Can someone explain what the scopes are in Spring beans I've always just used 'prototype' but are there other parameters I can put in place of that?
Example of what I'm talking about
<bean id="customerInfoController" class="com.action.Controller" scope="prototype">
<property name="accountDao" ref="accountDao"/>
<property name="utilityDao" ref="utilityDao"/>
<property name="account_usageDao" ref="account_usageDao"/>
</bean>
The Spring documentation describes the following standard scopes:
singleton: (Default) Scopes a single bean definition to a single object instance per Spring IoC container.
prototype: Scopes a single bean definition to any number of object instances.
request: Scopes a single bean definition to the lifecycle of a single HTTP request; that is, each HTTP request has its own instance of a bean created off the back of a single bean definition. Only valid in the context of a web-aware Spring ApplicationContext.
session: Scopes a single bean definition to the lifecycle of an HTTP Session. Only valid in the context of a web-aware Spring ApplicationContext.
global session: Scopes a single bean definition to the lifecycle of a global HTTP Session. Typically only valid when used in a portlet context. Only valid in the context of a web-aware Spring ApplicationContext.
Additional custom scopes can also be created and configured using a CustomScopeConfigurer. An example would be the flow scope added by Spring Webflow.
By the way, you argues that you always used prototype what I find strange. The standard scope is singleton and in the application I develop, I rarely need the prototype scope. You should maybe take a look at this.