Springcache not working only with XML configuration

I am implementing Springcache with XML configuration and want to get rid of all the annotations. I just want to replace the annotations in the applicationContext.xml file. Here is my code -

//DummyBean.java
package com.spring.example;
interface DummyBean {
    public String getCity();
}

//DummyBeanImpl.java
package com.spring.example;
import org.springframework.cache.annotation.CacheConfig;
import org.springframework.cache.annotation.Cacheable;
import org.springframework.cache.annotation.EnableCaching;

@EnableCaching
@CacheConfig(cacheNames={"myCache"})
public class DummyBeanImpl implements DummyBean {

    private String city = "New York";

    @Cacheable()
    public String getCity() {
        System.out.println("DummyBean.getCity() called!");
        return city;
    }
}

SpringAwareAnnotationXMLConfig.java

package com.spring.example;

import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext;
import org.springframework.context.support.GenericXmlApplicationContext;

public class SpringAwareAnnotationXMLConfig {

  public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
    AbstractApplicationContext context = new GenericXmlApplicationContext("applicationContext.xml");

    DummyBean personService = (DummyBean) context.getBean("myBean");
    System.out.println(personService.getCity());
    System.out.println(personService.getCity());
    System.out.println(personService.getCity());

    ((AbstractApplicationContext) context).close();
  }
}

applicationContext.xml

<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
           xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
           xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
           xmlns:cache="http://www.springframework.org/schema/cache"
           xmlns:c="http://www.springframework.org/schema/c"
           xmlns:p="http://www.springframework.org/schema/p"
           xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-4.2.xsd
                               http://www.springframework.org/schema/cache http://www.springframework.org/schema/cache/spring-cache-4.2.xsd
                               http://www.springframework.org/schema/context http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context.xsd>


  <context:annotation-config/>
  <cache:annotation-driven cache-manager="cacheManager"/>
  <context:component-scan base-package="com.spring"/>

  <bean id="myBean" class="com.spring.example.DummyBeanImpl"/>

  <bean id="cacheManager" class="org.springframework.cache.support.SimpleCacheManager">
    <property name="caches">
      <set>
        <bean class="org.springframework.cache.concurrent.ConcurrentMapCacheFactoryBean" p:name="myCache"/>
      </set>
    </property>
  </bean>

  <cache:advice id="cacheAdvice" cache-manager="cacheManager">
    <cache:caching cache="myCache">
      <cache:cacheable method="getCity"/>
    </cache:caching>
  </cache:advice>
</beans>

As you can see if I keep the @EnableCaching, @CacheConfig, @Cacheable annotations in the Java code, then caching is working fine and I am getting the following output -

DummyBean.getCity() called!
New York
New York
New York

But if I remove the annotations, then I am getting the following output -

DummyBean.getCity() called!
New York
DummyBean.getCity() called!
New York
DummyBean.getCity() called!
New York

This means that the caching didn't work!

But my expectation is that in the applicationContext.xml file I have already enabled the cache by <cache:annotation-driven cache-manager="cacheManager"/>, I have already mentioned the cachename and I have already configured the cache with the method names where caching is to be implemented. So if I omit the annotations, I should get the desired output. But why I am not getting?

Thanks Nirmalya

Solution

When using XML configured aspects you will also need to add an aop:config section to have the aspect applied.

<aop:config>
    <aop:advisor advice-ref="cacheAdvice" pointcut="execution(* com.spring.example.DummyBean+.*(..))"/>
</aop:config>

Assuming DummyBean is an interface implemented by com.spring.example.DummyBeanImpl this should do the trick. This states that you want to apply the cacheAdvice (the aspect) to the bean matching the expression.