the main method.

Springbootprofiles.java

package com.springboot.profiles;
 
import org.slf4j.Logger;
import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;
import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;
 
@SpringBootApplication
public class Springbootprofiles {
 
    private static Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(Springbootprofiles.class);
     
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(Springbootprofiles.class, args);
        LOGGER.info("Springboot profiles application is running successfully.");
    }
}

3.4.2 Configuration class

Add the following code to the configuration class where we define the configuration for the different profiles and illustrate the use of @Profile annotation.

ProfileConfig.java

package com.springboot.profiles.config;
 
import org.slf4j.Logger;
import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Profile;
 
@Configuration
public class ProfileConfig {
 
    private static Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(ProfileConfig.class);
 
    // @Profile annotation is used to conditionally activate/register
    // Used to develop an "if-then-else" conditional checking to configure
    // Allows to register beans by condition 
    @Profile(value = "dev")
    @Bean
    public void devConfig() {
        LOGGER.info("Successfully loaded the development environment.");
    }
 
    @Profile(value = "qa")
    @Bean
    public void qaConfig() {
        LOGGER.info("Successfully loaded the testing environment.");
    }
 
    @Profile(value = "prod")
    @Bean
    public void prodConfig() {
        LOGGER.info("Successfully loaded the production environment.");
    }
}

3.4.3 Controller class

Add the following code to the controller class designed to handle the incoming requests. The class is annotated with the @RestController annotation and the HTTP GET method the response based on the value populated from the selected profile.

HelloworldCtrl.java

package com.springboot.profiles.controller;
 
import org.slf4j.Logger;
import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Value;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.GetMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RestController;
 
@RestController
@RequestMapping(value = "/rest")
public class HelloworldCtrl {
     
    private static Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(HelloworldCtrl.class);
     
    // The message attribute value is populated based on the selected profile
    @Value(value = "${spring.message}")
    private String message;
 
    @GetMapping(value = "/hello")
    public String welcome() {
        LOGGER.info("Returning the response.");
        return message;
    }
}

4. Run the Application

To execute the application, right-click on the Springbootprofiles.java class, Run As -> Java Application.

spring boot profiles - Run the Application — Fig. 2: Run the Application

5. Project Demo

Open the Postman tool or any browser of your choice and hit the following URLs to display the fallback response from the service.

// Get the response from the QA profile yml file
// Application port depends on the port number defined in the profile yml file
http://localhost:10092/rest/hello/

Now on hitting this URL you will get the response from the QA profile yml file.

Similarly, developers can change the profile name through the spring.profiles.active attribute defined in the application.properties file and play around to see the magic of different profiles at runtime.

That is all for this tutorial and I hope the article served you whatever you were looking for. Happy Learning and do not forget to share!

6. Summary

In this tutorial, we learned:

Spring Boot and Profiles
Steps to implement the profile(s) in spring boot application

You can download the sample application as an Eclipse project in the Downloads section.

7. Download the Eclipse Project

This was an example of a Profiles in a Spring boot application.

Download
You can download the full source code of this example here: Spring Boot Profiles Tutorial

Spring Boot Profiles Tutorial

1. Introduction

1.1 What is Spring boot?

1.2 What are Profiles in Spring boot?

2. Spring Boot Profiles Tutorial

2.1 Tools Used and Project Structure

3. Creating a Spring boot application

3.1 Maven Dependency

3.2 Application Properties file

3.3 YML file for Profile(s)

3.4 Java Classes

3.4.1 Implementation/Main class

3.4.2 Configuration class

Thank you!

3.4.3 Controller class

4. Run the Application

5. Project Demo

6. Summary

7. Download the Eclipse Project

Thank you!

Yatin

Thank you!

1. Introduction

1.1 What is Spring boot?

1.2 What are Profiles in Spring boot?

2. Spring Boot Profiles Tutorial

2.1 Tools Used and Project Structure

3. Creating a Spring boot application

3.1 Maven Dependency

3.2 Application Properties file

3.3 YML file for Profile(s)

3.4 Java Classes

3.4.1 Implementation/Main class

3.4.2 Configuration class

Thank you!

3.4.3 Controller class

4. Run the Application

5. Project Demo

6. Summary

7. Download the Eclipse Project

Thank you!

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