xml - Spring/Eclipse 'referenced bean not found' warning when using <import>?

Question

I have just broken up a Spring bean configuration file into smaller external files and have used the the "import" directive to include them in my Spring Test application context XML file.

But whenever I reference one of the beans from the imported files I get a warning within Eclipse/STS/Spring XML editor complaining that "referenced bean 'foo' not found"

Is this is a bug or is it me? It's really annoying because I don't want to disable the warning, yet at my company we try to eliminate all warnings.

Answer 1

It really annoyed me too!

I'm not sure when this feature was introduced, but with later versions it's possible to add this support.

1. Right click on your project in the Spring explorer view
2. Click on properties
3. See image below:

I don't understand why it's not checked by default, but it works like a charm after you have enabled it!

If you don't have this option with your version, I will highly recommend to download SpringSource's STS with all necessary Eclipse plugins bundled.