Spring AnnotationConfigApplicationContext.scan() is scanning wrong package

Question

A class of mine (MyClass.java) in a certain package (packageC) uses an annotation which result in the following error:

NoSuchBeanDefinitionException: No qualifying bean of type [com.foo.SomeAnnotation] is defined

The annotations used are from a 3rd party library (com.foo)

I am not using XML to configure Spring. What I do is that during the set up of my application I create an AnnotationConfigApplicationContext object which I use to scan packages for annotated classes and later create beans from that classes.

Application initialiser:

...

final private AnnotationConfigApplicationContext ctx = new AnnotationConfigApplicationContext();

public void initApp() {
    //packageC is not scanned
    ctx.scan("packageA", "packageB");
    ctx.refresh();
}

// Called by the application when a bean is required
public <A> A getBeanForClass(Class<A> clazz) {
    return ctx.getBean(clazz);
}

...

Since I know that the annotations from the 3rd party library cannot be managed by Spring (rather, Spring cannot create beans from that library) I have excluded from the scan the package of mine which containing classes use the 3rd party annotations:

packageC.MyClass

package packageC

import com.foo.Annotation

public class MyClass {

     ...

     @Annotation
     public void someMethod() {
          ...
     }
}

My question is why I get the error if I am not telling Spring to create beans from annotated classes in "packageC"???

I have to add that someMethod() uses an object from a class in a package which is scanned.

I was probably too vague but I would like to focus on the scan behaviour of AnnotationConfigApplicationContext rather than trying to start a discussion about implementation details.

In any case here are some details of my application:

1. The application uses Play! framework (v2.3.8)
2. Spring initialisation is done in the Global object (as per Play-Spring-Jpa tutorial)
3. The 'offending' 3rd library is Deadbolt (with its @Restrict annotations)

Thank you for any clarification you might give me :)

EDIT:

I have found a related problem on play-framework google group. Please note that there the guy is actually scanning the package with the annotated classes... I am NOT.

Answer 1

You should add an annotation such as @Component or@Configuration or @Service

at the head of [com.foo.SomeAnnotation] class, to make the spring context know it.

is a spring bean.