spring-framework/spring-framework-reference/src/mvc.xml

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE chapter PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.5//EN"
"http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd">
<chapter id="mvc">
<title>Web MVC framework</title>
<section id="mvc-introduction">
<title>Introduction to Spring Web MVC framework</title>
<para>The Spring Web model-view-controller (MVC) framework is designed
around a <classname>DispatcherServlet</classname> that dispatches requests
to handlers, with configurable handler mappings, view resolution, locale
and theme resolution as well as support for uploading files. The default
handler is based on the <interfacename>@Controller</interfacename> and
<interfacename>@RequestMapping</interfacename> annotations, offering a
wide range of flexible handling methods. With the introduction of Spring
3.0, the <interfacename>@Controller</interfacename> mechanism also allows
you to create RESTful Web sites and applications, through the
<interfacename>@PathVariable</interfacename> annotation and other
features.</para>
<sidebar id="mvc-open-for-extension">
<title><quote>Open for extension...</quote></title>
<para>A key design principle in Spring Web MVC and in Spring in general
is the <quote><emphasis>Open for extension, closed for
modification</emphasis></quote> principle.</para>
<para>Some methods in the core classes of Spring Web MVC are marked
<literal>final</literal>. As a developer you cannot override these
methods to supply your own behavior. This has not been done arbitrarily,
but specifically with this principal in mind.</para>
<para>For an explanation of this principle, refer to <emphasis>Expert
Spring Web MVC and Web Flow</emphasis> by Seth Ladd and others;
specifically see the section "A Look At Design," on page 117 of the
first edition. Alternatively, see</para>
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para><ulink
url="http://www.objectmentor.com/resources/articles/ocp.pdf">Bob
Martin, The Open-Closed Principle (PDF)</ulink></para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
<para>You cannot add advice to final methods when you use Spring MVC.
For example, you cannot add advice to the
<literal>AbstractController.setSynchronizeOnSession()</literal> method. Refer to
<xref linkend="aop-understanding-aop-proxies" /> for more information on
AOP proxies and why you cannot add advice to final methods.</para>
</sidebar>
<para>In Spring Web MVC you can use any object as a command or
form-backing object; you do not need to implement a framework-specific
interface or base class. Spring's data binding is highly flexible: for
example, it treats type mismatches as validation errors that can be
evaluated by the application, not as system errors. Thus you need not
duplicate your business objects' properties as simple, untyped strings in
your form objects simply to handle invalid submissions, or to convert the
Strings properly. Instead, it is often preferable to bind directly to your
business objects.</para>
<para>Spring's view resolution is extremely flexible. A
<interfacename>Controller</interfacename> is typically responsible for preparing
a model <classname>Map</classname> with data and selecting a view name but it
can also write directly to the response stream and complete the request.
View name resolution is highly configurable through file extension or Accept header
content type negotiation, through bean names, a properties file,
or even a custom <interfacename>ViewResolver</interfacename>
implementation. The model (the M in MVC) is a
<interfacename>Map</interfacename> interface, which allows for the
complete abstraction of the view technology. You can integrate directly with
template based rendering technologies such as JSP, Velocity and Freemarker,
or directly generate XML, JSON, Atom, and many other types of content.
The model <interfacename>Map</interfacename> is simply transformed into an
appropriate format, such as JSP request attributes, a Velocity template
model.</para>
<section id="mvc-features">
<title>Features of Spring Web MVC<!--I moved Features of Spring Web MVC before Pluggability of other MVC implementations. You want to highlight your own imp. first.--></title>
<!--Second line of sidebar refers to JSF; don't you mean JSP? Other refs in this context are to JSP. Also note, sidebar is read-only.-->
<xi:include href="swf-sidebar.xml"
xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude" />
<para>Spring's web module includes many unique web support
features:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para><emphasis>Clear separation of roles</emphasis>. Each role --
controller, validator, command object, form object, model object,
<classname>DispatcherServlet</classname>, handler mapping, view
resolver, and so on -- can be fulfilled by a specialized
object.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><emphasis>Powerful and straightforward configuration of both
framework and application classes as JavaBeans</emphasis>. This
configuration capability includes easy referencing across contexts,
such as from web controllers to business objects and
validators.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><emphasis>Adaptability, non-intrusiveness, and
flexibility.</emphasis> Define any controller method signature you
need, possibly using one of the parameter annotations (such as
@RequestParam, @RequestHeader, @PathVariable, and more) for a given
scenario.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><emphasis>Reusable business code</emphasis>,<emphasis> no need
for duplication</emphasis>. Use existing business objects as command
or form objects instead of mirroring them to extend a particular
framework base class.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><emphasis>Customizable binding and validation</emphasis>. Type
mismatches as application-level validation errors that keep the
offending value, localized date and number binding, and so on
instead of String-only form objects with manual parsing and
conversion to business objects.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><emphasis>Customizable handler mapping and view
resolution</emphasis>. Handler mapping and view resolution
strategies range from simple URL-based configuration, to
sophisticated, purpose-built resolution strategies. Spring is more
flexible than web MVC frameworks that mandate a particular
technique.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><emphasis>Flexible model transfer</emphasis>. Model transfer
with a name/value <interfacename>Map</interfacename> supports easy
integration with any view technology.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><emphasis>Customizable locale and theme resolution, support
for JSPs with or without Spring tag library, support for JSTL,
support for Velocity without the need for extra bridges, and so
on.</emphasis></para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><emphasis>A simple yet powerful JSP tag library known as the
Spring tag library that provides support for features such as data
binding and themes</emphasis>. The custom tags allow for maximum
flexibility in terms of markup code. For information on the tag
library descriptor, see the appendix entitled <xref
linkend="spring.tld" /></para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><emphasis>A JSP form tag library, introduced in Spring 2.0,
that makes writing forms in JSP pages much easier.</emphasis> For
information on the tag library descriptor, see the appendix entitled
<xref linkend="spring-form.tld" /></para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><emphasis>Beans whose lifecycle is scoped to the current HTTP
request or HTTP <interfacename>Session</interfacename>.</emphasis>
This is not a specific feature of Spring MVC itself, but rather of
the <interfacename>WebApplicationContext</interfacename>
container(s) that Spring MVC uses. These bean scopes are described
in <xref linkend="beans-factory-scopes-other" /></para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</section>
<section id="mvc-introduction-pluggability">
<title>Pluggability of other MVC implementations</title>
<para>Non-Spring MVC implementations are preferable for some projects.
Many teams expect to leverage their existing investment in skills and
tools. A large body of knowledge and experience exist for the Struts
framework. If you can abide Struts' architectural flaws, it can be a
viable choice for the web layer; the same applies to WebWork and other
web MVC frameworks.</para>
<para>If you do not want to use Spring's web MVC, but intend to leverage
other solutions that Spring offers, you can integrate the web MVC
framework of your choice with Spring easily. Simply start up a Spring
root application context through its
<classname>ContextLoaderListener</classname>, and access it through
its<!--Identify *its*. do you mean root application context's?-->
<interfacename>ServletContext</interfacename> attribute (or Spring's
respective helper method) from within a Struts or WebWork action. No
"plug-ins" are involved, so no dedicated integration is necessary. From
the web layer's point of view, you simply use Spring as a library, with
the root application context instance as the entry point.</para>
<para>Your registered beans and Spring's services can be at your
fingertips even without Spring's Web MVC. Spring does not compete with
Struts or WebWork in this scenario. It simply addresses the many areas
that the pure web MVC frameworks do not, from bean configuration to data
access and transaction handling. So you can enrich your application with
a Spring middle tier and/or data access tier, even if you just want to
use, for example, the transaction abstraction with JDBC or
Hibernate.</para>
</section>
</section>
<section id="mvc-servlet">
<title>The <classname>DispatcherServlet</classname></title>
<para>Spring's web MVC framework is, like many other web MVC frameworks,
request-driven, designed around a central servlet that dispatches requests
to controllers and offers other functionality that facilitates the
development of web applications. Spring's
<classname>DispatcherServlet</classname> however, does more than just
that. It is completely integrated with the Spring IoC container and as
such allows you to use every other feature that Spring has.</para>
<para>The request processing workflow of the Spring Web MVC
<classname>DispatcherServlet</classname> is illustrated in the following
diagram. The pattern-savvy reader will recognize that the
<classname>DispatcherServlet</classname> is an expression of the
<quote>Front Controller</quote> design pattern (this is a pattern that
Spring Web MVC shares with many other leading web frameworks).</para>
<para><mediaobject>
<imageobject role="fo">
<imagedata align="center" fileref="images/mvc.png" format="PNG" />
</imageobject>
<imageobject role="html">
<imagedata align="center" fileref="images/mvc.png" format="PNG" />
</imageobject>
<caption><para>The request processing workflow in Spring Web MVC
(high level)</para></caption>
</mediaobject></para>
<para>The <classname>DispatcherServlet</classname> is an actual
<interfacename>Servlet</interfacename> (it inherits from the
<classname>HttpServlet</classname> base class), and as such is declared in
the <literal>web.xml</literal> of your web application. You need to map
requests that you want the <classname>DispatcherServlet</classname> to
handle, by using a URL mapping in the same <literal>web.xml</literal>
file. This is standard J2EE servlet configuration; the following example
shows such a <classname>DispatcherServlet</classname> declaration and
mapping:</para>
<programlisting language="xml">&lt;web-app&gt;
&lt;servlet&gt;
&lt;servlet-name&gt;example&lt;/servlet-name&gt;
&lt;servlet-class&gt;org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet&lt;/servlet-class&gt;
&lt;load-on-startup&gt;1&lt;/load-on-startup&gt;
&lt;/servlet&gt;
&lt;servlet-mapping&gt;
&lt;servlet-name&gt;example&lt;/servlet-name&gt;
&lt;url-pattern&gt;/example/*&lt;/url-pattern&gt;
&lt;/servlet-mapping&gt;
&lt;/web-app&gt;</programlisting>
<para>In the preceding example, all requests startig with
<literal>/example</literal> will be handled by the <classname>DispatcherServlet</classname>
instance named <literal>example</literal>. This is only the first step in
setting up Spring Web MVC. <!--The discussion below is a little vague about what you're doing, when you do it, and what you're accomplishing. --><!-- Is the next step shown in the next example screen?-->You
now need to configure the various beans used by the Spring Web MVC
framework (over and above the <classname>DispatcherServlet</classname>
itself).<!--See previous sentence. Add info to indicate where you find info that tells you how to configure beans for MVC framework. --><!--Next paragraph, so what are you telling them to *do* here? --></para>
<para>As detailed in <xref linkend="context-introduction" />,
<interfacename>ApplicationContext</interfacename> instances in Spring can
be scoped. In the Web MVC framework, each
<classname>DispatcherServlet</classname> has its own
<interfacename>WebApplicationContext</interfacename>, which inherits all
the beans already defined in the root
<interfacename>WebApplicationContext</interfacename>. These inherited
beans can be overridden in the servlet-specific scope, and you can define
new scope-specific beans local to a given servlet instance.</para>
<para><mediaobject>
<imageobject role="fo">
<imagedata align="center" fileref="images/mvc-contexts.gif"
format="GIF" />
</imageobject>
<imageobject role="html">
<imagedata align="center" fileref="images/mvc-contexts.gif"
format="GIF" />
</imageobject>
<caption>Context hierarchy in Spring Web MVC</caption>
</mediaobject></para>
<para>Upon initialization of a <classname>DispatcherServlet</classname>,
the framework <!--Spring MVC or Spring Framework?--><emphasis><emphasis>looks
for a file named</emphasis>
<literal>[servlet-name]-servlet.xml</literal></emphasis> in the
<literal>WEB-INF</literal> directory of your web application and creates
the beans defined there, overriding the definitions of any beans defined
with the same name in the global scope.</para>
<para>Consider the following <classname>DispatcherServlet</classname>
servlet configuration (in the <literal>web.xml</literal> file):</para>
<programlisting language="xml">&lt;web-app&gt;
&lt;servlet&gt;
&lt;servlet-name&gt;<emphasis role="bold">golfing</emphasis>&lt;/servlet-name&gt;
&lt;servlet-class&gt;org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet&lt;/servlet-class&gt;
&lt;load-on-startup&gt;1&lt;/load-on-startup&gt;
&lt;/servlet&gt;
&lt;servlet-mapping&gt;
&lt;servlet-name&gt;<emphasis role="bold">golfing</emphasis>&lt;/servlet-name&gt;
&lt;url-pattern&gt;/golfing/*&lt;/url-pattern&gt;
&lt;/servlet-mapping&gt;
&lt;/web-app&gt;</programlisting>
<para>With the above servlet configuration in place, <!--Is this something you need to do (in above example)? -->you
will need to have a file called <literal>/WEB-INF/</literal><emphasis
role="bold">golfing</emphasis><literal>-servlet.xml</literal> in your
application; this file will contain all of your Spring Web MVC-specific
components (beans). You can change the exact location of this
configuration file through a servlet initialization parameter (see below
for details).</para>
<!--See *where* for details? Give x-ref to section talks about how to change the location of the file through servlet init. param.-->
<para>The <interfacename>WebApplicationContext</interfacename> is an
extension of the plain <interfacename>ApplicationContext</interfacename>
that has some extra features necessary for web applications. It differs
from a normal <interfacename>ApplicationContext</interfacename> in that it
is capable of resolving themes (see <xref linkend="mvc-themeresolver" />),
and that it knows which servlet it is associated with (by having a link to
the <interfacename>ServletContext</interfacename>). The
<interfacename>WebApplicationContext</interfacename> is bound in the
<interfacename>ServletContext</interfacename>, and by using static methods
on the <classname>RequestContextUtils</classname> class you can always
look up the <interfacename>WebApplicationContext</interfacename> if you
need access to it.</para>
<para>The Spring <classname>DispatcherServlet</classname> uses special
beans to process requests and render the appropriate views. These beans
are part of Spring Framework. You can configure them in the
<interfacename>WebApplicationContext</interfacename>, just as you
configure any other bean. However, for most beans, sensible defaults are
provided so you initially do not need to configure them. <!--Which beans have defaults? What do you mean you *initially* don't need to configure them? What determines whether you need to and --><!--when, if not *initially*? In table below, indicate which are defaults, which have to be configured.-->These
beans are described in the following table.</para>
<table id="mvc-webappctx-special-beans-tbl">
<title>Special beans in the
<interfacename>WebApplicationContext</interfacename></title>
<tgroup cols="2">
<colspec colname="c1" colwidth="1*" />
<colspec colname="c2" colwidth="4*" />
<thead>
<row>
<entry>Bean type</entry>
<entry>Explanation</entry>
</row>
</thead>
<tbody>
<row>
<entry><link linkend="mvc-controller">controllers</link></entry>
<entry>Form the <literal>C</literal> part of the MVC.<!--Need info about controller function as with others in this list.Reader knows what C stands for.--></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><link linkend="mvc-handlermapping">handler
mappings</link></entry>
<entry>Handle the execution of a list of pre-processors and
post-processors and controllers that will be executed if they
match certain criteria (for example, a matching URL specified with
the controller).</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><link linkend="mvc-viewresolver">view
resolvers</link></entry>
<entry>Resolves view names to views.<!--If it's capable of resolving, just say *resolves*. Like above, handler mappings are capable of handling the execution, but you just say *handle the execution*--></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><link linkend="mvc-localeresolver">locale
resolver</link></entry>
<entry>A <link linkend="mvc-localeresolver">locale resolver</link>
is a component capable of resolving the locale a client is using,
in order to be able to offer internationalized views</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>Theme resolver</entry>
<entry>A <link linkend="mvc-themeresolver">theme resolver</link>
is capable of resolving themes your web application can use, for
example, to offer personalized layouts</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>multipart file resolver</entry>
<entry>Contains functionality to process file uploads from HTML
forms.<!--Here and next one, why not just say processes file uploads, maps executions instead of *contains functionality to*?--></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><link linkend="mvc-exceptionhandlers">handler exception
resolvers</link></entry>
<entry>Contains functionality to map exceptions to views or
implement other more complex exception handling code.</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</table>
<para>After you set up a <classname>DispatcherServlet</classname>, and a
request comes in for that specific
<classname>DispatcherServlet</classname>, the
<classname>DispatcherServlet</classname> starts processing the request as
follows:</para>
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para>The <interfacename>WebApplicationContext</interfacename> is
searched for and bound in the request as an attribute that the
controller and other elements in the process can use. <!--Use to do *what*? Also revise to indicate *what* searches for the WebApplicationContext -->It
is bound by default under the key
<literal>DispatcherServlet.WEB_APPLICATION_CONTEXT_ATTRIBUTE</literal>.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>The locale resolver is bound to the request to enable elements
in the process to resolve the locale to use when processing the
request (rendering the view, preparing data, and so on). If you do not
need locale resolving, you do not need it.</para>
<!--Reword 'if you don't need local resolving, you don't need to use it '. Are you saying locale resolving is optional? If you don't configure it, will this step occur?-->
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>The theme resolver is bound to the request to let elements such
as views determine which theme to use. If you do not use themes, you
can ignore it.</para>
<!-- MLP perhaps say that there are not side effect to this binding, etc... Clarify *ignore it*. Does this step still occur if you don't use themes? -->
<!--And what if you DO use themes, what do you do and when? Same question re locale resolving.-->
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>If you specify a multipart file resolver, the request is
inspected for multiparts; if multiparts are found, the request is
wrapped in a <classname>MultipartHttpServletRequest</classname> for
further processing by other elements in the process. (See <xref
linkend="mvc-multipart-resolver" /> for further information about
multipart handling).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>An appropriate handler is searched for. If a handler is found,
the execution chain associated with the handler (preprocessors,
postprocessors, and controllers) is executed in order to prepare a
model or rendering.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>If a model is returned, the view is rendered. If no model is
returned, (may be due to a preprocessor or postprocessor intercepting
the request, perhaps for security reasons), no view is rendered,
because the request could already have been fulfilled.</para>
<!--fulfilled how and by what?-->
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
<para>Handler exception resolvers that are declared in the
<interfacename>WebApplicationContext</interfacename> pick up exceptions
that are thrown during processing of the request. Using these exception
resolvers allows you to define custom behaviors to address
exceptions.</para>
<para>The Spring <classname>DispatcherServlet</classname> also supports
the return of the <emphasis>last-modification-date</emphasis>, as
specified by the Servlet API. The process of determining the last
modification date for a specific request is straightforward: the
<classname>DispatcherServlet</classname> looks up an appropriate handler
mapping and tests whether the handler that is found implements the
<emphasis><interfacename>LastModified</interfacename></emphasis>
interface. If so, the value of the <literal>long
getLastModified(request)</literal> method of the
<interfacename>LastModified</interfacename> interface is returned to the
client.</para>
<para>You can customize individual
<classname>DispatcherServlet</classname> instances by adding servlet
initialization parameters (<literal>init-param</literal> elements) to the
servlet declaration in the <literal>web.xml</literal> file. See the
following table for the list of supported parameters.</para>
<!--Reword above sentence to specify whether configuring parameters in table configures last-modification-date, or are they further -->
<!--customization for some other purpose? If so, need to explain how you config last-modification-date-->
<table id="mvc-disp-servlet-init-params-tbl">
<title><classname>DispatcherServlet</classname> initialization
parameters</title>
<tgroup cols="2">
<colspec colname="c1" colwidth="1*" />
<colspec colname="c2" colwidth="4*" />
<thead>
<row>
<entry>Parameter</entry>
<entry>Explanation</entry>
</row>
</thead>
<tbody>
<row>
<entry><literal>contextClass</literal></entry>
<entry>Class that implements
<interfacename>WebApplicationContext</interfacename>, which
instantiates the context used by this servlet. By default, the
<classname>XmlWebApplicationContext</classname> is used.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>contextConfigLocation</literal></entry>
<entry>String that is passed to the context instance (specified by
<literal>contextClass</literal>) to indicate where context(s) can
be found. The string consists potentially of multiple strings
(using a comma as a delimiter) to support multiple contexts. In
case of multiple context locations with beans that are defined
twice, the latest location takes precedence.</entry>
<!-- MLP review -->
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>namespace</literal></entry>
<entry>Namespace of the
<interfacename>WebApplicationContext</interfacename>. Defaults to
<literal>[servlet-name]-servlet</literal>.</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</table>
</section>
<section id="mvc-controller">
<title>Implementing Controllers</title>
<para>Controllers provide access to the application behavior that you
typically define through a service interface. <!--I changed preceding to active voice because next sentence refers to user input. Thus *you* do some defining.-->Controllers
interpret user input and transform it into a model that is represented to
the user by the view. Spring implements a controller in a very abstract
way, which enables you to create a wide variety of controllers.</para>
<para>Spring 2.5 introduced an annotation-based programming model for MVC
controllers that uses annotations such as
<interfacename>@RequestMapping</interfacename>,
<interfacename>@RequestParam</interfacename>,
<interfacename>@ModelAttribute</interfacename>, and so on. This annotation
support is available for both Servlet MVC and Portlet MVC. Controllers
implemented in this style do not have to extend specific base classes or
implement specific interfaces. Furthermore, they do not usually have
direct dependencies on Servlet or Portlet APIs, although you can easily
configure access to Servlet or Portlet facilities.</para>
<tip>
<para>Available in the <link linkend="new-in-3.0-samples">samples repository</link>,
a number of web applications leverage the annotation support described in this section
including <emphasis>MvcShowcase</emphasis>, <emphasis>MvcAjax</emphasis>,
<emphasis>MvcBasic</emphasis>, <emphasis>PetClinic</emphasis>,
<emphasis>PetCare</emphasis>, and others.</para>
<!-- MLP Note removed reference to imagedb -->
</tip>
<!--You need an intro sentence here that indicates the *purpose* of the following code. -->
<programlisting language="java">@Controller
public class HelloWorldController {
@RequestMapping("/helloWorld")
public String helloWorld(Model model) {
model.addAttribute("message", "Hello World!");
return "helloWorld";
}
}</programlisting>
<para>As you can see, the <interfacename>@Controller</interfacename> and
<interfacename>@RequestMapping</interfacename> annotations allow flexible
method names and signatures. In this particular example the method accepts
a <classname>Model</classname> and returns a view name as a
<classname>String</classname>, but various other method parameters and
return values can be used as explained later in this section.
