Core interceptors overhaul

SPR-12584.adoc

Core interceptors overhaul

The Spring Framework has evolved over the years, introducing interceptors for various features such as caching and asynchronous method execution. The purpose of this document is to describe those interceptors and see what we can harmonize. It’s also a chance to look at a way to mutualize some processing and hopefully improve the processing time if need to be.

Interceptors

This summarizes the core interceptors that are defined by the framework

Table 1. Core interceptors

Annotation	Enable Annotation	Interceptor	Description
@Async	@EnableAsync	AsyncAnnotationBeanPostProcessor	Create a proxy to delegate the processing to a separate thread
@Cache*	@EnableCaching	CacheInterceptor	Pointcut-based interceptor, cache result of method invocation
@EventListener	automatic	EventListenerMethodProcessor	Register an ApplicationListener for each annotated method
@JmsListener	@EnableJms	JmsListenerAnnotationBeanPostProcessor	Create a JMS listener container on the fly for the annotated method
@Scheduled	@EnableScheduling	ScheduledAnnotationBeanPostProcessor	Invoke a given method at the configured rate
@Transactional	@EnableTransactionManagement	TransactionInterceptor	Pointcut-based interceptor, manage transaction boundaries
@Validated	none	MethodValidationPostProcessor	Validate method arguments and return types

Features

The table belows summarizes the features of each interceptor. This should give a proper overview of what we could share for reuse

Table 2. Features

Feature	Service Qualifier	Method-based inspection
@Async	yes	no
@Cache*	n/a	no
@EventListener	n/a	yes
@JmsListener	yes	yes
@Scheduled	desirable (?)	yes
@Transactional	yes	no
@Validated	desirable	no