orgspringframeworkstereotypeComponent

The org.springframework.stereotype.Component annotation in the Spring Framework is a generic stereotype for any Java class that is managed by Spring. It is a meta-annotation, meaning it can be used as a base annotation for other, more specific annotations. When Spring's component scanning is enabled, it detects classes annotated with @Component and registers them as beans in the Spring application context. This makes these classes eligible for dependency injection and other Spring-managed features.

Other common stereotype annotations like @Service, @Repository, and @Controller are themselves annotated with @Component. This means that any class annotated with these more specific annotations is also implicitly a @Component. For example, a class annotated with @Repository will be automatically picked up by component scanning just as if it were annotated with @Component directly.

Using @Component or its specialized variants allows developers to declare their intention that a class should be managed by the Spring container. This simplifies configuration by reducing the need for explicit XML or Java-based bean definitions for every single component. The framework can then automatically discover and wire these beans together based on their dependencies.