SpringBoot 2.4.x Configuration

In their new release, Spring decided to change the logic behind loading configuration files.

To represent elements that may contribute to the environment, a ConfigDataEnvironmentContributor is introduced, each contributor would be replaced during the process.

Spring decided to use a tree as a data structure in order to process/apply the configuration data.

I will refer to ConfigDataEnvironmentContributor as CDEContributor.

Contributors tree

Each contributor can imports some properties (more on that later), and it will be appended as children, thus creating a whole tree.

Each contributor will contain some metadata describing the node:

1. location: a configDataLocation that will be resolved using a configDataLocationResolver to one or more ressources.

2. ressource: each propertySource will be wrapped inside a ConfigData object, ConfigResource is indicating from which ConfigData can be loaded.

3. propertySource: the propertySource linked to this node.

4. children: children contributors, as said before, when a contributor is importing some properties a new contributors will be added as children of this contributor. children are created for each importPhase.

5.kind: there are various…