<interfacename>@Controller</interfacename> and
<interfacename>@RequestMapping</interfacename> and a number of other
annotations form the basis for the Spring MVC implementation.
This section documents these annotations and
how they are most commonly used in a Servlet environment.</para>
<section id="mvc-ann-controller">
<title>Defining a controller with
<interfacename>@Controller</interfacename></title>
<para>The <interfacename>@Controller</interfacename> annotation
indicates that a particular class serves the role of a
<emphasis>controller</emphasis>. Spring does not require you to extend
any controller base class or reference the Servlet API. However, you can
still reference Servlet-specific features if you need to.</para>
<para>The <interfacename>@Controller</interfacename> annotation acts as
a stereotype for the annotated class, indicating its role. The
dispatcher scans such annotated classes for mapped methods and detects
<interfacename>@RequestMapping</interfacename> annotations (see the next
section).</para>
<para>You can define annotated controller beans explicitly, using a
standard Spring bean definition in the dispatcher's context. However,
the <interfacename>@Controller</interfacename> stereotype also allows
for autodetection, aligned with Spring general support for detecting
component classes in the classpath and auto-registering bean definitions
for them.</para>
<!-- MLP Bev.changed to 'also supports autodetection -->
<para>To enable autodetection of such annotated controllers, you add
component scanning to your configuration. Use the
<emphasis>spring-context</emphasis> schema as shown in the following XML
snippet:</para>
<programlisting language="xml">&lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
&lt;beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:p="http://www.springframework.org/schema/p"
xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
xsi:schemaLocation="
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/context
http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.0.xsd"&gt;
&lt;context:component-scan base-package="org.springframework.samples.petclinic.web"/&gt;
<lineannotation>// ...</lineannotation>
&lt;/beans&gt;</programlisting>
</section>
<section id="mvc-ann-requestmapping">
<title>Mapping Requests With
<interfacename>@RequestMapping</interfacename></title>
<para>You use the <interfacename>@RequestMapping</interfacename>
annotation to map URLs such as <filename>/appointments</filename> onto
an entire class or a particular handler method. Typically the
class-level annotation maps a specific request path (or path pattern)
onto a form controller, with additional method-level annotations
narrowing the primary mapping for a specific HTTP method request method
("GET", "POST", etc.) or an HTTP request parameter condition.</para>
<para>The following example from the <emphasis>Petcare</emphasis> sample shows
a controller in a Spring MVC application that uses this annotation:</para>
<programlisting language="java">@Controller
<emphasis role="bold">@RequestMapping("/appointments")</emphasis>
public class AppointmentsController {
private final AppointmentBook appointmentBook;
@Autowired
public AppointmentsController(AppointmentBook appointmentBook) {
this.appointmentBook = appointmentBook;
}
<emphasis role="bold">@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.GET)</emphasis>
public Map&lt;String, Appointment&gt; get() {
return appointmentBook.getAppointmentsForToday();
}
<emphasis role="bold">@RequestMapping(value="/{day}", method = RequestMethod.GET)</emphasis>
public Map&lt;String, Appointment&gt; getForDay(@PathVariable @DateTimeFormat(iso=ISO.DATE) Date day, Model model) {
return appointmentBook.getAppointmentsForDay(day);
}
<emphasis role="bold">@RequestMapping(value="/new", method = RequestMethod.GET)</emphasis>
public AppointmentForm getNewForm() {
return new AppointmentForm();
}
<emphasis role="bold">@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.POST)</emphasis>
public String add(@Valid AppointmentForm appointment, BindingResult result) {
if (result.hasErrors()) {
return "appointments/new";
}
appointmentBook.addAppointment(appointment);
return "redirect:/appointments";
}
}</programlisting>
<para>In the example, the <interfacename>@RequestMapping</interfacename>
is used in a number of places. The first usage is on the type (class)
level, which indicates that all handling methods on this controller are
relative to the <filename>/appointments</filename> path. The
<methodname>get()</methodname> method has a further
<interfacename>@RequestMapping</interfacename> refinement: it only
accepts GET requests, meaning that an HTTP GET for
<filename>/appointments</filename> invokes this method. The
<methodname>post()</methodname> has a similar refinement, and the
<methodname>getNewForm()</methodname> combines the definition of HTTP
method and path into one, so that GET requests for
<filename>appointments/new</filename> are handled by that method.</para>
<para>The <methodname>getForDay()</methodname> method shows another
usage of <interfacename>@RequestMapping</interfacename>: URI templates.
(See <link linkend="mvc-ann-requestmapping-uri-templates">the next
section </link>).</para>
<para>A <interfacename>@RequestMapping</interfacename> on the class
level is not required. Without it, all paths are simply absolute, and
not relative. The following example from the <emphasis>PetClinic</emphasis> sample
application shows a multi-action controller using
<classname>@RequestMapping</classname>:</para>
<programlisting language="java">@Controller
public class ClinicController {
private final Clinic clinic;
@Autowired
public ClinicController(Clinic clinic) {
this.clinic = clinic;
}
<emphasis role="bold">@RequestMapping("/")</emphasis>
public void welcomeHandler() {
}
<emphasis role="bold">@RequestMapping("/vets")</emphasis>
public ModelMap vetsHandler() {
return new ModelMap(this.clinic.getVets());
}
}</programlisting>
<tip>
<title>Using <interfacename>@RequestMapping</interfacename> On Interface Methods</title>
<para>
A common pitfall when working with annotated controller classes
happens when applying functionality that requires creating a proxy
for the controller object (e.g.
<interfacename>@Transactional</interfacename> methods). Usually you
will introduce an interface for the controller in order to use JDK
dynamic proxies. To make this work you must move the
<interfacename>@RequestMapping</interfacename> annotations to the
interface as well as the mapping mechanism can only "see" the interface
exposed by the proxy. Alternatively, you could activate
<code>proxy-target-class="true"</code> in the configuration for the
functionality applied to the controller (in our transaction scenario
in <code>&lt;tx:annotation-driven /&gt;</code>). Doing so indicates
that CGLIB-based subclass proxies should be used instead of
interface-based JDK proxies. For more information on various proxying
mechanisms see <xref linkend="aop-proxying"/>.
</para>
</tip>
<section id="mvc-ann-requestmapping-uri-templates">
<title>URI Template Patterns</title>
<para><emphasis>URI templates</emphasis> can be used for convenient access to selected
parts of a URL in a <interfacename>@RequestMapping</interfacename> method.</para>
<para>A URI Template is a URI-like string, containing one or more
variable names. When you substitute values for these variables, the
template becomes a URI. The <ulink
url="http://bitworking.org/projects/URI-Templates/">proposed RFC</ulink> for URI Templates
defines how a URI is parameterized. For example, the URI Template
<code>http://www.example.com/users/{userId}</code> contains the variable
<emphasis>userId</emphasis>. Assigning the value <emphasis>fred</emphasis> to the variable
yields <code>http://www.example.com/users/fred</code>.</para>
<para>In Spring MVC you can use the <interfacename>@PathVariable</interfacename> annotation on
a method argument to bind it to the value of a URI template variable:</para>
<programlisting language="java">@RequestMapping(value="/owners/{ownerId}", method=RequestMethod.GET)
public String findOwner(<emphasis role="bold">@PathVariable</emphasis> String ownerId, Model model) {
Owner owner = ownerService.findOwner(ownerId);
model.addAttribute("owner", owner);
return "displayOwner";
}
</programlisting>
<para>The URI Template "<literal>/owners/{ownerId}</literal>"
specifies the variable name <literal>ownerId</literal>. When the
controller handles this request, the value of <literal>ownerId</literal>
is set to the value found in the appropriate part of the URI.
For example, when a request comes in for <code>/owners/fred</code>, the value
of <literal>ownerId</literal> is <literal>fred</literal>.</para>
<tip>
<para>To process the @PathVariable annotation, Spring MVC needs to find the
matching URI template variable by name. You can specify it in the annotation:</para>
<programlisting language="java">@RequestMapping(value="/owners/{ownerId}", method=RequestMethod.GET)
public String findOwner(<emphasis role="bold">@PathVariable</emphasis>("ownerId") String theOwner, Model model) {
// implementation omitted
}</programlisting>
<para>Or if the URI template variable name matches the method argument name
you can omit that detail. As long as your code is not compiled without debugging
information, Spring MVC will match the method argument name to the URI template variable name:</para>
<programlisting language="java">@RequestMapping(value="/owners/{ownerId}", method=RequestMethod.GET)
public String findOwner(<emphasis role="bold">@PathVariable</emphasis> String ownerId, Model model) {
// implementation omitted
}</programlisting>
</tip>
<para>A method can have any number of <interfacename>@PathVariable</interfacename> annotations:</para>
<programlisting language="java">@RequestMapping(value="/owners/{ownerId}/pets/{petId}", method=RequestMethod.GET)
public String findPet(<emphasis role="bold">@PathVariable</emphasis> String ownerId, <emphasis
role="bold">@PathVariable</emphasis> String petId, Model model) {
Owner owner = ownerService.findOwner(ownerId);
Pet pet = owner.getPet(petId);
model.addAttribute("pet", pet);
return "displayPet";
}
</programlisting>
<para>A URI template can be assembled from type and path level <emphasis>@RequestMapping</emphasis>
annotations. As a result the <methodname>findPet()</methodname> method can be invoked with a URL
such as <filename>/owners/42/pets/21</filename>.</para>
<programlisting language="java">@Controller
@RequestMapping(<emphasis role="bold">"/owners/{ownerId}"</emphasis>)
public class RelativePathUriTemplateController {
@RequestMapping(<emphasis role="bold">"/pets/{petId}"</emphasis>)
public void findPet(@PathVariable String ownerId, @PathVariable String petId, Model model) {
// implementation omitted
}
}
</programlisting>
<para>A <interfacename>@PathVariable</interfacename> argument can be of
<emphasis role="bold">any simple type</emphasis> such as int, long, Date, etc.
Spring automatically converts to the appropriate type or throws a
<classname>TypeMismatchException</classname> if it fails to do so.
You can also register support for parsing additional data types.
See <xref linkend="mvc-ann-typeconversion"/> and <xref linkend="mvc-ann-webdatabinder" />.
</para>
</section>
<section id="mvc-ann-requestmapping-uri-templates-regex">
<title>URI Template Patterns with Regular Expressions</title>
<para>Sometimes you need more precision in defining URI template variables.
Consider the URL <code>"/spring-web/spring-web-3.0.5.jar"</code>.
How do you break it down into multiple parts?</para>
<para>The <interfacename>@RequestMapping</interfacename> annotation supports the
use of regular expressions in URI template variables.
The syntax is <code>{varName:regex}</code> where the first part defines the
variable name and the second - the regular expression.For example:</para>
<programlisting language="java">
@RequestMapping("/spring-web/{symbolicName:[a-z-]+}-{version:\d\.\d\.\d}.{extension:\.[a-z]}")
public void handle(@PathVariable String version, @PathVariable String extension) {
// ...
}
}
</programlisting>
</section>
<section id="mvc-ann-requestmapping-patterns">
<title>Path Patterns</title>
<para>In addition to URI templates, the
<interfacename>@RequestMapping</interfacename> annotation also
supports Ant-style path patterns (for example,
<filename>/myPath/*.do</filename>). A combination of URI templates and
Ant-style globs is also supported (for example,
<filename>/owners/*/pets/{petId}</filename>).</para>
</section>
<section id="mvc-ann-requestmapping-consumes">
<title>Consumable Media Types</title>
<para>
You can narrow the primary mapping by specifying a list of consumable media types.
The request will be matched only if the <emphasis>Content-Type</emphasis> request header
matches the specified media type. For example:
</para>
<programlisting language="java">@Controller
@RequestMapping(value = "/pets", method = RequestMethod.POST, <emphasis role="bold">consumes="application/json"</emphasis>)
public void addPet(@RequestBody Pet pet, Model model) {
// implementation omitted
}
</programlisting>
<para>
Consumable media type expressions can also be negated as in <emphasis>!text/plain</emphasis>
to match to all requests other than those with <emphasis>Content-Type</emphasis> of
<emphasis>text/plain</emphasis>.
</para>
<tip>
<para>The <emphasis>consumes</emphasis> condition is supported on the type and on the
method level. Unlike most other conditions, when used at the type level, method-level
consumable types override rather than extend type-level consumeable types.</para>
</tip>
</section>
<section id="mvc-ann-requestmapping-produces">
<title>Producible Media Types</title>
<para>
You can narrow the primary mapping by specifying a list of producible media types.
The request will be matched only if the <emphasis>Accept</emphasis> request header
matches one of these values. Furthermore, use of the <emphasis>produces</emphasis>
condition ensures the actual content type used to generate the response respects
the media types specified in the <emphasis>produces</emphasis> condition.
For example:
</para>
<programlisting language="java">@Controller
@RequestMapping(value = "/pets/{petId}", method = RequestMethod.GET, <emphasis role="bold">produces="application/json"</emphasis>)
@ResponseBody
public Pet getPet(@PathVariable String petId, Model model) {
// implementation omitted
}
</programlisting>
<para>
Just like with <emphasis>consumes</emphasis>, producible media type
expressions can be negated as in <emphasis>!text/plain</emphasis> to match
to all requests other than those with an <emphasis>Accept</emphasis> header value of
<emphasis>text/plain</emphasis>.
</para>
<tip>
<para>The <emphasis>produces</emphasis> condition is supported on the type and on the method level.
