Provides a reference to the current Spring application context, e.g. for bean lookup or resource loading. Auto-detects a ContextLoaderPlugIn context, falling back to the root WebApplicationContext. For typical usage, i.e. accessing middle tier beans, use a root WebApplicationContext.

For classic Struts Actions or Lookup/MappingDispatchActions, use the analogous ActionSupport or LookupDispatchActionSupport / MappingDispatchActionSupport class, respectively.

As an alternative approach, you can wire your Struts Actions themselves as Spring beans, passing references to them via IoC rather than looking up references in a programmatic fashion. Check out DelegatingActionProxy and DelegatingRequestProcessor .