= Bean Component
:doctitle: Bean
:shortname: bean
:artifactid: camel-bean
:description: Invoke methods of Java beans stored in Camel registry.
:since: 1.0
:supportlevel: Stable
:component-header: Only producer is supported
:core:
//Manually maintained attributes
:camel-spring-boot-name: bean

*Since Camel {since}*

*{component-header}*

The Bean component binds beans to Camel message exchanges.

== URI format

----
bean:beanName[?options]
----

Where *beanID* can be any string which is used to look up the bean in
the Registry

// component-configure options: START

// component-configure options: END

// component options: START
include::partial$component-configure-options.adoc[]
include::partial$component-endpoint-options.adoc[]
// component options: END

// endpoint options: START

// endpoint options: END


== Using

The object instance that is used to consume messages must be explicitly
registered with the Registry. For example, if you
are using Spring you must define the bean in the Spring configuration XML file.

You can also register beans manually via Camel's `Registry` with the `bind` method.

Once an endpoint has been registered, you can build Camel routes that
use it to process exchanges.

A *bean:* endpoint cannot be defined as the input to the route; i.e. you
cannot consume from it, you can only route from some inbound message
Endpoint to the bean endpoint as output. So consider
using a *direct:* or *queue:* endpoint as the input.

You can use the `createProxy()` methods on
https://www.javadoc.io/doc/org.apache.camel/camel-bean/current/org/apache/camel/component/bean/ProxyHelper.html[ProxyHelper]
to create a proxy that will generate exchanges and send them to any
endpoint:

And the same route using XML DSL:

[source,xml]
----------------------------
<route>
   <from uri="direct:hello"/>
   <to uri="bean:bye"/>
</route>
----------------------------

== Bean as endpoint

Camel also supports invoking xref:bean-component.adoc[Bean] as an Endpoint. In the
route below:

What happens is that when the exchange is routed to the `myBean` Camel
will use the Bean Binding to invoke the bean. +
 The source for the bean is just a plain POJO:

Camel will use Bean Binding to invoke the
`sayHello` method, by converting the Exchange's In body to the `String`
type and storing the output of the method on the Exchange Out body.

== Java DSL bean syntax

Java DSL comes with syntactic sugar for the xref:bean-component.adoc[Bean]
component. Instead of specifying the bean explicitly as the endpoint
(i.e. `to("bean:beanName")`) you can use the following syntax:

[source,java]
-------------------------------------------------------
// Send message to the bean endpoint
// and invoke method resolved using Bean Binding.
from("direct:start").bean("beanName");

// Send message to the bean endpoint
// and invoke given method.
from("direct:start").bean("beanName", "methodName");
-------------------------------------------------------

Instead of passing name of the reference to the bean (so that Camel will
lookup for it in the registry), you can specify the bean itself:

[source,java]
---------------------------------------------------------------
// Send message to the given bean instance.
from("direct:start").bean(new ExampleBean());

// Explicit selection of bean method to be invoked.
from("direct:start").bean(new ExampleBean(), "methodName");

// Camel will create the instance of bean and cache it for you.
from("direct:start").bean(ExampleBean.class);
---------------------------------------------------------------

== Bean Binding

How bean methods to be invoked are chosen (if they are not specified
explicitly through the *method* parameter) and how parameter values are
constructed from the Message are all defined by the
Bean Binding mechanism which is used throughout
all of the various Bean Integration
mechanisms in Camel.



include::spring-boot:partial$starter.adoc[]
