To enable us to understand auto-configuration further, let's expand our application class to include a few more lines of code:

    ApplicationContext ctx = SpringApplication.run(Application.class, 
     args);
    String[] beanNames = ctx.getBeanDefinitionNames();
    Arrays.sort(beanNames);

   for (String beanName : beanNames) {
     System.out.println(beanName);
    }

We get all the beans that are defined in the Spring application context and print their names. When Application.java is run as a Java program, it prints the list of beans, as shown in the following output :

application
basicErrorController
beanNameHandlerMapping
beanNameViewResolver
characterEncodingFilter
conventionErrorViewResolver
defaultServletHandlerMapping
defaultViewResolver
dispatcherServlet
dispatcherServletRegistration
duplicateServerPropertiesDetector
embeddedServletContainerCustomizerBeanPostProcessor
error
errorAttributes
errorPageCustomizer
errorPageRegistrarBeanPostProcessor
faviconHandlerMapping
faviconRequestHandler
handlerExceptionResolver
hiddenHttpMethodFilter
httpPutFormContentFilter
httpRequestHandlerAdapter
jacksonObjectMapper
jacksonObjectMapperBuilder
jsonComponentModule
localeCharsetMappingsCustomizer
mappingJackson2HttpMessageConverter
mbeanExporter
mbeanServer
messageConverters
multipartConfigElement
multipartResolver
mvcContentNegotiationManager
mvcConversionService
mvcPathMatcher
mvcResourceUrlProvider
mvcUriComponentsContributor
mvcUrlPathHelper
mvcValidator
mvcViewResolver
objectNamingStrategy
autoconfigure.AutoConfigurationPackages
autoconfigure.PropertyPlaceholderAutoConfiguration
autoconfigure.condition.BeanTypeRegistry
autoconfigure.context.ConfigurationPropertiesAutoConfiguration
autoconfigure.info.ProjectInfoAutoConfiguration
autoconfigure.internalCachingMetadataReaderFactory
autoconfigure.jackson.JacksonAutoConfiguration
autoconfigure.jackson.JacksonAutoConfiguration$Jackson2ObjectMapperBuilderCustomizerConfiguration
autoconfigure.jackson.JacksonAutoConfiguration$JacksonObjectMapperBuilderConfiguration
autoconfigure.jackson.JacksonAutoConfiguration$JacksonObjectMapperConfiguration
autoconfigure.jmx.JmxAutoConfiguration
autoconfigure.web.DispatcherServletAutoConfiguration
autoconfigure.web.DispatcherServletAutoConfiguration$DispatcherServletConfiguration
autoconfigure.web.DispatcherServletAutoConfiguration$DispatcherServletRegistrationConfiguration
autoconfigure.web.EmbeddedServletContainerAutoConfiguration
autoconfigure.web.EmbeddedServletContainerAutoConfiguration$EmbeddedTomcat
autoconfigure.web.ErrorMvcAutoConfiguration
autoconfigure.web.ErrorMvcAutoConfiguration$WhitelabelErrorViewConfiguration
autoconfigure.web.HttpEncodingAutoConfiguration
autoconfigure.web.HttpMessageConvertersAutoConfiguration
autoconfigure.web.HttpMessageConvertersAutoConfiguration$StringHttpMessageConverterConfiguration
autoconfigure.web.JacksonHttpMessageConvertersConfiguration
autoconfigure.web.JacksonHttpMessageConvertersConfiguration$MappingJackson2HttpMessageConverterConfiguration
autoconfigure.web.MultipartAutoConfiguration
autoconfigure.web.ServerPropertiesAutoConfiguration
autoconfigure.web.WebClientAutoConfiguration
autoconfigure.web.WebClientAutoConfiguration$RestTemplateConfiguration
autoconfigure.web.WebMvcAutoConfiguration
autoconfigure.web.WebMvcAutoConfiguration$EnableWebMvcConfiguration
autoconfigure.web.WebMvcAutoConfiguration$WebMvcAutoConfigurationAdapter
autoconfigure.web.WebMvcAutoConfiguration$WebMvcAutoConfigurationAdapter$FaviconConfiguration
autoconfigure.websocket.WebSocketAutoConfiguration
autoconfigure.websocket.WebSocketAutoConfiguration$TomcatWebSocketConfiguration
context.properties.ConfigurationPropertiesBindingPostProcessor
context.properties.ConfigurationPropertiesBindingPostProcessor.store
annotation.ConfigurationClassPostProcessor.enhancedConfigurationProcessor
annotation.ConfigurationClassPostProcessor.importAwareProcessor
annotation.internalAutowiredAnnotationProcessor
annotation.internalCommonAnnotationProcessor
annotation.internalConfigurationAnnotationProcessor
annotation.internalRequiredAnnotationProcessor
event.internalEventListenerFactory
event.internalEventListenerProcessor
preserveErrorControllerTargetClassPostProcessor
propertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer
requestContextFilter
requestMappingHandlerAdapter
requestMappingHandlerMapping
resourceHandlerMapping
restTemplateBuilder
serverProperties
simpleControllerHandlerAdapter
spring.http.encoding-autoconfigure.web.HttpEncodingProperties
spring.http.multipart-autoconfigure.web.MultipartProperties
spring.info-autoconfigure.info.ProjectInfoProperties
spring.jackson-autoconfigure.jackson.JacksonProperties
spring.mvc-autoconfigure.web.WebMvcProperties
spring.resources-autoconfigure.web.ResourceProperties
standardJacksonObjectMapperBuilderCustomizer
stringHttpMessageConverter
tomcatEmbeddedServletContainerFactory
viewControllerHandlerMapping
viewResolver
websocketContainerCustomizer

Important things to think about are as follows:

• Where are these beans defined?
• How are these beans created?

That's the magic of Spring auto-configuration.

Whenever we add a new dependency to a Spring Boot project, Spring Boot auto-configuration automatically tries to configure the beans based on the dependency.

For example, when we add a dependency in spring-boot-starter-web, the following beans are auto-configured:

• basicErrorController, handlerExceptionResolver: Basic exception handling. Shows a default error page when an exception occurs.
• beanNameHandlerMapping: Used to resolve paths to a handler (controller).
• characterEncodingFilter: Provides default character encoding UTF-8.
• dispatcherServlet: DispatcherServlet is the Front Controller in Spring MVC applications.
• jacksonObjectMapper: Translates objects to JSON and JSON to objects in REST services.
• messageConverters: The default message converters to convert from objects into XML or JSON and vice versa.
• multipartResolver: Provides support to upload files in web applications.
• mvcValidator: Supports validation of HTTP requests.
• viewResolver: Resolves a logical view name to a physical view.
• propertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer: Supports the externalization of application configuration.
• requestContextFilter: Defaults the filter for requests.
• restTemplateBuilder: Used to make calls to REST services.
• tomcatEmbeddedServletContainerFactory: Tomcat is the default embedded servlet container for Spring Boot-based web applications.

In the next section, let's look at some of the starter projects and the auto-configuration they provide.