Many Spring Integration components can be configured using expressions. These expressions are written in the Spring Expression Language.

In most cases, the #root object is the Message which, of course, has two properties - headers and payload - allowing such expressions as payload, payload.foo, headers['my.header'] etc.

In some cases, additional variables are provided, for example the <int-http:inbound-gateway/> provides #requestParams (parameters from the HTTP request) and #pathVariables (values from path placeholders in the URI).

For all SpEL expressions, a BeanResolver is available, enabling references to any bean in the application context. For example @myBean.foo(payload). In addition, two PropertyAccessors are available; a MapAccessor enables accessing values in a Map using a key, and a ReflectivePropertyAccessor which allows access to fields and or JavaBean compliant properties (using getters and setters). This is how the Message headers and payload properties are accessible.

Starting with Spring Integration 3.0, it is possible to add additional PropertyAccessors to the SpEL evaluation context. In fact, the framework provides one such accessor, the JsonPropertyAccessor which can be used (read-only) to access fields from a JsonNode, or JSON in a String. Or you can create your own PropertyAccessor if you have specific needs.

In addition, custom functions can be added. Custom functions are static methods declared on a class. Functions and property accessors are available in any SpEL expression used throughout the framework.

To configure your custom accessors and functions, add an IntegrationEvaluationContextFactoryBean with id="integrationEvaluationContext" to your application context, with the appropriate configuration; for example:

<beans:bean id="integrationEvaluationContext"
			class="org.springframework.integration.config.IntegrationEvaluationContextFactoryBean">
	<property name="propertyAccessors">
		<list>
			<bean class="foo.MyCustomPropertyAccessor"/>
		</list>
	</property>
	<property name="functions">
		<map>
			<entry key="barcalc" value="#{T(foo.MyFunctions).getMethod('calc', T(foo.MyBar))}"/>
		</map>
	</property>
</bean>

This factory bean definition will override the default integrationEvaluationContext bean definition, adding the custom accessor to the list (which also includes the standard accessors mentioned above), and one custom function.

Note that custom functions are static methods. In the above example, the custom function is a static method calc on class MyFunctions and takes a single parameter of type MyBar.

Say you have a Message with a payload that has a type MyFoo on which you need to perform some action to create a MyBar object from it, and you then want to invoke a custom function calc on that object.

The standard property accessors wouldn't know how to get a MyBar from a MyFoo so you could write and configure a custom property accessor to do so. So, your final expression might be "#barcalc(payload.myBar)".

Namespace support is provided for easy addition of SpEL custom functions. You can specify <spel-function/> components to provide custom SpEL functions to the EvaluationContext used throughout the framework. Instead of configuring the factory bean above, simply add one or more of these components and the framework will automatically add them to the default integrationEvaluationContext factory bean.

For example, assuming we have a useful static method to evaluate XPath:

<int:spel-function id="xpath"
	class="com.foo.test.XPathUtils" method="evaluate(java.lang.String, java.lang.Object)"/>

<int:transformer input-channel="in" output-channel="out"
		 expression="#xpath('//foo/@bar', payload)" />
		

With this sample: