YAML to List of Objects in Spring Boot

1. Overview

In this short tutorial, we're going to have a closer look at how to map a YAML list into a List in Spring Boot.

We'll first start with some background on how to define lists in YAML. Then, we'll dig deeper to see how to bind YAML lists to Lists of objects.

2. Quick Recap About Lists in YAML

In short, YAML is a human-readable data serialization standard that provides a concise and clear way to write configuration files. The good thing about YAML is the fact that it supports multiple data types such as Lists, Maps, and scalar types.

The elements in a YAML list are defined using the “-” character and they all share the same indentation level:

yamlconfig:
  list:
    - item1
    - item2
    - item3
    - item4

As a comparison, the properties-based equivalent uses indices:

yamlconfig.list[0]=item1
yamlconfig.list[1]=item2
yamlconfig.list[2]=item3
yamlconfig.list[3]=item4

For more examples, feel free to take a look at our article on how to define lists and maps using YAML and properties files.

As a matter of fact, the hierarchical nature of YAML significantly enhances readability compared to properties files. Another interesting feature of YAML is the possibility to define different properties for different Spring profiles.

It's worth mentioning that Spring Boot provides out-of-box support for YAML configuration. By design, Spring Boot loads configuration properties from application.yml at startup without any extra work.

3. Binding a YAML List to a Simple List of Objects

Spring Boot provides the @ConfigurationProperties annotation to simplify the logic of mapping external configuration data into an object model.

In this section, we'll be using @ConfigurationProperties to bind a YAML list into a List<Object>.

We start by defining a simple list in application.yml:

application:
  profiles:
    - dev
    - test
    - prod
    - 1
    - 2

Then, we'll create a simple ApplicationProps POJO to hold the logic of binding our YAML list to a List of objects:

@Component
@ConfigurationProperties(prefix = "application")
public class ApplicationProps {

    private List<Object> profiles;
    
    // getter and setter

}

The ApplicationProps class needs to be decorated with @ConfigurationProperties to express the intention of mapping all the YAML properties with the specified prefix to an object of ApplicationProps.

To bind the profiles list we just need to define a field of type List and the @ConfigurationProperties annotation will take care of the rest.

Notice that we register the ApplicationProps class as a normal Spring bean using @Component. As a result, we can inject it into other classes in the same way as any other Spring bean.

Finally, we inject the ApplicationProps bean into a test class and verify if our profiles YAML list is correctly injected as a List<Object>:

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension.class)
@ContextConfiguration(initializers = ConfigFileApplicationContextInitializer.class)
@EnableConfigurationProperties(value = ApplicationProps.class)
class YamlSimpleListUnitTest {
 
    @Autowired
    private ApplicationProps applicationProps;
 
    @Test
    public void whenYamlList_thenLoadSimpleList() {
        assertThat(applicationProps.getProfiles().get(0)).isEqualTo("dev");
        assertThat(applicationProps.getProfiles().get(4).getClass()).isEqualTo(Integer.class);
        assertThat(applicationProps.getProfiles().size()).isEqualTo(5);
    }
}

4. Binding YAML Lists to Complex Lists

Now, let's dive deeper and see how to inject nested YAML lists into complex structured Lists.

First, let's add some nested lists to application.yml:

application:
  // ...
  props: 
    -
      name: YamlList
      url: http://yamllist.dev
      description: Mapping list in Yaml to list of objects in Spring Boot
    -
      ip: 10.10.10.10
      port: 8091
    -
      email: support@yamllist.dev
      contact: http://yamllist.dev/contact
  users:
    -
      username: admin
      password: admin@10@
      roles:
        - READ
        - WRITE
        - VIEW
        - DELETE
    -
      username: guest
      password: guest@01
      roles:
        - VIEW

In this example, we're going to bind the props property to a List<Map<String, Object>>. Similarly, we'll map users into a List of User objects.

Since each element of the props entry holds different keys, then we can inject it as a List of Maps. Be sure to check out our article on how to inject a map from a YAML file in Spring Boot.

However, in the case of users, all items share the same keys, so to simplify its mapping, we may need to create a dedicated User class to encapsulate the keys as fields:

public class ApplicationProps {
    
    // ...
	
    private List<Map<String, Object>> props;
    private List<User> users;
    
    // getters and setters

    public static class User {

        private String username;
        private String password;
        private List<String> roles;

        // getters and setters

    }
}

Now we verify that our nested YAML lists are properly mapped:

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension.class)
@ContextConfiguration(initializers = ConfigFileApplicationContextInitializer.class)
@EnableConfigurationProperties(value = ApplicationProps.class)
class YamlComplexListsUnitTest {
 
    @Autowired
    private ApplicationProps applicationProps;
 
    @Test
    public void whenYamlNestedLists_thenLoadComplexLists() {
        assertThat(applicationProps.getUsers().get(0).getPassword()).isEqualTo("admin@10@");
        assertThat(applicationProps.getProps().get(0).get("name")).isEqualTo("YamlList");
        assertThat(applicationProps.getProps().get(1).get("port").getClass()).isEqualTo(Integer.class);
    }
	
}

5. Conclusion

In this tutorial, we learned how to map YAML lists into Java Lists. We also checked how to bind complex lists to custom POJOs.

As always, the complete source code for this article is available over on GitHub.