Spring EL Operators example

Spring EL supports most of the standard mathematical, logical or relational operators. For example,

• Relational operators – equal (==, eq), not equal (!=, ne), less than (<, lt), less than or equal (<= , le), greater than (>, gt), and greater than or equal (>=, ge).
• Logical operators – and, or, and not (!).
• Mathematical operators – addition (+), Subtraction (-), Multiplication (*), division (/), modulus (%) and exponential power (^).

Spring EL in Annotation

This example demonstrates the use of operators in SpEL.

package com.mkyong.core;

import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Value;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Component;

@Component("customerBean")
public class Customer {

	//Relational operators

	@Value("#{1 == 1}") //true
	private boolean testEqual;

	@Value("#{1 != 1}") //false
	private boolean testNotEqual;

	@Value("#{1 < 1}") //false
	private boolean testLessThan;

	@Value("#{1 <= 1}") //true
	private boolean testLessThanOrEqual;

	@Value("#{1 > 1}") //false
	private boolean testGreaterThan;

	@Value("#{1 >= 1}") //true
	private boolean testGreaterThanOrEqual;

	//Logical operators , numberBean.no == 999

	@Value("#{numberBean.no == 999 and numberBean.no < 900}") //false
	private boolean testAnd;

	@Value("#{numberBean.no == 999 or numberBean.no < 900}") //true
	private boolean testOr;

	@Value("#{!(numberBean.no == 999)}") //false
	private boolean testNot;

	//Mathematical operators

	@Value("#{1 + 1}") //2.0
	private double testAdd;

	@Value("#{'1' + '@' + '1'}") //1@1
	private String testAddString;

	@Value("#{1 - 1}") //0.0
	private double testSubtraction;

	@Value("#{1 * 1}") //1.0
	private double testMultiplication;

 	@Value("#{10 / 2}") //5.0
	private double testDivision;

	@Value("#{10 % 10}") //0.0
	private double testModulus ;

	@Value("#{2 ^ 2}") //4.0
	private double testExponentialPower;

	@Override
	public String toString() {
		return "Customer [testEqual=" + testEqual + ", testNotEqual="
				+ testNotEqual + ", testLessThan=" + testLessThan
				+ ", testLessThanOrEqual=" + testLessThanOrEqual
				+ ", testGreaterThan=" + testGreaterThan
				+ ", testGreaterThanOrEqual=" + testGreaterThanOrEqual
				+ ", testAnd=" + testAnd + ", testOr=" + testOr + ", testNot="
				+ testNot + ", testAdd=" + testAdd + ", testAddString="
				+ testAddString + ", testSubtraction=" + testSubtraction
				+ ", testMultiplication=" + testMultiplication
				+ ", testDivision=" + testDivision + ", testModulus="
				+ testModulus + ", testExponentialPower="
				+ testExponentialPower + "]";
	}

}

package com.mkyong.core;

import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Value;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Component;

@Component("numberBean")
public class Number {

	@Value("999")
	private int no;

	public int getNo() {
		return no;
	}

	public void setNo(int no) {
		this.no = no;
	}

}

Run it

       Customer obj = (Customer) context.getBean("customerBean");
       System.out.println(obj);

Output

Customer [
	testEqual=true,
	testNotEqual=false,
	testLessThan=false,
	testLessThanOrEqual=true,
	testGreaterThan=false,
	testGreaterThanOrEqual=true,
	testAnd=false,
	testOr=true,
	testNot=false,
	testAdd=2.0,
	testAddString=1@1,
	testSubtraction=0.0,
	testMultiplication=1.0,
	testDivision=5.0,
	testModulus=0.0,
	testExponentialPower=4.0
]

Spring EL in XML

See equivalent version in bean definition XML file. In XML, symbol like "less than" is always not support, instead, you should use the textual equivalents shown above, for example, ('<' = 'lt') and ('<=' = 'le').

<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
	xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
	http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd">

	<bean id="customerBean" class="com.mkyong.core.Customer">

	  <property name="testEqual" value="#{1 == 1}" />
	  <property name="testNotEqual" value="#{1 != 1}" />
	  <property name="testLessThan" value="#{1 lt 1}" />
	  <property name="testLessThanOrEqual" value="#{1 le 1}" />
	  <property name="testGreaterThan" value="#{1 > 1}" />
	  <property name="testGreaterThanOrEqual" value="#{1 >= 1}" />

	  <property name="testAnd" value="#{numberBean.no == 999 and numberBean.no lt 900}" />
	  <property name="testOr" value="#{numberBean.no == 999 or numberBean.no lt 900}" />
	  <property name="testNot" value="#{!(numberBean.no == 999)}" />

	  <property name="testAdd" value="#{1 + 1}" />
	  <property name="testAddString" value="#{'1' + '@' + '1'}" />
	  <property name="testSubtraction" value="#{1 - 1}" />
	  <property name="testMultiplication" value="#{1 * 1}" />
	  <property name="testDivision" value="#{10 / 2}" />
	  <property name="testModulus" value="#{10 % 10}" />
	  <property name="testExponentialPower" value="#{2 ^ 2}" />

	</bean>

	<bean id="numberBean" class="com.mkyong.core.Number">
		<property name="no" value="999" />
	</bean>

</beans>