Unlike most other conditions, when used at the type level, method-level producible types
override rather than extend type-level producible types.</para>
</tip>
</section>
<section id="mvc-ann-requestmapping-params-and-headers">
<title>Request Parameters and Header Values</title>
<para>You can narrow request matching through request parameter conditions such as
<code>"myParam"</code>, <code>"!myParam"</code>, or <code>"myParam=myValue"</code>.
The first two test for request parameter presense/absence and the third for a specific parameter value.
Here is an example with a request parameter value condition:</para>
<programlisting language="java">@Controller
@RequestMapping("/owners/{ownerId}")
public class RelativePathUriTemplateController {
@RequestMapping(value = "/pets/{petId}", method = RequestMethod.GET, <emphasis role="bold">params="myParam=myValue"</emphasis>)
public void findPet(@PathVariable String ownerId, @PathVariable String petId, Model model) {
// implementation omitted
}
}
</programlisting>
<para>The same can be done to test for request header presence/absence or
to match based on a specific request header value:</para>
<programlisting language="java">@Controller
@RequestMapping("/owners/{ownerId}")
public class RelativePathUriTemplateController {
@RequestMapping(value = "/pets", method = RequestMethod.GET, <emphasis role="bold">headers="myHeader=myValue"</emphasis>)
public void findPet(@PathVariable String ownerId, @PathVariable String petId, Model model) {
// implementation omitted
}
}</programlisting>
<tip>
<para>Although you can match to <emphasis>Content-Type</emphasis> and
<emphasis>Accept</emphasis> header values using media type wildcards (for example
<emphasis>"content-type=text/*"</emphasis> will match to <emphasis>"text/plain"</emphasis>
and <emphasis>"text/html"</emphasis>), it is recommended to use the
<emphasis>consumes</emphasis> and <emphasis>produces</emphasis> conditions
respectively instead. They are intended specifically for that purpose.
</para>
</tip>
</section>
</section>
<section id="mvc-ann-methods">
<title>Defining <interface>@RequestMapping</interface> handler methods</title>
<para>An <classname>@RequestMapping</classname> handler method can have a very flexible
signatures. The supported method arguments and return values are described in the
following section. Most arguments can be used in arbitrary order with the only
exception of <classname>BindingResult</classname> arguments. This is described
in the next section.
</para>
<section id="mvc-ann-arguments">
<title>Supported method argument types</title>
<para>The following are the supported method arguments:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Request or response objects (Servlet API). Choose any
specific request or response type, for example
<interfacename>ServletRequest</interfacename> or
<interfacename>HttpServletRequest</interfacename>.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Session object (Servlet API): of type
<interfacename>HttpSession</interfacename>. An argument of this
type enforces the presence of a corresponding session. As a
consequence, such an argument is never
<literal>null</literal>.</para>
<note>
<para>Session access may not be thread-safe, in particular in
a Servlet environment. Consider setting the
<classname>AnnotationMethodHandlerAdapter</classname>'s
"synchronizeOnSession" flag to "true" if multiple requests are
allowed to access a session concurrently.</para>
</note>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><classname>org.springframework.web.context.request.WebRequest</classname>
or
<classname>org.springframework.web.context.request.NativeWebRequest</classname>.
Allows for generic request parameter access as well as
request/session attribute access, without ties to the native
Servlet/Portlet API.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><classname>java.util.Locale</classname> for the current
request locale, determined by the most specific locale resolver
available, in effect, the configured
<interfacename>LocaleResolver</interfacename> in a Servlet
environment.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><classname>java.io.InputStream</classname> /
<classname>java.io.Reader</classname> for access to the
request's content. This value is the raw InputStream/Reader as
exposed by the Servlet API.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><classname>java.io.OutputStream</classname> /
<classname>java.io.Writer</classname> for generating the
response's content. This value is the raw OutputStream/Writer as
exposed by the Servlet API.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><interfacename>java.security.Principal</interfacename>
containing the currently authenticated user.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><classname>@PathVariable</classname> annotated parameters
for access to URI template variables. See <xref
linkend="mvc-ann-requestmapping-uri-templates" />.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><classname>@RequestParam</classname> annotated parameters
for access to specific Servlet request parameters. Parameter
values are converted to the declared method argument type. See
<xref linkend="mvc-ann-requestparam" />.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><interfacename>@RequestHeader</interfacename> annotated parameters
for access to specific Servlet request HTTP headers. Parameter
values are converted to the declared method argument
type.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><interfacename>@RequestBody</interfacename> annotated parameters
for access to the HTTP request body. Parameter values are
converted to the declared method argument type using
<interfacename>HttpMessageConverter</interfacename>s. See <xref
linkend="mvc-ann-requestbody" />.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><interfacename>@RequestPart</interfacename> annotated parameters
for access to the content of a "multipart/form-data" request part.
Parameter values are converted to the declared method argument type using
<interfacename>HttpMessageConverter</interfacename>s. See <xref
linkend="mvc-ann-requestpart" />.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><classname>HttpEntity&lt;?&gt;</classname> parameters
for access to the Servlet request HTTP headers and contents. The request stream will be
converted to the entity body using
<interfacename>HttpMessageConverter</interfacename>s. See <xref
linkend="mvc-ann-httpentity" />.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><interfacename>java.util.Map</interfacename> /
<interfacename>org.springframework.ui.Model</interfacename> /
<classname>org.springframework.ui.ModelMap</classname> for
enriching the implicit model that is exposed to the web
view.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Command or form objects to bind request parameters to bean
properties (via setters) or directly to fields, with
customizable type conversion, depending on
<classname>@InitBinder</classname> methods and/or the
HandlerAdapter configuration. See the
<literal>webBindingInitializer</literal> property on
<classname>RequestMappingHandlerAdapter</classname>. Such
command objects along with their validation results will be
exposed as model attributes by default, using the command class
class name - e.g. model attribute "orderAddress" for a command
object of type "some.package.OrderAddress".
The <classname>ModelAttribute</classname> annotation can be used
on a method argument to customize the model attribute name used.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><classname>org.springframework.validation.Errors</classname>
/
<classname>org.springframework.validation.BindingResult</classname>
validation results for a preceding command or form object (the
immediately preceding method argument).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><classname>org.springframework.web.bind.support.SessionStatus</classname>
status handle for marking form processing as complete, which
triggers the cleanup of session attributes that have been
indicated by the <classname>@SessionAttributes</classname>
annotation at the handler type level.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist></para>
<para>The <interfacename>Errors</interfacename> or
<interfacename>BindingResult</interfacename> parameters have to follow
the model object that is being bound immediately as the method
signature might have more that one model object and Spring will create
a separate <interfacename>BindingResult</interfacename> instance for
each of them so the following sample won't work:</para>
<example>
<title>Invalid ordering of BindingResult and @ModelAttribute</title>
<programlisting language="java">@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.POST)
public String processSubmit(<emphasis role="bold">@ModelAttribute("pet") Pet pet</emphasis>,
Model model, <emphasis role="bold">BindingResult result</emphasis>) { … }</programlisting>
<para>Note, that there is a <interfacename>Model</interfacename>
parameter in between <classname>Pet</classname> and
<interfacename>BindingResult</interfacename>. To get this working
you have to reorder the parameters as follows:</para>
<programlisting language="java">@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.POST)
public String processSubmit(<emphasis role="bold">@ModelAttribute("pet") Pet pet</emphasis>,
<emphasis role="bold">BindingResult result</emphasis>, Model model) { … }</programlisting>
</example>
</section>
<section id="mvc-ann-return-types">
<title>Supported method return types</title>
<para>The following are the supported return types:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>A <classname>ModelAndView</classname> object, with the
model implicitly enriched with command objects and the results
of <literal>@ModelAttribute</literal> annotated reference data
accessor methods.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>A <interfacename>Model</interfacename> object, with the
view name implicitly determined through a
<interfacename>RequestToViewNameTranslator</interfacename> and
the model implicitly enriched with command objects and the
results of <literal>@ModelAttribute</literal> annotated
reference data accessor methods.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>A <interfacename>Map</interfacename> object for exposing a
model, with the view name implicitly determined through a
<interfacename>RequestToViewNameTranslator</interfacename> and
the model implicitly enriched with command objects and the
results of <literal>@ModelAttribute</literal> annotated
reference data accessor methods.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>A <interfacename>View</interfacename> object, with the
model implicitly determined through command objects and
<literal>@ModelAttribute</literal> annotated reference data
accessor methods. The handler method may also programmatically
enrich the model by declaring a
<interfacename>Model</interfacename> argument (see above).<!--see above where? Need more explicit reference. same problem with next item.--></para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>A <classname>String</classname> value that is interpreted
as the logical view name, with the model implicitly determined
through command objects and <literal>@ModelAttribute</literal>
annotated reference data accessor methods. The handler method
may also programmatically enrich the model by declaring a
<interfacename>Model</interfacename> argument (see
above).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><literal>void</literal> if the method handles the response
itself (by writing the response content directly, declaring an
argument of type <interfacename>ServletResponse</interfacename>
/ <interfacename>HttpServletResponse</interfacename> for that
purpose) or if the view name is supposed to be implicitly
determined through a
<interfacename>RequestToViewNameTranslator</interfacename> (not
declaring a response argument in the handler method
signature).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>If the method is annotated with
<interfacename>@ResponseBody</interfacename>, the return type is
written to the response HTTP body. The return value will be
converted to the declared method argument type using
<interfacename>HttpMessageConverter</interfacename>s. See <xref
linkend="mvc-ann-responsebody" />.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>A <classname>HttpEntity&lt;?&gt;</classname> or
<classname>ResponseEntity&lt;?&gt;</classname> object
to provide access to the Servlet response HTTP headers and
contents. The entity body will be converted to the response
stream using
<interfacename>HttpMessageConverter</interfacename>s. See <xref
linkend="mvc-ann-httpentity" />.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Any other return type is considered to be a single model
attribute to be exposed to the view, using the attribute name
specified through <literal>@ModelAttribute</literal> at the
method level (or the default attribute name based on the return
type class name). The model is implicitly enriched with command
objects and the results of <literal>@ModelAttribute</literal>
annotated reference data accessor methods.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
</section>
<section id="mvc-ann-requestparam">
<title>Binding request parameters to method parameters with
<interfacename>@RequestParam</interfacename></title>
<para>Use the <classname>@RequestParam</classname> annotation to bind
request parameters to a method parameter in your controller.</para>
<para>The following code snippet shows the usage:</para>
<programlisting language="java">@Controller
@RequestMapping("/pets")
@SessionAttributes("pet")
public class EditPetForm {
<lineannotation>// ...</lineannotation>
@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.GET)
public String setupForm(<emphasis role="bold">@RequestParam("petId") int petId</emphasis>, ModelMap model) {
Pet pet = this.clinic.loadPet(petId);
model.addAttribute("pet", pet);
return "petForm";
}
<lineannotation>// ...</lineannotation>
</programlisting>
<para>Parameters using this annotation are required by default, but
you can specify that a parameter is optional by setting
<interfacename>@RequestParam</interfacename>'s
<literal>required</literal> attribute to <literal>false</literal>
(e.g., <literal>@RequestParam(value="id",
required=false)</literal>).</para>
<para>Type conversion is applied automatically if the target method parameter
type is not <classname>String</classname>.
See <xref linkend="mvc-ann-typeconversion"/>.</para>
</section>
<section id="mvc-ann-requestbody">
<title>Mapping the request body with the @RequestBody
annotation</title>
<para>The <classname>@RequestBody</classname> method parameter
annotation indicates that a method parameter should be bound to the
value of the HTTP request body. For example:</para>
<programlisting language="java">@RequestMapping(value = "/something", method = RequestMethod.PUT)
public void handle(@RequestBody String body, Writer writer) throws IOException {
writer.write(body);
}</programlisting>
<para>You convert the request body to the method argument by using an
<interfacename>HttpMessageConverter</interfacename>.
<interfacename>HttpMessageConverter</interfacename> is responsible for
converting from the HTTP request message to an object and converting
from an object to the HTTP response body.
The <classname>RequestMappingHandlerAdapter</classname> supports the
<classname>@RequestBody</classname> annotation with the following default
<interfacename>HttpMessageConverters</interfacename>:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para><classname>ByteArrayHttpMessageConverter</classname>
converts byte arrays.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><classname>StringHttpMessageConverter</classname> converts
strings.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><classname>FormHttpMessageConverter</classname> converts
form data to/from a MultiValueMap&lt;String, String&gt;.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><classname>SourceHttpMessageConverter</classname> converts
to/from a javax.xml.transform.Source.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>For more information on these converters, see <link
linkend="rest-message-conversion">Message Converters</link>. Also note
that if using the MVC namespace, a wider range of message converters
are registered by default. See <xref linkend="mvc-annotation-driven"/>
for more information.</para>
<para>If you intend to read and write XML, you will need to configure the
<classname>MarshallingHttpMessageConverter</classname> with a
specific <interfacename>Marshaller</interfacename> and
an <interfacename>Unmarshaller</interfacename> implementation from the
<classname>org.springframework.oxm</classname> package.
For example:</para>
<programlisting language="xml">&lt;bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.RequestMappingHandlerAdapter"&gt;
&lt;property name="messageConverters"&gt;
&lt;util:list id="beanList"&gt;
&lt;ref bean="stringHttpMessageConverter"/&gt;
&lt;ref bean="marshallingHttpMessageConverter"/&gt;
&lt;/util:list&gt;
&lt;/property
&lt;/bean&gt;
&lt;bean id="stringHttpMessageConverter"
class="org.springframework.http.converter.StringHttpMessageConverter"/&gt;
&lt;bean id="marshallingHttpMessageConverter"
class="org.springframework.http.converter.xml.MarshallingHttpMessageConverter"&gt;
&lt;property name="marshaller" ref="castorMarshaller" /&gt;
&lt;property name="unmarshaller" ref="castorMarshaller" /&gt;
&lt;/bean&gt;
&lt;bean id="castorMarshaller" class="org.springframework.oxm.castor.CastorMarshaller"/&gt;
</programlisting>
<para>An <classname>@RequestBody</classname> method parameter can be annotated with
<classname>@Valid</classname>, in which case it will validated using the configured
<classname>Validator</classname> instance. When using the MVC namespace a JSR-303
validator is configured automatically assuming a JSR-303 implementation is available
on the classpath. If validation fails a <classname>RequestBodyNotValidException</classname>
is raised. The exception is handled by the <classname>DefaultHandlerExceptionResolver</classname>
and results in a <literal>400</literal> error sent back to the client along with
a message containing the validation errors.</para>
<note>
<para> Also see <xref linkend="mvc-annotation-driven"/> for information on
configuring message converters and a validator through the MVC namespace.</para>
</note>
</section>
<section id="mvc-ann-requestpart">
<title>Mapping the content of a part of a "multipart/form-data" request with the
<interfacename>@RequestPart</interfacename> annotation</title>
<para>A "multipart/form-data" request contains a series of parts each with its own
headers and content. It is commonly used for handling file uploads on a form --
see <xref linkend="mvc-multipart"/> -- but can also be used to send or receive
a request with multiple types of content.</para>
<para>The <interfacename>@RequestPart</interfacename> annotation works very similarly to the
<interfacename>@RequestBody</interfacename> annotation except instead of looking in the
body of the HTTP request, it binds the method parameter to the content of one of the
parts of a "multipart/form-data" request. Here is an exampe:</para>
<programlisting language="java">
@RequestMapping(value="/configurations", method = RequestMethod.POST)
public String onSubmit(<emphasis role="bold">@RequestPart("meta-data") MetaData metadata</emphasis>) {
<lineannotation>// ...</lineannotation>
}
</programlisting>
<para>The actual request may look like this:</para>
<programlisting language="xml">
POST /configurations
Content-Type: multipart/mixed
--edt7Tfrdusa7r3lNQc79vXuhIIMlatb7PQg7Vp
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="meta-data"
Content-Type: application/json; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
{
"name": "value"
}
--edt7Tfrdusa7r3lNQc79vXuhIIMlatb7PQg7Vp
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="file-data"; filename="file.properties"
Content-Type: text/xml
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
... File Data ...
</programlisting>
<para>In the above example, the <literal>metadata</literal> argument is bound to the content
of the first part of the request called <literal>"meta-data"</literal> containing JSON content.
In this case we specified the name of the request part in the
<interfacename>@RequestPart</interfacename> annotation but we might have been able to leave it
out if the name of the method argument matched the request part name.</para>
<para>Just like with <interfacename>@RequestBody</interfacename> you convert the content of
the request part to the method argument type by using an
<classname>HttpMessageConverter</classname>. Also you can add <literal>@Valid</literal>
to the method argument to have the resulting object automatically validated.
If validation fails a <classname>RequestPartNotValidException</classname> is raised.
