Dynamically adding a list of bean references to bean definition

Question

I'm trying to dynamically register some spring beans in my ApplicationContext by using the ApplicationContextAware interface. I'm using the BeanDefitionBuilder to build the bean definitions and I register them with DefaultListableBeanFactory.registerBeanDefinition(). The bean I'm now trying to build would look like this in XML:

<bean id="compositeBean" class="SomeClass">
<property name="checks">
     <list>
         <ref bean="bean1"/>
         <ref bean="bean2"/>
         <ref bean="bean3"/>
     </list>
</property>
</bean>

I have a list of BeanDefinitions for (bean1, bean2, bean3) above available. When I try to use

BeanDefinitionBuilder.genericBeanDefinition(SomeClass.class)
                .addPropertyValue("checks", checks);

I end up with the error

 org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error
 creating bean with name 'compositeBean': Initialization of bean
 failed; nested exception is
 org.springframework.beans.ConversionNotSupportedException: Failed to
 convert property value of type
 'org.springframework.beans.factory.config.BeanDefinition[]' to
 required type 'SomeClass[]' for property 'checks'; nested exception is
 java.lang.IllegalStateException: Cannot convert value of type
 [org.springframework.beans.factory.support.GenericBeanDefinition] to
 required type [SomeClass] for property 'checks[0]': no matching
 editors or conversion strategy found

How can programmatically add the list of bean references to my compositeBean?

Answer 1

Take a look at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.ManagedList

That's what <util:list/> uses to compile a list. Create a ManagedList as your variable "checks" and set that object as the property value.