title: Loading applicationcontext.xml when using SpringApplication
body: <p>Could anyone provide an example of a SpringApplication that loads an applicationContext.xml file?</p>
  
  <p>I'm attempting to move my GWT RPC application to a RESTful web service by using a <a href="https://spring.io/guides/gs/rest-service/" rel="noreferrer">Spring's Example</a> (Gradle based). I have an applicationContext.xml but I do not see how to get SpringApplication to load it.  Loading manually via</p>
  
  <p><code>ApplicationContext context = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext(args);</code></p>
  
  <p>results in an empty context.  ...and even if that worked it would be separate from the one returned from</p>
  
  <p><code>SpringApplication.run(Application.class, args);</code></p>
  
  <p>Or is there a way to get external beans into the app context created by SpringApplication.run?</p>