The exception is handled by the <classname>DefaultHandlerExceptionResolver</classname> and
results in a <literal>400</literal> error sent back to the client along with a message
containing the validation errors.</para>
</section>
<section id="mvc-ann-responsebody">
<title>Mapping the response body with the <interfacename>@ResponseBody</interfacename>
annotation</title>
<para>The <interfacename>@ResponseBody</interfacename> annotation is
similar to <interfacename>@RequestBody</interfacename>. This
annotation can be put on a method and
indicates that the return type should be written straight to the HTTP
response body (and not placed in a Model, or interpreted as a view
name). For example:</para>
<programlisting language="java">@RequestMapping(value = "/something", method = RequestMethod.PUT)
@ResponseBody
public String helloWorld() {
return "Hello World";
}</programlisting>
<para>The above example will result in the text <literal>Hello
World</literal> being written to the HTTP response stream.</para>
<para>As with <interfacename>@RequestBody</interfacename>, Spring
converts the returned object to a response body by using an
<interfacename>HttpMessageConverter</interfacename>. For more
information on these converters, see the previous section and <link
linkend="rest-message-conversion">Message Converters</link>.</para>
</section>
<section id="mvc-ann-httpentity">
<title>Using <classname>HttpEntity&lt;?&gt;</classname></title>
<para>The <classname>HttpEntity</classname> is similar to
<interfacename>@RequestBody</interfacename> and
<interfacename>@ResponseBody</interfacename>. Besides getting
access to the request and response body, <classname>HttpEntity</classname>
(and the response-specific subclass <classname>ResponseEntity</classname>)
also allows access to the request and response headers, like so:</para>
<programlisting language="java">@RequestMapping("/something")
public ResponseEntity&lt;String&gt; handle(HttpEntity&lt;byte[]&gt; requestEntity) throws UnsupportedEncodingException {
String requestHeader = requestEntity.getHeaders().getFirst("MyRequestHeader"));
byte[] requestBody = requestEntity.getBody();
// do something with request header and body
HttpHeaders responseHeaders = new HttpHeaders();
responseHeaders.set("MyResponseHeader", "MyValue");
return new ResponseEntity&lt;String&gt;("Hello World", responseHeaders, HttpStatus.CREATED);
}</programlisting>
<para>The above example gets the value of the <literal>MyRequestHeader</literal> request
header, and reads the body as a byte array. It adds the <literal>MyResponseHeader</literal>
to the response, writes <literal>Hello World</literal> to the response
stream, and sets the response status code to 201 (Created).</para>
<para>As with <interfacename>@RequestBody</interfacename> and
<interfacename>@ResponseBody</interfacename>, Spring
uses <interfacename>HttpMessageConverter</interfacename> to convert
from and to the request and response streams. For more
information on these converters, see the previous section and <link
linkend="rest-message-conversion">Message Converters</link>.</para>
</section>
<section id="mvc-ann-modelattrib-methods">
<title>Using <interfacename>@ModelAttribute</interfacename> on a controller method</title>
<para>The <interfacename>@ModelAttribute</interfacename> annotation can be used on a
method or on a method argument. This section explains its usage on a method while the
next section explains its usage on a method argument.</para>
<para>An <interfacename>@ModelAttribute</interfacename> on a method indicates a method
for adding model attributes. A few examples:</para>
<programlisting language="java">@ModelAttribute
public void populateModel(Model model) {
model.addAttribute("types", this.clinic.getPetTypes();
// add more attributes ...
}
@ModelAttribute
public void addAccount(@RequestParam String number, Model model) {
Account account = accountManager.findAccount(number);
model.addAttribute(account);
}
@ModelAttribute
public Account addAccount(@RequestParam String number) {
return accountManager.findAccount(number);
}
</programlisting>
<para><interfacename>@ModelAttribute</interfacename> methods are not associated
with any request mappings. Simply they are invoked prior
to the invocation of every
<interfacename>@RequestMapping</interfacename> method in the same controller.
In terms of method arguments they support the same argument types as
<interfacename>@RequestMapping</interfacename> methods, hence allowing access to request
parameters, path variables, and so on -- see <xref linkend="mvc-ann-arguments"/>
for a complete listing.</para>
<para>There are two common use cases for <interfacename>@ModelAttribute</interfacename>
methods. One, is to add commonly needed model attributes - see the first example
above where the model is populated with pet types to be shown in a drop-down.
The second use case is to pre-load a command object - see the second and third
examples above with the Account object (more on command objects in the next section).</para>
<para>Note the two styles of <interfacename>@ModelAttribute</interfacename> methods.
In one style, the method accepts a <classname>Model</classname> and adds any number
of model attributes to it. In the second style, the method adds an attribute implicitly
by having it as its return value. That results in the object being added as an
attribute to the model. You can choose between the two styles depending on
whether you need to add one model attribute or multiple.</para>
<para>A controller can have any number of <interfacename>@ModelAttribute</interfacename>
methods. All such methods are invoked before <interfacename>@RequestMapping</interfacename>
methods within the same controller each contributing model attributes.</para>
<para>What happens when a model attribute name is not explicitly provided? In such cases
a default name is assigned to the model attribute.
For example if the method returns an object of type <classname>Account</classname>,
the default name used is "account". However, you can also change it to something else
through the value of the <interfacename>@ModelAttribute</interfacename> annotation.
Or if adding attributes directly to the <classname>Model</classname>, use the
appropriate overloaded <literal>addAttribute(..)</literal> method providing
both the attribute name and the attribute value.</para>
<para>Lastly the <interfacename>@ModelAttribute</interfacename> annotation can also
be used directly on an <interfacename>@RequestMapping</interfacename> method. In this
cause, the return value of the <interfacename>@RequestMapping</interfacename> method
will be added as a model attribute and the view name will be derived using
a convention -- see <xref linkend="mvc-coc-r2vnt"/>.</para>
</section>
<section id="mvc-ann-modelattrib-method-args">
<title>Using <interfacename>@ModelAttribute</interfacename> on a controller method argument</title>
<para>As explained in the previous section an <interfacename>@ModelAttribute</interfacename>
annotation can be used on a method or on a method argument. When used on a method argument,
the <interfacename>@ModelAttribute</interfacename> annotation indicates a command object. A command
object is an object with properties (e.g. <classname>Account</classname> rather than
a simple type like <literal>int</literal> or <literal>String</literal>) that is used to
populate a form or reversely to be populated with the data from an HTML form.
As you will see command objects can significantly automate the process of
working with forms -- rather than dealing with individual form
parameters one at a time you'll be have them in a one command object.</para>
<para>To be more precise annotating a method argument with
<interfacename>@ModelAttribute</interfacename> means 3 things:
<orderedlist>
<listitem>The command object should be located and/or instantiated.</listitem>
<listitem>It should be populated with request parameters from the current request.</listitem>
<listitem>The object should be added to the model.</listitem>
</orderedlist>
See the following example:
</para>
<programlisting language="java">
@RequestMapping(value="/owners/{ownerId}/pets/{petId}/edit", method = RequestMethod.POST)
public String processSubmit(<emphasis role="bold">@ModelAttribute("pet") Pet pet</emphasis>) {
}</programlisting>
<para>The <interfacename>@ModelAttribute</interfacename> annotation
designates "pet" as a command object. But where does the object come from? There are two options.
It may have been added to the model by an <interfacename>@ModelAttribute</interfacename>
method as explained in the previous section. Or otherwise if it's not already in the model, it
is instantiated through the default constructor. Typically if the object needs to be retrieved
from a database first, you can create an <interfacename>@ModelAttribute</interfacename>
method to do that. Or otherwise rely on the default constructor. If multiple methods in the
controller work on the same object, you can have it stored in the HTTP session between requests.
That is explained in <xref linkend="mvc-ann-sessionattrib"/>.</para>
<note>
<title>Using a URI template variable to retrieve a command object</title>
<para>There is one other more advanced way of instantiating a command object.
It is useful when the command object can be retrieved based on a URI template
variable. Here is an example:</para>
<programlisting language="java">
@RequestMapping(value="/accounts/{account}", method = RequestMethod.PUT)
public String save(@ModelAttribute("account") Account account) {
}</programlisting>
<para>The name of the model attribute "account" matches to the name of a URI
template variable. Assuming there is a registered
<classname>Converter&lt;String, Account&gt;</classname>
or <classname>PropertyEditor</classname> that can turn a <literal>String</literal>
account number into an <classname>Account</classname> instance, those will be used
to provision the command object and have it added to the model.
If such a Converter or PropertyEditor does not exist, however the default
constructor will still be used.</para>
</note>
</section>
<section id="mvc-ann-modelattrib-data-binding">
<title>Data binding and validation with <interfacename>@ModelAttribute</interfacename></title>
<para>As mentioned in the previous section an <interfacename>@ModelAttribute</interfacename>
annotation means 3 things:
<orderedlist>
<listitem>The command object should be located and/or instantiated.</listitem>
<listitem>It should be populated with request parameters from the current request.</listitem>
<listitem>The object should be added to the model.</listitem>
</orderedlist>
In this section we'll focus on the second: data binding and validation.</para>
<para>After the command object has been provisioned using one of the methods described in the
previous section, the next step is to apply data binding and validation.
Spring's <classname>WebDataBinder</classname> does that by matching request parameters --
usually form data fields but can also be query string parameters -- to command object
properties, including properties of nested objects, and populates those properties
accordingly also applying type conversion as necessary.
For example an object of type <classname>Person</classname> with
properties <literal>firstName</literal> and <literal>age</literal>
will be populated assuming the presence of such named form fields.
As a result of data binding the command object is populated with the form data.</para>
<para>There are various ways to customize the data binding process.
For example you may wish to specify required fields, allowed and disallowed
fields, or extend type conversion.
See <xref linkend="mvc-ann-webdatabinder"/> and also <xref linkend="validation"/>.</para>
<para>As a result of data binding there may be errors such as missing required
fields or type conversion errors. To check for such errors
add a <classname>BindingResult</classname> argument immediately following
the <interfacename>@ModelAttribute</interfacename> argment:</para>
<programlisting language="java">
@RequestMapping(value="/owners/{ownerId}/pets/{petId}/edit", method = RequestMethod.POST)
public String processSubmit(<emphasis role="bold">@ModelAttribute("pet") Pet pet</emphasis>, BindingResult result) {
if (result.hasErrors()) {
return "petForm";
}
// ...
}</programlisting>
<para><classname>BindingResult</classname> allows you to check if errors were found in
which case it's common to return to the same form where the errors
can be rendered with the help of Spring's <literal>&lt;errors&gt;</literal> form tag.</para>
<para>In addition to data binding you can apply validation using your own custom
validator passing the same <classname>BindingResult</classname> that was used to record
data binding errors. That allows for data binding and validation errors to be accumulated
in one place and subsequently reported back to the user: </para>
<programlisting language="java">
@RequestMapping(value="/owners/{ownerId}/pets/{petId}/edit", method = RequestMethod.POST)
public String processSubmit(<emphasis role="bold">@ModelAttribute("pet") Pet pet</emphasis>, BindingResult result) {
new PetValidator().validate(pet, result);
if (result.hasErrors()) {
return "petForm";
}
// ...
}</programlisting>
<para>Or you can have validation invoked automatically by adding the
JSR-303 <interfacename>@Valid</interfacename> annotation:</para>
<programlisting language="java">
@RequestMapping(value="/owners/{ownerId}/pets/{petId}/edit", method = RequestMethod.POST)
public String processSubmit(<emphasis role="bold">@Valid @ModelAttribute("pet") Pet pet</emphasis>, BindingResult result) {
if (result.hasErrors()) {
return "petForm";
}
// ...
}</programlisting>
<para>See <xref linkend="validation-beanvalidation"/> and
<xref linkend="validation" /> for details on how to configure and use Spring's Validation support.</para>
</section>
<section id="mvc-ann-sessionattrib">
<title>Specifying attributes to store in a session with
<classname>@SessionAttributes</classname></title>
<para>The type-level <classname>@SessionAttributes</classname>
annotation declares session attributes used by a specific handler.
This will typically list the names of model attributes or types of
model attributes which should be transparently stored in the session
or some conversational storage, serving as form-backing beans between
subsequent requests.</para>
<para>The following code snippet shows the usage of this annotation,
specifying the model attribute name:</para>
<programlisting language="java">@Controller
@RequestMapping("/editPet.do")
<emphasis role="bold">@SessionAttributes("pet")</emphasis>
public class EditPetForm {
<lineannotation>// ...</lineannotation>
}</programlisting>
<note>
<para>When using controller interfaces (e.g. for AOP proxying), make sure to
consistently put <emphasis>all</emphasis> your mapping annotations - such as
<interfacename>@RequestMapping</interfacename> and
<interfacename>@SessionAttributes</interfacename> - on the controller
<emphasis>interface</emphasis> rather than on the implementation class.
</para>
</note>
</section>
<section id="mvc-ann-cookievalue">
<title>Mapping cookie values with the @CookieValue annotation</title>
<para>The <interfacename>@CookieValue</interfacename> annotation
allows a method parameter to be bound to the value of an HTTP
cookie.</para>
<para>Let us consider that the following cookie has been received with
an http request:</para>
<programlisting>JSESSIONID=415A4AC178C59DACE0B2C9CA727CDD84</programlisting>
<para>The following code sample demonstrates how to get the value of
the <literal>JSESSIONID</literal> cookie:</para>
<programlisting language="java">@RequestMapping("/displayHeaderInfo.do")
public void displayHeaderInfo(<emphasis role="bold">@CookieValue("JSESSIONID")</emphasis> String cookie) {
//...
}</programlisting>
<para>Type conversion is applied automatically if the target method
parameter type is not <classname>String</classname>.
See <xref linkend="mvc-ann-typeconversion"/>.</para>
<para>This annotation is supported for annotated handler methods in
Servlet and Portlet environments.</para>
</section>
<section id="mvc-ann-requestheader">
<title>Mapping request header attributes with the @RequestHeader
annotation</title>
<para>The <interfacename>@RequestHeader</interfacename> annotation
allows a method parameter to be bound to a request header.</para>
<para>Here is a sample request header:</para>
<programlisting>
Host localhost:8080
Accept text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9
Accept-Language fr,en-gb;q=0.7,en;q=0.3
Accept-Encoding gzip,deflate
Accept-Charset ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7
Keep-Alive 300
</programlisting>
<para>The following code sample demonstrates how to get the value of
the <literal>Accept-Encoding</literal> and
<literal>Keep-Alive</literal> headers:</para>
<programlisting language="java">@RequestMapping("/displayHeaderInfo.do")
public void displayHeaderInfo(<emphasis role="bold">@RequestHeader("Accept-Encoding")</emphasis> String encoding,
<emphasis role="bold">@RequestHeader("Keep-Alive")</emphasis> long keepAlive) {
//...
}</programlisting>
<para>Type conversion is applied automatically if the method parameter
is not <classname>String</classname>.
See <xref linkend="mvc-ann-typeconversion"/>.</para>
<tip><para>Built-in support is available for converting a comma-separated
string into an array/collection of strings or other types known to the
type conversion system. For example a method parameter annotated with
<literal>@RequestHeader("Accept")</literal> may be of type
<classname>String</classname> but also <classname>String[]</classname>
or <classname>List&lt;String&gt;</classname>.</para></tip>
<para>This annotation is supported for annotated handler methods in
Servlet and Portlet environments.</para>
</section>
<section id="mvc-ann-typeconversion">
<title>Method Parameters And Type Conversion</title>
<para>String-based values extracted from the request including
request parameters, path variables, request headers, and cookie values
may need to be converted to the target type of the method parameter or
field (e.g. binding a request parameter to a field in an
<interfacename>@ModelAttribute</interfacename> parameter) they're bound to.
If the target type is not <classname>String</classname>, Spring
automatically converts to the appropriate type.
All simple types such as int, long, Date, etc. are
supported. You can further customize the conversion process
through a <classname>WebDataBinder</classname>
(see <xref linkend="mvc-ann-webdatabinder" />) or by registering
<classname>Formatters</classname> with the
<classname>FormattingConversionService</classname>
(see <xref linkend="format" />).</para>
</section>
<section id="mvc-ann-webdatabinder">
<title>Customizing <classname>WebDataBinder</classname>
initialization</title>
<para>To customize request parameter binding with PropertyEditors
through Spring's <classname>WebDataBinder</classname>, you can use
either <interfacename>@InitBinder</interfacename>-annotated methods
within your controller or externalize your configuration by providing
a custom <interfacename>WebBindingInitializer</interfacename>.</para>
<section id="mvc-ann-initbinder">
<title>Customizing data binding with
<interfacename>@InitBinder</interfacename></title>
<para>Annotating controller methods with
<interfacename>@InitBinder</interfacename> allows you to configure
web data binding directly within your controller class.
<interfacename>@InitBinder</interfacename> identifies methods that
initialize the <classname>WebDataBinder</classname> that will be
used to populate command and form object arguments of annotated
handler methods.</para>
<para>Such init-binder methods support all arguments that
<interfacename>@RequestMapping</interfacename> supports, except for
command/form objects and corresponding validation result objects.
Init-binder methods must not have a return value. Thus, they are
usually declared as <literal>void</literal>. Typical arguments
include <classname>WebDataBinder</classname> in combination with
<interfacename>WebRequest</interfacename> or
<classname>java.util.Locale</classname>, allowing code to register
context-specific editors.</para>
<para>The following example demonstrates the use of
<interfacename>@InitBinder</interfacename> to configure a
<classname>CustomDateEditor</classname> for all
<classname>java.util.Date</classname> form properties.</para>
<programlisting language="java">@Controller
public class MyFormController {
<emphasis role="bold">@InitBinder</emphasis>
public void initBinder(WebDataBinder binder) {
SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
dateFormat.setLenient(false);
binder.registerCustomEditor(Date.class, new CustomDateEditor(dateFormat, false));
}
<lineannotation>// ...</lineannotation>
}</programlisting>
</section>
<section id="mvc-ann-webbindinginitializer">
<title>Configuring a custom
<interfacename>WebBindingInitializer</interfacename></title>
<para>To externalize data binding initialization, you can provide a
custom implementation of the
<interfacename>WebBindingInitializer</interfacename> interface,
which you then enable by supplying a custom bean configuration for
an <classname>AnnotationMethodHandlerAdapter</classname>, thus
overriding the default configuration.</para>
<para>The following example from the PetClinic application shows a
configuration using a custom implementation of the
<interfacename>WebBindingInitializer</interfacename> interface,
<classname>org.springframework.samples.petclinic.web.ClinicBindingInitializer</classname>,
which configures PropertyEditors required by several of the
PetClinic controllers.</para>
<programlisting language="xml">&lt;bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.RequestMappingHandlerAdapter"&gt;
&lt;property name="cacheSeconds" value="0" /&gt;
&lt;property name="webBindingInitializer"&gt;
&lt;bean class="org.springframework.samples.petclinic.web.ClinicBindingInitializer" /&gt;
&lt;/property&gt;
&lt;/bean&gt;
</programlisting>
</section>
</section>
<section id="mvc-ann-lastmodified">
<title>Support for the 'Last-Modified' Response Header To Facilitate Content Caching</title>
<para>An <interfacename>@RequestMapping</interfacename> method may wish
to support <literal>'Last-Modified'</literal> HTTP requests,
as defined in the contract for the Servlet API's
<literal>getLastModified</literal> method, to facilitate content caching.
