The following example works for "class name substitution using the PropertyPlaceHolderConfigurer":

http://forum.springsource.org/showpost.php?p=228136&postcount=2

HOWEVER, when porting this code over (messages.properties, com.spring.ioc.TestClass, and spring-config.xml) to a web application, the class name substitution now fails!

1) I am running on the webapp on Tomcat through the Eclipse plugin.

2) In the web.xml I have the following:

<context-param>
    <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
    <param-value>/WEB-INF/spring-config.xml</param-value>
</context-param>
<listener>
    <listener-class>org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener</listener-class>
</listener>

3) The following is output in the log:

282  [main] DEBUG org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory  - 
Ignoring bean class loading failure for bean 'test'
org.springframework.beans.factory.CannotLoadBeanClassException: Cannot find class [${test.class}] for bean with name 'test' defined in ServletContext resource [/WEB-INF/spring-config.xml]; nested exception is java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: ${test.class}
 at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.resolveBeanClass(AbstractBeanFactory.java:1141)
 at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.predictBeanType(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:524)
 at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.isFactoryBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:1177)
 at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory.getBeanNamesForType(DefaultListableBeanFactory.java:222)
 at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.invokeBeanFactoryPostProcessors(AbstractApplicationContext.java:505)
 at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:362)
 at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader.createWebApplicationContext(ContextLoader.java:255)
 at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader.initWebApplicationContext(ContextLoader.java:199)
 at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener.contextInitialized(ContextLoaderListener.java:45)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.listenerStart(StandardContext.java:3795)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.start(StandardContext.java:4252)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.start(ContainerBase.java:1014)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.start(StandardHost.java:736)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.start(ContainerBase.java:1014)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngine.start(StandardEngine.java:443)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardService.start(StandardService.java:448)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardServer.start(StandardServer.java:700)
 at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.start(Catalina.java:552)
 at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
 at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
 at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
 at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
 at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.start(Bootstrap.java:295)
 at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.main(Bootstrap.java:433)
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: ${test.class}
 at org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader.loadClass(WebappClassLoader.java:1438)
 at org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader.loadClass(WebappClassLoader.java:1284)
 at org.springframework.util.ClassUtils.forName(ClassUtils.java:211)
 at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanDefinition.resolveBeanClass(AbstractBeanDefinition.java:385)
 at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.resolveBeanClass(AbstractBeanFactory.java:1138)
 ... 23 more

Note: I haven't included it, but the PropertyPlaceHolderConfigurer is successfully locating the messages.properties file, but this seems to happen AFTER the above error is output?!

DOES ANYBODY KNOW WHY THIS IS THE CASE AND HOW I CAN OVERCOME THIS PROBLEM?