As I understand, a Spring based web application is initialized as below:
Step 1: Servlet container (e.g. Tomcat) locates the implementation of ServletContainerInitializer, which is SpringServletContainerInitializer.
Step 2: SpringServletContainerInitializer creates DispatcherServlet and ContextLoaderListener
Step 3: DispatcherServlet creates servlet application context. And ContextLoaderListener creates root application context.
Step 1 is defined by Servlet 3.0 spec. Step 2, 3 are totally defined by Spring.
I can see the rational of putting web beans in servlet context and non-web beans in root context. But why do we have to create these 2 contexts in different places, i.e. DispatcherServlet and ContextLoaderListener?
If all we want is just to prepare everything necessary, why not just create both contexts in ContextLoaderListener since it can be seen as the main() method of the whole web application. I think that's more logic and current approach only complicates things up.
ADD 1
Based on @Shailendra's reply, I draw this:
My understanding is, Spring introduced the application context concepts and store them in the Servlet Context. Servlet Context is a concept introduced by java servlet technolgoy.
I guess the DispatcherServlet implementation should have a member variable to hold the key to its servlet application context in the servlet context. So it can access it's own context. Maybe the key is the servlet name.
And the root application context should have a well-known key so everyone can access it.
ADD 2
The well-known key for root application context is this:
(in org.springframework.web.context.WebApplicationContext)
String ROOT_WEB_APPLICATION_CONTEXT_ATTRIBUTE = WebApplicationContext.class.getName() + ".ROOT"; ADD 3
The DispatcherServlet does have a reference to its WebApplicationContext. It inherits the following memeber from FrameworkServlet:
/** WebApplicationContext for this servlet */ private WebApplicationContext webApplicationContext; And
public FrameworkServlet(WebApplicationContext webApplicationContext) { this.webApplicationContext = webApplicationContext; } 
non-webbeans? If your application is running in a servlet container the only context should be the servlet one, AFAIK. Spring also lets you create as many context as you want, but this only will make things more complicated.non-webbeans, I mean those for back-end operations.DispatcherServletcreates its own context, you can have multipleDispatcherServlets how should theContextLoaderListenerknow how many servlets there are and how to configure the context for those. It is not the task / responsibility of each of them. Also it isn't required to have aContextLoaderListeneryou can do perfectly without it, so how would you bootstrap your application then? Also the differentApplicationContextinstances are all stored in theServletContextunder well known names, as that is also how theDispatcherServletdetects the (optional) root context.ContextLoaderListenerto load the child contexts. Also there are more types of servlets constructing anApplicationContextlike theMessageDispatcherServletfor Spring WebServices.