This involves calculating a lastModified <literal>long</literal>
value for a given request, comparing it against the
<literal>'If-Modified-Since'</literal> request header value, and
potentially returning a response with status code 304 (Not Modified).
An annotated controller method can achieve that as follows:</para>
<programlisting language="java">
@RequestMapping
public String myHandleMethod(WebRequest webRequest, Model model) {
long lastModified = // 1. application-specific calculation
if (request.checkNotModified(lastModified)) {
// 2. shortcut exit - no further processing necessary
return null;
}
// 3. or otherwise further request processing, actually preparing content
model.addAttribute(...);
return "myViewName";
}
</programlisting>
<para>There are two key elements to note:
calling <code>request.checkNotModified(lastModified)</code>
and returning <literal>null</literal>. The former sets
the response status to 304 before it returns <literal>true</literal>.
The latter, in combination with the former, causes
Spring MVC to do no further processing of the request.
</para>
</section>
</section>
</section>
<section id="mvc-handlermapping">
<title>Handler mappings</title>
<para>In previous versions of Spring, users were required to define one
or more <interfacename>HandlerMapping</interfacename> beans in the web application
context to map incoming web requests to appropriate handlers. With the
introduction of annotated controllers, you generally don't need to do
that because the <classname>RequestMappingHandlerMapping</classname>
automatically looks for <interfacename>@RequestMapping</interfacename>
annotations on all <interfacename>@Controller</interfacename> beans.
However, do keep in mind that all <classname>HandlerMapping</classname>
classes extending from <classname>AbstractHandlerMapping</classname>
have the following properties that you can use to customize their behavior:
</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term><literal>interceptors</literal></term>
<listitem>
<para>List of interceptors to use.
<interfacename>HandlerInterceptor</interfacename>s are discussed in
<xref linkend="mvc-handlermapping-interceptor" />.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><literal>defaultHandler</literal></term>
<listitem>
<para>Default handler to use, when this handler mapping does not
result in a matching handler.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><literal>order</literal></term>
<listitem>
<para>Based on the value of the order property (see the
<literal>org.springframework.core.Ordered</literal> interface),
Spring sorts all handler mappings available in the context and
applies the first matching handler.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><literal>alwaysUseFullPath</literal></term>
<listitem>
<para>If <literal>true</literal> , Spring uses the full path within
the current servlet context to find an appropriate handler. If
<literal>false</literal> (the default), the path within the current
servlet mapping is used. For example, if a servlet is mapped using
<literal>/testing/*</literal> and the
<literal>alwaysUseFullPath</literal> property is set to true,
<literal>/testing/viewPage.html</literal> is used, whereas if the
property is set to false, <literal>/viewPage.html</literal> is
used.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><literal>urlDecode</literal></term>
<listitem>
<para>Defaults to <literal>true</literal>, as of Spring 2.5.
If you prefer to compare encoded paths, set this flag to
<literal>false</literal>. However, the
<interfacename>HttpServletRequest</interfacename> always exposes the
servlet path in decoded form. Be aware that the servlet path will
not match when compared with encoded paths.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
<para>The following example shows how to configure an interceptor:</para>
<programlisting language="xml">&lt;beans&gt;
&lt;bean id="handlerMapping" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.RequestMappingHandlerMapping"&gt;
&lt;property name="interceptors"&gt;
&lt;bean class="example.MyInterceptor"/&gt;
&lt;/property&gt;
&lt;/bean&gt;
&lt;beans&gt;</programlisting>
<section id="mvc-handlermapping-interceptor">
<title>Intercepting requests with a
<interfacename>HandlerInterceptor</interfacename></title>
<para>Spring's handler mapping mechanism includes handler interceptors,
which are useful when you want to apply specific functionality to
certain requests, for example, checking for a principal.</para>
<para>Interceptors located in the handler mapping must implement
<interfacename>HandlerInterceptor</interfacename> from the
<literal>org.springframework.web.servlet</literal> package. This
interface defines three methods: <literal>preHandle(..)</literal>
is called <emphasis>before</emphasis> the actual handler is executed;
<literal>postHandle(..)</literal> is called <emphasis>after</emphasis>
the handler is executed; and <literal>afterCompletion(..)</literal> is
called <emphasis>after the complete request has finished</emphasis>.
These three methods should provide enough flexibility to do all kinds of
preprocessing and postprocessing.</para>
<para>The <literal>preHandle(..)</literal> method returns a boolean
value. You can use this method to break or continue the processing of
the execution chain. When this method returns <literal>true</literal>,
the handler execution chain will continue; when it returns false, the
<classname>DispatcherServlet</classname> assumes the interceptor itself
has taken care of requests (and, for example, rendered an appropriate
view) and does not continue executing the other interceptors and the
actual handler in the execution chain.</para>
<para>Interceptors can be configured using the <literal>interceptors</literal>
property, which is present on all <classname>HandlerMapping</classname> classes
extending from <classname>AbstractHandlerMapping</classname>.
This is shown in the example below:</para>
<programlisting language="xml">&lt;beans&gt;
&lt;bean id="handlerMapping"
class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.RequestMappingHandlerMapping"&gt;
&lt;property name="interceptors"&gt;
&lt;list&gt;
&lt;ref bean="officeHoursInterceptor"/&gt;
&lt;/list&gt;
&lt;/property&gt;
&lt;/bean&gt;
&lt;bean id="officeHoursInterceptor"
class="samples.TimeBasedAccessInterceptor"&gt;
&lt;property name="openingTime" value="9"/&gt;
&lt;property name="closingTime" value="18"/&gt;
&lt;/bean&gt;
&lt;beans&gt;</programlisting>
<programlisting language="java">package samples;
public class TimeBasedAccessInterceptor extends HandlerInterceptorAdapter {
private int openingTime;
private int closingTime;
public void setOpeningTime(int openingTime) {
this.openingTime = openingTime;
}
public void setClosingTime(int closingTime) {
this.closingTime = closingTime;
}
public boolean preHandle(
HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response,
Object handler) throws Exception {
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
int hour = cal.get(HOUR_OF_DAY);
if (openingTime &lt;= hour &#38;&#38; hour &lt; closingTime) {
return true;
} else {
response.sendRedirect("http://host.com/outsideOfficeHours.html");
return false;
}
}
}</programlisting>
<para>Any request handled by this mapping is intercepted by the
<classname>TimeBasedAccessInterceptor</classname>. If the current time
is outside office hours, the user is redirected to a static HTML file
that says, for example, you can only access the website during office
hours.</para>
<note>
<para>When using the <classname>RequestMappingHandlerMapping</classname>
the actual handler is an instance of <classname>HandlerMethod</classname>
which identifies the specific controller method that will be invoked.
</para>
</note>
<para>As you can see, the Spring adapter class
<classname>HandlerInterceptorAdapter</classname> makes it easier to
extend the <interfacename>HandlerInterceptor</interfacename>
interface.</para>
<tip>
<para>In the example above, the configured interceptor will apply to all
requests handled with annotated controller methods. If you want to narrow
down the URL paths to which an interceptor applies, you can use the MVC
namespace to do that. See <xref linkend="mvc-annotation-driven"/>.</para>
</tip>
</section>
</section>
<section id="mvc-viewresolver">
<title>Resolving views</title>
<para>All MVC frameworks for web applications provide a way to address
views. Spring provides view resolvers, which enable you to render models
in a browser without tying you to a specific view technology. Out of the
box, Spring enables you to use JSPs, Velocity templates and XSLT views,
for example. See <xref linkend="view" /> for a discussion of how to
integrate and use a number of disparate view technologies.</para>
<para>The two interfaces that are important to the way Spring handles
views are <interfacename>ViewResolver</interfacename> and
<interfacename>View</interfacename>. The
<interfacename>ViewResolver</interfacename> provides a mapping between
view names and actual views. The <interfacename>View</interfacename>
interface addresses the preparation of the request and hands the request
over to one of the view technologies.</para>
<section id="mvc-viewresolver-resolver">
<title>Resolving views with the
<interfacename>ViewResolver</interfacename> interface</title>
<para>As discussed in <xref linkend="mvc-controller" />, all handler
methods in the Spring Web MVC controllers must resolve to a logical view
name, either explicitly (e.g., by returning a <literal>String</literal>,
<literal>View</literal>, or <literal>ModelAndView</literal>) or
implicitly (i.e., based on conventions). Views in Spring are addressed
by a logical view name and are resolved by a view resolver. Spring comes
with quite a few view resolvers. This table lists most of them; a couple
of examples follow.</para>
<table id="mvc-view-resolvers-tbl">
<title>View resolvers</title>
<tgroup cols="2">
<colspec colname="c1" colwidth="1*" />
<colspec colname="c2" colwidth="2*" />
<thead>
<row>
<entry><interfacename>ViewResolver</interfacename></entry>
<entry>Description</entry>
</row>
</thead>
<tbody>
<row>
<entry><classname>AbstractCachingViewResolver</classname></entry>
<entry>Abstract view resolver that caches views. Often views
need preparation before they can be used; extending this view
resolver provides caching.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><classname>XmlViewResolver</classname></entry>
<entry>Implementation of
<interfacename>ViewResolver</interfacename> that accepts a
configuration file written in XML with the same DTD as Spring's
XML bean factories. The default configuration file is
<literal>/WEB-INF/views.xml</literal>.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><classname>ResourceBundleViewResolver</classname></entry>
<entry>Implementation of
<interfacename>ViewResolver</interfacename> that uses bean
definitions in a <classname>ResourceBundle</classname>,
specified by the bundle base name. Typically you define the
bundle in a properties file, located in the classpath. <!--Correct to say you define? Seems so, because default implies you can change it.-->The
default file name is
<literal>views.properties</literal>.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><classname>UrlBasedViewResolver</classname></entry>
<entry>Simple implementation of the
<interfacename>ViewResolver</interfacename> interface that
effects the direct resolution of logical view names to URLs,
without an explicit mapping definition. This is appropriate if
your logical names match the names of your view resources in a
straightforward manner, without the need for arbitrary
mappings.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><classname>InternalResourceViewResolver</classname></entry>
<entry>Convenient subclass of
<classname>UrlBasedViewResolver</classname> that supports
<classname>InternalResourceView</classname> (in effect, Servlets
and JSPs) and subclasses such as <classname>JstlView</classname>
and <classname>TilesView</classname>. You can specify the view
class for all views generated by this resolver by using
<literal>setViewClass(..)</literal>. See the Javadocs for the
<classname>UrlBasedViewResolver</classname> class for
details.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><classname>VelocityViewResolver</classname> /
<classname>FreeMarkerViewResolver</classname></entry>
<entry>Convenient subclass of
<classname>UrlBasedViewResolver</classname> that supports
<classname>VelocityView</classname> (in effect, Velocity
templates) or <classname>FreeMarkerView</classname>
,respectively, and custom subclasses of them.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><classname>ContentNegotiatingViewResolver</classname></entry>
<entry>Implementation of the
<interfacename>ViewResolver</interfacename> interface that
resolves a view based on the request file name or
<literal>Accept</literal> header. See <xref
linkend="mvc-multiple-representations" />.</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</table>
<para>As an example, with JSP as a view technology, you can use the
<classname>UrlBasedViewResolver</classname>. This view resolver
translates a view name to a URL and hands the request over to the
RequestDispatcher to render the view.</para>
<programlisting language="xml">&lt;bean id="viewResolver"
class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.UrlBasedViewResolver"&gt;
&lt;property name="viewClass" value="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.JstlView"/&gt;
&lt;property name="prefix" value="/WEB-INF/jsp/"/&gt;
&lt;property name="suffix" value=".jsp"/&gt;
&lt;/bean&gt;</programlisting>
<para>When returning <literal>test</literal> as a logical view name,
this view resolver forwards the request to the
<classname>RequestDispatcher</classname> that will send the request to
<literal>/WEB-INF/jsp/test.jsp</literal>.</para>
<para>When you combine different view technologies in a web application,
you can use the
<classname>ResourceBundleViewResolver</classname>:</para>
<programlisting language="xml">&lt;bean id="viewResolver"
class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.ResourceBundleViewResolver"&gt;
&lt;property name="basename" value="views"/&gt;
&lt;property name="defaultParentView" value="parentView"/&gt;
&lt;/bean&gt;</programlisting>
<para>The <classname>ResourceBundleViewResolver</classname> inspects the
<classname>ResourceBundle</classname> identified by the basename, and
for each view it is supposed to resolve, it uses the value of the
property <literal>[viewname].(class)</literal> as the view class and the
value of the property <literal>[viewname].url</literal> as the view url.
Examples can be found in the next chapter which covers view
technologies. As you can see, you can identify a parent view, from which
all views in the properties file <quote>extend</quote>. This way you can
specify a default view class, for example.</para>
<note>
<para>Subclasses of <classname>AbstractCachingViewResolver</classname>
cache view instances that they resolve. Caching improves performance
of certain view technologies. It's possible to turn off the cache by
setting the <literal>cache</literal> property to
<literal>false</literal>. Furthermore, if you must refresh a certain
view at runtime (for example when a Velocity template is modified),
you can use the <literal>removeFromCache(String viewName, Locale
loc)</literal> method.</para>
</note>
</section>
<section id="mvc-viewresolver-chaining">
<title>Chaining ViewResolvers</title>
<para>Spring supports multiple view resolvers. Thus you can chain
resolvers and, for example, override specific views in certain
circumstances. You chain view resolvers by adding more than one resolver
to your application context and, if necessary, by setting the
<literal>order</literal> property to specify ordering. Remember, the
higher the order property, the later the view resolver is positioned in
the chain.</para>
<para>In the following example, the chain of view resolvers consists of
two resolvers, an <classname>InternalResourceViewResolver</classname>,
which is always automatically positioned as the last resolver in the
chain, and an <classname>XmlViewResolver</classname> for specifying
Excel views. Excel views are not supported by the
<classname>InternalResourceViewResolver</classname>.<!--Do you need to say anything else about excel not being supported by one of resolvers? What if anything is the result?--></para>
<programlisting language="xml">&lt;bean id="jspViewResolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver"&gt;
&lt;property name="viewClass" value="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.JstlView"/&gt;
&lt;property name="prefix" value="/WEB-INF/jsp/"/&gt;
&lt;property name="suffix" value=".jsp"/&gt;
&lt;/bean&gt;
&lt;bean id="excelViewResolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.XmlViewResolver"&gt;
&lt;property name="order" value="1"/&gt;
&lt;property name="location" value="/WEB-INF/views.xml"/&gt;
&lt;/bean&gt;
<lineannotation>&lt;!-- in <literal>views.xml</literal> --&gt;</lineannotation>
&lt;beans&gt;
&lt;bean name="report" class="org.springframework.example.ReportExcelView"/&gt;
&lt;/beans&gt;</programlisting>
<para>If a specific view resolver does not result in a view, Spring
examines the context for other view resolvers. If additional view
resolvers exist, Spring continues to inspect them until a view is
resolved. If no view resolver returns a view, Spring throws a
<classname>ServletException</classname>.</para>
<para>The contract of a view resolver specifies that a view resolver
<emphasis>can</emphasis> return null to indicate the view could not be
found. Not all view resolvers do this, however, because in some cases,
the resolver simply cannot detect whether or not the view exists. For
example, the <classname>InternalResourceViewResolver</classname> uses
the <classname>RequestDispatcher</classname> internally, and dispatching
is the only way to figure out if a JSP exists, but this action can only
execute once. The same holds for the
<classname>VelocityViewResolver</classname> and some others. Check the
Javadoc for the view resolver to see whether it reports non-existing
views. Thus, putting an
<classname>InternalResourceViewResolver</classname> in the chain in a
place other than the last, results in the chain not being fully
inspected, because the
<classname>InternalResourceViewResolver</classname> will
<emphasis>always</emphasis> return a view!<!--I don't understand the logic of this. How can it return a view if no view exists or no view can be found? this paragraph is confusing.--><!--Why would you put InternalResourceViewResolver in place other than last? It's automatically last. --></para>
</section>
<section id="mvc-redirecting">
<title>Redirecting to views<!--Revise to say what you are redirecting to views. OR are you redirecting views? In that case heading should be Redirecting views.--></title>
<para>As mentioned previously, a controller typically returns a logical
view name, which a view resolver resolves to a particular view
technology. For view technologies such as JSPs that are processed
through the Servlet or JSP engine, this resolution is usually handled
through the combination of
<classname>InternalResourceViewResolver</classname> and
<classname>InternalResourceView</classname>, which issues an internal
forward or include via the Servlet API's
<literal>RequestDispatcher.forward(..)</literal> method or
<literal>RequestDispatcher.include()</literal> method. For other view
technologies, such as Velocity, XSLT, and so on, the view itself writes
the content directly to the response stream.</para>
<para>It is sometimes desirable to issue an HTTP redirect back to the
client, before the view is rendered. This is desirable, for example,
when one controller has been called with <literal>POST</literal>ed data,
and the response is actually a delegation to another controller (for
example on a successful form submission). In this case, a normal
internal forward will mean that the other controller will also see the
same <literal>POST</literal> data, which is potentially problematic if
it can confuse it with other expected data. Another reason to perform a
redirect before displaying the result is to eliminate the possibility of
the user submitting the form data multiple times. In this scenario, the
browser will first send an initial <literal>POST</literal>; it will then
receive a response to redirect to a different URL; and finally the
browser will perform a subsequent <literal>GET</literal> for the URL
named in the redirect response. Thus, from the perspective of the
browser, the current page does not reflect the result of a
<literal>POST</literal> but rather of a <literal>GET</literal>. The end
effect is that there is no way the user can accidentally
re-<literal>POST</literal> the same data by performing a refresh. The
refresh forces a <literal>GET</literal> of the result page, not a resend
of the initial <literal>POST</literal> data.</para>
<section id="mvc-redirecting-redirect-view">
<title><classname>RedirectView</classname></title>
<para>One way to force a redirect as the result of a controller
response is for the controller to create and return an instance of
Spring's <classname>RedirectView</classname>. In this case,
<classname>DispatcherServlet</classname> does not use the normal view
resolution mechanism. Rather because it has been given the (redirect)
view already, the <classname>DispatcherServlet</classname> simply
instructs the view to do its work.</para>
<para>The <classname>RedirectView</classname> issues an
<literal>HttpServletResponse.sendRedirect()</literal> call that
returns to the client browser as an HTTP redirect.
