difference between ContextLoader and ContextLoaderListener

Question

the difference between ContextLoader and ContextLoaderListenerI am not understanding the difference. I have tried to search on google but I am not able to search. Please help me on this.

Answer 1

Performs the actual initialization work for the root application context. Called by ContextLoaderListener and ContextLoaderServlet.

Regards a "contextClass" parameter at the web.xml context-param level, falling back to the default context class (XmlWebApplicationContext) if not found. With the default ContextLoader, a context class needs to implement ConfigurableWebApplicationContext.

Passes a "contextConfigLocation" context-param to the context instance, parsing it into potentially multiple file paths which can be separated by any number of commas and spaces, like "applicationContext1.xml, applicationContext2.xml". If not explicitly specified, the context implementation is supposed to use a default location (with XmlWebApplicationContext: `

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Note: In case of multiple config locations, later bean definitions will override ones defined in earlier loaded files, at least when using one of Spring's default ApplicationContext implementations. This can be leveraged to deliberately override certain bean definitions via an extra XML file.

https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/javadoc-api/org/springframework/web/context/ContextLoader.html