All model attributes are considered to be exposed as either URI template variables first,
assuming the URL is a URI template such as <code>/account/{number}</code>,
or as HTTP query parameters second. By default String and primitive model attributes
are eligible to be exposed this way. However, this behavior can be extended by
sub-classing RedirectView. Also consider that <code>@PathVariable</code>-annotated
method arguments are automatically added to the model, which is convenient when
redirecting to the same URL using a different HTTP method. For example:</para>
<programlisting language="java">@RequestMapping(value = "/files/{path}", method = RequestMethod.POST)
public String upload(@PathVariable String path, ...) {
// ...
return "redirect:files/{path}";
}
@RequestMapping(value = "/files/{path}", method = RequestMethod.GET)
public void get(@PathVariable String path, ...) {
// ...
}</programlisting>
<para>If you use <classname>RedirectView</classname> and the view is
created by the controller itself, it is recommended that you configure
the redirect URL to be injected into the controller so that it is not
baked into the controller but configured in the context along with the
view names. The next section discusses this process.</para>
</section>
<section id="mvc-redirecting-redirect-prefix">
<title>The <literal>redirect:</literal> prefix</title>
<para>While the use of <classname>RedirectView</classname> works fine,
if the controller itself creates the
<classname>RedirectView</classname>, there is no avoiding the fact
that the controller is aware that a redirection is happening. This is
really suboptimal and couples things too tightly. The controller
should not really care about how the response gets handled. In general
it should operate only in terms of view names that have been injected
into it.</para>
<para>The special <literal>redirect:</literal> prefix allows you to
accomplish this. If a view name is returned that has the prefix
<literal>redirect:</literal>, the
<classname>UrlBasedViewResolver</classname> (and all subclasses) will
recognize this as a special indication that a redirect is needed. The
rest of the view name will be treated as the redirect URL.</para>
<para>The net effect is the same as if the controller had returned a
<classname>RedirectView</classname>, but now the controller itself can
simply operate in terms of logical view names. A logical view name
such as <literal>redirect:/myapp/some/resource</literal> will
redirect relative to the current servlet context, while a name such as
<literal>redirect:http://myhost.com/some/arbitrary/path</literal>
will redirect to an absolute URL.</para>
</section>
<section id="mvc-redirecting-forward-prefix">
<title>The <literal>forward:</literal> prefix<!--Can you revise this heading to say what you're using the forward prefix to accomplish?--></title>
<para>It is also possible to use a special <literal>forward:</literal>
prefix for view names that are ultimately resolved by
<classname>UrlBasedViewResolver</classname> and subclasses. This
creates an <classname>InternalResourceView</classname> (which
ultimately does a <literal>RequestDispatcher.forward()</literal>)
around the rest of the view name, which is considered a URL.
Therefore, this prefix is not useful with
<classname>InternalResourceViewResolver</classname> and
<classname>InternalResourceView</classname> (for JSPs for example).
But the prefix can be helpful when you are primarily using another
view technology, but still want to force a forward of a resource to be
handled by the Servlet/JSP engine. (Note that you may also chain
multiple view resolvers, instead.)<!--I think the preceding sentences were a bit garbled. I tried to reword a bit. And is this paragraph logical?--></para>
<para>As with the <literal>redirect:</literal> prefix, if the view
name with the <literal>forward:</literal> prefix is injected into the
controller, the controller does not detect that anything special is
happening in terms of handling the response.<!--Can you reword to clarify the point? The controller does not detect what?--></para>
</section>
</section>
<section id="mvc-multiple-representations">
<title><classname>ContentNegotiatingViewResolver</classname></title>
<para>The <classname>ContentNegotiatingViewResolver</classname> does not
resolve views itself but rather delegates to other view resolvers,
selecting the view that resembles the representation requested by the
client. Two strategies exist for a client to request a representation
from the server:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Use a distinct URI for each resource, typically by using a
different file extension in the URI. For example, the URI<literal>
http://www.example.com/users/fred.pdf</literal> requests a PDF
representation of the user fred, and
<literal>http://www.example.com/users/fred.xml</literal> requests an
XML representation.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Use the same URI for the client to locate the resource, but
set the <literal>Accept</literal> HTTP request header to list the
<ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_media_type">media
types</ulink> that it understands. For example, an HTTP request for
<literal>http://www.example.com/users/fred</literal> with an
<literal>Accept</literal> header set to <literal>application/pdf
</literal>requests a PDF representation of the user fred, while
<literal>http://www.example.com/users/fred</literal> with an
<literal>Accept</literal> header set to <literal>text/xml</literal>
requests an XML representation. This strategy is known as <ulink
url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_negotiation">content
negotiation</ulink>.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<note>
<para>One issue with the <literal>Accept</literal> header is that it
is impossible to set it in a web browser within HTML. For example, in
Firefox, it is fixed to:<!--So how would you set the Accept header as in second bullet, if you can't do it in html? Indicate?--></para>
<programlisting>Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8</programlisting>
<para>For this reason it is common to see the use of a distinct URI
for each representation when developing browser based web
applications.</para>
</note>
<para>To support multiple representations of a resource, Spring provides
the <classname>ContentNegotiatingViewResolver</classname> to resolve a
view based on the file extension or <literal>Accept</literal> header of
the HTTP request. <classname>ContentNegotiatingViewResolver</classname>
does not perform the view resolution itself but instead delegates to a
list of view resolvers that you specify through the bean property
<literal>ViewResolvers</literal>.<!--A human has to specify this list of resolvers, right? See example below.--></para>
<para>The <classname>ContentNegotiatingViewResolver</classname> selects
an appropriate <classname>View</classname> to handle the request by
comparing the request media type(s) with the media type (also known as
<literal>Content-Type</literal>) supported by the
<classname>View</classname> associated with each of its
<classname>ViewResolvers</classname>. The first
<classname>View</classname> in the list that has a compatible
<literal>Content-Type</literal> returns the representation to the
client. If a compatible view cannot be supplied by the
<classname>ViewResolver</classname> chain, then the list of views
specified through the <literal>DefaultViews</literal> property will be
consulted. This latter option is appropriate for singleton
<classname>Views</classname> that can render an appropriate
representation of the current resource regardless of the logical view
name. The <literal>Accept</literal> header may include wildcards, for
example text/*, in which case a <classname>View</classname> whose
Content-Type was text/xml is a compatible match.</para>
<para>To support the resolution of a view based on a file extension, use
the <classname>ContentNegotiatingViewResolver </classname>bean property
<literal>mediaTypes</literal> to specify a mapping of file extensions to
media types. For more information on the algorithm used to determine the
request media type, refer to the API documentation for
<classname>ContentNegotiatingViewResolver</classname>.</para>
<para>Here is an example configuration of a
<classname>ContentNegotiatingViewResolver:</classname></para>
<programlisting language="xml">&lt;bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.ContentNegotiatingViewResolver"&gt;
&lt;property name="mediaTypes"&gt;
&lt;map&gt;
&lt;entry key="atom" value="application/atom+xml"/&gt;
&lt;entry key="html" value="text/html"/&gt;
&lt;entry key="json" value="application/json"/&gt;
&lt;/map&gt;
&lt;/property&gt;
&lt;property name="viewResolvers"&gt;
&lt;list&gt;
&lt;bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.BeanNameViewResolver"/&gt;
&lt;bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver"&gt;
&lt;property name="prefix" value="/WEB-INF/jsp/"/&gt;
&lt;property name="suffix" value=".jsp"/&gt;
&lt;/bean&gt;
&lt;/list&gt;
&lt;/property&gt;
&lt;property name="defaultViews"&gt;
&lt;list&gt;
&lt;bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.json.MappingJacksonJsonView" /&gt;
&lt;/list&gt;
&lt;/property&gt;
&lt;/bean&gt;
&lt;bean id="content" class="com.springsource.samples.rest.SampleContentAtomView"/&gt;</programlisting>
<para>The <classname>InternalResourceViewResolver</classname> handles
the translation of view names and JSP pages, while the
<classname>BeanNameViewResolver</classname> returns a view based on the
name of a bean. (See "<link
linkend="mvc-viewresolver-resolver">Resolving views with the
ViewResolver interface</link>" for more details on how Spring looks up
and instantiates a view.) In this example, the
<literal>content</literal> bean is a class that inherits from
<classname>AbstractAtomFeedView</classname>, which returns an Atom RSS
feed. For more information on creating an Atom Feed representation, see
the section Atom Views.<!--Need a correct link or x-ref re the preceding sentence.I couldn't find an "Atom Views" section.--></para>
<para>In the above configuration, if a request is made with an
<literal>.html</literal> extension, the view resolver looks for a view
that matches the <literal>text/html</literal> media type. The
<classname>InternalResourceViewResolver</classname> provides the
matching view for <literal>text/html</literal>. If the request is made
with the file extension <literal>.atom</literal>, the view resolver
looks for a view that matches the
<literal>application/atom+xml</literal> media type. This view is
provided by the <classname>BeanNameViewResolver</classname> that maps to
the <classname>SampleContentAtomView</classname> if the view name
returned is <classname>content</classname>. If the request is made with
the file extension <literal>.json</literal>, the
<classname>MappingJacksonJsonView</classname> instance from the
<literal>DefaultViews</literal> list will be selected regardless of the
view name. Alternatively, client requests can be made without a file
extension but with the <literal>Accept</literal> header set to the
preferred media-type, and the same resolution of request to views would
occur.<!--Can you reword preceding sentence? I don't follow it.--></para>
<note>
<para>If <classname>ContentNegotiatingViewResolver</classname>'s list
of ViewResolvers is not configured explicitly, it automatically uses
any ViewResolvers defined in the application context.</para>
</note>
<para>The corresponding controller code that returns an Atom RSS feed
for a URI of the form <literal>http://localhost/content.atom</literal>
or <literal>http://localhost/content</literal> with an
<literal>Accept</literal> header of application/atom+xml is shown
below.</para>
<programlisting language="java">@Controller
public class ContentController {
private List&lt;SampleContent&gt; contentList = new ArrayList&lt;SampleContent&gt;();
@RequestMapping(value="/content", method=RequestMethod.GET)
public ModelAndView getContent() {
ModelAndView mav = new ModelAndView();
mav.setViewName("content");
mav.addObject("sampleContentList", contentList);
return mav;
}
}</programlisting>
</section>
</section>
<section id="mvc-localeresolver">
<title>Using locales</title>
<para>Most parts of Spring's architecture support internationalization,
just as the Spring web MVC framework does.
<classname>DispatcherServlet</classname> enables you to automatically
resolve messages using the client's locale. This is done with
<interfacename>LocaleResolver</interfacename> objects.</para>
<para>When a request comes in, the
<classname>DispatcherServlet</classname> looks for a locale resolver, and
if it finds one it tries to use it to set the locale. Using the
<literal>RequestContext.getLocale()</literal> method, you can always
retrieve the locale that was resolved by the locale resolver.</para>
<para>In addition to automatic locale resolution, you can also attach an
interceptor to the handler mapping (see <xref
linkend="mvc-handlermapping-interceptor" /> for more information on
handler mapping interceptors) to change the locale under specific
circumstances, for example, based on a parameter in the request.</para>
<para>Locale resolvers and interceptors are defined in the
<literal>org.springframework.web.servlet.i18n</literal> package and are
configured in your application context in the normal way. Here is a
selection of the locale resolvers included in Spring.</para>
<section id="mvc-localeresolver-acceptheader">
<title><classname>AcceptHeaderLocaleResolver</classname></title>
<para>This locale resolver inspects the
<literal>accept-language</literal> header in the request that was sent
by the client (e.g., a web browser). Usually this header field contains
the locale of the client's operating system.</para>
</section>
<section id="mvc-localeresolver-cookie">
<title><classname>CookieLocaleResolver</classname></title>
<para>This locale resolver inspects a <classname>Cookie</classname> that
might exist on the client to see if a locale is specified. If so, it
uses the specified locale. Using the properties of this locale resolver,
you can specify the name of the cookie as well as the maximum age. Find
below an example of defining a
<classname>CookieLocaleResolver</classname>.</para>
<programlisting language="xml">&lt;bean id="localeResolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.i18n.CookieLocaleResolver"&gt;
&lt;property name="cookieName" value="clientlanguage"/&gt;
<lineannotation>&lt;!-- in seconds. If set to <literal>-1</literal>, the cookie is not persisted (deleted when browser shuts down) --&gt;</lineannotation>
&lt;property name="cookieMaxAge" value="100000"&gt;
&lt;/bean&gt;</programlisting>
<table id="mvc-cookie-locale-resolver-props-tbl">
<title><classname>CookieLocaleResolver</classname> properties</title>
<tgroup cols="3">
<colspec colname="c1" colwidth="1*" />
<colspec colname="c2" colwidth="1*" />
<colspec colname="c3" colwidth="3*" />
<thead>
<row>
<entry>Property</entry>
<entry>Default</entry>
<entry>Description</entry>
</row>
</thead>
<tbody>
<row>
<entry>cookieName</entry>
<entry>classname + LOCALE</entry>
<entry>The name of the cookie</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>cookieMaxAge</entry>
<entry>Integer.MAX_INT</entry>
<entry>The maximum time a cookie will stay persistent on the
client. If -1 is specified, the cookie will not be persisted; it
will only be available until the client shuts down his or her
browser.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>cookiePath</entry>
<entry>/</entry>
<entry>Limits the visibility of the cookie to a certain part of
your site. When cookiePath is specified, the cookie will only be
visible to that path and the paths below it.</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</table>
</section>
<section id="mvc-localeresolver-session">
<title><classname>SessionLocaleResolver</classname></title>
<para>The <classname>SessionLocaleResolver</classname> allows you to
retrieve locales from the session that might be associated with the
user's request.<!--Aren't you missing some information and example? This section has only one sentence.--></para>
</section>
<section id="mvc-localeresolver-interceptor">
<title><classname>LocaleChangeInterceptor</classname></title>
<para>You can enable changing of locales by adding the
<classname>LocaleChangeInterceptor</classname> to one of the handler
mappings (see <xref linkend="mvc-handlermapping" />). It will detect a
parameter in the request and change the locale. It calls
<literal>setLocale()</literal> on the
<interfacename>LocaleResolver</interfacename> that also exists in the
context. The following example shows that calls to all
<literal>*.view</literal> resources containing a parameter named
<literal>siteLanguage</literal> will now change the locale. So, for
example, a request for the following URL,
<literal>http://www.sf.net/home.view?siteLanguage=nl</literal> will
change the site language to Dutch.</para>
<programlisting language="xml">&lt;bean id="localeChangeInterceptor"
class="org.springframework.web.servlet.i18n.LocaleChangeInterceptor"&gt;
&lt;property name="paramName" value="siteLanguage"/&gt;
&lt;/bean&gt;
&lt;bean id="localeResolver"
class="org.springframework.web.servlet.i18n.CookieLocaleResolver"/&gt;
&lt;bean id="urlMapping"
class="org.springframework.web.servlet.handler.SimpleUrlHandlerMapping"&gt;
&lt;property name="interceptors"&gt;
&lt;list&gt;
&lt;ref bean="localeChangeInterceptor"/&gt;
&lt;/list&gt;
&lt;/property&gt;
&lt;property name="mappings"&gt;
&lt;value&gt;/**/*.view=someController&lt;/value&gt;
&lt;/property&gt;
&lt;/bean&gt;</programlisting>
</section>
</section>
<section id="mvc-themeresolver">
<title>Using themes</title>
<section id="mvc-themeresolver-introduction">
<title>Overview of themes</title>
<para>You can apply Spring Web MVC framework themes to set the overall
look-and-feel of your application, thereby enhancing user experience. A
theme is a collection of static resources, typically style sheets and
images, that affect the visual style of the application.</para>
</section>
<section id="mvc-themeresolver-defining">
<title>Defining themes</title>
<para>To use themes in your web application, you must set up an
implementation of the
<interfacename>org.springframework.ui.context.ThemeSource</interfacename>
interface. The <interfacename>WebApplicationContext</interfacename>
interface extends <interfacename>ThemeSource</interfacename> but
delegates its responsibilities to a dedicated implementation. By default
the delegate will be an
<classname>org.springframework.ui.context.support.ResourceBundleThemeSource</classname>
implementation that loads properties files from the root of the
classpath. To use a custom <interfacename>ThemeSource</interfacename>
implementation or to configure the base name prefix of the
<classname>ResourceBundleThemeSource</classname>, you can register a
bean in the application context with the reserved name
<classname>themeSource</classname>. The web application context
automatically detects a bean with that name and uses it.</para>
<para>When using the <classname>ResourceBundleThemeSource</classname>, a
theme is defined in a simple properties file. <!--Revise preceding sentence to clarify: To use ResourceBundleThemeSource, you define a theme in a properties file? OR do you mean a theme--><!--is already defined in a simple properties file for use with ResourceBundleThemeSource?-->The
properties file lists the resources that make up the theme. Here is an
example:<!--Is this an example of what a human enters? If not, why is it referred to as an example, if this is exact code already provided?--></para>
<programlisting>styleSheet=/themes/cool/style.css
background=/themes/cool/img/coolBg.jpg</programlisting>
<para>The keys of the properties are the names that refer to the themed
elements from view code. For a JSP, you typically do this using the
<literal>spring:theme</literal> custom tag, which is very similar to the
<literal>spring:message</literal> tag. The following JSP fragment uses
the theme defined in the previous example to customize the look and
feel:</para>
<programlisting language="xml">&lt;%@ taglib prefix="spring" uri="http://www.springframework.org/tags"%&gt;
&lt;html&gt;
&lt;head&gt;
&lt;link rel="stylesheet" href="&lt;spring:theme code='styleSheet'/&gt;" type="text/css"/&gt;
&lt;/head&gt;
&lt;body style="background=&lt;spring:theme code='background'/&gt;"&gt;
...
&lt;/body&gt;
&lt;/html&gt;</programlisting>
<para>By default, the <classname>ResourceBundleThemeSource</classname>
uses an empty base name prefix. As a result, the properties files are
loaded from the root of the classpath. Thus you would put the
<literal>cool.properties</literal> theme definition in a directory at
the root of the classpath, for example, in
<literal>/WEB-INF/classes</literal>. The
<classname>ResourceBundleThemeSource</classname> uses the standard Java
resource bundle loading mechanism, allowing for full
internationalization of themes. For example, we could have a
<literal>/WEB-INF/classes/cool_nl.properties</literal> that references a
special background image with Dutch text on it.</para>
</section>
<section id="mvc-themeresolver-resolving">
<title>Theme resolvers</title>
<para>After you define themes, as in the preceding section, you decide
which theme to use. The <classname>DispatcherServlet</classname> will
look for a bean named <classname>themeResolver</classname> to find out
which <interfacename>ThemeResolver</interfacename> implementation to
use. A theme resolver works in much the same way as a
<interfacename>LocaleResolver</interfacename>. It detects the theme to
use for a particular request and can also alter the request's theme. The
following theme resolvers are provided by Spring:</para>
<table id="mvc-theme-resolver-impls-tbl">
<title><interfacename>ThemeResolver</interfacename>
implementations</title>
<tgroup cols="2">
<colspec colname="c1" colwidth="1*" />
<colspec colname="c3" colwidth="3*" />
<thead>
<row>
<entry>Class</entry>
<entry>Description</entry>
</row>
</thead>
<tbody>
<row>
<entry><classname>FixedThemeResolver</classname></entry>
<entry>Selects a fixed theme, set using the
<classname>defaultThemeName</classname> property.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><classname>SessionThemeResolver</classname></entry>
<entry>The theme is maintained in the user's HTTP session. It
only needs to be set once for each session, but is not persisted
between sessions.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><classname>CookieThemeResolver</classname></entry>
<entry>The selected theme is stored in a cookie on the
client.</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</table>
<para>Spring also provides a
<classname>ThemeChangeInterceptor</classname> that allows theme changes
on every request with a simple request parameter.<!--Do you need more info or an example re preceding sentence?--></para>
</section>
</section>
<section id="mvc-multipart">
<title>Spring's multipart (fileupload) support</title>
<section id="mvc-multipart-introduction">
<title>Introduction</title>
<para>Spring's built-in multipart support handles file uploads in web
applications. You enable this multipart support with pluggable
<interfacename>MultipartResolver</interfacename> objects, defined in the
<literal>org.springframework.web.multipart</literal> package. Spring
provides a <interfacename>MultipartResolver</interfacename> for use with
<ulink url="http://jakarta.apache.org/commons/fileupload">
<emphasis>Commons FileUpload</emphasis></ulink>).</para>
<para>By default, Spring does no multipart handling, because some
developers want to handle multiparts themselves. You enable Spring
multipart handling by adding a multipart resolver to the web
application's context. Each request is inspected to see if it contains a
multipart. If no multipart is found, the request continues as expected.
If a multipart is found in the request, the
<classname>MultipartResolver</classname> that has been declared in your
context is used. After that, the multipart attribute in your request is
treated like any other attribute.</para>
</section>
<section id="mvc-multipart-resolver">
<title>Using the
<interfacename>MultipartResolver</interfacename></title>
<para>The following example shows how to use the
<classname>CommonsMultipartResolver</classname>:</para>
<programlisting language="xml">&lt;bean id="multipartResolver"
class="org.springframework.web.multipart.commons.CommonsMultipartResolver"&gt;
<lineannotation>&lt;!-- one of the properties available; the maximum file size in bytes --&gt;</lineannotation>
&lt;property name="maxUploadSize" value="100000"/&gt;
&lt;/bean&gt;</programlisting>
<para>Of course you also need to put the appropriate jars in your
classpath for the multipart resolver to work. In the case of the
<classname>CommonsMultipartResolver</classname>, you need to use
<literal>commons-fileupload.jar</literal>.</para>
<para>When the Spring <classname>DispatcherServlet</classname> detects a
multi-part request, it activates the resolver that has been declared in
your context and hands over the request. The resolver then wraps the
current <classname>HttpServletRequest</classname> into a
<classname>MultipartHttpServletRequest</classname> that supports
multipart file uploads. Using the
<classname>MultipartHttpServletRequest</classname>, you can get
information about the multiparts contained by this request and actually
get access to the multipart files themselves in your controllers.</para>
</section>
<section id="mvc-multipart-forms">
<title>Handling a file upload in a form</title>
<para>After the <classname>MultipartResolver</classname> completes its
job, the request is processed like any other. First, create a form with
a file input that will allow the user to upload a form. The encoding
attribute (<literal>enctype="multipart/form-data"</literal>) lets the
browser know how to encode the form as multipart request:</para>
<programlisting language="xml">&lt;html&gt;
&lt;head&gt;
&lt;title&gt;Upload a file please&lt;/title&gt;
&lt;/head&gt;
&lt;body&gt;
&lt;h1&gt;Please upload a file&lt;/h1&gt;
&lt;form method="post" action="/form" enctype="multipart/form-data"&gt;
&lt;input type="text" name="name"/&gt;
&lt;input type="file" name="file"/&gt;
&lt;input type="submit"/&gt;
&lt;/form&gt;
&lt;/body&gt;
&lt;/html&gt;</programlisting>
<para>The next step is to create a controller that handles the file
upload. This controller is very similar to a <link
linkend="mvc-ann-controller">normal annotated
<interfacename>@Controller</interfacename></link>, except that we use
<classname>MultipartHttpServletRequest</classname> or
<filename>MultipartFile</filename> in the method parameters:
<programlisting language="java">@Controller
public class FileUpoadController {
@RequestMapping(value = "/form", method = RequestMethod.POST)
public String handleFormUpload(@RequestParam("name") String name,
@RequestParam("file") MultipartFile file) {
if (!file.isEmpty()) {
byte[] bytes = file.getBytes();
<lineannotation>// store the bytes somewhere</lineannotation>
return "redirect:uploadSuccess";
} else {
return "redirect:uploadFailure";
}
}
}</programlisting></para>
<para>Note how the <interfacename>@RequestParam</interfacename> method
parameters map to the input elements declared in the form. In this
example, nothing is done with the <literal>byte[]</literal>, but in
practice you can save it in a database, store it on the file system, and
so on.</para>
<para>Finally, you will have to declare the controller and the resolver
in the application context:</para>
<programlisting language="xml">&lt;beans&gt;
&lt;bean id="multipartResolver"
class="org.springframework.web.multipart.commons.CommonsMultipartResolver"/&gt;
<lineannotation>&lt;!-- Declare explicitly, or use &lt;context:annotation-config/&gt; --&gt;</lineannotation>
&lt;bean id="fileUploadController" class="examples.FileUploadController"/&gt;
&lt;/beans&gt;</programlisting>
</section>
</section>
<section id="mvc-exceptionhandlers">
<title>Handling exceptions</title>
<section>
<title
id="mvc-HandlerExceptionResolver"><interfacename>HandlerExceptionResolver</interfacename></title>
<para>Spring <literal>HandlerExceptionResolver</literal> implementations deal
with unexpected exceptions that occur during controller execution.
A <literal>HandlerExceptionResolver</literal> somewhat resembles the
exception mappings you can define in the web application descriptor
<literal>web.xml</literal>. However, they provide a more flexible way to
do so. For example they provide information about which handler was
executing when the exception was thrown. Furthermore, a programmatic way
of handling exceptions gives you more options for responding
appropriately before the request is forwarded to another URL (the same
end result as when you use the servlet specific exception
mappings).</para>
<para>Besides implementing the
<interfacename>HandlerExceptionResolver</interfacename> interface, which
is only a matter of implementing the
<literal>resolveException(Exception, Handler)</literal> method and
returning a <classname>ModelAndView</classname>, you may also use the
<classname>SimpleMappingExceptionResolver</classname>. This resolver
enables you to take the class name of any exception that might be thrown
and map it to a view name. This is functionally equivalent to the
exception mapping feature from the Servlet API, but it is also possible
to implement more finely grained mappings of exceptions from different
handlers.</para>
<para>By default, the <classname>DispatcherServlet</classname> registers
the <classname>DefaultHandlerExceptionResolver</classname>. This resolver
handles certain standard Spring MVC exceptions by setting a specific
response status code:
<informaltable>
<tgroup cols="2">
<thead>
<row>
<entry>Exception</entry>
<entry>HTTP Status Code</entry>
</row>
</thead>
<tbody>
<row>
<entry><classname>ConversionNotSupportedException</classname></entry>
<entry>500 (Internal Server Error)</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><classname>HttpMediaTypeNotAcceptableException</classname></entry>
<entry>406 (Not Acceptable)</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><classname>HttpMediaTypeNotSupportedException</classname></entry>
<entry>415 (Unsupported Media Type)</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><classname>HttpMessageNotReadableException</classname></entry>
<entry>400 (Bad Request)</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><classname>HttpMessageNotWritableException</classname></entry>
<entry>500 (Internal Server Error)</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><classname>HttpRequestMethodNotSupportedException</classname></entry>
<entry>405 (Method Not Allowed)</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><classname>MissingServletRequestParameterException</classname></entry>
<entry>400 (Bad Request)</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><classname>NoSuchRequestHandlingMethodException</classname></entry>
<entry>404 (Not Found)</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><classname>TypeMismatchException</classname></entry>
<entry>400 (Bad Request)</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</informaltable>
</para>
</section>
<section id="mvc-ann-exceptionhandler">
<title><interfacename>@ExceptionHandler</interfacename></title>
<para>An alternative to the
<interfacename>HandlerExceptionResolver</interfacename> interface is the
<interfacename>@ExceptionHandler</interfacename> annotation. You use the
<classname>@ExceptionHandler</classname> method annotation within a
controller to specify which method is invoked when an exception of a
specific type is thrown during the execution of controller methods. For
example:</para>
<programlisting language="java">@Controller
public class SimpleController {
// other controller method omitted
@ExceptionHandler(IOException.class)
public String handleIOException(IOException ex, HttpServletRequest request) {
return ClassUtils.getShortName(ex.getClass());
}
}</programlisting>
<para>will invoke the 'handlerIOException' method when a
<classname>java.io.IOException</classname> is thrown.</para>
<para>The <classname>@ExceptionHandler</classname> value can be set to
an array of Exception types. If an exception is thrown matches one of
the types in the list, then the method annotated with the matching
<classname>@ExceptionHandler</classname> will be invoked. If the
annotation value is not set then the exception types listed as method
arguments are used.</para>
<para>Much like standard controller methods annotated with a
<classname>@RequestMapping</classname> annotation, the method arguments
and return values of <classname>@ExceptionHandler</classname> methods
are very flexible. For example, the
<classname>HttpServletRequest</classname> can be accessed in Servlet
environments and the <classname>PortletRequest</classname> in Portlet
environments. The return type can be a <classname>String</classname>,
which is interpreted as a view name or a
<classname>ModelAndView</classname> object. Refer to the API
documentation for more details.</para>
</section>
</section>
<section id="mvc-coc">
<title>Convention over configuration support</title>
<para>For a lot of projects, sticking to established conventions and
having reasonable defaults is just what they (the projects) need... this
theme of convention-over-configuration now has explicit support in Spring
Web MVC. What this means is that if you establish a set of naming
conventions and suchlike, you can <emphasis>substantially</emphasis> cut
down on the amount of configuration that is required to set up handler
mappings, view resolvers, <classname>ModelAndView</classname> instances,
etc. This is a great boon with regards to rapid prototyping, and can also
lend a degree of (always good-to-have) consistency across a codebase
should you choose to move forward with it into production.</para>
<para>Convention-over-configuration support addresses the three core areas
of MVC -- models, views, and controllers.</para>
<section id="mvc-coc-ccnhm">
<title>The Controller
<classname>ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping</classname></title>
<para>The <classname>ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping</classname> class
is a <interfacename>HandlerMapping</interfacename> implementation that
uses a convention to determine the mapping between request URLs and the
<interfacename>Controller</interfacename> instances that are to handle
those requests.</para>
<para>Consider the following simple
<interfacename>Controller</interfacename> implementation. Take special
notice of the <emphasis>name</emphasis> of the class.<!--Re preceding sentence, I don't see where the name of the class is discussed in explanation following the example. See my next comment.--></para>
<programlisting language="java">public class <emphasis role="bold">ViewShoppingCartController</emphasis> implements Controller {
public ModelAndView handleRequest(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) {
<lineannotation>// the implementation is not hugely important for this example...</lineannotation>
}
}</programlisting>
<para>Here is a snippet from the attendent Spring Web MVC configuration
file...</para>
<programlisting language="xml">&lt;bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.support.ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping"/&gt;
&lt;bean id="<emphasis role="bold">viewShoppingCart</emphasis>" class="x.y.z.ViewShoppingCartController"&gt;
<lineannotation>&lt;!-- inject dependencies as required... --&gt;</lineannotation>
&lt;/bean&gt;</programlisting>
<para>The <classname>ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping</classname> finds
all of the various handler (or
<interfacename>Controller</interfacename>) beans defined in its
application context and strips <literal>Controller</literal> off the
name to define its handler mappings. Thus,
<classname>ViewShoppingCartController</classname> maps to the
<literal>/viewshoppingcart*</literal> request URL.</para>
<para>Let's look at some more examples so that the central idea becomes
immediately familiar. (Notice all lowercase in the URLs, in contrast to
camel-cased <interfacename>Controller</interfacename> class
names.)</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para><classname>WelcomeController</classname> maps to the
<literal>/welcome*</literal> request URL</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><classname>HomeController</classname> maps to the
<literal>/home*</literal> request URL</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><classname>IndexController</classname> maps to the
<literal>/index*</literal> request URL</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><classname>RegisterController</classname> maps to the
<literal>/register*</literal> request URL</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>In the case of <classname>MultiActionController</classname>
handler classes, the mappings generated are slightly more complex. The
<interfacename>Controller</interfacename> names in the following
examples are assumed to be <classname>MultiActionController</classname>
implementations:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para><classname>AdminController</classname> maps to the
<literal>/admin</literal><emphasis role="bold">/*</emphasis> request
URL</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><classname>CatalogController</classname> maps to the
<literal>/catalog</literal><emphasis role="bold">/*</emphasis>
request URL</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>If you follow the convention of naming your
<interfacename>Controller</interfacename> implementations as
<literal>xxx</literal><emphasis role="bold">Controller</emphasis>, the
<classname>ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping</classname> saves you the
tedium of defining and maintaining a potentially
<emphasis>looooong</emphasis>
<classname>SimpleUrlHandlerMapping</classname> (or suchlike).</para>
<para>The <classname>ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping</classname> class
extends the <classname>AbstractHandlerMapping</classname> base class so
you can define <interfacename>HandlerInterceptor</interfacename>
instances and everything else just as you would with many other
<interfacename>HandlerMapping</interfacename> implementations.</para>
</section>
<section id="mvc-coc-modelmap">
<title>The Model <classname>ModelMap</classname>
(<classname>ModelAndView</classname>)</title>
<para>The <classname>ModelMap</classname> class is essentially a
glorified <interfacename>Map</interfacename> that can make adding
objects that are to be displayed in (or on) a
<interfacename>View</interfacename> adhere to a common naming
convention. Consider the following
<interfacename>Controller</interfacename> implementation; notice that
objects are added to the <classname>ModelAndView</classname> without any
associated name specified.</para>
<programlisting language="java">public class DisplayShoppingCartController implements Controller {
public ModelAndView handleRequest(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) {
List cartItems = <lineannotation>// get a <interfacename>List</interfacename> of <classname>CartItem</classname> objects</lineannotation>
User user = <lineannotation>// get the <classname>User</classname> doing the shopping</lineannotation>
ModelAndView mav = new ModelAndView("displayShoppingCart"); <lineannotation>&lt;-- the logical view name</lineannotation>
mav.addObject(cartItems); <lineannotation>&lt;-- look ma, no name, just the object</lineannotation>
mav.addObject(user); <lineannotation>&lt;-- and again ma!</lineannotation>
return mav;
}
}</programlisting>
<para>The <classname>ModelAndView</classname> class uses a
<classname>ModelMap</classname> class that is a custom
<interfacename>Map</interfacename> implementation that automatically
generates a key for an object when an object is added to it. The
strategy for determining the name for an added object is, in the case of
a scalar object such as <classname>User</classname>, to use the short
class name of the object's class. The following examples are names that
are generated for scalar objects put into a
<classname>ModelMap</classname> instance.</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>An <classname>x.y.User</classname> instance added will have
the name <literal>user</literal> generated.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>An <classname>x.y.Registration</classname> instance added will
have the name <literal>registration</literal> generated.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>An <classname>x.y.Foo</classname> instance added will have the
name <literal>foo</literal> generated.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>A <classname>java.util.HashMap</classname> instance added will
have the name <literal>hashMap</literal> generated. You probably
want to be explicit about the name in this case because
<literal>hashMap</literal> is less than intuitive.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Adding <literal>null</literal> will result in an
<classname>IllegalArgumentException</classname> being thrown. If the
object (or objects) that you are adding could be
<literal>null</literal>, then you will also want to be explicit
about the name.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<sidebar>
<title>What, no automatic pluralization?</title>
<para>Spring Web MVC's convention-over-configuration support does not
support automatic pluralization. That is, you cannot add a
<interfacename>List</interfacename> of <classname>Person</classname>
objects to a <classname>ModelAndView</classname> and have the
generated name be <classname>people</classname>.</para>
<para>This decision was made after some debate, with the
<quote>Principle of Least Surprise</quote> winning out in the
end.</para>
</sidebar>
<para>The strategy for generating a name after adding a
<interfacename>Set</interfacename> or a <interfacename>List</interfacename>
is to peek into the collection, take the short class name of the first object
in the collection, and use that with <literal>List</literal> appended to the
name. The same applies to arrays although with arrays it is not necessary to
peek into the array contents. A few examples will make the semantics of name
generation for collections clearer:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>An <classname>x.y.User[]</classname> array with zero or more
<classname>x.y.User</classname> elements added will have the name
<literal>userList</literal> generated.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>An <classname>x.y.Foo[]</classname> array with zero or more
<classname>x.y.User</classname> elements added will have the name
<literal>fooList</literal> generated.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>A <classname>java.util.ArrayList</classname> with one or more
<classname>x.y.User</classname> elements added will have the name
<literal>userList</literal> generated.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>A <classname>java.util.HashSet</classname> with one or more
<classname>x.y.Foo</classname> elements added will have the name
<literal>fooList</literal> generated.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>An <emphasis role="bold">empty</emphasis>
<classname>java.util.ArrayList</classname> will not be added at all
(in effect, the <methodname>addObject(..)</methodname> call will
essentially be a no-op).</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</section>
<section id="mvc-coc-r2vnt">
<title>The View -
<interfacename>RequestToViewNameTranslator</interfacename></title>
<para>The <interfacename>RequestToViewNameTranslator</interfacename>
interface determines a logical <interfacename>View</interfacename> name
when no such logical view name is explicitly supplied. It has just one
implementation, the
<classname>DefaultRequestToViewNameTranslator</classname> class.</para>
<para>The <classname>DefaultRequestToViewNameTranslator</classname> maps
request URLs to logical view names, as with this example:</para>
<programlisting language="java">public class RegistrationController implements Controller {
public ModelAndView handleRequest(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) {
<lineannotation>// process the request...</lineannotation>
ModelAndView mav = new ModelAndView();
<lineannotation>// add <emphasis role="bold">data</emphasis> as necessary to the model...</lineannotation>
return mav;
<lineannotation>// notice that no <interfacename>View</interfacename> or logical view name has been set</lineannotation>
}
}</programlisting>
<programlisting language="xml">&lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
&lt;!DOCTYPE beans PUBLIC "-//SPRING//DTD BEAN 2.0//EN"
"http://www.springframework.org/dtd/spring-beans-2.0.dtd"&gt;
&lt;beans&gt;
<lineannotation>&lt;!-- this bean with the well known name generates view names for us --&gt;</lineannotation>
&lt;bean id="viewNameTranslator" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.DefaultRequestToViewNameTranslator"/&gt;
&lt;bean class="x.y.RegistrationController"&gt;
<lineannotation>&lt;!-- inject dependencies as necessary --&gt;</lineannotation>
&lt;/bean&gt;
<lineannotation>&lt;!-- maps request URLs to Controller names --&gt;</lineannotation>
&lt;bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.support.ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping"/&gt;
&lt;bean id="viewResolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver"&gt;
&lt;property name="prefix" value="/WEB-INF/jsp/"/&gt;
&lt;property name="suffix" value=".jsp"/&gt;
&lt;/bean&gt;
&lt;/beans&gt;
</programlisting>
<para>Notice how in the implementation of the
<literal>handleRequest(..)</literal> method no
<interfacename>View</interfacename> or logical view name is ever set on
the <classname>ModelAndView</classname> that is returned. The
<classname>DefaultRequestToViewNameTranslator</classname> is tasked with
generating a <emphasis>logical view name</emphasis> from the URL of the
request. In the case of the above
<classname>RegistrationController</classname>, which is used in
conjunction with the
<classname>ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping</classname>, a request URL
of <literal>http://localhost/registration.html</literal> results in a
logical view name of <literal>registration</literal> being generated by
the <classname>DefaultRequestToViewNameTranslator</classname>. This
logical view name is then resolved into the
<literal>/WEB-INF/jsp/registration.jsp</literal> view by the
<classname>InternalResourceViewResolver</classname> bean.</para>
<tip>
<para>You do not need to define a
<classname>DefaultRequestToViewNameTranslator</classname> bean
explicitly. If you like the default settings of the
<classname>DefaultRequestToViewNameTranslator</classname>, you can
rely on the Spring Web MVC <classname>DispatcherServlet</classname> to
instantiate an instance of this class if one is not explicitly
configured.</para>
</tip>
<para>Of course, if you need to change the default settings, then you do
need to configure your own
<classname>DefaultRequestToViewNameTranslator</classname> bean
explicitly. Consult the comprehensive Javadoc for the
<classname>DefaultRequestToViewNameTranslator</classname> class for
details of the various properties that can be configured.</para>
</section>
</section>
<section id="mvc-etag">
<title>ETag support</title>
<para>An <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_ETag">ETag</ulink>
(entity tag) is an HTTP response header returned by an HTTP/1.1 compliant
web server used to determine change in content at a given URL. It can be
considered to be the more sophisticated successor to the
<literal>Last-Modified</literal> header. When a server returns a
representation with an ETag header, the client can use this header in
subsequent GETs, in an <literal>If-None-Match</literal> header. If the
content has not changed, the server returns <literal>304: Not
Modified</literal>.</para>
<para>Support for ETags is provided by the servlet filter
<classname>ShallowEtagHeaderFilter</classname>. It is a plain Servlet
Filter, and thus can be used in combination with any web framework. <!--The preceding sentence was a fragment, not a complete sentence. Have I reworded ok?-->The
<classname>ShallowEtagHeaderFilter</classname> filter creates so-called
shallow ETags (as opposed to deep ETags, more about that later).<!--Provide xref to deep ETags.-->The
filter caches the content of the rendered JSP (or other content),
generates an MD5 hash over that, and returns that as an ETag header in the
response. The next time a client sends a request for the same resource, it
uses that hash as the <literal>If-None-Match</literal> value. The filter
detects this, renders the view again, and compares the two hashes. If they
are equal, a <literal>304</literal> is returned. This filter will not save
processing power, as the view is still rendered. The only thing it saves
is bandwidth, as the rendered response is not sent back over the
wire.</para>
<para>You configure the <classname>ShallowEtagHeaderFilter</classname> in
<filename>web.xml</filename>:</para>
<programlisting language="xml">&lt;filter&gt;
&lt;filter-name&gt;etagFilter&lt;/filter-name&gt;
&lt;filter-class&gt;org.springframework.web.filter.ShallowEtagHeaderFilter&lt;/filter-class&gt;
&lt;/filter&gt;
&lt;filter-mapping&gt;
&lt;filter-name&gt;etagFilter&lt;/filter-name&gt;
&lt;servlet-name&gt;petclinic&lt;/servlet-name&gt;
&lt;/filter-mapping&gt;</programlisting>
</section>
<section id="mvc-config">
<title>Configuring Spring MVC</title>
<para>
Spring 3 introduces a <literal>mvc</literal> XML configuration namespace that simplifies the setup of Spring MVC inside your web application.
Instead of registering low-level beans such as AnnotationMethodHandlerAdapter, you can simply use the namespace and its higher-level constructs.
This is generally preferred unless you require finer-grained control of the configuration at the bean level.
</para>
<para>
The mvc namespace consists of three tags: mvc:annotation-driven, mvc:interceptors, and mvc:view-controller.
Each of these tags is documented below and in the <ulink url="http://static.springsource.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc-3.0.xsd">XML schema</ulink>.
</para>
<section id="mvc-annotation-driven">
<title>mvc:annotation-driven</title>
<para>
This tag registers the RequestMappingHandlerMapping and RequestMappingHandlerAdapter beans that are required for Spring MVC to dispatch requests to @Controllers.
The tag configures those two beans with sensible defaults based on what is present in your classpath.
The defaults are:
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
Support for Spring 3's Type <link linkend="core-convert">ConversionService</link> in addition to JavaBeans PropertyEditors during Data Binding.
A ConversionService instance produced by the <classname>org.springframework.format.support.FormattingConversionServiceFactoryBean</classname> is used by default.
This can be overridden by setting the <literal>conversion-service</literal> attribute.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Support for <link linkend="format">formatting</link> Number fields using the @NumberFormat annotation
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Support for <link linkend="format">formatting</link> Date, Calendar, Long, and Joda Time fields using the @DateTimeFormat annotation, if Joda Time 1.3 or higher is present on the classpath.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Support for <link linkend="validation-mvc-jsr303">validating</link> @Controller inputs with @Valid, if a JSR-303 Provider is present on the classpath.
The validation system can be explicitly configured by setting the <literal>validator</literal> attribute.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
HttpMessageConverter support for @RequestBody method parameters and @ResponseBody method return values.
</para>
<para>
This is the complete list of HttpMessageConverters set up by mvc:annotation-driven:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para><classname>ByteArrayHttpMessageConverter</classname>
converts byte arrays.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><classname>StringHttpMessageConverter</classname> converts
strings.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><classname>ResourceHttpMessageConverter</classname> converts
to/from <classname>org.springframework.core.io.Resource</classname>
for all media types.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><classname>SourceHttpMessageConverter</classname> converts
to/from a <classname>javax.xml.transform.Source</classname>.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><classname>FormHttpMessageConverter</classname> converts
form data to/from a <classname>MultiValueMap&lt;String, String&gt;</classname>.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><classname>Jaxb2RootElementHttpMessageConverter</classname>
converts Java objects to/from XML -- added if JAXB2 is present
on the classpath.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><classname>MappingJacksonHttpMessageConverter</classname>
converts to/from JSON -- added if Jackson is present on the classpath.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><classname>AtomFeedHttpMessageConverter</classname>
converts Atom feeds -- added if Rome is present on the classpath.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><classname>RssChannelHttpMessageConverter</classname>
converts RSS feeds -- added if Rome is present on the classpath.
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
<note>
<para>
You can provide your own HttpMessageConverters through the
mvc:message-converters sub-element of mvc:annotation-driven.
Message converters you provide will take precedence over the
ones registered by default.
</para>
</note>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
A typical usage is shown below:
<programlisting language="xml"><![CDATA[
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:mvc="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc
http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc-3.0.xsd">
<!-- JSR-303 support will be detected on classpath and enabled automatically -->
<mvc:annotation-driven/>
</beans>]]>
</programlisting>
</para>
</section>
<section id="mvc-interceptors">
<title>mvc:interceptors</title>
<para>
This tag allows you to register custom HandlerInterceptors or WebRequestInterceptors that should be applied to all HandlerMapping beans.
You can also restrict the URL paths that specific interceptors apply to.
</para>
<para>
An example of registering an interceptor applied to all URL paths:
</para>
<programlisting language="xml"><![CDATA[
<mvc:interceptors>
<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.i18n.LocaleChangeInterceptor" />
</mvc:interceptors>]]>
</programlisting>
<para>
An example of registering an interceptor limited to a specific URL path:
</para>
<programlisting language="xml"><![CDATA[
<mvc:interceptors>
<mvc:interceptor>
<mapping path="/secure/*"/>
<bean class="org.example.SecurityInterceptor" />
</mvc:interceptor>
</mvc:interceptors>]]>
</programlisting>
</section>
<section id="mvc-view-controller">
<title>mvc:view-controller</title>
<para>
This tag is a shortcut for defining a <classname>ParameterizableViewController</classname> that immediately forwards to a view when invoked.
Use it in static cases when there is no Java Controller logic to execute before the view generates the response.
</para>
<para>
An example of view-controller that forwards to a home page is shown below:
</para>
<programlisting language="xml"><![CDATA[
<mvc:view-controller path="/" view-name="home"/>]]>
</programlisting>
</section>
<section id="mvc-static-resources">
<title>mvc:resources</title>
<para>
This tag allows static resource requests following a particular URL pattern to be served by a <classname>ResourceHttpRequestHandler</classname> from
any of a list of <classname>Resource</classname> locations. This provides a convenient way to serve static resources from locations other than the
web application root, including locations on the classpath. The <code>cache-period</code> property may be used to set far future expiration headers
(1 year is the recommendation of optimization tools such as Page Speed and YSlow) so that they will be more efficiently utilized by the client. The handler
also properly evaluates the <code>Last-Modified</code> header (if present) so that a <code>304</code> status code will be returned as appropriate, avoiding
unnecessary overhead for resources that are already cached by the client. For example, to serve resource requests with a URL pattern of
<code>/resources/**</code> from a <code>public-resources</code> directory within the web application root, the tag would be used as follows:
</para>
<programlisting language="xml"><![CDATA[
<mvc:resources mapping="/resources/**" location="/public-resources/"/>]]>
</programlisting>
<para>
To serve these resources with a 1-year future expiration to ensure maximum use of the browser cache and a reduction in HTTP requests made by the browser:
</para>
<programlisting language="xml"><![CDATA[
<mvc:resources mapping="/resources/**" location="/public-resources/" cache-period="31556926"/>]]>
</programlisting>
<para>
The <code>mapping</code> attribute must be an Ant pattern that can be used by <classname>SimpleUrlHandlerMapping</classname>, and the <code>location</code>
attribute must specify one or more valid resource directory locations. Multiple resource locations may be specified using a comma-separated list of values.
The locations specified will be checked in the specified order for the presence of the resource for any given request. For example, to enable the serving
of resources from both the web application root and from a known path of <code>/META-INF/public-web-resources/</code> in any jar on the classpath, the tag
would be specified as:
</para>
<programlisting language="xml"><![CDATA[
<mvc:resources mapping="/resources/**" location="/, classpath:/META-INF/public-web-resources/"/>]]>
</programlisting>
<para>
When serving resources that may change when a new version of the application is deployed, it is recommended that you incorporate a version string into the
mapping pattern used to request the resources, so that you may force clients to request the newly deployed version of your application's resources. Such a
version string can be parameterized and accessed using SpEL so that it may be easily managed in a single place when deploying new versions.
</para>
<para>
As an example, let's consider an application that uses a performance-optimized custom build (as recommended) of the Dojo JavaScript library in production, and that the build is generally
deployed within the web application at a path of <code>/public-resources/dojo/dojo.js</code>. Since different parts of Dojo may be incorporated into the
custom build for each new version of the application, the client web browsers need to be forced to re-download that custom-built <code>dojo.js</code> resource
any time a new version of the application is deployed. A simple way to achieve this would be to manage the version of the application in a properties file,
such as:
</para>
<programlisting><![CDATA[
application.version=1.0.0]]>
</programlisting>
<para>
and then to make the properties file's values accessible to SpEL as a bean using the <code>util:properties</code> tag:
</para>
<programlisting language="xml"><![CDATA[
<util:properties id="applicationProps" location="/WEB-INF/spring/application.properties"/>]]>
</programlisting>
<para>
With the application version now accessible via SpEL, we can incorporate this into the use of the <code>resources</code> tag:
</para>
<programlisting language="xml"><![CDATA[
<mvc:resources mapping="/resources-#{applicationProps['application.version']}/**" location="/public-resources/"/>]]>
</programlisting>
<para>
and finally, to request the resource with the proper URL, we can take advantage of the Spring JSP tags:
</para>
<programlisting language="xml"><![CDATA[
<spring:eval expression="@applicationProps['application.version']" var="applicationVersion"/>
<spring:url value="/resources-{applicationVersion}" var="resourceUrl">
<spring:param name="applicationVersion" value="${applicationVersion}"/>
</spring:url>
<script src="${resourceUrl}/dojo/dojo.js" type="text/javascript"> </script>]]>
</programlisting>
</section>
<section id="mvc-default-servlet-handler">
<title>mvc:default-servlet-handler</title>
<para>
This tag allows for mapping the <code>DispatcherServlet</code> to "/" (thus overriding the mapping of the container's default Servlet),
while still allowing static resource requests to be handled by the container's default Servlet. It configures a
<code>DefaultServletHttpRequestHandler</code> with a URL mapping of "/**" and the lowest priority relative to other URL mappings.
</para>
<para>
This handler will forward all requests to the default Servlet. Therefore it is important that it remains last in the order of all
other URL <code>HandlerMappings</code>. That will be the case if you use <code>&lt;mvc:annotation-driven&gt;</code> or alternatively if you
are setting up your own customized <code>HandlerMapping</code> instance be sure to set its <code>order</code> property to a value lower than
that of the <code>DefaultServletHttpRequestHandler</code>, which is <code>Integer.MAX_VALUE</code>.
</para>
<para>
To enable the feature using the default setup, simply include the tag in the form:
</para>
<programlisting language="xml"><![CDATA[
<mvc:default-servlet-handler/>]]>
</programlisting>
<para>
The caveat to overriding the "/" Servlet mapping is that the <code>RequestDispatcher</code> for the default Servlet must be
retrieved by name rather than by path. The <code>DefaultServletHttpRequestHandler</code> will attempt to auto-detect the default
Servlet for the container at startup time, using a list of known names for most of the major Servlet containers (including Tomcat,
Jetty, Glassfish, JBoss, Resin, WebLogic, and WebSphere). If the default Servlet has been custom configured
with a different name, or if a different Servlet container is being used where the default Servlet name is unknown, then the
default Servlet's name must be explicitly provided as in the following example:
</para>
<programlisting language="xml"><![CDATA[
<mvc:default-servlet-handler default-servlet-name="myCustomDefaultServlet"/>]]>
</programlisting>
</section>
</section>
<section id="mvc-resources">
<title>More Spring Web MVC Resources</title>
<para>See the following links and pointers for more resources about Spring
Web MVC:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
There are many excellent articles and tutorials that show how to build web applications with Spring MVC.
Read them at the <ulink url="http://www.springsource.org/documentation">Spring Documentation</ulink> page.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><quote>Expert Spring Web MVC and Web Flow</quote> by Seth Ladd
and others (published by Apress) is an excellent hard copy source of
Spring Web MVC goodness.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</section>
</chapter>